So ... I took my class for a hike today - up the cliff to Makapu'u Lighthouse (yah, we could have taken the road around, but that would have been too easy -- we did end up taking it down ... LOL). I thought it was a little jaunt ... but you would have thought it was the 1000 mile march for the way they moaned. These 'kids' -- about 18-25 years old -- are a new generation. I say 'new', because years after reading Coupland's novel (Generation X) I still see signs of 'shin jin rui' -- new human mutants -- in each new generation raised on new technologies.

These kids liveon cell phones. No kidding. I think all of them have them. I knew this, but didn't really think much about it until I was about half way up the hill (we were all spread out ... some way ahead, some way behind) ... and they started CALLING each other!! I laughed at first -- I thought they were calling home or something. But by the time we got to the top I realized most of the conversations they were having with each other were either on these phones or about what was said on these phones. Whew. Ringing, chiming, beeping of phones all morning. Here we are out in the open with the most spectacular views immaginable (swooping panoramas of the windward coast and out to sea we could see to Molokai and Lanai islands) ... and they are on their phones.

Surf Part