Summit cellphone photos

A ceremony at the summit of Mauna Kea. See the 8/1/05 West Hawaii Today to see what it was about.


The observatories on Mauna Kea.

On the summit

Betsy and myself on Mauna Kea with the summit in the background on assignment. It may not look that far away but it's a butt-kicker schlepping a bag full of camera gear up there.

Kayak #2

Kayak #2 in the fleet. This is a low-res cameraphone photo.

So now I have two kayaks and a bunch of people who want to go out. Now I just need to find the time, just gotta make time.

Ready for lift-off

Sam and Lily in NASA flight suits at the Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center at Kona International Airport. I saw them walk past the entrance and called them in since it was the anniversary of the center, thus free admission and fun stuff.

The last go-round

More photos to supplement the real-time cellphone images taken Saturday night.

Tequila

Tequila
Originally uploaded by MediaBaron.

Bubba's

Bloody Mary Time

Bloody Mary Time
Originally uploaded by MediaBaron.

Brian's warm up for the night of drinks

Puppy papoose

Rebekah plays marsupial momma carrying around this little Chihuahua pup around Kailua Pier during the keiki canoe races. The pup's real owner was one of the race officials at the finish line and Rebekah took the little sleepy guy for a stroll.

BBQ GeekFest 2005

In continuation of Brian's going away Jim hosted a BBQ + Xbox blowout. Special thanks to Jim for all the food, lemon shots, gaming hook-ups and running out to get a 2nd copy of Halo 2 for the geekfest. We had six controllers set-up with everyone blasting away.

I'm sure it sounded like a war zone in the neighborhood as Jim plugged the audio into the surround sound. I even surprised myself by blasting away Da Mayor a few times though payback was a bitch.

Click on the image above for a gallery of images.

Brushfires and Blue Screens

A smoke plume from a brushfire rises beyond the car of a cop that was chasing me away from the fire area.


The Blue Screen Of Death on Mac OSX? I got this blue screen while booting into MacOSX on the company PowerBook which is so locked-down in admin settings that bugaboos have rendered the laptop often crippled with stuff like this.

The start of the end

A night out at Mixx Bistro and Durty Jakes as we start Brian's last Kona party tour, a weekend of enjoying his last days here. Click on the image above for a gallery.

And I thought I was special

Yesterday I shopped at Borders, Books and Music and got a 30% off coupon on my receipt to be used today on any one item. Cool. But I see that they have a coupon online here. So go for it people, print it out and take that 30% off up to the 24th of this month.

My new ride

My new/used ride. Going to have to bust out the sunscreen and head on down to the ocean soon.

I know, I know...I've been lagging in my blog posts. In fact I had to back-post entries today. So you may want to hit the ARCHIVES link for July to see some stuff that has already scrolled off this front page due to my late posts. I just adjusted this blog to show the last 10 posts so it might be okay now but it will load slower for those on dial-up due to more images on this page.

No Paparazzi

Avoiding the paparazzi with a Sean Penn move, or for you baseball fans maybe its a Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers move. No photographers were injured in the taking of this photograph, not yet anyway until she sees this blog post.

A story of two flowers and two lovers

This is the Naupaka Kahakai flower, it's very common around the coastal areas of the Big island and if you look closely you'll notice it appears to be half a flower. Click on this link to read the legend of the Naupaka flower, a story of two lovers, and why it's only a half flower.


I found the Naupaka Kahakai flower on the way back to my car while down at Kukio to photograph a watersports/running race. This is looking towards the Kua Bay area from Kukio. Kua Bay is on the other side of that rocky coastal area.

Short-timing it in Kona

Jim and Brian look way too sober as Brian prepares to pour some beers at Durty Jakes. Actually they had already gone through some of the preliminary drinking at Bubba Gumps.


Brian plays beer bitch as he pours our first round for us. Actually Brian's a short-timer as he's heading off to SoCal in a week. i'm sure the bars in town will be in mourning for awhile as we make this last attempt to drink our way through Kona town.

Canoe races

Canoe races
Originally uploaded by MediaBaron.

Girls 13 years-old and under 1/4 mile race at Hilo Bay. Hilo really is beautiful when the sun is shining with its blue skies, views of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea and clean air.

Working on Hilo Bay

Working on Hilo Bay
Originally uploaded by MediaBaron.

Outrigger canoe race championships in Hilo Bay

Herbie and the ferns in Kalopa

Had an assignment today at Kalopa State Park, a really beautiful place and found this ladybug on my back window. Not quite the love bug as i saw no #53 on it's back.


I also found some nice backlit ferns behind my car so I took some quick snaps with my little Powershot camera before I left. Not sure which one I like more, maybe the 2nd one below.


Blue skies and a nice change from the rainy weather we've been having lately in town.

Ron gets a kick out of Miss Hawaii

Ron tries not to flinch as Miss Hawaii 2005 Malika Dudley throws a round-house kick to his head. She said she has very good control over her Karate skills and can just miss him by an inch. She was right, we didn't have to pick Ron's head off the ground from across the room.

Gas prices in Kona

Gas prices in Kona
Originally uploaded by MediaBaron.

Watch out for the aluminum and purple Anderson Cooper

Weblogger/Podcaster Chris Pirillo does a good job of doing excitable storm coverage. Hilarious.
Listen Here.

Rain Water

It was pouring rain outside yet the water sprinklers at work were going full blast. So leaving the office I have to get hit by water from above and below then jump over the river of water next to the curb to get to my car. I was just going to pull out and drive off but it looked so ridiculous it begged a photo.

My work laptop may be kaput and many, many important files lost. Not necessarily important to me personally but for work. My own files are backed-up and the work ones were just about to be backed up but not in time. We shall see how the propeller-heads at work do with the laptop.

Kirin = Key-Rrinn not Key-Lynne

That's Mike's plate of food, not mine, remember I don't eat raw fish. A bunch of us had some sushi, sake and Kirin beer at Izakaya Kai restaurant in Kona town. Mike went for a sashimi plate and some miso soup.

I couldn't get Brian to say "Kirin" properly as it's tough if you haven't had your ear used to many Japanese words. That 'R' is a very subtle 'R' sound to it, most folks hear it as an 'L' as in the movie Lost in Translation where Scarlett Johansson's character asks, why do the Japanese mix-up the Rs and Ls? Not sure if Brian orders Flied Lice when ordering food. Think of the same 'R' sound in Suntory during the Suntory Whiskey commercial scene which is pretty hilarious.

The camera brand Nikon (Knee-Kohn) gets Americanized to Nigh-Kohn by many folks, I'm sure having Simon and Garfunkel singing Nigh-Kohn in the song Kodachrome hasn't helped nor has the commericals that have given up and just pronouce it the wrong way.

But don't feel bad, when I was on the mainland at an AAJA convention even our mainland Asian-American journalist friends couldn't pronounce Asian surnames properly, it was funny watching our Hawaii based group of journalists cringe during introductions for keynote speakers.

More photos

Don't get excited, I'm not going back to a photo a day but I have felt guilty about not posting much, thus the sudden spate of images.


On the way back to Kona from Waimea again and the low sun made for a pretty sight with a row of trees. Click on the above image for a bigger view.


While I was stopped I shot a bunch of other photos for the hell of it right next to the car on the side of the road. I saw this backlit grass bending in the wind and thought it might make a nice desktop background image. Click on it for the background sized image that you can save for your computer if you want (for personal use only).


More backlit grass and weeds.


More weeds growing on the side of the highway.


A single fountain grass strand full of seeds ready to go airborne.


And one more photo looking 180 degrees the other way across the highway where the trees were front lit.

All of these photos shot within about 10 feet from each other. It helps to look closer sometimes. Also helps that I used my own camera as the work one isn't quite up to snuff and showing its age badly.

'That's that mattress-man' - from Punch-Drunk Love

Today's New York Times online has a story about Steve Jobs, Apple Computer CEO, calling Errol Rose, the father of the 15 year-old boy that was stabbed and killed for his iPod. Jobs was gracious and provided some solace to the boy's father and I applaud him for his efforts.

I've emailed Apple several times over the past year or so asking them to put a security combination on the iPod so that it would be rendered useless if stolen. I'm disgusted that such a simple addition to the iPod's software hasn't been added while they have games and photo capabilities on the iPod. How about adding a security function like my Palm PDA? The iPod has a feature to store all of my address book on it. Why would I do that when some thief would have access to all that if it was stolen?

Studies have shown that most of the thieves stealing the iPods use it themselves instead of selling it. We need to start a petition to get Apple to put some security in the iPod software. One person dying for a music gizmo is one person too many. We need to tell Apple 'that's that' we ain't going to take it anymore, don't ask for a security feature, demand it. Start by doing it here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html

4th of July Fog

Shot fireworks tonight out in the rain but when I left the office the air was thick with fog and moisture. That's not smoke in the air, it's water vapor.


Our sodium vapor lights in the parking lot give it all a weird tinge of color.

Kohala Reunion, good folks, good music, good food

Click on the above image for a short, about a minute, video from the Kohala Reunion at Kamehameha Park in Kapa‘au, Kohala. You'll need the latest QuickTime to view it and hopefully broadband. Enjoy.