If you haven’t figured it out by now (especially after reading anything on this blog), I’m an information junkie. Outside of work hours, when I’m on the computer or spending time on my phone, it’s not doomscrolling – I don’t have a TikTok and I don’t spend a ton of time on Instagram. Instead, I tend to read all sorts of different stuff through sources like Wikipedia (I know, I know, it’s not all accurate) or news sites, and will still dabble in some of the articles that remain available on microblog sites like X, Threads, and Bluesky.
I’ve always enjoyed reading; admittedly, I’ve gotten away from books in exchange for reading about current events, thought pieces, and information that’s meaningful to me. I just want to absorb as much as I can; that’s ultimately what’s interesting to me.
Sometimes, that willingness to explore that information ends up paying off.
Kim and I are on our first long trip away from the kids, other than a four-day weekend to New York in October 2024. We’re currently in the seventh day of our nine-day, eight-night stay in O’ahu. It’s been a wonderful reset; Kim and I need time like this together, and ultimately, I’ve needed a chance to recharge my batteries after a very busy year in my life, both personally and professionally.
The island of O’ahu, where Honolulu is located, is about 60% the size of Erie County, NY, but about 50,000 more people live here, despite having a mountain range running down the spine of the island. There are some dense urban parts, but there are also a lot of green and sandy areas to enjoy throughout the island.
On our third night here, July 29th, we went to a luau. I let Kim pick it out; I looked through a bunch of different ones that Kim threw out there, focused on the food choices rather than the experience, and then left it to Kim to decide (happy wife, happy life). Ultimately, I didn’t care; I figured I’d enjoy it regardless.
Kim picked out the Chief’s Luau. She said the choice came down to it being highly recommended. Fair enough.
It was an hour ride out there from where we are staying on Waikiki. Realistically, it’s a 40-minute drive from our resort, but the journey took place during rush-hour traffic; H-1 is an interstate that runs in and out of Honolulu, and everyone headed north or west of the city hops on it at about 4 PM. There was no standing still, but things moved at about 15 miles per hour for a significant length of the trip.
The luau is in the middle of the island at a water park. The setting of the luau itself has a waterfall in the background, giving it some island feel; they also had a bunch of different traditional Polynesian traditions set up to make the experience unique. It was enjoyable to walk around and check them out.
There were three tiers of the “experience” that you could choose from; we chose the Royal Experience, which was the most expensive package. We figured that there was no guarantee we would ever do it again; most importantly, they set you up next to the stage. Works for me.
They set up tables that can seat a maximum of eight people; they give you a packet with your tickets and seating location on it when you step off the bus, but they also put a clipboard with a fact sheet and the name and number of your party on it at the table they seat you at. At our table, they had Kim and I set up along with a group of five others under the last name of Levesque. I made a mental note of that name; in my mind, it brought up two celebrities’ names – Paul Levesque, better known as WWE superstar Triple H; and Joanna Levesque, who goes by JoJo, a singer that had two massive hits in the mid-2000s (“Leave (Get Out)” and “Too Little Too Late”) as a teenager and then got buried by her label over a dispute about the direction of her music. It was a throwaway piece of information. That group of five never came to our table. The table next to us, however, had about 11 people sitting there, so they borrowed a few chairs from the table Kim and I sat at. I figured that it was probably that group of five, and they just wanted to sit together with everyone else that came along with them.
The sheet on the clipboard included a QR code that linked you to the Wikipedia page of Chief Sielu, the Master of Ceremonies, whose biggest claim to fame is that he won the first World Fireknife Dance Championship in 1993. (He does not participate in that part of the show at this stage, but that was a major part of the Polynesian show, and it was absolutely amazing.) Usually, I’d be the one to hop onto the Wikipedia page, but this time, it was Kim; she mentioned that Chief Sielu had been on all sorts of television shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Miss Universe Pageant, The Tonight Show, and Impractical Jokers (it turns out, he’s a comedian as well), so I decided to click the code and look at the profile myself.
I always read through the entire profile just to see what is brought up. One of the things it mentions on Chief Sielu’s page is that his son, the elder of his two children, currently plays for the University of Hawai’i Men’s Basketball team. Me being me, I clicked on that link.
The link then talks about the team, and in the introductory section, they mention that the team’s General Manager is Patty Mills, a name I immediately recognized. Patty is an Australian basketball player who has played 16 years in the NBA. I distinctly remember him as being a backup guard that provided a spark off the bench for the 2014 San Antonio Spurs that beat the Miami Heat (led by LeBron James) for the NBA Championship that year. My recollection was that he was an offensive spark, and in looking through the Basketball Reference page for that series, he was just that – he averaged 10.2 points per game on 54.3% shooting in just 15.2 minutes per game during the five games. He has played a total of 1,020 NBA games (including 99 playoff games) during his career, with his most recent game coming with the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2025 NBA Playoffs. He also played for the Australian men’s national men’s basketball team in five Olympics, and was part of the bronze-medal team in the 2021 Summer Games. He played professionally in Spain last year, and judging by the current articles I could pull up on Google, it looks like he may be in negotiations to play a 18th season of professional basketball starting this fall. He’s a grad of St. Mary’s College in the Bay Area, but it explains on the Hawai’i Men’s Basketball website that he has lived on the North Shore of O’ahu for over a decade at this point, which is probably why he has that position.
I get down to the “Personal Life” section of his Wikipedia page. The first sentence reads, “Mills met Alyssa Mills (nee Levesque), who was also a college basketball player…” I looked back at that sheet for the other party that was supposed to be sitting at the table. You guessed it – the name on it was Alyssa Levesque. She was sitting at the next table with several members of the basketball team, her child, and her husband, wearing his braids tucked back under a Rainbow Warrior cap.
The luau was about to start, so I waited until the end to introduce myself. I kept it brief; I usually assume that most people that have some notoriety generally want to be left alone in casual situations, but I knew enough people that would get a kick out of me seeing him at a luau in O’ahu that I felt the need to say something. I joked I was a Knicks fan, but also mentioned that one of my favorite college basketball players ever was former St. Bonaventure star David Vanterpool, who ended up being one of Patty’s assistant coaches during the 2021-22 NBA season with the Brooklyn Nets. He seemed genuinely surprised that I pulled out that name, and chuckled at it. He posed for a picture, and then I let him go about his business.
I guess my trips down online rabbit holes do play out to help me occasionally.
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