i L i n d . n e t

Add hardware giant Home Depot to the list of retailers that refuse to ship to Hawaii, period.

Try to order something from their web site and you quickly learn that they will not do any online business with anyone in Hawaii. Really. The reader who brought this to my attention says they won’t even let Hawaii residents order something to be shipped to a mainland address, although I haven’t confirmed that.

In fact, the lack of Hawaii (and Alaska) shipping leads the company’s list of frequently asked questions:

I thought Amazon.com was bad to restrict certain types of products for no apparent reason. Home Depot takes that insult a step further.

Jan TenBruggencate made his retirement from the Advertiser official yesterday with an announcement in his final regular environment column.

One reader emailed me to say TenBruggencate “may be the biggest loss as he is the ONLY decent daily science journalist in the islands.”

But don’t despair. He’s joined the blog world with RaisingIslands.com. Check it out.

And congratulations to Big Island bloggers Hunter Bishop and Aaron Stene, who were selected as tops by readers of Hawaii Island Journal. Those are well deserved accolades.

Well, I suppose I’ll just stop complaining about the hot weather around here recently. We just received an email from a friend and former Kaaawa resident now enjoying the sands of Kuwait courtesy of his employer, the U.S. government. Dave’s smiling, but the thermometer he’s cozied up to, admittedly in the sun, reads 136 degrees. He swears that it’s accurate.

Our sands were a lot more pleasant yesterday morning just after sunrise, and here’s the evidence. Calm ocean and low tide means lots of beach for our early morning walk. Just click for a larger photo.