Moving Day, Party Night

Tall Andrea "Chula" takes a break before treating me, Brian and Karen to lunch. Thai food was our reward for helping her move into her new barrio down south. The food was a welcome return of Orchid Thai Cafe which has been closed for a month as the owners went on vacation. We feasted on Green Curry, Pad Thai and Spicy Chicken with Thai Basil and summer rolls. If you come to Kona drop in for lunch or dinner, it's in the same building as Kailua Candy Company so you can have spicy food then candy as dessert. Click on the link for a directions to their building. It's right across from West Hawaii Today.


Brian and Chula at El-Ron and Jim's casa as a party winds down. A good turn-out for a party, not surprising as Jim accidently got his email addresses crossed and invited the entire staff of the high school he teaches at to the party instead of just 5 or 6 folks it was meant to go to. About 50 people attended in various waves during the night. Lots of food and drink including some Italian raspberry liquor Jim got on his European vacation last summer. Sweet stuff that had berries in it, tasted like it would be good on shave ice or vanilla ice cream.


Brian tries to swallow my camera cellphone.

Before the party during the afternoon I got down to the walking path to register for the latest fitness challenge with Friends for Fitness. It's to do 50 miles during the month of May at the Makaeo walking path. Should be no problem huh? After all I did 50 miles in one week during the last challenge. This time it's an individual challenge, not a team thing so we're all on our own. Now where did I leave my running shoes?

Maybe I should just jump

Waipio Valley valley is closed to all but local traffic due to storm damage in the valley. You really wouldn't want to go in there anyway dodging the debris in the streams and such. Of course I'm just guessing at that since I haven't been down there myself this week.

The continuing saga of my car. My car IS a hot-potato. Mechanics don't want to work on my car, like it's got the Ebola Virus or something. Or maybe not that bad, just SARS or Anthrax. Doug at D&R Automotive called me today with the usual good news/bad news routine that folks like to deliver to people.

The good news: No bent or broken valves, stems, rods, cones, lenses, corneas, etc. Oh, was that eyeballs or a motor? Only the timing chain is broken.
The bad news: Doug doesn't want to work on the car. He's going on vacation starting next week Monday and will be gone for a whole week. Plus he doesn't want to work on the car, he gives me a little 'in' by saying he would have to work on it after he got back, but really he'd rather not work on it. I tell Doug that I'll try and get someone else to do it since he'll be gone so long.

I called KGE Automotive to see if they can replace my timing chain. Told them that's the only problem since Doug already tested the rest of the engine. Keola on the other end of my poor cellphone connection seemed to gasp over the phone when I mentioned the timing chain. Oh, a chain, I thought you said it was a belt? I gotta get back to you and give you a new estimate, a chain.... A timing chain to a mechanic must be like a crucifix to Dracula, Kryptonite to Superman or deodorant to a hippie. Mention it and even the toughest mechanics wither.

This timing chain must be a bitch to work on for mechanics these days. In the olden days (circa 1990s) many cars had timing chains, then they started using belts. Sure belts are easier to work with but will nobody step-up their game as a mechanic to deal with this? What's it gonna be like 100 years from now?

Future Mechanic: Your car has a gas engine, I'd rather not work on that, I mostly deal in hydrogen fuel-cell motors.
Future Me: But this car is brand new, it's a Chevy.
Future Mechanic: Yeah, I know. We only work on Japanese cars, they all have fuel cells.

See, you just can't win.

Aloha Arlene

Arlene, the gal with the lei and the only one not clapping, is the editor of North Hawaii News and she's retiring from that post and moving back to Alaska. Sold the house, the car and the cat. Packed things up, shipped things out and is handing over the reins to Travis as the interim editor until we can hire her replacement. Here she was being honored at the North Hawaii Rotary luncheon for all the work she has done for the community both at North Hawaii News and West Hawaii Today. She will be missed by many.

I guess this is as good a time as any to tell an Arlene story. Being from Alaska Arlene's husband Jack often goes moose hunting. Arlene packs the stuff up and brings it down to Hawaii during their stays here. Now I've had three occasions to eat moose-meat cooked by Arlene.

#1 Moose tacos. She asks me to have some tacos with her at her house, I agree and she dishes out these tacos. (she didn't tell me it was moose-meat). Here I am eating this thing and it tastes REALLY gamey. I mean, kinda a musty flavor, or should I say it was turning bad or something. Being polite I didn't want to say anything but then even Arlene was looking a little weird eating it. Then she mentions something about, "I think this moose-meat has gone bad." I mean, holy-crap, if it's far gone enough for her to say something how do you think my taste buds were doing? That was my introduction to moose-meat. She said she adds beef-fat to it when grinding it into mooseburger meat, she said it goes rancid if you try to use the moose-fat in the grind. No shit.

#2 Moose burger, not my favorite but it's okay this time as I think the moose was fresher.

#3 Moose roast. Not bad, a little gamey but pretty good. I think the slow roasting and spices help to mask the taste.

Arlene can be pretty funny sometimes. The way she got the job as a reporter with West Hawaii Today was that her husband, Jack, was blabbing to his golf buddies that he earned all the money, did all the work and that all Arlene didn't have to do anything. Not any 'real' work like he was doing (she was just keeping the company books, cooking, cleaning and raising kids according to Arlene).

Fuming a bit Arlene went down the WHT office, saw the publisher who she had met at the Ironman Triathlon (he remembered her b/c she got him a beer) and he hired her to report on stuff in North Hawaii. Arlene came back to Waikoloa Village, found Jack drinking with his golf buddies and announced that she had gotten a job. Jack just about fell out of his chair when he realized that he was going to have to cook his own food and clean up after himself, his domestic goddess was free. And so Arlene has been working for our company for some time, but it comes to an end this week, her last as an employee of our company. I told her she's a pretty nice person...for a republican. She laughed and shook her fist at me.

Do you love your car?
The continuing saga of my car started this morning when I called the mechanic the "D" at D&R Automotive. "Doug" said, he'd see if he could work on the car but quizzed me first.
Doug: Do you take care of your car?
Me: yes
Doug: Do you change your oil regularly
Me: yes, and I just had a tune-up a month ago.
Doug: I don't like to work on cars if the owner has abused it

I mean am I living in a Seinfeld episode where the mechanic makes me pledge my total love, affection and caring for my car?

When I've passed the vehicle love-test he says it's okay to bring it to his shop. Finally, I might get it fixed. The last I saw of my car it was in the shop and Doug was going to see if he could fix it. If not then I'll just have to take my car, which has become a hot-potato amongst mechanics, to yet another repair shop.

I'm tired and working on my day-off tomorrow. Good night.

The worst news, your car 'can't be fixed'

Here's my ride for the past week as I borrow Mike's old Jimmy 4x4 SUV. It runs pretty well, he just warns against leaving anything important in it "the roof leaks" is what he tells me. Nonetheless I'm grateful for the transportation as I wait for my car to be repaired.

I got a call while at work from the mechanic that's looking at my car:

J.A.W.S. Is this Baron?
Me Yes?
J.A.W.S. I have bad news about your car.
Me Yes? Go ahead, give it to me.
J.A.W.S. Your engine is completely seized. We can't turn it. I tried a three-foot breaker bar on it and it's completely frozen. The engine is ruined. It's been sitting too long without being run.
Me I was running it all the way up till Friday night, then it clanked and died.
J.A.W.S. That's impossible, this engine has been sitting too long being unused, I'm afraid it can't be repaired.
Me So what does that mean? It ran up until Friday night when I drove back from Waimea?!?
J.A.W.S. I don't think so, it's got cobwebs under the hood. These carburetor engines are difficult to find, I doubt we could find a replacement.
Me My car doesn't have a carburetor, it's fuel-injected. My 1999 Chevy Tracker.
J.A.W.S. Oh wait (muffled yelling to someone in the background) it isn't a red Toyota pick-up?
Me No.
J.A.W.S. I'm sorry, I got the cars mixed-up. Your car looks like it has a broken timing belt. That's repairable.
Me Good, so you can do it?
J.A.W.S. No, it has a domestic engine in it, we only work on Japanese engines, you have to take it somewhere else.
Me Oh.

So now I have to take my car to another mechanic. J.A.W.S. recommended one, I called and he's unsure if he wants to tackle the repair project and says it would be at least a week before working on it. He's was supposed to call back to see if he can take it. He never calls.

In the meantime on the way back from Waimea I decided to stop by Chet's Automotive, this is the shop that I used to go to where I've decided that the owner is now occupying a padded cell somewhere drawing cars on the walls with crayons held between his toes. It turns out that it changed ownership. Keola (the new owner) says "Chet moved to the mainland and we couldn't get Verizon to switch the phone number." He took over the business, changed the name and still has one of Chet's mechanics employed. He also informs me that he would fix my car. "We're not prejudice here" he says " we fix all makes of engines."

So now I need to decide where to take my car to get fixed, it might be Keola's shop, KGE Automotive, as they seem to be the only one willing to take on the messy job.

Folks, take care of your cars, they're a bitch to get fixed.

Monday morning blues

Called Kona Muffler and had my fingers crossed for good news about my car. The mechanic on the other end said 'you have a major engine problem, there's no compression.' That's mechanic-speak for 'dude, your car is majorly screwed-up.' They don't want to touch it as they don't do intensive, take the engine apart type of repairs. I don't blame them, it's a pain in the okole. So I have my boss help me tow my car to J.A.W.S. (Japanese Auto Works and Service) a shop specializing in Japanese cars.

Okay, let me explain. My car is a Chevy Tracker but it's pretty much a Suzuki Vitara built in Canada for Chevy USA. So they should be able to fix it huh? They quickly look at it and ask if it overheated, I told them the temp gauge never budged beyond normal temps, oil and fluids were checked in the past week and a tune-up performed in the past month. I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow for a diagnosis. So I leave the car there, once again crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.


Assignments took me to a baby doctor's office where immunizations shots were being given, it's National Immunization Month and they needed art to go with a story. While waiting for the elevator on the third floor I got a view of this cruise ship sitting in Kailua Bay. A quick snapshot before my elevator arrived.

Wheels

Mike's da man! He let me borrow his extra car, a 4x4 beater he uses to dip into salt water while launching his boat via his trailer at the harbor boat ramp. He figures there's no sense in destroying his regular car when this one has the proper rust holes to let salt water drain out. Makes sense to me. Anyway, I have some temporary wheels while my car gets fixed.

Dawn of the Dead...car

Okay, I figured, no problemo. Just call my mechanic, have the car towed there and drop it off to get fixed. Wrongo. My mechanic's phone is disconnected and his shop's name isn't listed with the 411 operator anymore...always a bad sign. Did he secretly sabatoge cars and skip town? Wild thoughts go through my mind that he's probably locked in a padded room with a strait-jacket babbling something about hating to fix cars, fix people's problems, etc.

Back to reality. I called the tow-company, hitched a ride with Karen back to Andrea's and had the tow-wagon take my car to Kona Muffler, a supposedly honest auto shop near the newspaper. Bummer, they're closed on the weekends, I guess mechanics have to have a life too. So I drop the key in their door along with an explanation of what's wrong then Karen, Andrea and myself go in search of food again. Damn, why are we always eating?


Breakfast was at Aloha Angel Cafe in Kainaliu. I announce on the drive up there that the multi-grain bread with breakfast is excellent, Andrea announces that she doesn't like bread with chunks in it. But the chunks turn out to be tiny in the toast (I think it's cornmeal) and Andrea likes it. Here's my breakfast, I had already started digging-in before deciding to take a cameraphone photo. This is the Greek Omelette breakfast. Very tasty and I'd recommend them as a nice place for breakfast.

I skipped out of work today, will probably take it as a Time Off With Pay (TOWP) day, or perhaps use comp-time I have. I have a few choice things to say about TOWP, some good, some bad. But the other photog told me to take the day off to deal with the broken car business. So after breakfast I was dropped-off, stranded at home to deal with fixing a broken computer, which I got running swimmingly. It sucks to be without wheels.

Karen and Andrea had asked me where they could adventure that day, they wanted me to go along but the broken computer needed attention. I suggested a hike down a trail to the Captain Cook monument. I had done it before long ago. It's from about 1,300 feet elevation down to sea level and of course back again. It also affords a view of the rugged coastline, a close-up look at the Captain Cook monument and some nice snorkling near the monument. So off they went. The suggestion was my bad as you can read about mis-adventure day on Karen's blog, look for her Sunday, April 25th post.

Adventure and Misadventure Friday

Today's adventure was going to the summit of Mauna Kea, the highest point in the state. The forecast for Mauna Kea called for a 20% chance of fog and 0% chance of precipitation. Here Andrea, front, and Karen start the hike to the summit through the fog, guess we hit that 1 in 5 chance.


In the thin-air we had to push ourselves to make the short hike down from the platform area of the mountain, along a little saddle between that and the actual summit of Mauna Kea. That's the summit area where someone has built a lele (altar).

Andrea and I tend to ignore pain or tiredness when hiking. Karen has apparently evolved to the point of not being accustom to this hiking business, being out of breath due to the major physical exertion in the oxygen poor enviroment. She didn't want to continue on, so we left her on the trail up to goad her into following.


It worked, Karen eventually made it to the summit too. It was freezing cold, a little breezy with some very light snow falling at one point. Here Karen makes it to the top of the state.


A closer view of the lele on the summit pu`u (cinder cone). People have left junk on there as offerings, we should have taken that stuff off as it doesn't belong up there but we had no trash bags to carry that stuff off at the time. Really folks, only leave footprints and take photos when visiting places as they say in the National Parks. There was an old bottle of wine or something on the lele, not exactlly Hawaiian in nature.

And the USGS benchmark on the summit of Mauna Kea. I had not been to the actual summit for a decade, though I've been up the mountain several times. Cold weather, ice, snow, winds, etc had detered me in the past from making the trek from the parking area to the cinder cone where the summit actually is. Glad I went up there, I'll probably be up there again, hopefully on a nicer day.

After that it was a night of star-gazing which wasn't too good due to the fog but got a little better as the night wore on. We continued down to the Onizuka Visitor's Center but it was so foggy that stargazing was impossible.

Next mission for the night was finding food...which way to go...Waimea? Kawaihae? Waikoloa Village? Back to Kona? It was about 9pm and most places close about that time since this isn't the big city with 24/7 dining. We headed to Waimea, found everything closed and given the choice of McD's or Subways we ended up having some subs.

Now for the misadventure and part of the reason all these blog posts are late. Just when I finally got back to Kona to Andrea's house my car rattled, then died. The motor would turn a little but that's it. At least we made it back there. I figured a timing belt must have broke, or something similar. So I got a ride home courtesy of Karen. An end to a not quite 100% successful adventure day.

No picture for today due to technical difficulties

Shot some photos for a test but I'm having problems working on them so I'm saying 'screw-it' and passing on a POTD today. There is a small chance that an image will appear here later when I get past the problem but dont' hold your breath.

Pictures enroute

As Maile says, I know I'm late posting to the blog, accept the usual excuses. The posts are coming but are just delayed, explanation later.

Write On! I made the paper...I really did!

This week is National Library Week. No, that doesn't mean your library fines are forgiven, I already asked, but it does mean that we should celebrate what our libraries do to enrich our lives. And for this celebration The Bond Memorial Library in Kapa`au had project days this week. I happened to stumble across the library when they had a paper-making workshop scheduled. Here's Dawn, left, helping Mealani, right, work in a slurry of paper pulp to create a layer on a screen to make paper. Kristi waits her turn for her paper-making.


Ha`ale, center, gets the paper pulp on a screen out of the water for her homemade paper. Jenna, left, and Dawn check-out the action.


Even I got into it as the girls insisted that 'Mr. Cameraman' make some paper. I sloshed the pulpy slurry, gently pulled the box frame out under the careful supervision of Jenna who already created several pieces of paper, including some glitter sandwiched papers. Then I had to sponge the excess water out of the paper screen.


Tah-Dah! I made the paper! And here's my piece of homemade paper. No, it's not the Handy-wipe I'm hanging onto, it's the white rectangle attached to it. I have to let it dry before I can separate it from the handy-wipe towlette.

Thanks to Dawn for the customized post-it notes (and taking photos of me for my blog), Ha`ale for my National Library Week pencil, Jenna for guiding me in my paper-making and especially Mealani who said I look 20 years-old.

Cats, beer and gear

Not much going on today, these cats were having a lazy day at the stables in Waimea where I had an assignment. I've heard that cats need at least 16 hours/day of sleep but are sharp as tacks when awoken. I have no doubt that figure is correct as my own cat does quite a bit of napping, though she can seem pretty groggy sometimes when I try to get her awake.


I'm drinking a beer to celebrate Maile's birthday. It was today by Hawaii Standard Time, yesterday by Dalian, China time. It's all quite confusing this time zone thing. But I can't complain, I've got free beer (a leftover from video night).

About those two photos. The 1st photo of the cats was taken with a piece-of-crap lens owned by the company. On a sharpness scale of 1-5 it rates a 2.2 (look for the 28-80mm lens rated at 2.2), the lowest for any Canon lens. The bottle shot was taken by my personal lens which rates pretty high. Still in protest mode with the other photog and not using my own gear for company assignments. Actually I can't help but use some of my own gear, or else I wouldn't be able to get my job done at all.

As Dennis Miller says I don't want to go on a rant here but... we are under-equipped as newspaper photographers. Cameras that can't take proper flash photos, lenses that pretty much break PGA tour rules when shooting golf by being too short, batteries that are dead, fuzzy lenses and no back-up equipment while in the field. I've spent tens of thousands of my own dollars on equipment to do my job for the company. Actually, make that for photo equipment, police scanners, cellphones, computers, software, insurance, etc. Every award I've won for the newspaper has been with equipment NOT owned by the newspaper. It's infuriating at times. Serenity now, serenity now, serenity now....

Birds and balls

These geese were at a South Kona coffee as farmers often use them for insect control on organic farms. More politically correct than using pesticides.


Saw these weird ball-like pods in South Kona, not sure what they are. Maybe someone else can enlighten me, or make something up that sounds convincing.

Dash and Crash

Runners escort a torch-bearer on Alii Drive on the Troy Barboza Torch Run. The torch run raises funds for Special Olympics which officer Barboza was a supporter of.


Chopper One taking off to search for the downed Piper Warrior.

Later in the day things got busy as a small plane crashed in South Kona. Fast fading sunlight prevented rescue helicopters (including Chopper One from a previous blog post) from locating the victims. It also prevented me from getting any good photos of the rescue mission. The US Coast Guard used their high tech equipment to locate and rescue the crash victims.


Almost midnight at Denny's.

And despite reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser I went to Denny's after work with Andrea and Karen to munch on a late night of deep fried American junk food: onion rings, mozzarella sticks and chicken strips. Can a coronary be far behind? Karen read the book, Andrea is currently reading it and I listened to the audio book so I guess we have no excuse, we had been warned.


Okay, the food wasn't that fast as the service wasn't too good. But working that late-shift can't be much fun for workers.

Chopper One

A keiki plays pilot in Chopper One the Hawaii County Fire Department helicopter based in Hilo. The helicopter was in Kona for the Boy Scout Makahiki going on at the Old Kona Airport park. There's a another fire helicopter, Chopper Two, based at the South Kohala fire station. Note: I had earlier listed this as the Puako fire station, duh, thanks Dawn for the catch :)

Chopper Two was given to the HCFD as a community assesement by resort developers and was mired in funding problems initially as they got the helicopter but had no funds for a crew. So the helicopter sat around with part-time usage until a crew was funded by the county a number of years ago.

If you ever visit that station you'll find my photograph of the 7/11/91 total solar eclipse. I had imagined the highway being clogged with eclipse gawkers when planning my photo shoot so I decided to be at the station where it was off-limits to civilians. Almost a bad idea as the entire Kona-Kohala coast was blanketed by thick clouds. There was a puka in the sky with a perfect view of the eclipse over the station. Photographers less than a mile away got cloudy skies and not photos of the eclipse. As a present I gave one of my photos to the fire station where it hangs on the wall.

Trippin' to the East

The web gallery of images from my trip east. About 185 miles of driving with about 50 of that in heavy rain. But the destinations were all pretty clear. Pahala was beautiful, Pahoa was wet but a little too quite, Hilo was great due to good food at Pescatore and a free concert by Living In Question in Hilo at the bandstand.

Sorry this post is late as Blogger seems to be having some posting problems.

Adventure Day - East

Today's adventure was heading over to East Hawaii via the south. This is a peacock at Wood Valley Temple in Pahala. More photos to come when I update the blog later.

Taking a break *warning, old picture ahead*

An older unpublished photo of a sunset past Keahole Point, probably about 600mm on the lens side. Hopefully tomorrow produces something nice to post.

Shooting blanks

Didn't shoot a personal photo of the day today. Better luck tomorrow.

Current audiobook I'm listening to:

Kohala Mountain Hop

A day in the Kohala Mountains a bright, breezy, cool and beautiful afternoon. I was told the day before it was pouring rain, today people were happy to be sweating in the sunshine.


Randy Quander of Big Island Television goofs around as he gets ready for a commercial shoot on the ranch. Randy shoots, edits and directs video productions. I believe he's also a inline hockey coach in Kona which helps to satisfy his Canadian fix for hockey games. Actually I'm not sure if he's still coaching (I think it was the Kona Rink Rats).


Randy gets set-up for his shoot. With the advent of MiniDV tape format the equipment has shrunk to smaller and smaller sizes. Better than carrying around a huge Betacam or worse yet 3/4" tape deck and camera, yuk. Randy has been on the Big Island for over a decade and has shot just about everything here.


Laura gives an ATV a try-out for a possible future ride. The ranch has converted an indoor gun range into an ATV barn. The ground is still littered with spent .22cal casings and a few peppered targets can be found in there.


A panoramic view from on Kahua Ranch. The hill in the center is an area where Kamehameha I supposedly trained his warriors.

*Bonus video*

Click on the image above for some video Brian shot on the White Road hike a few days ago. I had to compress it so it's a bit jerky.

A blast from the past

Today I got a piece of Kona history. Arlene, one of my editors, is retiring and moving back to Alaska and in the process of cleaning out her house she gave me a folder full of Kona Torch newspapers (more like newsletters). The Kona Torch may be the first newspaper in Kona. If you click on the image above you'll see a larger version of the page for your reading pleasure, below is one of the inside pages.


One of the inside pages of the premier issue of the Kona Torch, check out those ads and the six-digit telephone numbers. Click on the page image to enlarge.

Quite a blast from the past. Not quite a picture of the day but it'll have to do.

Bubbles for the blog

I woke up super-early for this morning's Easter sunrise service at Old Kona Airport park. Not as many folks as last year, maybe the threatening skies scared folks away due to possible rain. But it didn't rain and it was a nice service. One of the pastors passed out what he called 'God's Bubbles' to kids who attended and this mom created a stream of bubble for her son the chase after. The photo of her and the son made it into the paper but not to the web.


Later in the day I attended the creation of a huge ice cream sundae at Solid Rock Ministries.


They claimed to have 70 gallons of ice cream in the kiddie pool being used as an ice cream bowl. But I only counted a little over 30 gallons of ice cream, still a lot but not quite halfway to 70 gallons. I did get to eat some of the ice cream after about a hundred kids got in there for their first bowl. Hope their parents were able to make a dent in that giant sundae.


Then it was off to a lunch of Thai food with Karen and Andrea. In the dishes are Pad Thai on the left, some kind of squid with vegetables on the right. I already scarfed-up my green curry by this time as it's barely visible in the bottom center. Our favorite Thai resturant in town, Orchid Thai Cafe, is closed for the entire month so we're going through our back-up places. Today it was a place in the Kona Inn shopping center which was okay, but we still favor OTC.

Fun in the Kona Sun

Went to the Family Fun Day at the Old Kona Airport park and there were a group of kids taking turns flying a kite. Though there was enough wind to fly the kite on it's own the kids seemed to have more fun if they gave it an assist by running around the field.


Here's the kite flying on its own in the breeze. Though there was wind it was a hot and humid day down at the soccer fields where the event was held, especially if you were hauling around a bag full of camera equipment. But the kids didn't mind, especially since there were thousands of Easter eggs to be picked-up earlier in the day and free shave ice to eat.

Hiking Hawaii (Andrea Adventure Day)

Andrea bugs me to go on an adventure every Friday and I passed on a few Fridays but I thought it would be cool for her and Brian to go hiking. Today it was a day for hiking in Waimea. Here Andrea and Brian start out on the White Road hike. It was a windy, rainy, foggy, cloudy day but once we got into the rainforest we were shielded from the wind and only had to deal with mud, rain and landslides. A perfect day for hiking.


Andrea and Brian in a bamboo grove along the trail. The trail goes to the eastern wall of Waipio Valley near the back end and goes through ginger and bamboo groves, water flumes, ohia trees, tunnels and lava tubes.


Brian and myself coming out of a lava tube, or maybe a man-made cave on the side of the trail. Really cool place.

A gallery of images from the White Road hike. Whew, finally got that done and posted.

*UPDATE*

Click on the image above for some video Brian shot on the hike. I had to compress it so it's a bit jerky.

Going to California

That's Chaz on the left with big boss Rick on the right, Andrea #1 is in the front. It was a bittersweet gathering as Chaz is Going to California. After over 20 years of working for our company in various positions Chaz is going out for a new life running a Bed & Breakfast in Laguna Beach, California. I'm sure Chaz will bring the aloha spirit with him to the mainland and the lucky folks who stay at Eilers Inn  which is named after an area surfer, there's even a statue of the guy on the property. Quite fitting as Chaz has done quite a bit of surfing in Hawaii.

Tomorrow should hopefully produce more scenic images as it's adventure day.

Cat cop-out

Okay, I'll admit I didn't take time earlier in the day for a POTD and Karen reminded me that I've overdone the sunset thing as a cop-out photo. So I'll take the usual route for most people, a pet photo. This is Dominator, or Dom for short. I didn't name her, as a kitten she was named by a surfer dude going by the nickname Bundy who lived in a surfer's house with a friend of mine going by the name Wease. With names like those no wonder she got such a name.

Here she's giving me a Bill the Cat look as she notices me snapping photos. She woke from a nap when she heard the shutter snapping. For those who don't know who Bill the Cat is you're probably too young, or too old. BTC was a creation of Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed. Although BTC was killed-off due to a bad case of acne I think he should make a comeback now since in the cartoon he once had Donald Trump's brain implanted in his head and he ran for President, perfect timing for this year.


Here she is more fully awake and aware someone is shooting her photo and she looks a bit pissed.


The 'real' Bill the Cat with that one big eyeball.

That's it, nothing spectacular to post today, it's my Friday. Good night.

"I'm pink, therefore I'm SPAM" or maybe not?

After having read all hubbub about the Tulip vs. SPAM competition I decided I had to give it a try myself. Yes, that is a photo I shot today so it does count for my photo of the day. Plus I was a bit desperate having come home at night without much light for scenic photos. You also might want to read some backstory on the two pink mystery meats at this link, or at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. I had to give into the taste test challenge after reading about the stories on Ian Lind's blog.

Strangely enough both cans look very similar with SPAM & Tulip musubis on the cover. You might notice the can of Tulip looks bigger than the can of SPAM but it's an illusion.


But the Tulip can is actually slimmer. Both are the same weight but the SPAM has more of that mysterious gelatinous substance in it. The Tulip has what looks like bits of bacon in it, as the label says.

Both cook-up pretty much the same. Taste-wise I'd have to say you can tell the difference. Dare I say it? The Tulip tastes more like a meat product while the SPAM tastes like...SPAM. The cooked Tulip is firmer, not as salty and has a bit of smokey bacon flavor. Tulip seems to cook up a bit drier, maybe it's the lack of the gelatin stuff.

Which do I like better? It's like eating a Nestle or Hershey chocolate bar. I like both, but they're definately different. Go with the foreign Nestle bar or the USA product with Hershey? The American SPAM or Danish Tulip? I think I'll just buy whatever is on sale.

The Gap comes to Kohala

The road was still out in Kapa‘au, Kohala which is why we visited Freckles, below. Although the highway has this big gap in it, a short 1/2 block detour allows people to continue past this. The businesses and library just on the Kona side of the gap are still open, though they're sandwiched in between the gap and barricades leading some visitors to avoid the area which is hurting the businesses.


Meet Freckles, a 14 year-old cannine that makes his home at ATV Outfitters in Kohala.

A busy day, not much time for personal photos.

David O

David O. Baldwin photographs the start of the Lavaman Triathlon from the back of a jet ski. We were wondering if the operator was going to gun it to toss David O. overboard, but he seems to have survived to cover the whole race.

Beast and the Beauty

Brian proves that he's a working journalist at the Lavaman Triathlon as Rani plays it cool on the side. A beautiful day down at Anaeho‘omalu Bay for the Lavaman Triathlon. I've got a couple of other photos on my Text America site linked by the small image on the upper right. And I'll try and post a couple more here in the blog. A long day and I'm about ready for some sleep.

Gotta luv the lava

The Lavaman Keiki Beach Dash at Anaeho‘omalu Bay in Waikoloa. The day featured this run then later had the kids swimming and running in the Lavaman Youth Duathlon. I'm not sure what the difference between a duathlon and biathlon is and when I asked several folks they thought I was refering to the biathlon in the Winter Olympics, which I believe is cross-country skiing and rife shooting.


Here LabGal Laura Dierenfield cheers on the keiki athletes as they make their laps around one of the ponds at Anaeho‘omalu Bay (A-Bay to many folks here). Laura worked hard behind the scenes on this event to organize things and get some cool stuff for kids, mahalo also goes out to Lokelani McMichael for the Nike connection for stuff.

Tomorrow is the big race for the Lavaman Triathlon. So stay tuned as I may be adding some cellphone photos during the race. Gotta get some sleep now to wake-up for the early start at 7:30a.m.

Hanging at Huggos

A couple of Travis' friends from the mainland are touring the Big Island as they stay at hotel Travis. Catherine and Brian are from the DC area. Travis, being ever resourceful, saw the bartender putting together a drink for someone and decided to order a few of them. The mojito is a popular Cuban drink. Pretty refreshing and we had a few. We were at Huggos On The Rocks tonight.


I know this looks pretty fuzzy but it's a cellphone photo of 'Hot Lava' a trio of local gals who perform Motown hits along with other tunes. Sorry for the quality of the image but my Nikon CoolPix is going in the shop for some repairs.

Look at the birdie

A lazy day off today, got this cellphone camera image of a Bird of Paradise plant growing in the yard on the way to grab the morning paper. Sorry it's not something more exciting but motivational level is low today.