Coffee Festival, A Golf Par"ish," Travel Plans, Clinic Problems

 [Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

11/5/22

Aloha Everyone  --

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

No big house projects this week, just the usual whacking, trimming, and pest control chores.  Living in a sub-tropical climate is very pleasant for humans, but it also is ideal for other critters, too.  Co-existence requires routine control measures to keep the less desirable ones in check.  For instance, once a month or so I use an insecticide around the outside perimeter of the house to reduce the ant/cockroach/centipede/termite/mosquito problem that would otherwise develop.  We try to be reasonably environmentally conscious about this, but doing nothing would be a very bad idea.

This week is the annual Kona Coffee festival, which goes back to 1970.  It's a pretty big deal, with parades, a beauty contest, and a coffee cupping competition.  One event we've gone to in the past is held in the little artist's village near us named Holualoa.  Different coffee growers pair up with art shops and you can walk the main street tasting coffee and admiring the art.  We haven't gone for a few years, so we may stop by.  I've learned to go easy on the coffee, though.

Karen and I dropped off our ballots this week.  For us this a pretty easy task -- Hawai'i allows mail-in voting, as well as a few secure drop-boxes.  One of the boxes is at the Civic Center, right on the way to Costco, so it was a quick stop.  There aren't any big controversial issues this time, and the integrity of the voting procedure is very tight.  One of the candidates for governor, Josh Green, is a physician from our island and did a good job during the pandemic as Lieutenant Governor, so he's our favorite. He's also a rarity these days -- someone near the center. Otherwise the races are very local and thankfully focus more on competence and values that on identity politics.

I played golf this week with Karen and her usual golf buddy.  After my stellar performance on my last outing I was concerned I'd really blow it this time.  Actually, all three of us did pretty well, though my main moment of glory was a par on one hole -- actually it was par"ish" because I redid one stroke, which is legal under our group's rules.  I also got a couple of bogies, and most of the time played reasonably well.  The weather was gorgeous until the very end -- sunny and clear, pleasantly cool at that elevation.  Karen got a real par, and her friend got a birdie.  We finished all 18 holes and that effort made my usual afternoon beer taste extra good.

This week we finalized arrangements for a short trip to Los Angeles in December.  We're going to stay most of the time in downtown LA, something we've never done before.  It has a lot to offer there in terms of art deco architecture, museums, and some highly rated restaurants.  We'll then spend a couple of days visiting an old grad school friend who lives in Santa Barbara before returning home.  This is a whirlwind trip for us -- only about 10 days.  Besides being fun, we're going in part to kick up our airline miles to put us into a higher perk category for next year.  And these days you need all the perks you can get to make flying tolerable.

Finally, an illustration of the somewhat iffy state of our health care here is the sudden shutdown of one of the major clinics that does CTs, X-Rays, etc. About two weeks ago their computer systems that hold patient records and coordinate appointments crashed and still hasn't been restored.  I was supposed to have a chest CT as you may recall, but that is on hold for now.  I could go to the local hospital for the scan, but one of the main reasons for doing it is to compare the current results to the past scans I've had to track any changes, like the progression of my emphysema.  All those past records are with the closed clinic.  The organization has been suspiciously tight-lipped about what exactly happened and why it is taking so long to get the system restored.  Surely a medical facility with health information about thousands of people would have had a backup that would allow them to get back online almost immediately.  My geeky background leads me to suspect the organization was negligent either in securing the information or safeguarding it and they're scrambling to cover their asses from the legal fallout.  I'll keep you posted on this one.

Ok, off to market and the beach for breakfast.  Take care, vote while it still counts.