April 1, 2006 - Saturday

It was wet, dark, cloudy and ominous yesterday morning, but that didn't seem unusual after a month of rain. Then came the noon storm that flooded many parts of Honolulu. I suppose now everyone is just waiting to see whether that was the the storm's final parting shot or just another episode in a continuing crescendo.

Ray in Wisconsin had this reaction to yesterday's comment on reporting of a head-on crash:

Well, I suppose there could be a head-on with both going in the same direction...if for some reason one of the cars was going backward at a slower rate of speed in front of one going forward at a higher rate...apparently you have driving maneuvers in Hawaii we don't try here. At least, not unless there's an ice storm.

And from a local reader:

Our Thursday Star-Bulletin (Afternoon Edition) had an interesting, and almost unnoticed, feature in it.

Page A-5 - containing two stories about the Kukui Gardens situation -was reprinted entirely and whole, with ads, from the WEDNESDAY edition ...even down to the page headings and date ...

Now, recycling news is one thing, but just reprinting the past ...

Presumably another new S-B feature ...

But interesting ...
for being so unusual ...

Ouch!

Meanwhile, start your Saturday by checking out this video described as "a full body massage by a redhead."

March 31, 2006 - Friday

It's turned out to be a good week. First there was the chili cookoff win. Then yesterday afternoon I received word that my Honolulu Weekly story on the situation at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility was awarded the top spot in the category of Editorial Enterprise Reporting in the Hawaii Publishers Association annual Pa'i Awards competition. Runnerups in the category were two entries from the Honolulu Advertiser.

I have to claim bragging rights here since the listings in the dailies do not include names of any writers except their own winners. The same thing happened yesterday when they announced the results of the chili cookoff on the House floor during session: "And the winner is...the office of Representative Lyla Berg!"

Okay, keep going...what? That's it? No naming of the winning cook? I've been robbed!

And yesterday's radio appearance was cancelled when KIPO was knocked off the air again by the bad weather. Of course, I didn't hear about it until I'd braved the rain with umbrella and bus fare, walked from the bus stop on Kapiolani, and found my way damp but ready to the public radio studio. Sorry, no show today. Shrug. Back into the rain.

So it goes. Humility. Ha'aha'a. It's okay. Sort of.

I'll have to track down the judges' comments on the winning story...in the meantime, with Chili and Pa'i wins in the same week, I've probably used up the entire reservoir of good luck. But I'll celebrate this weekend anyway!

An alert reader caught this item:

And then there was the Page One story in the Wednesday afternoon Star-Bulletin about a fatal traffic accident involving a head-on collision of two cars traveling in "opposite directions." I'm trying to picture a head-on collision of two cars traveling in the same direction.

I was pointed yeserday to an extraordinary collection of photos from hiking trails across Oahu, including the trail along the ridge above Kaaawa, rated "EXTREME" (trail 33). And that set includes this large photo looking down on our end of Kaaawa, including our house, which is immediately above the large unoccupied parcel of land at the center-left. You may have to scroll around the large photo to see it all. So here's a small piece of the photo with landmarks indicated. What a great place to be!

In any event, happy Friday.

March 30, 2006 - Thursday

While forecasters predict more days of potentially heavy rain, it was a beautiful sunrise in Kaaawa yesterday. The dark clouds moving in from the south just added a touch of drama. Click for a larger photo.

From a National Weather Service public statement issued earlier this week (apologies for the "shouting", the caps were all in the original):

FOR MUCH OF THE STATE...THIS MARCH HAS BEEN VERY MUCH LIKE THAT OF MARCH 1951. IN REVIEWING UPPER LEVEL ATMOSPHERIC PATTERNS...THERE WAS A REMARKABLE SIMILARITY THAT MONTH TO THE CURRENT PATTERN...NOT ONLY ACROSS THE PACIFIC BUT THE ENTIRE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. AS THE CASE THIS YEAR...1951 SAW A SERIES OF HEAVY RAIN EVENTS ACROSS MUCH OF THE STATE. RECORDS FROM 1951 INDICATE SIGNIFICANT FLOODING AND AGRICULTURAL LOSSES THAT WERE ESTIMATED AT NEARLY $1.3 MILLION.

Who is spending what to lobbying the federal government? The Center for Responsive Politics has launched a new lobbyist database which can be searched by client, lobbyist, or agency being lobbied. Here's a press release announcing availability of the new data.

If you're near a radio this afternoon, tune in to Town Square with Beth-Ann Kozlovich ( 5 to 6 PM KIPO 89.3FM) for a discussion of traditional and electronic media. From Larry Geller, who pulled the guest list together: "I'm trying to put traditional and "new" media in the same studio and see what happens." Okay, let's see!

For a different and interesting view of the situation in New Orleans, check out this blog by a Texas woman who sees a revolution in progress.

And this from a reader formerly of Hawaii and now living in Oregon by way of Texas:

Now about that black cat...he or she looks like a really nice cat. And the fact that s/he was able to charm their way through your cats to get to the food speaks well for his/her personality. Might this be a new addition to your cat family?

I was toying with the idea of getting a third cat. Ever since reading Peter Gethers' book about his cat, Norton, I've thought it would be nice to add a rescued Scottish Fold to the family. But Fuzzy and Tiger remain negative on the subject of sharing their home with any other cats.

(The web site for a pet sitters' association explains it this way: How would you feel if a stranger moved into your house without a by-your-leave? This stranger would be in your bathroom when you wanted to use it, eating the food you'd carefully saved for your supper, playing with your things and even sleeping in your bed. Put that way, I had to admit I could see Fuzzy and Tiger's point.)

March 29, 2006 - Wednesday

There was big news yesterday at the capitol. No, I'm not talking about the gas cap or the other bills and resolutions on the Legislature's busy schedule. I'm talking the House Chili Cookoff that drew about 20 entries, including the winner, my black bean turkey-habanero chili. Click on the photo for more.

The chili cookoff

Meanwhile, Rep. Josh Green gets credit for changing into his medical hat and quickly responding when two people were injured while attending an educational event yesterday down on the main floor of the capitol. I saw him leaving his office with a first aid kit and watched as he made his way downstairs, then through the crowd to prompt medical attention to one of the injured. Sometimes it's lucky that there's a doctor in the House.

It's another one of those two newspaper mornings, this time dueling reports on the FAA and Hawaii Air Ambulance:

Honolulu Advertiser adopts a critical tone: "FAA asks air medic company to hold off"

The Federal Aviation Administration has asked Hawaii Air Ambulance to ground its medical transport flights until inspections of its operations and maintenance records are completed, says company president and CEO Andrew Kluger.

While the Star-Bulletin spins positively: "Air ambulance planes inspected, ready to fly"

Inspection of two Hawaii Air Ambulance airplanes has been completed, and they should be ready to begin flying missions by the end of the week, says Andrew Kluger, company chairman and chief executive officer.

Two perspectives on the same facts. Take your pick.

A reader called attention to a full-page of pseudo-news in yesterday's Star-Bulletin:

i wanted to make sure you saw p A-11 of the s-b today. both articles are ads, but are set in news text and headline fonts. small "advertisement" top and bottom but camouflaged. i read both articles and started to turn the page before i realized they were ads. viewed against the opposing p A-10 they sure look like legitimate news stories. even the "bylines" are done in a style to mislead.

normally, the papers have used a different font for those things.

this one was plain bad! hope you agree.

One article pitches rolls of private mint coins, while a second proclaims a 12-hour "deadline" for getting free diet pills. I'm looking at them now and can't find anything identifying them as advertisements, at least in this edition. They carry a byline of the "Universal Media Syndicate", making them appear to be some kind of wire service story. Although they seem to use a slightly different font than the news stories on the opposite page, they would be nearly indistinguishable to most readers.

March 28, 2006 - Tuesday

It was raining again yesterday morning, then slowed enough for us to walk and check conditions. The usual spots were flooded, including this area near the corner of Hauhele and Puakenikeni, and farther along down Kekio Road.

click for more

Then an amazing thing happened. Sometime in the early afternoon the sun appeared. Instant ecstacy! This must be the way the appearance of spring feels on the mainland. Having enough sun to see shadows seemed like a miracle after the several feet of rain we've had over the past month.

There's an interesting little bill slipping through the legislature. It seems state law allows legislators to begin collecting their retirement at age 65 while still serving in office and collecting their regular salary. This special treatment for legislators apparently caused a bit of a problem because most state and country employees are prohibited from doing the same thing.

So the legislature set out to create its version of a level playing field by allowing any elected official, not just legislators, to do the same.

SB54 had been held over from last year and passed by the Senate this year after being amended to only apply to elected officials who have served 20 years in office immediately prior to filing for retirement. But the House quickly restored the original measure which applies to all regardless of length of service.

Bob Jones caught this bit of whiplash:

FED NOT LIKELY TO CHANGE INTEREST RATES

AP - 25 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - While the Federal Reserve has a new chairman for the first time in nearly two decades, it is not likely to change the central bank's two-year pattern of pushing interest rates higher.

I just noticed that the Star-Bulletin is offering readers larger versions of some of its photographs, a departure from normal practice. For example, check today's story on the homeless march to city hall. In the photo caption there is an option, 'click for large'.

March 27, 2006 - Monday

Kuhio Day and a holiday in Hawaii.

It rained on Sunday. All day. Steadily. Sometimes it rained harder than others. At times it drizzled. At other times it came down pretty hard. It never pounded down as it had a couple of weeks ago. But it just kept raining. It was wet, and dark. It felt, we realized, like mainland winter, minus the cold.

Kili would rather be outside

And it's still raining. Even Silverman, the almost always outside cat, is in the house this morning staying dry, at least for a while.

I did take advantage of the weather and collect another set of cat photos. If you're so inclined, just click on Ms. Kili's picture to see the new pics.

I was able to introduce myself yesterday (via email) to a newly discovered cousin in New Zealand, Pene Quin. My sister explains the relationship:

Our grandfather Lind had one brother who remained in Scotland: James Lind. James married twice. There were 8 children by his first wife, and one by his second: William Buchanan Lind. He was born in 1918, so would be 5 years younger than our father. He is Pene's father. Pene is our 2nd cousin. She is starving for Lind family, thought she was the only one left in the entire world! Little did she know!!!!

So greetings to Pene.

I'll be spending much of the day making a big pot of my regular hot/healthy black bean chili for tomorrow's chili cookoff at the capitol.

March 26, 2006 - Sunday

The good news is that this house across from the Kaaawa Fire Station was vacant when a big chunk of its back yard fell into Makaua Stream sometime in the last couple of days. It was not a pretty sight when we saw it early yesterday morning. Click on the photo for a larger version.

We had another brief storm last night, an hour or two with lightning, thunder, several fire trucks arriving from the Kaneohe direction with sirens blaring, and what looked like a fire department helicopter setting down in Kaaawa. There's really no source of timely news about such things, but hopefully we'll find out today what was going on.

It's Sunday of a three day weekend, down time really, so I'll use this to catch up. I'm just getting around to sharing my favorites from the month of February. Actually prepared the gallery a week or more ago but never remembered to add this link.

February gallery

And more readers' pets, this time all the way from New Zealand's South Island. Quite a handsome quartet, including Caleb & Isha, shown here, and their feline friends Sylvester and Twiggy. Just click on the photo go see the whole family. When I have time, I'll add more of the great photos that were sent along.

To see your pets in the readers' gallery, just email me a photo or two (ian@ilind.net).