Post #737847 by Jungle John on Fri, Feb 20, 2015 8:34 PM

The tiki hut & bar project has now run its course. It's done. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling a little post-project let down. For the better part of two months I have been preoccupied with this thing. I read that it's natural to experience a bit of “hang time” after completing something big in your life. You need a few moments to reflect on and savor your success and to figure out what to do next, before your feet hit the floor again. My feet have hit the floor and I feel a bit sad. The project turned out okay, not a disappointment and not a resounding wild success, but for the $430 I spent, I think I did a pretty good okay job.

For two months the tiki hut and bar project defined me, and now that it's all over, I'm a little bummed out. This bummed out feeling is tempered with a "burnt out" feeling too. I'm not bipolar or anything, but for a while I had a mania for getting this project done. Now I look at the results and I'm thinking, "meh" it's okay but enough is enough already. The hut will be in my backyard for future years for summer get-togethers and maybe a luau or two.

So, I've joined the ranks of predominantly white, middle-class folks of an undetermined political demographic, who have fussed and decorated some portion of their property with a Polynesian-pop theme. I'm not planning building much more, but I do have some ideas for the future:

• Make a waterfall feature out of cement/grout covered styrofoam or a small koi pond.

• Carve some tikis. I've got a chainsaw and some chisels, but I have to find the right wood medium I can work with.

• Someday I am going to make an audio-animatronic tiki. I had some servo and motor parts 10 years ago and plans to control motors through a PC serial port, but I shelved it away and things got lost and scattered since then. Someday though.

• Make some tiki mug molds and get someone else to fire the slip cast mug castings. Some far away point, maybe.

• Get blitzed on Mai Tais on a summer day and make frangi-pangi and hibiscus flower leis while rocking in my hammock.

• Continue to look for tapa cloth, tiki mugs, hula girl bobble-thingys, tiki-anything at thrift stores. Going "junk shopping" is a new re-found hobby for South Sea Sally and me. Every few months should be okay. It's not the material things we find, but the time spent together that's important to me. Sure, I'd love to find some neat things, but the journey is more important than the arrival at the destination.

So long from me, for now. Aloha-- "A hui hou". Thanks.

I'll try to post an addendum to this thread once in a blue moon.