Night of the Dawn of the Dead

Brian just after finishing work to head out to the Kona Brew Pub before the movies tonight. Got lazy today and just used my cellphone camera.


My glass of Lilikoi Wheat Ale at Kona Brew Pub where we had just 15 minutes to drink it down and head back to the office to pick-up Andrea for the movies. Brian had the porter ale, Karen our designated driver had none, 'cept for a few sips of my beer and Brian's beer.

We all headed for the last showing of the night for Dawn of the Dead which meant we had the whole theater to ourselves. It was like Kona's version of Mystery Science Theater 2004. No need to be quiet as we could openly add our own comments during scenes. We liked the movie which was fast paced as opposed to the original George Romero 1978 version. These zombies are super-charged, none of this slow walking stuff which really added to the movie. If you want a scary, campy movie this one's pretty fun. Just put the brain on standby mode and have fun. Remember Karen and Andrea, you both owe me a movie each.

Almost live images

Added a new feature to the blog, if your browser displays this page correctly you'll notice a little photo at the top of the right sidebar of links. That's straight from my cellphone camera which automatically ends up on this blog. So images may get updated pretty quickly, even if I do the manual update on my blog slowly. If you click on the image or on the Text America link just below it you should be transported to my MoBlog which I will hopefully now update more often.

Also is a GeoURL link that shows who else is blogging within 100 miles.

Airport sunset

Yet another sunset photo, this time with the control tower at Kona International Airport. Couldn't really get a good angle on this. What I really should have photographed today was the lunch spot Michael and I had lunch at today. There's an area in Kawaihae where you can walk out on a bluff, the cliff overhangs the ocean, you can sit, hang-out and have lunch. Damn, where was my camera? Probably enjoying the scenery and quiet. Hopefully something better to photograph tomorrow.

Baron by the bayside

Canoe paddlers out for their afternoon practice on Kailua Bay as the cruise ship Statendam is anchored off-shore. The orange life boat/shuttle boats taking passengers to and from the shore. A pretty slow and lazy Monday afternoon, unless you've got a paddling coach whipping you into shape.


This seabird seemed to be pretty content standing on the seawall on Alii Drive next to people fishing, maybe waiting for the schools of fish that go after the bait.


The bird launches off the seawall.


Making circular, sweeping passes over the water in front of the fishermen the bird flies around then land to rest, then flies around some more perhaps looking for a swimming treat.


Today's blog was updated sitting outside Jamba Juice in Kona where the admin office of the Kona Coast Shopping Center has a Wi-Fi router mounted on the wall that anyone can access for getting on the net. For wireless geeks, this is an 802.11g access point which means it's super-fast. Use it but don't abuse it.

Breaking the law, breaking the law....

Sure it might be cool to swim with a pod of Spinner Dolphins but it's also illegal. Fifty yards is the closest you can get to them legally. There was a group of snorklers getting in close and checking out the pod of dolphins in Kealakekua Bay this morning. Maybe more eco-terrorism than eco-tourism as the dolphins usually sleep between 10am and 3pm, then feed at night.

No POTD

Girl gone wild (Turning 21, part trois)

The Booze Cruise, Birthday Gallery
Click on the link above for a set of photos from the night out.


Click on this link to see some QuickTime video from the cruise

Turning 21, part deux

Brian goofs for the camera as he pours a glass of Fire Rock brew at Durty Jake's. A small group made it out late to have a couple of rounds to celebrate Andrea's birthday.


Travis and Andrea chimping a few images on Travis' camera cellphone. Travis just flew in from a little trip to the mainland and was working on two hours worth of sleep. He may be sleeping on the Booze Cruise Friday night as I dropped him off at home shortly after this to get a few hours of sleep before work.

As a vegetarian Travis had better bring his own food along as the menu on board is usually: garlic bread, tossed salad, corn on the cob, teriyaki beef, teriyaki chicken and Kona coffee swirls candy from Kailua Candy Company. Nothing much substantial for a vegetarian. They also serve liberal amounts of mai tais, beer and mixed drinks, all included in the price. It should make for some interesting photos.

Tall Andrea turns 21, say "cheesecake"

It's Tall Andrea's 21st birthday today so I couldn't resist getting her out for her first (legal) beer during lunch with me and Karen at the Kona Brew Pub. Here she is with a glass of Lilikoi Wheat Ale that they serve there. They have several brews on tap that you can't get in bottles in stores. (Note: She has an older cousin in town that looks just like her so if you thought you saw her out before drinking it was probably the cousin and not Andrea, wink, wink.) Back to food again, a recurring topic of this blog. Lunch was Thai chicken pizza with a side Ceasar salad which was very good.


As a bonus at the Kona Brew Pub our waitress brought her a complimentary slice of cheesecake, guava flavored I believe. Pretty yummy as Andrea was nice enough to share some with Karen and myself. Tomorrow is the real B-Day celebration when we hit the Booze Cruise for all you can drink, all you can eat, all you can party fun. Don't expect to see images from that until sometime Saturday, it's going to be a late night tomorrow.

Life's a beach

It was raining again today in Waimea, a cold, windy drizzle, not as hard as yesterday but I wasn't in it for long. I set-up a photo shoot down at the Mauna Kea Beach Resort and although skies were dark in the distance it wasn't raining at the resort which was bathed in some sunshine for the lucky beach-goers.

TGIW - Thank God it's Wednesday
Sure it's hump day which means the middle of the work week for most folks but for me it's my version of Friday because I have Thursdays and Fridays off. Sorry this post was short but the weekend starts now.

A hard rain's a gonna fall

It was a grey and rainy day in North Hawaii today, this horse didn't seem to mind much as it roamed around in a Parker Ranch pasture late in the afternoon. The pretty little yellow flowers in the pastures are known as 'fire weed' and has a somewhat toxic effect on cattle and probably horses too. It's one of those invasive species that has really taken-off on the island throwing the eco-system off balance. I felt somewhat off-balance, or out-of-sorts myself today, maybe it's just the grey skies, or running around in the cold, windy rain taking photos, or the headache I've had this afternoon. If you haven't already figured it out, you can click on the title of this post to listen to an Edie Brickell & the New Bohemian's song, a cover of a Bob Dylan tune.

(In full disclosure, this is a photo from last year)
Got a phone call today from Dawn, the gal in the middle of this happy group, who is the librarian at Bond Library in Kapa‘au, Kohala. Dawn clued me into the collapse of a roadway near the library. The hard rains plugged a culvert with debris, then ran over the highway, then tore the whole thing away leaving a 20 foot deep by 20 foot gap in the highway.


Photo by Dawn Shibano of Patsy, the heroine of the day!

Lucky for drivers a gal at the library, Patsy I'm told, ran out into the rain to put out stuff to block the road and divert drivers before they drove into the asphalt abyss. She's the heroine of the day as someone would have likely been killed had they driven in there. Dawn said they saw the water going over, then saw the highway sag, then finally watched the section tumble away. She shot some photos of her own with a film camera so if you want to see her photos you'll have to drop by the library. My photo will appear in tomorrow's West Hawaii Today. I couldn't get too close to the gap as the highway was probably undercut by about five feet or so and could break free.

Dawn is a very cool librarian and a fun person in general. She was named Librarian of the Year a few years ago by a state panel, quite an honor and well deserved. She's rather camera shy so she tried to hide behind these two sisters who sometimes volunteer to help keep things both organized and not too serious. If you have the chance drop by this library, it's very user friendly.

Tofu to da Max

Max holds up a tray full of tofu sandwiches at Bale resturant in Kona for a cameraphone photo by me. We were actually teasing Maile who has been dying for a tofu sandwich while in Dalian, China. Max said, "Why doesn't she just make her own?" I explained the difficulty of obtaining all the correct ingredients when you don't speak Chinese in order to buy the parts. It'll be up to Max to supply her with the recipe anyway. These sandwiches are yummy as many vegetarians in town can tell you, they're hooked. Besides her cravings for Bale tofu sandwiches Maile also said she can't find refried beans there. So I guess she's going through Mexican food withdrawal too.

Bale is a chain of very popular Vietnamese restaurants in Hawaii that show the French colonial influences of fresh baked rolls and croissants. But they also have such things as Pho (pronounced like "Fah") which is a popular Vietnamese soup, green papaya salads but they also cater to local flavors with Korean style Kal-Bi shortribs, teriyaki and other plate lunches along with a myriad of tapioca desserts. Their tapioca is excellent and you might be able to have a different one each day, from my not-so-good memory: taro, pineapple, mango, papaya, chocolate, vanilla and probably more. If Max reads this he can comment and correct the list. Not that you'll always find all flavors in as the favorites sell out early.

Kona still isn't the big city with a huge selection of places to eat, it's no Honolulu, but things have gotten better and worse through the years. We've got a spate of Thai food places now though I do have my favorites. We have a few Mexican food places, some authenic enough to have a big following amongst the local Hispanic community, Tacos El Unico comes to mind, is it any wonder why Taco Bell closed their dinning room and only allows drive through service? You can also get surfer tacos at places like Killer Tacos or Tako Taco in Waimea. I'm still trying to convince my cousin to have his in-laws open a Garcia's in Kona, the Garcia family owns at least five of their family restaurants in Albuquerque, New Mexico and they're all popular and packed. We also have a bunch of plate lunch joints but coming from the plate lunch capital of the world, Honolulu, I haven't really found plates to compare.

If you want to open an eatery in Kona here's where we're lacking:

• A good, local style Japanese resturant - people keep telling me to get my family to open a Sekiya's Restaurant here. Even Fred Duerr the GM at Kona Village Resort says he loves the potato/macaroni salad there...the secret is lots of Best Foods mayonaise and super big macaroni.
  
• A good Greek resturant - We had a couple of good ones, but they either didin't stay in business or got transformed into something unusual..."oh, you'd like some pita bread with that hummus?" our waitress told us once.
  
• A Zippy's resturant with Napolean's Bakery open 24/7 - There aren't many places to eat when you've got the late night munchies. Plus where do those hard-working cops go to eat when they work that graveyard shift? Sure Zippy's isn't high cuisine, but it's a baseline standard of plate lunches, kind of like McDonalds with hamburgers. No matter which Zippy's you go to you can be assured that the ZipPac will taste the same at each and every one.
  
• A good, solid Mexican resturant that doesn't charge an arm+leg - Didn't I mention Garcia's? We've got avocados year-round here in Kona, a perfect match.
  
• A real Honolulu type lunchwagon - The kind of lunchwagon where the line snakes down the block with students, construction workers, doctors and lawyers standing in the same line hoping that the curry stew doesn't run out. Not sure where they should park it though, maybe in the WHT parking lot.
  
• Popeye's Fried Chicken - Yeah, I know, why the hell am I asking for a Popeye's? Their spicy chicken, though I'm sure fattening, is tasty and they always seem to serve fairly quickly. I must admit that I haven't eaten at Popeye's in ages. I've always said if I wanted to open a successful business I'd open a Popeye's Fried Chicken on the Pohakuloa Training Area base on the center of the island. I passed this idea through a group of U.S. Marines and sailors training there, they said I'd be a millionaire. Hmmm...I wonder how much for a Popeye's franchise?
  
• Leonard's Bakery - Okay, this is purely for the malasadas. If you've grown-up eating Tex's Drive Inn malasadas (in Honokaa and now also in Pahala) you probably like these Portugese doughnuts. If you've grown up on Oahu you know that Leonard's malasadas are the bomb, accept no substitutes.
  

That's it, whew. I'm probably gonna hear from Karen about this long post but all this food talk has no end. Once you start talking about food you can't stop.

No POTD

Cheeseburgers in paradise

A conversation from the movie Pulp Fiction

JULES Hamburgers. The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast. What kinda hamburgers?
BRETT Cheeseburgers.
JULES No, I mean where did you get'em? MacDonald's, Wendy's, Jack-in-the-Box, where?
BRETT Big Kahuna Burger.
JULES Big Kahuna Burger. That's that Hawaiian burger joint. I heard they got some tasty burgers. I ain't never had one myself, how are they?
BRETT They're good.
JULES Mind if I try one of yours?
BRETT No.
JULES Yours is this one, right?
BRETT Yeah.
Jules grabs the burger and take a bite of it.
JULES Uuummmm, that's a tasty burger. (to Vincent) Vince, you ever try a Big Kahuna Burger?
VINCENT No.

Okay, so why the photo of the McDonald's cheeseburger? Well, it was my lunch but there's another reason too which I can't say at this time. But suffice to say that it's your pretty standard run of the mill cheeseburger, not a Kahuna Burger and it was my late lunch on Saturday. Sorry if the photo grosses you out, maybe it's supposed to so you won't eat one.

Saturday, my Monday since I'm off on Thursday and Friday, had me shooting the rodeo and a track meet. I only pretty much shot photos for the newspaper at those two things so no POTD from those assignments. Better luck tomorrow.

This post is brought to you by the letter 'C': Cleaning, cars, chatting, cinema, crepes and coffee

Spent the day making another attempt at straightening up my apartment, no photos please. Manage to get some tasks done that I had procrastinated on so I could procrastinate on actually straightening things up. I just own too much shit, I'm a pack-rat, I admit it, I might need an intervention. "Hello my name is Baron and I'm a pack-rat."


Why I always seem to head to town at about 3:30 p.m. when the traffic is terrible I don't understand. Here traffic is backed-up on Hwy 190 going into Kailua town, this is about four miles from town. I was once told that it's the result of turning a donkey path into a two laned highway. That may not be too far from the truth. Anyone will tell you that traffic is bad everywhere, but I'm just here to gripe about it where I live. Heck, it's 3:30pm, don't these people work? How can they afford all those gas guzzlers?


Here's Gean, typing one-handed while in a chat with his daughters Leilani and Maile. I think bandwidth on the internet is decreasing, now that there are three Cannon's online. I went back home, through light traffic thank-goodness, and back to town to get a microphone adaptor for the computer. Bought a boom mic for $1 at Salvation Army and gave Gean a set of amplified speakers, brand new. We were in business for some serious internet audio chatting.

We finally hooked up with Maile online and it was a wonder to see Gean chatting via voice, sooo much easier than typing. So now they can audio chat.


Me stuck in traffic once again but what a view. You could almost see every tree on Mt. Hualalai, a very clear afterhoon.

The cinema. Saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, very good movie. Jim Carrey shows some nice range in this, kind of reminds me of how Robin Williams was pidgeon-holed into comedy roles until he did some good dramatic work. I must admit that Tall Andrea and I missed at least the first five minutes, hey it's not like it was Betty Blue or maybe it was as I missed the opening, since I was trying to get Gean's Mac squared away and lost track of time before heading for the theater, with an on-time Andrea waiting outside. El-Ron and Jim were supposedly wanting to go to the movies too but they wanted to see Starsky & Hutch...I mean really, the 70s? Platform shoes? The Bee Gees? A Grand Torino as a muscle car? They passed on this movie, now if Jesus Christ was driving a black Trans-Am that answered to the name 'Kit' we might have seen another movie together, but I don't think Mel filmed it that way.

After the movie we had to make a decision...where to eat in Kona at 9:45 p.m. It looked pretty bleak, Tacos El Unico closes in 15 minutes and Denny's wasn't sounding too appealing. We found a new place next to the theater, which also stopped cooking in 15 minutes, called Peaberry & Gelettes. The peaberry refers to the somewhat rare pea-shaped coffee beans that supposedly make really good coffee. Gelettes refers to the buckwheat waffles they make and they also make stuffed crepes. I got the spinach, cheese, mushroom and ham crepe which was very good (kind of expensive, about $9.50). I'd recommend it if you want something different to eat, it had that yuppie atmosphere in there which may be a plus or minus according to how you feel about that sort of thing.

And finally, I did have an espresso there which cost me over two bucks for a small cup. Seeing all those tins of Illy coffee there I couldn't help but think about my own Illy tins at home when I make my own espresso for a fraction of the price, in real chinaware. I'm fading fast and need to get to sleep. Sorry this post wasn't more interesting, isn't that a theme everywhere recently? But it's all I can do at the moment as my eyes are shutting down on me. Good night.

Here we go again

Ex-USA TODAY reporter faked major stories
By Blake Morrison,USA TODAY

Seven weeks into an examination of former USA TODAY reporter Jack Kelley’s work, a team of journalists has found strong evidence that Kelley fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories, lifted nearly two dozen quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he gave for the newspaper and conspired to mislead those investigating his work.

When will it end?

No POTD

I can't believe it, I went the entire day without taking a photo. Did household chores, went out and did errands, even updated the blog with the previous day's (actually night's) images but neglected to shoot something. Bummer.

I did get to talk to Maile twice during the day via iChat A/V and the internet. This Apple software is pretty amazing, sound quality is very good and we spoke like we were on the telephone. Luckily we both have fast internet connections to make this work. I need to make this work for Maile's dad so he can talk to her as it's too easy to burn through phone cards with the toll charges to China. The second conversation was a bit of a juggling act as Maile and I were text chatting with Karen and I was speaking with Maile via audio. The time difference can be a problem, here's how I figure out her local time.
Dalian, China Time = (Hawaii Time - 6 hours) + 1 Day
Or you can go here Time in Dalian, China

You can read her blog via the link on the right MonkeyPrints. Hopefully I'll be more successful today with photos.

It's easy being green

I know this post is late but what else is new. But the photos will probably explain why it's late, plus there are lots of photos. Wednesday being St. Patrick's Day we did our best to celebrate. The one problem at Durty Jake's is that they didn't have any green beer, I mean, how much can green dye cost? But we made up for that with a suggestion by Travis who told Brian and me about building an Irish Car Bomb drink.


Travis explaining the intricacies of bomb-making.

Building an Irish Car Bomb

Step #1, gathering the bomb parts
A shot of 1/2 Jameson's Irish Whiskey, 1/2 Bailey's Irish Creme + A half bottle of Guinness in a glass


Step #2, building the bomb
Travis and Brian start building their bombs being careful pouring the Guinness, not too much, not too little.


Step #3, dropping the bomb
Brian drops the shot glass into the Guinness.


Step #4, bombs-away!
Michael drops the bomb and chugs it down. Click on the link below for the video. It's a little dark but hey, it's a bar. The Irish Car Bomb is pretty smooth and tastes like chocolate milk going down. A dangerous combination.

QuickTime video of the bombing


Brian photographs the aftermath of the bombing.


Andrea #2, or 'Tall Andrea' at Durty Jake's. We already had another Andrea at work so it gets confusing sometimes, 'which Andrea? Oh, tall Andrea."

A picture is worth 1K words

Barbs and Branches

Failed in my mission to shoot a personal picture of the day so instead I offer this photo shot last month in the Kohala Mountains. I liked the similarities and contrasts.

Sorry there isn't more to this post but I just back from Michael's place and a vodka martini and cranberry vodka drink later and I'm not too motivated. Instead of going to town to look for food I had three martini olives for dinner. Those olives are good for HDL cholesterol aren't they? The usual griping about work and how things are run. Plus some time with Mike's guitars, he owns guitars like William owns cameras. A Fender Squire Strat, Ibanez electric bass, a Yamaha acoustic 6 string guitar and an acoustic bass and he may buy another Ibanez but this time a 6 string fender type guitar from Chaz.

Chaz is the newspaper's webmaster and he's quitting after over 20 years of service to WHT the first week of April. Originally from Waianae, transplanted to Kona he's making the move to SoCal in the Laguna Beach area. Good for him, another one escapes over the wire. Better to leave on your own terms and not wear out your welcome. I'm sure growing up as a kid in Waianae running around barefoot, going hunting and surfing he never dreamed he would have become part of the estabishment dressing up to come to work and being in charge of computer stuff.

That's it, I'm tired, I'm going to bed, I'm getting up early to finish work.

Rain, rain, go away...

Here's Waikoloa Stream that was featured in the photo/video in yesterday's post. Today it was much lower and calmer. Debris still stuck around the guardrails and weeds flattened by the flow yesterday. What a difference a day, and no rain, makes.

I was busy all day yesterday, thus the late posts of yesterday's photos, covering races and floods. Today I was still busy covering the flood aftermath in Waimea which you'll be able to see at the West Hawaii Today along with Karen's story (should be in the 3/16 edition).

Got a phone call today on a lead for a new apartment to rent. I worked so long today I didn't get a chance to check it out, maybe tomorrow or the day after. I could use a bigger nicer place but inertia might keep me where I'm at. I need to find a home to buy, just need prices to drop as it's a seller's market now.

Flood for thought

It was constant rain in North Hawaii today with a downpour coming at about 10am which caused the Waikoloa Stream to overflow. The stream flooded businesses, homes, streets and Waimea Nature Park. The park, as seen in the above photo had the overflowing stream coursing through a grassy area and turned it into a river, it rolled back the grassy lawn like a carpet.

On nice days you can sometimes find me here on Tues or Wed having lunch. It's a tranquil place to have lunch at a picnic bench in the shade while reading a book. Away from from Waimea town and noise the grassy areas are inviting to spread out a blanket to enjoy the cool temperatures and sun on nice days. Below you'll find a link to some video I shot during the flooding. It was shot with my Nikon CoolPix 4500 so the quality isn't that great.

Waimea Nature Park flood video


Here's a frame-grab from some video showing Waikoloa Stream pouring over the Queen Kaahumanu Highway near the Mauna Kea Resort Hotel. The highway was closed and the two cops on the south side were overworked trying to keep the curious at bay trying to get photos or video of the flood. On the north side of the flooded road there were no cops so it was a free-for-all for gawkers, except for the few times the cops on my side got on the PA system to yell to the north.

The Queen Kaahumanu Hwy flood video

I forgot the images I shot earlier in the day at the Leprechaun 5K/10K run that I was going to post on this site. So it'll have to wait until tomorrow and will probably end up below this post since it was shot in the morning. I must be getting old, my memory is failing me.

Everyone's Irish

The start of the one-mile St. Patrick's Day Leprechaun Run at Lanihau Center. Here's runners joke around about jockeying for position at the start of the race by pushing each other around. The day featured a one-mile race, 5K race and 10K race.


Speaking of jockeying for position, here's Jon O'Kunitake, left, on the violin as they play Toora Loora Looral for the crowd. Jon used to be a jockey when he lived on the mainland and rode in hundreds, if not thousands of races. Now he's back in Kona in the family business of creating excellent Kona coffee. Jon's still an athlete and is often seen at running events and has made the Kona Marathon a real success.


Here I am on the right with Sean 'Peaman' O'Kelly-Pagett dressed for the race in his finest greenery, complete with shillelagh. Photo by Brian O'Perdue.


Here's Sean introduces the runners/contestants in the Leprechaun costume contest during the awards ceremony. The kid got the loudest applause and took home a prize of Lanihau Center gift certificates.

All together a beautiful day for running. Cool, cloudy weather and friends everywhere joining in for the fun. If you like running, swiming or biking then Kona is for you.

Fauna in Kona

A slate pencil sea urchin clings onto the rocks at Keauhou Bay. I was at the bay covering the finish of a canoe race when this thing caught my eye. Every so often the wave trough would allow it to be exposed. I'm from Oahu and that place is pretty much devoid of marine life like this. Places I fished as a kid on Oahu are now barren, you can't find natural marine animals along the shore unless you go to some sanctuary like Hanauma Bay. But here in Kona you can see stuff like this every day. Urchins clinging to rocks, yellow tang fish darting around close to shore, schools of akule shimmering in Kailua Bay, manta rays flying underwater just offshore, spinner dolphins leaping into the air, humpback whales breaching within easy viewing from the rocky coastline, sea turtles resting on the beach, starfish hiding under rocks in tide pools, it's like the Discovery Channel in real life and that's just the ocean. Inland there's also lots to see but that'll have to wait for a different blog post.

Folks ask me why I live on the Big Island, well, I grew up on Oahu. It's a city, plenty to do, plenty of man-made things to entertain, lots of places to eat and shop. But the Big Island has it's charm and it's forté is nature. If you don't like nature then you won't like the Big Island, you'll be bored. But hey, two years from now you'll be able to drive to Oahu via the ferry and enjoy the best of it all.

Crap, that's starting to look like a Cathy cartoon above with the writing. I told Karen that's why I don't always read Cathy, it looks too exhausting to read all those words. So if you just look at the photos on this page, I'll understand :^)

You gotta fight, for your right, to paaaaahhhhhteee!

Friday night I finally got to Melanie's party at 10pm, it started at 5pm, after messing with all those computers. Lucky for me the die-hard partygoers were still there along with some food like this sushi platter. Anyone who knows me can figure out that I will leave any raw fish stuff alone. So from that platter the only thing I ate was the sushi with the scrambled egg on it. I know, folks always ask me "what kinda Japanee are you, you no eat raw fish?" My family owns a resturant, Sekiya's, and yes they do serve raw fish there but I never aquired a taste for it and at the price of good ahi my family never encouraged me to eat it, "more for the rest of us, don't eat any." So the party platters of sashimi, sushi with raw fish, tako and shrimp cocktail went untouched by me (I know shrimp cocktail isn't raw but I don't dig on it). Yes, I don't even eat poke or lomi lomi salmon. And although I don't care for poi, I love steamed taro.

Here's Katie, left, high-fiving Caroline after sinking a shot during a game of 8-ball. I was teamed-up with Danielle and our opponent's celebration was short-lived. We ended up winning the game with Danielle sinking the winning 8-ball. With food, booze, music and a pool table available the billiards went on until about 3 a.m. then I had to finally call it a night as everyone else went home and I had to get up for work in a few hours. The Okolehao I brought to the party went over quite well as we emptied the bottle. I'm not much of a beer fan and don't drink that much but Okolehao over ice, though kinda sweet, is pretty smooth going down.

A fun gathering and I won a few pool games, okay I lost the last one to Caroline when I scratched shooting in the 9-ball...duh. I made some hummus for the party but the garlic was pretty strong since it was pretty fresh made so I brought it to work the next day. That's it for the party night.

Fix-it Friday

*warning-geek talk ahead, proceed with caution* It was a day of fixing computers. That's me wiping out hard drives and reloading operating systems on a pair of iMacs. OS9 on the older iMac on the left, OSX on the newer iMac on the right. The older Mac is fine, it's just old, a 2nd generation iMac at 266MHz in speed, no DVD drive and no Firewire port and only 32MB RAM memory. It's limited and won't be running circles around anything but still a good machine (and it came home with me as part of a payment for fixing the newer iMac). The newer iMac for some reason has been having hard drive/file corruption problems. Hopefully OSX will provide some better file handling to keep things running right.

In the morning I was also fixing a Windows XP machine. Well, actually the main problem was a user error when my friend Sheree had filtered her email so she could only see unread emails, which meant she panicked that she had lost all of her older emails. That problem fixed, I then tried to figure-out #1 Why her browser (Internet Explorer 6) would not stick to the default home page. You could change the default home and it would work fine during a session but if you logged-out of the account it went back to some search page that looked like it was on the hard drive in a .dll file. Weird, never got it fixed, stupid Windows. #2 ICQ keeps popping-up for the user to log in. Sheree's bf also has an account on the computer and installed ICQ Pro to chat. Well, the stupid Windows program assumes that all users will want to use ICQ even if you log into a separate account. Dumb. And this all on a Dell computer, I like the Dell company for Windows machines, but I guess it's still Windows.

More photos to come later, some might get bumped under this entry since I actually shot them earlier in the day at a Kona coffee farm. It was a late night (or early morning) party that has me posting this late. That's what happens with food, booze, a pool table and conversation are available.

Kona Coffee farm

Kona Coffee blossoms. When an orchard is in full bloom it's called 'snow' as in Hawaiian Snow or Kona Snow since the coffee trees are chocked-full with these fragrant white flowers like there was a snowfall. Bees also like these flowers and some keepers sell Kona Coffee blossom honey.


Kona Coffee growing on the tree. When the berries turn red they're known as coffee cherry and are ready to pick. Not sure how this coffee season will be.

Tardy updates

Sometimes the POTD will hit this blog a day or two late due to my work sked, how tired I am or if I forget the images at work, duh. But usually it will hit the blog with enough time to not be pushed into the archives. Plus Blogger is having a problem with uploading my photos so I'm doing that manually, sure I know how to do it but it requires me to FTP into my account thus the added delay.

I found it!

Okay, so yesterday during lunch I was cruising in the Waimea Salvation Army thrift store, a great place to find good stuff cheap, and I came across a bunch of these coffee cups. They're the perfect size to fit into my cappuccino machine! The downspout of the machine is so low that a normal coffee cup won't fit under there, but this one has plenty of room and is the perfect size for a cup of cappuccino or espresso. Noritake china and it was only $0.25 for the cup and $0.25 for the saucer.

Okay one confession for those who fly first class often. It says United Airlines on the bottom of the cup and saucer. These coffee sets were made especially for UAL but I'm guessing they either changed their chinaware on board or because of new terrorist safety regs they just use paper cups. They also have a bunch of UAL silverware in the thrift store since metal knifes are now out on airlines.

sans POTD

Didn't get a POTD today, yes, I did shoot photos for work but nothing interesting enough to post. Spent much of the night waiting on Mike to finish working on his photos on the only computer in the office where I can work on my photos due to the CF reader being on that machine, software and the fact that I already had dumped the previous day's shoot into its hard drive. Yes, having only one computer for working on photos sucks but I did spend the time getting paperwork out of the way. I'm not going to rant about it in a public blog, but if you get me into chat I might slip into rant-mode.

Chatting through the firewall

The chatroom seems to work fine, even through the company firewall. So if I'm at work and available to chat just visit visit: http://www.mediabaron.com/chat.html Drop in, hang-out and chat. iChat/AIM and other chat programs are usually foiled by the firewall, but this chatroom is a perl scripted one and is open to all.

Will shoots das boot

Hawaii Tribune-Herald photographer William Ing and I had a private tour aboard the Spirit of Ontario I ferry in Hilo. You can spot William because he usually packing a ton of cameras...let's see if I got this right: Canon 10D digital, Canon film camera (Rebel?), Canon PowerShot G3, and maybe a Fuji film camera or Voitlander rangefinder thrown-in for good measure.

*UPDATE TO EQUIPMENT LIST FROM WILLIAM*
Just for the record: The "ton of junk" I use includes an Elan 7 with vertical release grip/battery holder (Really a very good film camera--light, accurate, fairly solid, yet doesn't cost an arm and a leg; too bad they waited till the twilight of the 35mm era before marketing it. Except for a not-too-swift 1/125th synch speed and a not-so-silent shutter, it's altogether a much better value for the money than the A2. BTW, like any self-respecting shooter, I wouldn't be caught dead with a friggin' silver Rebel hanging from my shoulder.); a Powershot G-4; a Rollei Prego point and shoot; and a Voigtlander Bessa T with 28 f1.9.

There you have it, straight from the source. I think William should get an honorary membership into the Boy Scouts as 'Be Prepared' appears to be his motto too.

As for silver Rebel cameras, there are a number of shooters that are considering, if not already buying, the Digital Rebel (in silver) as a back-up camera body or as a cheap remote for backboard shots. Wasn't it David Burnett that used to go around with a bag of Canon AE-1 camera bodies?


Here Will shoots Tim Dick, chairman of Hawaii Superferry. Yeah, they're going to find a real name for the ships when they arrive in Hawaii two years from now. You can see Will wearing some HS swag on his noggin'

Power Problems

The power went off again today at my apartment while I was in Hilo. VCR #2 had no time on it, the microwave's clock had a scrolling message saying 'set time' on it. So once again I missed the local TV newscasts, I had set VCR #2 to record the 6pm news, but apparently the power outage happended before that since there was nothing on the tape. VCR #1 hopefully stays broken as I'm taking it back to Costco for a refund, they're really good about that so long as you have a receipt (sometime without a receipt) the item, all parts and the manual.

I did have good news today though. I got my United Airlines mileage summary and I've got over 90K miles! Hell, that's enough to fly to both Asia AND Europe for free from Hawaii. Now if I can just convice my apartment rental company to take my United VISA card for my rent I'd really be set for even more travelling.

TV Time-Out

This morning the power in my apartment was going off and on like crazy, off for about 5 minutes, then back on again for one then off again for 5 then on, off, on, off, then it finally stayed on. I haven't heard Maile complaining yet about power problems in China, geez. Kona has got to get out of the 3rd world status of utility service. Anyway, when the power finally stabilized my VCR wouldn't turn-on, it's on the blink. (this happened once before and just before I was going to take it back to Costco it started working again.) The point is that my Sony TV has a busted tuner and I use the VCR to get TV stations and change the channel. Now this is all I get, a blank screen on my TV due to my dysfunctional VCR. I do have two other VCRs so now I have to deal with wires, plugs and moving furniture to switch these things out.

I consider myself to be a somewhat smart guy but why I am so dumb to bury the plugs behind furniture and too cheap to just buy a new TV is beyond me. I must admit the picture on the TV tube is still excellent, it's just the tuner that's bad. So I just missed watching the evening news and I'm procrastinating the VCR switch-a-roo. I need to get off the decafinated coffee in my cappucino machine and get wired into action with some stimulants of the caffinated variety.

Okay, now I feel better that I vented in the blog. Now to set-up that stupid 2nd VCR.

No POTD

Chat Room

Added a chat room to the site. It's on the list of links. No registration required, try to keep it somewhat civil and make sure you logout or you won't be able to log in with the same username for about 15 minutes. Enjoy.

Peaman Plunge 'n Plod Biathlon

Here's the Peaman himself (Sean Pagett) getting his finisher's stick near the Kailua Pier. Peaman events are fun, free and cater to everyone as you can even use a mask and fins for the swim.


Here's Lori Bowden (left) a world-class Ironman triathlete, Rani 'the Road Runner' Tanimoto (back to camera with peaman hat) and Bree Myers (who was the first female to finish the plunge n plod). I emailed Brian (our Sports editor and Rani's other half) that these ladies were no doubt talkin' stink about him. Hahaha He sent me back an email saying they were probably fighting over him. In his dreams.

Snowy Saturday

The view this morning from Kawaihae Harbor of Pu‘ukohola Heiau, a huge stone temple built by Kamehameha I to favor the war god Kuka‘ilimoku. The snowy summit of Mauna Kea is in the background and you may be able to make out the high powered observatories on the mountain top. The west side of the Big Island this past week saw rain, snow, hail, thunder, lightning, waves, wind, tornados and waterspouts. Quite a wild week for weather. Whenever we get high winds, precipitation and cold temperatures snow on the summits are a result.

Water fun

Before the start of canoe races at Kawaihae Harbor. There were some kids running around with water guns, loaded with salt water, I narrowly missed getting hit a few times. A cellphone camera image. Maybe more images later today to make up for the two days I missed.

Overcast and cool weather in South Kohala with a northwest ocean breeze. Snow on the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa make for a beautiful sight, photos TK.

Clean up day

Spent the day cleaning up my apartment, not 100% successful, maybe 20% success. So didn't take the time to shoot a photo, I could have shot one of the apartment but blah. :(

*Kau kau with the Kanes

Had dinner tonight with the Kanes. Eliza Kane (that's her with her daughter Kira) was an intern at the newspaper many moons ago. How things have changed, now she has a two-year old daughter Kira and I'm no longer a vegetarian.


That's Eliza's husband Kent playing hide-n-seek around the house after dinner. Had a good time at dinner catching up on things and even got to watch Donald Trump finally fire that gal with the chip on her shoulder on 'The Apprentice.' You could see that one coming though she probably lasted this long just so there would be lots of conflict on TV for the cameras. I mean, you could tell right off that Andrei's paintings were going to do the best sales, they were just the kind of stuff doctors and lawyers put on their office walls. Nothing offensive, nothing to interpret, just pretty colors. Hey, I'm not an art critic but I knew his stuff would sell the best. Meghan's wacky artwork (which I thought was interesting) didn't get but one sale, it was too offensive and strange and expensive. Besides, didn't they consider that nobody would want to be caught buying that stuff on camera? At least the gal that bought the dumb hollow cat painting can sell it on eBay as being part of the show.

Here's video of Kira just before going to bed (152KB)

*Kau kau, pronounced "cow cow," means "food," or "meal" in Hawaiian pidgin. It is also used to mean "to eat," as in "let's go kau kau" - "let's go eat."

No POTD

The slacking has caught up with me, no POTD today.

Hapuna Beach Park flood damage

Heavy rainfall late Monday afternoon sent floodwaters down open land, across the Queen Kaahumanu Hwy. and channeled it into Hapuna Beach Park. On the south side the picnic area was devastated. An area that was a flat picnic area with asphalt and concrete walkways has been turned into a mini Grand Canyon with sheer walls of sand showing how deep the flood cut into the land.

On the north end of the beach park what was a long stretch of beach is now broken by an inlet to the ocean. Floodwaters ravaged the beach creating the cove fronting the Hapuna Prince Beach Hotel. Offshore the ocean contained trees, debris and brown mud churned by the surf. The beach was closed to the public due to the debris in the water.

Hapuna Beach Park flood damage video (5.2MB)

POTD to come

I really did shoot personal stuff yesterday (Sunday) but it will have to get posted later, actually it's some video I shot of the site of a tornado that touched down in South Kona. Took the roof right off a house which it lifted and moved about 15 feet. The video will be added tomorrow.

As for today's photo, I did shoot some photos today but forgot them at work. POTD to come later.