Back Home -- Sorta Kinda

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

10/7/23

Aloha Everyone --

Our long trip (34 days give or take) came to an end on Monday around noon. Well, our bodies returned home anyway, but our luggage was still in Zurich and our brains were lost in fog somewhere.  We got our suitcases back on Thursday and the brains seem to be arriving in pieces.  Maybe another few days.......

The trip back began in Tirana, Albania, about 1 hour late.  We barely made our connection in Zurich for

our 11 1/2 hour flight to San Francisco but our luggage didn't.  As we have done often, we spent the night in SF (there aren't any flights from the west coast to Kona in the evening) then continued on the next morning.  Actually, not having the luggage was convenient because we didn't have to hassle with re-checking it and just went straight to the gate.  We always pack what we need for a day or two in our carry-on bags so we had what we really needed anyway.

Adjustment to local time has been really rough this time -- maybe yet another fun part of geezerhood.  The Balkans are 12-hours ahead of Kona, so as the day goes on here our bodies are thinking it's getting later and later at night--time to sleep!  For me the worst symptom of jet lag is the mental fog.  Every little task, no matter how small, seems irritatingly complicated.  I can feel this improving a bit each day in the morning and lasting a little longer, but the recovery seems to be taking longer than it used to. Hopefully by next week things will be more or less back to "normal."

The house seems to have fared pretty well, no major problems that I've discovered so far.  Of course, have a lot of gardening and cleaning to do.  In...between...naps.

Oh, I should mention that right before we left I wrote that Kilauea was showing signs of waking up and that it would be just our luck (or curse) if it erupted while we were gone.  Yup, sure enough -- not long after we left there was activity at the summit, complete with fountains of lava.  Then it shut off completely.  Well,  now that we are back there are again signs that something might happen in the near future.  We'll see....... 

Ok,  that's all I can muster at the moment.  Let's all hang in there, though it's beginning to look like the only intelligence around is the AI kind.

Golf To Go, Anniversary, Swelling Volcano

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

8/26/23

Aloha Guys--

The world seems to get crazier by the hour.  I'll leave the analysis to the talking heads but it certainly feels like as a species we're regressing, not moving forward.

This week we have been in full prep mode for our trip to the Balkans with a stop first in Ohio to see our

friends there.  The pile of trimmings for our gardener to haul to the green waste facility is getting pretty large as we whack and weed.  Also, we've been cleaning, arranging to stop the mail & paper, scheduling house visits by our handyman, lining up someone to take us to the airport and pick us up at the end, etc. We have to-do lists to help us with this -- increasingly helpful memory aids, provided we remember where we put them......

On Monday we got in a partial round of golf that went pretty well.  We each got two pars and I also got a bogey.  As usual, some of my shots were amazingly good.  Others, well, not so much.  Yesterday we celebrated our Wedding Anniversary by making a visit to Planet Fitness (!?).  We decided to keep it low-key this year because of all the travel preparations. We'll make our trip the real celebration.  However, we did have our neighbors over for dinner on Thursday, and we were joined by the niece of one of them who is visiting from the mainland.  A very pleasant evening.  We may do more celebrating in Ohio.

The depth and complexity of the Maui tragedy are becoming clearer and clearer.  One example is the fact that while 115 are confirmed dead, less than half of them have been specifically identified and over 800 people are still unaccounted for.  Such ambiguity and uncertainty must be very difficult for the survivors to deal with.

Kilauea is still showing signs of stirring.  Here's what the volcanologists said in a recent update: "The earthquake activity and tiltmeter data indicate that Kīlauea summit is becoming increasingly pressurized. Similar episodes of earthquake and ground deformation activity occurred in November 2020 and August 2021, prior to eruptions in December 2020 and September 2021. The activity is currently confined within Kīlauea summit region and if it continues, could escalate to an eruption in the coming days, weeks, or months."  In other words, nature may be about to give us yet another lesson in who is really the boss.  Stay tuned.....

Ok, that's all for this week and probably until we get back. Stay cool and healthy, both physically and mentally.  Do yourself a favor by turning down the volume on those talking heads.  Aloha.

Spam for Maui, Valve Surgery, Travel Prep

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

8/19/23

Aloha All --

The focus here this week has been on the horrible aftermath of the fires on Maui. If there is anything at all positive in this it has been the local outpouring of support on all the islands for the survivors on Maui.  Volunteers have been collecting food, clothing, money, and transporting it to where it is needed.  It's one thing to have state and federal agencies and organizations like the Red Cross involved in the relief effort, but it is particularly gratifying to see neighbors helping neighbors so willingly and unselfishly.  The other day Karen and I saw a pickup truck in the Walmart parking lot loading several shopping carts' worth of donated items which were going to be transported by private boat over to Maui.  A characteristic local touch was what the carts contained -- SPAM and big bags of rice. Among the many controversies that have begun to surface about this tragedy is one that is also uniquely Hawaiian -- should Maui encourage or discourage tourists at this time?  On the one hand, it seems insensitive for the big resorts that weren't harmed by the fires to be catering to vacationers, and for those guests to be blissfully lounging by the pool while many locals are staying in shelters because their homes were completely destroyed.  On the other hand, many of the survivors have jobs at those resorts and if tourists stay away they will lose them, as will many other workers in tourist-related businesses.  If I knew someone considering visiting right now, I think I'd advise them to come but be compassionate and respectful of what's going on. For the future, there is a larger question of what to do about an economy that is so dependent on one thing, and which both benefits from and contributes to financial disparities.

The Old

Another focus this week was on surgery -- cutting into our house water supply line to replace one of the irrigation valves.  In my investigations of the high water usage in the last billing cycle I found that one of the six irrigation valves in my system was dripping slightly.  This valve is original to the system, so it is over 25 years old.  Although the amount of the drip wasn't enough to account for my high usage, it seemed prudent to replace the valve -- normally not a huge project.  However, then I noticed that the original installers hadn't put in a shutoff valve that would isolate the zone and allow work on just the irrigation pipes. It would instead be necessary to shut off water to the whole house.  Hmmm.  In the spirit of "don't-just-fix-it-make-it-better" I decided to install a shutoff valve and replace the irrigation valve at the same time.  This required re-routing the plumbing to make room for the shutoff and some careful planning of the pvc parts needed.  Of course, like almost any other project, the plan was altered a few times as reality and practicality overruled theoretical

The New!

planning.  In other words, I made three trips to Lowe's to get more and different fittings before the job was done.  It was a bit unnerving to make that first cut because at that point there was no turning back and no water going to the house until I got that new shutoff valve installed successfully. When I turned the water to the house back on, I experienced relief and a big ego boost when nothing leaked and the new irrigation valve worked perfectly!!

We're close enough to our Balkan trip to start our preparations in earnest.  This week was mainly garden-oriented (with the exception of the valve surgery), with a lot of heavy trimming of plantings that don't grow very fast.  Next week we will focus on things that are faster and therefore can't go as long without being whacked back.  Our gardener can take care of some of landscaping while we're gone, but mainly at a maintenance level rather than deciding on heavy trimming and shaping.  Also next week we'll start the long-term cleaning routine that we do before a long trip.  Whew!

Last night we attended our local community theater's production of  "Toil and Trouble," a modern spoof of the famous scene in Shakespeare's Macbeth.  It was pretty well done, given the small budget and restricted pool of actors to draw from in our little community.  The stars are likely to be somebody who will help you find plumbing fittings or serve your poke bowl at lunch the day after the show -- ordinary people who also happen to be very talented!

Finally, I should mention that Kilauea has shown some signs of "restlessness," as the volcanologists have called it.  This week there was an increase in small earthquakes and the summit has been "inflating" slightly, consistent with magma moving around underneath.  The SO2 levels have remained very low, however, which suggests the magma isn't degassing near the surface.  This might be just a sleep-snort and if so the activity should subside.  Or it will be our usual luck that an eruption will occur shortly after we leave, like the last time we went on a trip.  Fun times. 

Ok, I'll check in again next week.  Hope you all stay well and as cool as conditions allow.

Fires, Leaks, Pars & Pads

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

8/12/23

Aloha Folks --

Well, Hawai'i joined the year's devastation club this week and did it dramatically.  I'm talking of course about the wildfires on Maui and here on our island.  Maui was really hit hard, particularly the waterfront town of Lahaina, which is a somewhat larger version of our Kailua waterfront.  Both have (in the case of Lahaina, HAD) a core of old wooden historic buildings that epitomize "flammable."  Most were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The picturesque setting, along with the tourist shops and restaurants that now occupy them, are (were) a big tourist draw.  The fires on Maui started inland and were pushed toward the ocean by high winds, cutting off the few escape routes.  Dozens of people were killed, as you probably know, and hundreds of buildings and homes were destroyed.  It will be a long time before Maui recovers in the Lahaina area, but much sooner in other parts of the island. Naturally this will be a blow to the island's visitor-centered economy, which was just getting back to pre-Covid levels. The fires on our island were up north near some of the megabuck resorts, one of which was evacuated briefly, as well as a residential area called Kohala Ranch.  Very little damage occurred, perhaps because we didn't have the strong winds that Maui did.  By the way, the news attributed the high winds to Hurricane Dora, but that is misleading.  Dora passed 1000 miles to the south, normally too far to have any effect on us.  However, a pressure system to our north interacted with the hurricane pressure and produced the winds that fanned the fires.

The saga of the water leak continued this week.  I found another couple of leaks in the garden system and fixed them, and ran careful checks on the usage for each zone.  One zone seemed very high and my calculations over a 2-month billing period suggested it would account for the recent high bill.  Until I rechecked my calculations and found...ahem..an error that wiped out the high usage value altogether.  This left 2 possible explanations.  First, while we were gone something went kerflooey, like a toilet that didn't shut off after my handyman checked it on his weekly visits.  Second, the new meter is inaccurate and reads 30% too high.  I checked the meter's accuracy by noting the before and after readings when I filled a one gallon container.  It was exactly one gallon.  Likewise toilet flushes were exactly correct. I also checked the meter's consistency by running my irrigation cycle a couple of times and getting exactly the same values each time.  The one-off possibility is by far the more probable of the two at this time, and this is reinforced by the fact that so far my usage is normal for the period.  I've now done all that I can, and I'll have to wait and see if this problem has somehow gone away on its own.

Speaking of leaks, the edema in my right retina returned and on Tuesday I had an injection.  The timing is good, because I knew I couldn't last until we returned from our Balkan trip.  Unfortunately the clinic was out of the new drug (Vabysmo) and so the doc had to use Eylea instead.  It should be ok for the time being.

Karen and I played golf on Monday, and this time it was gorgeous. In fact, my solar system recorded an

Lots of Photons

almost perfect day as far as its power curve. I played pretty well  -- 2 pars (!) and a bogey.  We did the 16-hole version of our game, still not the full 18 but way better than the rained out game we had last week.  On Thursday we went to Planet Fitness, though it was tough to convince our bodies to do it.  We hadn't been there for several weeks and we were definitely overdue.  Whomping soreness yesterday was the penance for being remiss.

In the fun news department, I got a new Ipad that I recently ordered and got it all set up.  The old one was getting very slow and the battery needed replacing.  I could have had the battery replaced, but the money would have just given me a slow device with a longer lasting battery.  Besides, a new techno toy is always a treat.

That's about all -- kind of a busy week by our standards.  We're beginning our preparations for our trip, though the real push won't be for awhile yet. Take care, stay cool and remember that contrary to the crazies, there is nothing wrong with the middle.

Looking for Leaks, Golf Cart Pontoons, Clean Teeth

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

8/5/23

Aloha Ohana --

Well, glad to see some of you are cooling off a bit.  I noticed in the news that even Phoenix cooled down a little, dropping below 110d after a record-setting month of daily highs at or above that level.  Of course, it's a dry heat.  Kind of like a convection oven or an air fryer.  And it cools down at night -- to around 92d, downright chilly!  Schadenfreude is unkind, I know, but it sure is fun occasionally.  I do, however, feel sympathy for those who don't have the means to deal with this kind of extreme heat by retreating to home air-conditioning. It must be truly brutal -- and even deadly in some cases.

A main focus of my week was dealing with leaks.  The first was with our garden irrigation system.  Part of the system was already installed when we moved into the house, but I've greatly modified and expanded it over the years.  It's relatively efficient, with low volume sprinklers that are placed to benefit specific areas of the garden, rather than blanketing everything. Also, by adding several additional zones, I can adjust the amount of water depending on the locations and the plantings in them.  The system is controlled by programmable timers that I have set to go off every other day for about 10-15 minutes depending on the zone.  If we get a lot of rain, I have the controllers skip a cycle.  Like many repair projects, this one started as something else.  Karen accidentally poked a hole in one of the lines while gardening, and in the process of fixing that I discovered there was another leak that had probably been going on for some time.  It wasn't obvious, however, exactly where the problem was because it was in a section of line that was buried pretty deep, and the symptom was that a fairly sizeable area was overly soggy.  So I had to trace the line and dig down until I found the leaking spot.  However, here "digging" is not an easy matter of "stick-shovel-in dirt-and-move-to-the-side."  Our volcanic, rocky "soil" requires a lot of effort and swear words.  Anyway, I finally found the leak and repaired it so now more water should be going to where it's needed.

The other leak appears to be related, but I'm not so sure. We got a notice from the water department of unusually high usage based on their latest reading of our meter.  I know, you're probably thinking this might have been coming from the leak in the irrigation system that I fixed.  Maybe, but the holes I found didn't seem big enough to account for the amount of high usage. This week I checked the meter myself many times and I'm almost positive there's isn't currently a leak in house plumbing (like a bad toilet valve).  Our meter is read once every couple of months, and our bill is figured on the difference between the latest two readings.  However, a few months back our meter dial hadn't moved, so a couple of weeks after that the water department replaced it. The following reading, then, was based on fewer days than usual.  The latest reading is what showed the unusual usage, but it isn't as far out of line as I first thought. I'll keep checking a few more days to get a good idea of how much we use for irrigation and how much for other things.  I'm beginning to wonder if the latest reading was wrong, and if it was, the billing will straighten itself eventually. And I'm still open to the possibility that the irrigation leak was the cause. Time will tell.  Patience, grasshopper......

Speaking of water, Karen and I tried to play golf on Thursday but we only completed 5 holes before it started dumping.  A die-hard committed player would have just kept going but we aborted and headed for cover, sort of surfing our way down the mountain to the club house.  Maybe the course should add emergency pontoons to the golf carts?  I played really well the first couple of holes, and we saw seven peacock babies, then even the birds opted to find someplace dry.  We'll try again Monday.

Finally, a big deal for both of us this week was getting our teeth cleaned (!).  There is a shortage of hygienists on our island and so you have to schedule very far in advance.  Last year we had to change our appointments because of a conflict with travel dates and it was a major hassle getting back into the schedule at our regular clinic.  Our insurance will completely cover 3 cleanings per year, and we try to take advantage of that, but a 4-month interval is difficult for the scheduling people to handle.  Anyway, we're back on track and have appointments for December, April, and August all set.  So far it looks like our travel plans can be adjusted to accommodate the dates.  Note the oddity of planning your life around getting your teeth cleaned!

That's it for this week.  Take care, whistle a happy tune.

Lahaina Noon, Popping a Peacock, Manta Rays

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

7/29/23

Aloha All --

Wow, I can't believe it's almost August. I'm sure that many people on the mainland are getting eager for this sizzling summer to be over, but I'd just as soon things slow down a bit.  We're still in our warm spell, but it's hard to complain at 88 when parts of the country are hitting near 100d.  We're continuing to get just enough rain to keep everything green and growing, which means much of my time is still spent whacking back the jungle. For some reason our vegetable garden hasn't done all that well this year, but our fig tree has had a bumper crop -- to the point that we're giving many of them to friends, like we used to do with zucchini back in Ohio.

On Tuesday Karen and I played golf with our usual partner.  The weather was ok, but not nearly as nice as the week before when I didn't play --we got rained out after 16 holes.  Part of our problem is that we start late, about 10 am usually, and after about 3 hours the clouds and mist build on the mountain.  However, starting earlier isn't part of our cavalier approach to the game. Unfortunately, we had an injury this time....to a peacock.  We were teeing off and our friend hit a peahen on the foot.  Our friend is a vet and could have made a professional evaluation but the hen wasn't having any of that.  Visually it didn't appear misshapen or dangling, so we think she'll be ok.  This is bound to happen occasionally, given the number of birds and their proximity to humans hitting small hard balls with long mallets.

The cloudiness at Makalei prevented us from seeing a unique phenomenon called Lahaina Noon, when the sun is directly overhead and objects cast no shadow.  Hawai'i is the only place in the US where this happens because we are in the tropical latitudes, between 23.5 degrees north and south of the equator.  Kona is at 19.64 degrees.  It occurs twice a year, once in the spring and once in the summer.  The name "Lahaina" was given to the phenomenon in the 1990's as part of a contest and translates as "Cruel Sun."  The old Hawaiian name was more anatomically descriptive but not as succinct:  "kau ka lā i ka lolo," or "the sun rests on the brain."

On Thursday we went to a fascinating talk about our resident Manta Rays. Three researchers presented information about Manta characteristics, current status and conservation efforts.  These animals are

Gentle Giant

magnificent, reaching wingspans here of about 12 feet, but elsewhere up to 30 feet.  They are entirely harmless filter feeders without a tooth in their bodies, and they have no barbed poisonous tail like the sting ray.  Our population is about 300, and some individuals have been studied for over 20 years -- identified and cataloged by the unique pattern of spots on their bellies.  We learned that there is no sustainable way they can be harvested for food, because they reproduce very slowly.  Each female has one "pup" at a time, with a gestation period of 13 months, and can produce only about 5 in her lifetime.  They live a long time, on average about 25-30 years and don't reach sexual maturity until 10-15 years old.  One of the researchers is looking at injuries to Mantas and has found, contrary to common belief, boat strikes account for only about 7% of Manta injuries, whereas entanglement with fishing and boating gear is about 42%.  A hot issue here in Kona are Manta Night Dives and Snorkel trips to watch Mantas feed.  They've become so popular that the common sites are way too crowded.  Efforts to voluntarily limit the activity have been only partially successful, and legislation to control it has so far been difficult to pass.  The good news, though, is that since the 1990's killing a Manta for any reason is illegal, unlike other parts of the world where they are being sold for food.  I was pleased to see that the talk was well-attended, an encouraging sign that people are interested in well-being of these wonderful creatures.

Karen got the results of the biopsy of the spot on her eyelid. All good -- a benign "barnacle," where "barnacle" is our dermatologist's informal term for "symbiosis ohmygoshiac cashonlyoma."  

Ok, that's my week.  Off to market and beach breakfast picnic.  Take care and tune out as much of the b.s. as you can.

Calvin Fizzles, Skin Scrutiny, Summer Arrives

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

7/22/23

Aloha All --

Well, Hawai'i's contribution to the current global weather mayhem was pretty wimpy.  After much over-hype, Hurricane Calvin arrived on Wednesday with almost no oomph left.  The news media focused on the possibilities -- the possibility of high winds, the possibility of flooding. and the possibility of power outages, etc., etc.  Ignored were the data indicating that the actual likelihood of these dire developments was shrinking to almost zero well ahead of Calvin's arrival. Better safe and panicked than safe and calm.  Anyway, I did take a few precautions, like lowering our pool umbrella and removing some light weight objects, but even these minimal steps turned out to be overkill.  Tuesday night and Wednesday arrived and....bumpkiss, nada, zilch.  No rain, no wind, nothing.  The east side of our island got a fair amount of rain but frankly not more than it often does during a good storm.  That's it.  On to the next doom and gloom possibility.

Karen and I contributed to the financial well-being of our dermatologist this week with both of us going to see her.  Recall that she doesn't take *any* insurance, so you pay at treatment time, though her charges aren't all that bad, and if there are any lab tests or biopsies involved those will be covered by our Aetna Medicare.  My visit was just a followup to check on the squamous cell thing on my thigh that was removed a few months ago.  All ok, and she then did a quick exam of a couple of other areas we're keeping an eye on, and froze three small areas.  Karen's visit was to have a recent growth on one of her eyelids diagnosed and removed. We're still waiting for the biopsy results but the visual assessment was that it wasn't anything dire.  All in all, good news for both of us.  I think we're getting good medical care from this clinic, but they are focusing more and more on the stretching/sculpting/firming/scraping/beautifying angle to the practice, which is probably far more lucrative than slicing off potential cancers.  We really don't have many alternatives here, though, so as long as I feel confident in the medical aspect I'll stick with it.

Karen played golf on Tuesday with two friends.  I stayed home and supervised our gardeners.  The weather at Makalei ahead of the dreaded Calvin was beautiful, according to Karen -- sunny and only a little wind.  On Wednesday it was sunny in Kona nearly the whole day, and we didn't have our usual cooling on-shore breeze, so it got really warm -- the hottest day of the year so far.  The rest of the week has also been very warm.  We've gone from daytime highs in the low to mid 80's to highs in the mid- to high 80's, with humidity to match.  This may be a legacy of the hurricane, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, we've been making very good use of our PV surplus to power our a.c. units during the day and some of the nighttime.

We finished cleaning the lanai furniture and replacing the pads this week, and the result was very good. Our old stuff didn't have as much color as the new pads, and the difference is very striking.  So far we're pleased, and now we'll see how well the new pads hold up to Kona weather over time.

That's it for this week. Hope you are all doing ok in these fun times.  Stay happy -- it's always a healthy choice.