Happy Halloween!

Bubba2Durty

Brian flashes the Lynndie as Glennon tries on his new shades from Sunglass Hut.

Then off we went to Durty Jakes


Mike gets to mug with one of our favorite waitresses at Durty Jake's, Sharon.


Andrea can't find a seat so she takes mine, hey wait, I'm still in it.


Carly's buddy Mainer who's on a two-week leave from the U.S. Army in Kuwait. So let's see about the Middle East, plenty of sand but no booze?


Brian readies to test his arm wrestling skills against Renata.


Over the top the match is on. Ah...did someone tell Renata that Brian is left-handed?

Bubba Boilers

Brian goofs on Travis and Peggy looks on. Maybe too many Bubba Boilers? A Bubba Boiler is a shot of booze (usually tequila) and a glass of beer like the local Kona Brew for about $5.50 and is a pretty good deal in town.


I got to play designated driver as others played designated drinkers. I had two beers the whole night very early and that was it. No boilers for me.

See Saturday posts for the continuation, we were up past midnight.

Bush wired, probably not an iPod

NASA imaging expert reveals electronic device and wires under Bush's debate suit. Salon Magazine gets some expert opinion on Bush's back buldge, I think he owes his tailor an apology for blaming him.

Sometimes still photos don't cut it

A windy day in the pastureland just outside of Waimea town. Can't really capture this in still photos so I shot some video. The hills has this surreal look of shimmering waves going over them, I couldn't find a good spot to pull over for that so here's a field nearby that also has waves of fountain grass in the wind.

Next week I'm on vacation and will hopefully will still be able to continue posting from Los Angeles. I'm going to a SportsShooter.com photography workshop. Not that it's all sports, I'd say over 50% of the workshops are not sports specific. Click on the image below for some video I shot last year with my Nikon CoolPix 4500 camera which explains why the video isn't that great. But the White Stripes music is pretty good. Oh yeah, it's about 10MB is size so this is for broadband users only unless you really enjoy waiting.

Apple blows it...again

Tuesday Apple Computers released the iPod Photo at a press conference. This expensive piece of hardware would be great except for one glaring omission, it lacks a Compact Flash card slot to transfer photos. Photographers need an easy way to dump photos from their memory cards to an iPod so they can format their cards and continue shooting with their prized photos safe on the iPod. Wouldn't it be great if someone mentioned the iPod as having held their Pulitzer Prize winning photo safely while they kept on shooting? Ain't gonna happen with the current iPods. Professional photographers would snap-up an iPod if it had the slot, it would be a write-off for them as a piece of photo gear.

Sure Belkin makes a flash card reader for the iPod but photographers I've heard from say it takes about 40 minutes to transfer images off their flash cards with the Belkin reader. Here Apple has a high capacity, up to 60GB, hard drive device, built-in brains and software yet they leave that all important slot out. They sell adapters online so if you use SD/MMC cards, Memory stick you can still put it in a CF slot.

This is so much deja-vu like when Apple first came out with the 128K Macintosh. It was a closed system, you couldn't add memory or open up the computer. Even the current iMacs can add memory internally and have plenty of connectivity via ports. This is what happens when you fall in love with your product like Steve Jobs has, you don't want to see anything get in the way of your vision of a perfect device. I can see him now "they want slots? Fuck 'em, the iPod is beautiful, it would be ruined with an ugly slot on the side (the only place left with space to have one). Yeah right, you want to see ugly check this out. If it were all black it would be nice but blah.

"Best pork chops in town."

That's the slogan for the Manago Hotel in Captain Cook. And yes, they DO have the best pork chops in town.

I didn't have any tonight, I was just passing through town but stopped to get a snap of their colorful neon sign. Karen says one of their secrets to the pork chops is the cast iron skillet they use for cooking, no doubt this is a big factor, no need for iron supplements when eating here. I think Manago also has their own piggery behind the hotel somewhere, this probably adds to the freshness of the pork chops.

Squealing in the morning, sizzling in the skillet at night. For those who don't dig on swine, they also serve very good fresh fish, maybe it's the pork chop residue in the skillet?

One peculiar thing about the way they serve food at Manago is that you order, then they bring out your rice, mac salad, tsukemono, and corn or beans (canned corn or blue lake cut green beans I think). So you have all of this sitting in front of you sans the pork chops (or fish, or New York steak, or whatever your ordered). So you get to stare at all these fixings waiting for the main protein to arrive. When I first took my folks there we were all so hungry and didn't know the drill so we scarfed everything down in front of us. The waitress was surprised when the pork chops arrived and we had eaten what was supposed to accompany it. She was very nice and brought us more rice to go with the food.

If you're in Kona stay at the Manago hotel and have some pork chops, just don't pig-out before the pork arrives.

Ground control to Major Outage

According to their status site Blogger had a major outage yesterday, seems like they were out sometime today too, though that may have just been pent-up traffic from folks Jones'ing to blog.

Blogger is down and it can't get it up

Blogger is down, I'm posting this manually. The 'real' Tuesday update will probably have to wait until tomorrow. Blogger is what I use to update this weblog, it usually works well creating indexes and archives but tonight as of 10:30 p.m. its website is dead. This is one of the reasons why I host my blog on my own site instead of Blogspot. In the meantime enjoy this photo from today.


The skies are clean from the recent heavy rains and we had a beautiful sunset.

The bookstore that wouldn't die

Middle Earth Bookstore is still open, only barely. The store was supposed to close a month or two ago and everyone has been asking me if it had closed so I decided to take a trip to see what was up. To my surprise it was still open.


At this point everything is 50% off in price.


There were stacks of boxes in the store that said Kailua-Kona Library on them so I can only assume the library bought them or is getting them as a donation. Some books are going to be sent back to the publisher as unsold. This is looking back at what used to be the travel section where the store is pretty cleared-out of books.


Looking back to the front you can see that all the books left have migrated there. The blank are on the right was the cookbook section. I asked the girl at the counter when the store was closing and she said October 31st is the last day. Even she couldn't believe it was still open. So for those folks who want a good deal you only have a few more days to shop.

X-ing, listen, learn, vote

A nice cool day in Waimea as school gets out and students pour through intersections on their way home with the help of a crossing guard keeping traffic at bay. Later tonight it bucketed in Kona along with thunder and lightning. The usual intersections and streets, like in front of the newspaper, flooded with over a foot of water but the streets were fairly empty on the way home, no doubt nobody wanted to be driving in that downpour. No major accidents to cover from what I could tell over the scanner as drove home.

Audible has just put up a webpage with free downloads of the candidate's speeches and debates online. A great service and you'll even get to hear folks like Barack Obama who grew up in Hawaii on the 2nd day of the Democratic convention. Even if you're a Republican there's plenty to download and listen for free. Also Richard A. Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 Commission is a must to listen to.

I've never played the game

Shot golf today at the Waikoloa Beach Golf Course and happened upon Laurie Dorschlein playing. Laurie and I worked at Ka Leo O Hawaii the University of Hawaii newspaper together. Laurie was the advertising manager and I was a staff photographer. She must have been one of the most successful managers there and now runs her own agency on Oahu. I hadn't seen her since college.


Here I am waiting near the 14th tee waiting for golfers while covering a women's amateur golf tournament. I've never played golf, never even hit balls on a driving range and I have been on many golf courses but all with camera in hand covering golf matches. I was even offered by Arnold Palmer once to golf on the Hapuna golf course before it opened as he gave me and a writer a tour during construction, I had to admit that I don't golf to Palmer.

Not that I wouldn't probably enjoy golf should I ever take it up, but I'm afraid I'd be all encompassed by it like so many others. Golfers get totally absorbed in the game, buying the latest clubs, balls, shoes, clothes, bags, tees, etc. If Callaway came out with "The Big, Big, Biggest, Baddest, Breakthrough, Bamboocha Bertha Driver" folks would have that sucker on back-order, even if was the size of a watermelon. I have a few thoughts myself about golf:

• No handicaps. Sure folks say it allows inexperienced golfers (aka bad golfers) to play with experienced golfers but really. If you play Shaq basketball you expect to get your ass whooped by 100 points you can't have him spot you 99 points. If you suck, you suck, be proud.
  
• Golf should be only be allowed for beginners and pros. PGA & LPGA golf is entertaining to watch and hey you gotta promote sports amongst youngsters that want to learn. but everyone inbetween those two should be either banned from playing golf or forced to golf in secret.
  
• No talking about golf outside the golf course or clubhouse. All those stories about, "I got on the green in two then almost had a bird on a 15 foot putt." Come on, is your golf game of the week really of importance to re-live? Once someone starts golfing all they want to talk about is golf: in restaurants, in the office (major offender here by folks), at parties, at the urinal, etc. Remember, your playing golf is supposed to be a secret, see thought above this one.
  
• What kind of sport allows you to smoke cigars and drink booze while performing it? Okay, so there's billards, bowling, darts, poker and ice fishing. But I guess that's the appeal of smoking stinky cigars, drinking booze and getting to drive what looks like an overgrown bumper-car escaped from the carnival. Make golf healthy, make everyone walk. The pros do it and if amateurs want to be like the pros make them all walk too.
  
• Ban the use of phrases like, "golf is all mental", "golf is cerebral, a thinking man's game" Come on, is that why you need thousands of dollars worth of equipment? Just borrow clubs from the pro shop and use your mental skills to win.
  
• Full disclosure about condos and homes with jacked-up prices being sold next to golf courses. Folks, the reality is if you live up against a golf course be aware that: that grass needs to be mowed just about every day with noisy mowers, balls will gravitate to your home or windows, swearing, noisy old farts with stinky cigars will be right outside your home. They don't put that in the brochures for those home do they? Arlene once told me the main purpose to have a golf course is to make the homes around it more expensive, I agree.
  
• More sponsors for LPGA golf. This may sound weird from someone ranting a bit about golf but I've covered LPGA golf and folks like Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb have been some of the nicest people to deal with in my humble opinion (I'll admit that Arnold Palmer has always been a great guy to deal with too). More females should be allowed to enjoy the sport. LPGA golf doesn't have the kind of monetary support that even the Champions Tour has.
  
• The Champions Tour. This used to be called the "Seniors Tour" but I guess they didn't like being called 'seniors' because it made them seem too old. Guess what, you folks are old, live with it. At least you're a pro so you would be allowed to play golf out in the open and not in secret according to my rules. Should we just start using the word 'champions' to mean seniors? Give me the champion's discount on that slam breakfast; let me buy a champion's bus pass; I paddle in the champion's masters crew of Kai Opua; I've worked here longer, I have championority; I was a junior in high school last year but now I'm a champion.
  

Now it must really seem like I don't like golf even though both my dad and brother golf all the time and I often buy them golf packages at charity auctions (folks always think I love to golf because I'm bidding on these golf packages). Some thought on golf that will make anti-golf folks hate me:

• Golf courses are good because they allow the treated water from sewage treatment plants to be used properly.
  
• Golf courses allow for plenty of emergency landing fields for private aircraft should their engines fail. (I've personally photographed planes on golf courses a number of times)
  
• There aren't enough golf courses in Hawaii. Yep, there just isn't enough for the amount of people playing the game. Not that I propose building a bunch more but it's just a fact. Lots of people like to golf and we need more affordable golf courses, Kona needs a municipal course.
  

Okay, that's enough for now before they start aiming those drives off the tee at me.

Now that's what I call a Bubba Burger!

Had lunch today at the HPA Pumpkin Patch fund raiser and I couldn't resist having a burger cooked by Kerry, Dubya and the big Bubba himself Clinton. This trio donned masks and were grilling burgers all day, lucky for them it was nice and cool in Waimea. Clinton must have been a bit breezy wearing that hospital gown. I mean, how often do you get to have the president serve you a burger?

Birthday Girl

It's Carly's birthday so off we went to Cassandra's for beer, tequila and Juni's karaoke. We did get to sing her Happy Birthday as the crowd joined in too.

Dat Dere Over Der Rainbow

On my way back to the office from Waimea the sky was misted with a light rain and the sun produced this rainbow. I've seen these often in the stretch of the road south of of the Waimea-Kohala Airport on the Mamalahoa Hwy but it never ceases to amaze. Being from Oahu you rarely get to see both ends of the rainbow as there are too many buildings, trees and what-not. On the Big Island, especially in Waimea this is a common treat.

I noticed Chika also spied a rainbow on her last trip to west Hawaii. I couldn't fit the entire rainbow either with my little camera so I took my 'real' camera out with a super wide-angle lens which also included the telephone lines. Sure I could have gotten out, ran to the fence to get rid of the lines but it was raining and I was in a hurry to get back to town.

No POTD but Ironman update

No POTD today but I found some photos I thought I lost from Ironman day. Go to the 10/16 posts to see Labgal Laura and photog Robert Oliver.

Worship the sun

I think George Carlin said it best when it comes to religion

Overnight I became a sun-worshipper. Well, not overnight, you can't see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshipper. Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I'm big on that. If I can see something, I don't know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know? So everyday I can see the sun, as it gives me everything I need; heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional skin cancer, but hey. At least there are no crucifixions, and we're not setting people on fire simply because they don't agree with us...

I decided to worship the sun. But, as I said, I don't pray to the sun. You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Two reasons: First of all, I think he's a good actor, okay? To me, that counts. Second, he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that God was having trouble with.

 For years I asked God to do something about my noisy neighbor with the barking dog, Joe Pesci straightened that cocksucker out with one visit. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a simple baseball bat.-- George Carlin

So there you go, worship the Kona sunset.

No POTD

No POTD, Podcasts, Secret Bush prompting

No POTD today.

A great new industry has started up, it's called Podcasting with two influential geeks on the net spearheading the effort. Dave Winer who has been a pioneer with weblogs and now with Podcasting, and Adam Curry who many will remember as being one of the original MTV VJs (his hair isn't as big as it used to be). Podcasting is like Tivo for radio. If you use the iPodder software and leave your computer on it can capture pre-recorded Podcasts and download them automatically to your computer and iPod. I kinda like to do it manually since the software hasn't been perfected yet.

Winer put together a script (he's an expert at scripting) to post the 100 latest Podcasts. One of Curry's favorites is the Dawn and Drew Show! I'd have to agree, it's pretty funny to listen to. Also good is Curry's Daily Source Code show.

When will the first Hawaii Podcast show up?

And I captured a clip from Curry's podcast today. A secret recording proving Bush gets prompted by an earpiece during speeches. Enjoy.

The Day After

The Ironman Triathlon's over, photos have been shot, interviews done and Brian got Carolyn and myself to come up to Cassandra's where the rest of the gang were already slugging down a pitcher or two of beer.


Brian squeezes in for a photo with a group of triathletes from the original Ironman Triathlon back in 1978 in Honolulu. These four guys were some the original crazies in the pain-festival which would eventually move to the Big Island.


Joe asks, "sir...can I have some more?"


Glennon and Ron with their freebie hats grabbed at the finish line where sponsor's giveaways are tossed into the crowds. At midnight is when boxes of Timex watches are tossed to the crowds.


Carly and Brandon (our newpaper's webmaster). Brandon volunteered in the water patrol for the start of the Ironman.


Brandon and wife, water patrol duo.


Carolyn, Travis and myself rehydrate at Cassandra's after a long Ironman Triathlon day.

Rehydration

I not sure if that's Gatorade in those paper cups at the Ironman Triathlon finish line.

Loaded

Labgal Laura plays geek-girl loaded with enough radio gear to even make Dubya at the debates jealous. Laura was one of the race directors so I guess the gear was so she could direct her crew.


San Diego sports photographer Robert Oliver does the Ironman Triathlon backwards. Here Robert is loaded with camera gear as he gets ready to head out on the marathon portion of the race.


Robert laughs with a bit of frustration as his remote camera mounted way above the finish line on the top of scaffolding isn't working via remote control (see the little transmitter in his hand). He speculates it has something to do with the lava rocks he took home during last year's Ironman trip.

Burl's explanation for Bush's back pack

Burl Burlingame may have figured-out what the President had under his jacket.

I shot photos today for work but nothing for the blog.

Tequila+Beer+Karaoke=Party Time

The WHT gang, some of us, hanging at Durty Jakes for some Juni Superstar Miracle Tiki Karaoke time.

As usual click on the image of the thumbnail page to open the web gallery.

HIP Photographers

The 5th Annual HIP (Hawaii Ironman Photographers) dinner at Bubba Gumps. Here we get together for stories about the Athens Olympics, past Ironman triathlons and other tales of photography. Included in this bunch are Sports Shooters Robert Oliver from San Diego and Delly Carr from Sydney, Australia. Delly is the out of focus one in the first image in black, Robert is the one getting a smooch from his wife Krista in one of the photos.

Mike Darden and Brian Powers were also there along with various other Aussies and the like. They headed for Lulu's for more drinking and some dancing, Mike and I waited for Brian to head to Durty Jakes.

There goes the sun

Today's partial solar eclipse as seen from the Natural Energy Labratory of Hawaii access road. With no planes to get in the photo with the sun I found a palm tree nearby to put in the foreground.


Then I zeroed in on the sun as it disappeared behind heavy clouds and that was it for the eclipse.

Which photo do you folks like better?


My view with my 300mm f2.8L doubled to 600mm.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

Got down to the NELHA access road with plenty of time to set-up for the partial eclipse at 5:14 p.m. But the gods were not totally in my favor. The wind was blowing south to north, it was blowing the opposite yesterday, so planes would be taking-off and not landing through the eclipse area. Sure I could have driven north of the airport but that would have meant running around a lava field to get into position, plus with my camera gear someone might think I'm some kind of nut aiming at the airplanes.


So I took some practice shots again before the eclipse, here's an F-18 Hornet taking off from Kona International Airport.


Here's an Aloha Airlines 737 after taking off and heading to Honolulu, notice how the plane veers west pretty quickly so it doesn't get to close to the sun at my angle.

Note: I'm going to embargo my eclipse photos until tomorrow since I gave some to the newspaper. I want to let them publish them first in Thursday's paper, then I'll post images here.


I did get some nice partial solar eclipse photos which I'll post tomorrow (see note above). But none with airplanes in them, nobody took-off during the partial eclipse while I was there. Also thick clouds prevented me from seeing the climax of the eclipse as the sun dropped behind the clouds at about 5:45 p.m. which is quite a bit before when it would have sunk into the ocean. So while the clouds and lack of planes turned out to be a lemon I did make some tasty lemonade in the way of photos, you'll just have to wait a day.

Eye, ayee, ayee

When viewing the partial solar eclipse today make sure you use eye protection like one of these specialized solar viewers, that's what I used held up to my camera's viewfinder so I wouldn't burn my eyes out. You can also use the filters from a welder's mask or use welder's goggles. Sunglasses aren't enough and the the old trick of using exposed film doubled over isn't enough either.

Perfect practice makes perfect

This is a sunset shot with my Canon PowerShot s500 camera, a tiny, smaller than a pack of cigarettes camera. I was down at NELHA to get some sunset shots. Actually I thought I was going to shoot some solar eclipse images but I had misread a Star-Bulletin story about the partial solar eclipse, the eclipse is tomorrow near sunset.


Not to let an opportunity go to waste I decided to practice on the shots I'd shoot tomorrow during the actual partial eclipse. I got out my real camera gear that I own, the newspaper's cameras are not up to snuff for these kind of photos. Here a Hawaiian Airlines jet comes in for a landing at Kona International Airport. I got a photo over a decade ago of a Hawaiian Airlines jet screaming over me during taking-off silhouetted by a partial solar eclipse. I had to do a ton of running around to get that photo (literally, had to get into position on the ground while the plane was taking-off to get it framed properly with the sun) and it came out great, but it was a bitch to print due to the sun being so bright and the plane being and sky around being so dark.

So it's a good thing I had today to practice, I can note the position of the sun and exposures for tomorrow. It would be much easier for me to shoot a photo of the partial eclipse and a tree, building or tower, something that isn't moving but where's the challenge in that? A music teacher once told me, "Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect." Of course I pretty much nailed this practice shot, what are the chances that I can do the same tomorrow? I'm guessing pretty slim.


The sun kept getting lower in the sky, impossible to get planes with the sun. So I cranked the lens up to 600mm and shot a few photos of folks jogging and walking on the road as the sun kept sinking. A good practice shot for the upcomming Ironman Triathlon, last year it was much to cloudy to get a shot like this.


I had put my telephoto back in the car when I saw the sun's glow and start to enter a cloud, I hurried and pulled the equipment back out and got off a few more shots, I was sure that was the last I'd see of the sun since it was disappearing behind a cloud.


I put all the gear back in the car then noticed that the sun reappeared beneath the cloud bank, so I hurried up again to get a few more shots.


Sinking fast the sun was gone for good below the horizon.

Sunset and Swag

Today is my Friday and as I left the sky was checkered with clouds for cool, muted sunset seen from our parking lot. Hopefully conditions are cool on Saturday during the Ironman Triathlon.


I had gone to the Ironman Media Center earlier today and took Joe with me to get him introduced to the system of getting credentialed. Every year they give members of the media a bag full of swag, stuff specifically for the media like our access passes and wristbands (I'm not photographing that, don't want anyone to copy them) and stuff pitched in from the sponsors of the race.

In the bag this year you'll find (from bottom to top): Ironman visor (cotton this year, not cheapie styrofoam or plastic), Gatorade bottle, Ironman Triathlon 2004 poster, a notebook by Janus (last year Brian got a Janus beach towel, I had him fold it appropriately for a photograph), Ironman pin, Fig Newtons, Fig Newtons fanny pack, an official Media T-shirt (must be worn on Ironman day), a Volkswagon Tureg T-shirt, an Ironman program, Ironman Media Guide and spectator's guide. It all came in the bag under it.

A pretty good haul. Lots of stuff brought in by the sponsors are given away during Ironman week and day. Timex is a major sponsor and in town at the Ironman Experience (and expo at Hale Halawai) you can usually get free watchbands, free samples of athlete products like weird high energy foodstuffs, and during the actual race at the finish line they're always tossing out free T-shirts, hats, watches, visors, stickers, etc. If you like freebies, come down to the finish and act like you're catching a Barry Bonds homer.

The thought process

Carolyn ponders the differences between eucalyptus robusta and eucalyptus saligna for her story or maybe she's trying to decide what to eat for dinner, or maybe she's wondering why I'm shooting her photo. I get desperate when I don't have a photo of the day.

More Durty photos

Jaymes (Mr. Wong to Andrea) and Andrea have some conversation at Durty Jake's. Jaymes is regular at DJ's and a regular for karaoke there too. It's no wonder that just about everyone who stepped into DJ's stopped at our table to say hi to Jaymes.


Okay, I got bored and curve filtered Andrea in Photoshop. The photo was dark and it was easier to do this than correct it to make it look like a 'real' photo. Andrea switched to Red Bull and I downed the rest of her Corona. A bunch of light-weight drinkers tonight.

One for the road, okay...maybe two or three for the road

A small group for pau hana (after work) drinks at Durty Jake's. Andrea and Joe have a little convo over Coronas. Usually a Rolling Rock drinker DJ's could only muster up a Corona for Joe.

See, Oct. 10th post for a couple more photos, we were there past midnight.

Puppet president or just bad tailoring?

No photo today, but I couldn't help reading on Salon Magazine about the possibility of President Bush being hooked-up to a radio receiver for his debate answers. It really struck me as odd when I watched the first debate, the way Bush would have his turn to answer and would take a long, uncomfortable pause like he had to think, but maybe he was just listening for his answer to give. It was really uncomfortable, I wanted to yell at the screen "Say something. Say anything! Ah, maybe don't say anything. Say something intelligent!"

You can see a photo of a rectangular object under Bush's jacket at http://www.IsBushWired.com and more commentary at http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/.

I know this is old news since I'm posting this blog entry late but in today's New York Times online reporter Katharine Q. Seelye says in her real-time report during the second debate Did Kerry just swipe Bush's back to see if there was a transmitter? Looks like Kerry reads the conspiracy blogs too.

You will have to register or click on an ad to see some of those links, especially Salon and NYT, for free.

No POTD

Free Range Turkeys

Just about every day on the way to work I see a flock (gaggle? group? bunch?) of turkeys. There are about half a dozen of these big birds running around the neighborhood. This is a bunch of hens, there's one big male that spreads his tail feathers out sometimes to show-off. They always seem to be brazen as we get closer to Thanksgiving.

I took this snapshot as I was driving past them, thus the so-so photo quality. They usually seem to be camera shy and seem to scare the heck out of my cat who probably can't believe the freakish size of birds compared to what she's used to.

HA, no laughing matter, let's get HI

Went to the NBC TV website to see what they had to say about the VP vs. VP-Wannabe debate tonight. I was greeted with this ad, one of those cookie-enabled Javascript ads to get a free iPod. You're supposed to drag your state symbol over to your choice of candidate but I couldn't find Hawaii which should be HI according to the Post Office. Instead the dunces who created the ad used HA instead. Click on the ad to see a full-sized version with the error circled.

Maybe Dan Quayle has a new job at the ad agency?

No POTD, Halloween Talk

No Picture of the Day today. Got into a conversation with Indiana Andrea about Halloween and dressing up for it. Last year's Halloween was pretty fun, this year it falls on a Sunday and a work day for me and others too. Considered going to Maui but with work happening that'a probably out of the question.

Kealakekua Bay

An early morning assignment down at Kealakekua Bay for the pre-Ironman practice swim. No timing, no divisions, not many rules (swim across to the Captain Cook monument on the opposite side, touch the warf, swim back). Some folks wore fins and snorkles. A beautiful day down there.

Super-Concentrated, Ultra Flavor

Went for lunch today at the Kohala Ohana Grill. We did a story about this place before, they have the unusual system of filling orders. You find a table you want, the waithelp brings you this menu sheet (or you can grab one yourself) which you fill-out and drop-off at a window near the cashier, they take that and bring your food to your table. A strange system that appears to work as it cuts down on the time workers spend hovering around the tables so service is pretty fast.


A close-up of the menu reveals another oddity at this restaurant, Dorito Salad. See next photo.


Dorito Salad is a tossed salad with a very rich dressing, grated cheese and crushed Dorito chips. I wouldn't consider this salad to be lite lunch fare but in Hawaii we have so many different types of food the tastebuds of local folks tend to favor industrial strength flavors. Not delicate flavorings, more like the way industrial cleaning products come these days, not watered-down, just Ultra power. My family restaurant in Honolulu tends to be on the industrial strength flavor side.


Here's the Korean Chicken plate I ordered. Rice, Dorito Salad and Korean Chicken. Industrial strength flavor, pretty good.


I'm not sure what's going to happen with this restaurant. When they started it had three families involved, now it's just down to one. One or two days a week it also used to be a Thai restaurant, kind of a split personality of a business. It was only open for lunch from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. a ridiculously short span of time. What they should have done was open at 11:30am for lunch and put flyers on cars at the high school track meet a couple of miles away to get customers. They would have had a bunch of customers, as it was I was the sole customer for lunch, I shot this photo as I left and they closed the door behind me.

Flashing

Worked in Waimea today and toured an old restored ranch house. I turned to see this stand-up mirror with a koa frame and took a snap. Excuse the socks, after walking around in the garden area outside on a rainy Waimea day I decided to hemo da shoes before going inside, at least my socks are new with no holes.