A Flood

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

11/22/25

Aloha All!

 

One of my past blogs was about "Whack-A-Mole Maintenance," the experience of having just taken care of one house maintenance issue when another immediately crops up to take its place. That's what happened here this week, and the new problem turned out to be a dandy.  On Tuesday my handyman and I replaced the ventilation motor I wrote about last week and got the fan back on the roof and working perfectly.  The warm glow of accomplishment lasted about two hours, until I went to check on a small leak in our pool pump that I had discovered a day before.  Water was shooting out of the pump housing with such force that it went all the way across the room and hit the opposite wall.  It looked much like one the lava geysers our volcano has been belching lately.  The pool equipment is housed in a little room that connects with a room that we use mainly as a quiet retreat. It is open on two sides and it connects with our pool deck.  We have a small couch and a couple of chairs there, and it's where I do my morning laptop computer surfing, meditating, and occasional napping.  Anyway, the indoor/outdoor carpeting was soaked, as well as the couch cushions and all the objects we had on display along the wall.  I managed to get the pump turned off pretty fast, but I think it had been going for awhile, judging from the puddles on the floor.

 

We spent the rest of the day dealing with all the water.  I went over the carpet several times with my shop-vac while Karen dried everything else off and moved the cushions out into the sun to drip and dry.  I was relieved to find that my laptop computer, which had gotten pretty wet, seems ok. One upside to this near disaster was that the carpet needed cleaning anyway, and the other things in the room needed cleaning too.  This could have been so much worse if we had not been home to deal with it.  If we were traveling several days could have gone by until my handyman discovered the problem on his next weekly visit.

 

I called my pool man and he came the next morning to take a look.  The initial diagnosis is that the pump housing suddenly developed a hairline crack and water was being forced through it when the pump was running.  The pump itself is separate from the motor that turns it, and even though the motor is fairly new, the pump is probably 30 years old.  Like the rest of us geezers, it now has developed cracks and leaks.  Also, being old, the pump is now no longer being made and repair parts are hard to find.  At first we were going to try to locate a used housing but on further reflection it seemed that it would be better just to bite the (expensive) bullet and get a whole new unit.

 

If this were the mainland there would be many outlets nearby who would have a wide variety of pumps on hand that could be immediately installed.  Not here.  There are just a handful of pool supply outfits on our island, and the selection is much more limited.  I searched the internet and found a lot of options, but --- you know what I'm going to say -- it would take at least a week to get it delivered.  A week of the pool water not being filtered is not a good idea, and of course without the pump running we don't get solar heating from our roof panels.  I did the rounds to see what was available here, and yesterday I bought a fancy new unit that should work, and should be reliable enough that we don't have to worry when we travel.  My pool guy will start installing it today, and if all goes well we should be back to heating and filtering soon.

 

This pump (a Pentair WhisperFlo VST Turbocharged Jet Assist Macho Mega Machine) is supposed

to be very energy efficient because it can be programmed to run at lower speeds for some of the cycle time.  Lowering the rpms of the motor dramatically reduces the amount of electricity the unit uses.  Of course, since we have PV panels that generate most of our electricity, this isn't much of an issue for us.  The state has mandated a switch from single-speed to variable-speed pool systems, though, so we don't really have a choice.  My intent is to just program the pump to run at one speed near what it does now, and forget all the fancy stuff.

 

In other news, we got rained out on another attempt to whack a ball at Makalei, so we went to PF instead.  On Thursday I sent in my heart monitor for analysis. and I'll learn the results when I see my cardiologist in a couple of weeks.  My new eyeglasses are still inching their way through USPS.  Finally, we're making some progress in planning our spring trip to Panama and Colombia.  Once the U.S. invades Colombia it should be safe, right?

 

Take care.  Bundle up. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!  

Set Screw Snafu, Ticker Tracker, Skin Check

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

11/15/25

Aloha Tout Le Monde!

 

How's that for linguistic virtuosity?!

 

Jet lag faded pretty quickly this time, and we both felt fairly good by last weekend, This week I've been almost back to normal, which includes my fondness for a couple of deep naps each day.  On Sunday we did a light workout at PF, and we were once again reminded of how quickly the geezer body can become a blob of flab if you don't keep at it.  Yesterday we tried to do some practice putting and ball-whacking at Makalei, but we were rained out before we even started. Despite this we may try to play a round sometime this coming week.  Watch out, Peacocks!

 

Shortly after we got home last week I received my replacement motor for one of our roof ventilation

All you have to do is...

fans.  You may recall that a couple of months ago I noticed it wasn't working, so I ordered a new motor. On Wednesday I sent my handyman up on the roof to bring down the fan housing so we could work on it.  Everything went very smoothly -- we easily loosened the bracket holding the old motor and it was then simply a matter of taking off the old fan blade and putting it on the new motor.  However, the project came to a screeching halt when the set screw holding the blade on the old motor shaft wouldn't budge.  We tried everything -- more torque, penetrating oil, heat, lots of swearing.  My handyman is pretty strong, and if he couldn't loosen it no one could.  We gave up and reinstalled the roof unit temporarily until I could get a new fan blade and set screw -- given shipping delays these days, I thought it would probably another couple of weeks until this "simple" repair is complete.  In other words, a typical home maintenance snafu. However, the fan blade arrived yesterday, just two days after I ordered it on Wednesday!  This is definitely as good as it gets here.  The shipping was USPS Ground Advantage, which can take anywhere from two days to two weeks, depending on variables we don't understand.  It has nothing obvious to do with the size of the package or whether it's in a box or an envelope,  or where it's coming from.  Before you brag about your wonderfully fast Amazon Prime shipping, let me report that the same thing is true for those orders. It's yet another example of how unique living in Hawai'i can be.  Anyway, hopefully we'll get the job done next week.

 

In Geezer Gazette news, last week I dropped by my cardiologist's office to have his nurse paste a

Fit Bit on Steroids

heart monitor on me.  This is the third time I've done this over the past year and I'm great with it.  This device is like a Fit Bit on steroids. It monitors your heart 24/7 for two weeks and collects very detailed data about the state of your ticker. I'm betting it will show that my afib incidents have increased in number and duration, but they have remained mild in the sense that my heart rate usually stays below 100 and I'm mostly asymptomatic.  Also, not all afib patterns are equally serious, and I think mine is pretty tame.  Anyway, I'll see my cardiologist in a few weeks to go over the results and discuss any changes to my treatment plan. BTW, I'm a little envious of my friend in Ohio who has one of these kinds of monitors permanently implanted under his chest skin.  It's very small and the battery lasts about three years. It uploads his data automatically to his cardiologist and he gets a regular report. At some point I may ask my doc if he thinks that would be a good idea for me.  

 

Turning to external geezer news, on Tuesday I had a quick follow-up exam with my dermatologist.  This was just to check a couple of areas that she noticed at my last exam.  Both have healed nicely, so far now all is good. I go back for my yearly check next spring. No news is usually good news in geezerhood. I have some new info on my eyes, but I'll wait until next time to regale you with that.

 

A couple of final tidbits.  First, the 36th episode of our volcano's eruption-on-the-installment-plan came and went last week after a mere 5 hours of high (1000 ft) fountaining.  The brevity of this meant that there were a number of people who traveled to see the eruption and either arrived just as it ended or missed it altogether.  Pele can definitely be a mischievous tease at times.  Second, we enjoyed our river cruise so much we have tentatively booked another one -- this time on the Magdalena River in Colombia.  Some of our Ohio friends are doing this right now. We were going to wait and get their assessment, but it sounds so good we decided to go ahead and reserve space before all the spots are taken. We visited Colombia previously for about a month and enjoyed it very much, but we didn't spend time in this area.  The cruise isn't really long enough for our travel style, so we're working on a 10-12 day private land tour in Panama to precede the Colombia portion.  The trip will likely be in March and April next year.  Kind of exciting.

 

Ok.  Off to market and beach breakfast.  Take care, stay warm -- both physically and psychologically. 

River Boat Cruise, Gecko Welcome Home

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]

11/8/25

Aloha Everyone!

 

We got back from our mainland trip on 11/3, two days before the date which I now regard as the anniversary of "Black Tuesday."  Overall it was a great trip for a number of reasons.  First, consider the source when I tell you that we actually enjoyed the river boat cruise. We're reluctant cruisers, and you may recall we had a so-so experience recently on a European trip on the Danube.  Our Mississippi cruise was much, much more to our liking.  The ship was a replica of a stern wheeler paddle boat.  Built in 2018, it was very comfortable and well-appointed. Our large stateroom had a private balcony that provided us with a beautiful view of the passing river bank.  One aspect that we appreciated was that the 8-day itinerary included periods of daytime sailing when we could actually make use of the balcony. The boat holds just 180 passengers, which made for a much more relaxed and friendly atmosphere than our European cruise. 

 

The trip started in Memphis, where we stayed downtown for four nights on our own before starting the river cruise.  We liked Memphis very much.  This is the home of famous Beale street, a mecca for Blues performers. It is also home to the fabulous Civil Rights Museum, housed in the former Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. Memphis is also the location of Elvis' Graceland.  We spent one night at the Graceland Guest House as part of our cruise package. This allowed us to tour the mansion and the associated museum, a deep dive into Elvis' career, private life and his personality.  I came away with an appreciation for him as a much more complex person that I had previously thought. 

 

Another positive aspect of the trip is that the boat stopped at a number of places we had never visited

Old But New

before.  For example, the first stop after boarding in Memphis was a small town called Cleveland, in the Mississippi Delta. We learned several surprising things here.  First, the Mississippi Delta is far inland, not where the river dumps into the ocean.  It's considered a delta because it frequently floods along this stretch of the Mississippi, covering a very large area with floodwater.  Second, the region is home to more Grammy Award winners than anywhere else in the country, and the town hosts the National Grammy Museum for this reason.  The distinctive music of the area is called "Delta Blues," a sample of which we heard as part of the shipboard entertainment.  The third surprise was that this area has a large Chinese population, descendants of people who were recruited as sharecroppers on the plantations after the Civil War, when large numbers of former slaves migrated north.  Many Chinese immigrants rose above their sharecropper status to become successful proprietors of small general stores -- much like the Japanese did here in Hawai'i.  Though the Chinese weren't Black, they weren't considered White, either, and they faced considerable discrimination, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which prevented new immigrants and denied citizenship to those already in the country. Sound familiar?

 

Mostly Decorative

The 8-day journey to New Orleans included a number of other interesting and historic stops which we enjoyed  -- Vicksburg, Natchez, St. Francisville and Vacherie. After one night in New Orleans we were hustled off early the next day to allow the crew to get the ship ready for the return voyage scheduled to start in just a few hours.  We remained in New Orleans for another 3 nights on our own.  We have been to this unique city a couple of times before, with the last visit being just before Covid.  We had some great food, soaked up the fun-loving atmosphere, and generally had a great time. Two highlights were a visit to the terrific sculpture garden at the New Orleans Art Museum, and going through the fabulous World War II Museum.  The War Museum is a sobering, immersive experience that is an unflinching look at the early failures of the U.S. as a fighting force, the horrors of being a soldier, and the immense destruction and savagery of warfare.  It documents our successes, of course, but makes it clear these came at an enormous cost.  

 

Our trip finished with a 10-day visit to Ohio, where we got together with many dear friends, and got a reminder of what late fall weather in Ohio is like -- C-O-L-D.  The locals weren't complaining -- after all it was sunny and in the low 60's during the day, with a nice invigorating drop to the high 30's/low 40's at night.  What's wrong with that?  Well, for a wimpy Hawaiian boy like me that's downright painful!  Anyway, the warmth of hospitality from our long-time friends definitely helped counteract the chill...

 

Back home I immediately peeled off all my layers and donned my shorts and t-shirt.  Our first morning

Hangin' with ma Bud

back we reunited with our breakfast-table geckos by the pool.  It was clear they were glad to see us, with the first ones arriving within minutes. Some eagerly accepted our bits of papaya, but some also just wanted to hang out and enjoy our presence.  One of our favorites, who we have named Pom-Pom because of the shape of the dots on her back, chose to forgo eating and instead hopped into my lap and just sat there for a few minutes.  Very endearing, and a perfect welcome home greeting!

 

Take care.  I'll catch you up on Geezer Gazette news next time. Keep fighting for the middle -- it's the only place sanity can prevail.