Switch to Fiber, Golf Jinx, Grand Jury Duty?

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

12/9/23

 

Aloha All ---

 

Well, my timing for getting my cables run to handle fiber optic service turned out to be excellent!  This week Spectrum raised our rate by 25%.  I called to complain and didn't get anywhere -- they wouldn't match the price I can get for a year or more with Hawaiian Telcom's promotional rate, and Spectrum would still be higher than HT even when my fiber service increases after the introductory period. So, I then contacted Hawaiian Telcom and got more details on their fiber optic service, and went ahead and ordered it. The installation is scheduled for next Thursday.  Should be interesting. I'll wait to cancel Spectrum until I'm sure everything is working ok with the fiber service, but this time next week I should have faster internet at a lower cost.  With my new cable set up all it will take for me is to unplug the modem cable from our router and plug in the new cable I ran to where the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) will be located in the garage.  Fingers crossed.

My bragging about doing so well at golf has come back to bite me.  This week Karen, our friend, and I

Grrrrr!

played on Tuesday.  It was a gorgeous day.  The course was beautiful.  We saw lots of peacocks and nesting Nenes.  I played really, really, badly.  For some reason I just couldn't seem to hit the ball!!  After 11 holes of exhausting frustration we called it a day.  Karen and our friend were also having a bad day, possibly due my negative influence.  I hope it was just a matter of sore muscles and stiffness from being a troll in our crawl space for a good part of the previous couple of days.  Anyway, I'll certainly give it another try next week.  If I do well, though, I'm keeping my mouth shut.

Speaking of jinxes, the latest obstacle to my bucket list attempt to finally visit Ethiopia came this week in the mail -- a letter from the Circuit Court appointing me to the Grand Jury for 2024.  I would ordinarily be interested in this duty -- it involves deciding whether cases have enough evidence to go to court.  However, it entails being on call the entire year, including, of course, the time we are scheduled to be in Ethiopia and Kenya.  In the fine print of the letter it says that you can be excused on the basis of previously arranged and paid travel plans.  So I've crafted a letter explaining our arrangements, and enclosed a copy of our flight itinerary.  Hopefully this will get me out of  it.  I'll certainly let you know.!

Ok, we're off to market and our beach breakfast picnic.  Take care.  Be nice to your AI -- hopefully it will then be nice to you.

Wordle in 8, Kona Low, Cable Guy

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

12/2/23

 

Aloha Everybody ---

 

Well, I jinxed myself with all that talk about solving Wordle in 1 or 2 guesses.  This week I went to the other extreme and after my 6th guess there were still at least 2 possible words, so on the basis of my lousy luck up to that point I gave myself a score of 8!  My strategy was good -- identify the obvious possibilities and then make a guess that eliminates as many as possible.  For example, a bunch of words might end in "-ly" and another large group might end in "-te," making your best strategic guess one would remove one or the other set of words and also eliminate as many other letters as possible.  Right.  Good strategy. Except it didn't work this time.  The letters and their positions in my guesses just didn't help narrow down the list enough.  Oh well, I expect my memory will follow the Las Vegas model and dim the losses more than the gains and I'll still keep trying to win.....

Karen and I played golf on Tuesday with our friend and the weather was gorgeous.  No turkeys, by the way, but we did see lots of peacocks and nenes.  I got one par and a couple of bogeys, and this time my overall playing was more consistent from hole to hole -- not great but not overwhelmingly frustrating, either.  I hope I'm not jinxing things again.

Mauna Kea

It was a good thing we chose Tuesday for our golf outing, because overnight we experienced a weather pattern called a "Kona Low," something that in winter is caused by a dip in the jet stream that picks up moisture from the tropics and carries it westward across the islands, continuing on to the west coast of North America. This shifts our wind from the usual trade wind direction of northeast to southwest and makes our side of island suddenly the target of weather patterns rather than the Hilo side.  In this case the Kona Low brought up a huge amount of moisture and some strong winds.  Wednesday and Thursday were rainy all day with occasional scary wind blasts, and over those two days my rain gauge recorded 3".  Also, Mauna Kea got its first snow of the season. Things were a bit better yesterday and today is close to normal.  Imagine -- 3 days of crappy weather!!  We hunkered down and whimpered.

Despite the bad weather (or maybe because of it) I made good progress on my cabling project.  I got all the cables tacked up under the house and brought up through the walls to their proper location.  The coaxial connectors were the easiest to put on, and they work!!  The cat6 connectors, on the other hand are a different story.  They require the precise positioning of 8 fine wires into the connector at the same time.  It took some practice, a lot of patience, my extra strong pair of reading glasses, and a few botched attempts to finally get them on.  If the tester shows one or more wires isn't carrying a signal, then you have to cut off one or more of the connectors and start over.  Needless to say I was *very* happy when all the lights on the tester turned green!  The new cat6 capability means I accomplished the project's goal of making us fiber-ready in case I have a falling out with Spectrum Cable. All I have left now is to do some cleaning and tidying up, though I may decide to run a few more cat6 cables to replace my older cat5.  I've got plenty of leftover cable and now that putting on the connectors is part of my cable guy skill set, why not?

I managed to get a few decorations up but no lights yet.  Barring interference from the weather, I should be able to get more stuff up this weekend and next week we might even get out our artificial tree.  In other words, I'm inching closer to the Holiday spirit. It sure is hard to get the warm and fuzzies, though, when you look at the domestic and international news.  Is it possible to resign from the human race?

Off to market and our beach breakfast picnic.  Take care.  Careful with that snow shovel!

 

Week of 3's, 'Par'ty, Here Comes $anta

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

11/25/23

 

Aloha Ohana ---

 

Happy Thanksgiving!  Hope you had a good one.  Ours was very quiet -- just the two of us and a very large hunk of cow instead of turkey. We cooked a prime rib roast we bought on sale earlier in the year and had frozen for a special occasion.  Very, very tasty.  We enjoyed it very much, but I doubt the cow had the same experience.

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of my season of ambivalence and angst, as you know from my comments during previous holiday seasons.  To kick off this season of love, charity, and compassion, we have the glaringly contradictory phenomenon of Black Friday, a spectacle of consumerism and commercialism that boggles the mind.  Of course, the selling of Christmas began about the time of Halloween, with rather interesting side-by-side displays of ghouls and Santas in the big box stores as early as mid-October!  It's ok.  I'll be alright.  Don't worry....I'll get through it. Maybe.

 

This was a week of 3's, and possibly it was my high-water mark for puzzle solving and golfing.  First, after my Wordle-in-one-guess two weeks ago, this week I had three days in a row of solving it in 2 guesses!  However, that string was followed by 4's and 5's and even a 6.  The other "3" phenomenon happened when Karen and I played golf on Wednesday -- I got three pars in a row!  This represented 11 consecutive good shots, something of a miracle for me. And like what happened with Wordle, the rest of the game was mediocre to lousy.   Consistency is not my strong suit, obviously.

It was a beautiful day on the Makalei course, and we saw about 10 pairs of Nenes, plus the usual resident peacocks.  Normally we also see several flocks of turkeys as well as peacocks, but this time we didn't see a single one. It occurred to me that this was the day before Thanksgiving and their absence may be a sign

Groundskeepers on Break

that they are smarter than they look and were in hiding so as to avoid being the main dish in Thursday's dinners.  On the other hand, it could indicate they are as dumb as they look and had already been axed. Which is the better explanation will be determined by whether we see them next time.  Stay tuned. Another interesting thing at the course was a spot where they were using goats and sheep to mow down the weeds. This area was very rocky and uneven making it impossible to use machines for the work, so they brought in the browsers.  A temporary electric enclosure keeps the crew in place and they happily chow down. Of course, they are also fertilizing the weeds so this may not be quite the benefit it seems.

My cabling project is progressing.  Yesterday I began running the cables (two network cables plus a new coaxial cable) from the garage the the main house.  This went pretty well, considering it required a couple of trips into the garage attic and some hot-yoga positions to feed the cable through the holes I drilled.  The next step is to feed the cables across the breezeway that separates the garage from the main house.  This involves fishing them through a pre-existing conduit under the raised floor of the breezeway to the crawlspace under the main house. The really enjoyable part will be when I have the cables in place and then I will put on the connectors.  This is something I've never done before, but my neighbor down the street has.  Between his coaching and loaning me the tools, and the excellent online videos that are available on how to do it, I should be able to master this new skill.  I'm really looking forward to the challenge.

Today and tomorrow I'll start putting up our Christmas decorations. Maybe this will get me more in the holiday mood....

That's it.  Stay warm and well.  Off to the beach.

Leis, Eye Shot, PT Reject

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

11/18/23

 

Aloha Everyone ---

 

Last week I wrote that we were going to drop by the Kona Coffee Festival Lei Contest later in the

Pound 'em!

morning.  We did, and it turned out to be a much bigger treat than we anticipated.  It was held at a community center where the morning's events included not only the leis but also a performance by the local Daikufuji Taiko Drummers (kids from a nearby Buddhist Temple), followed by a group of Irish Dancers, then by Miss Kona Coffee '24

Lots of work!

doing her Tahitian hula performance that helped her win the pageant.  Outside, the food booths offered everything from Poi to Mochi balls to Malasadas. All of this was absolutely delightful and the diversity captures the character of Kona perfectly.  Great fun!

On Tuesday I had a double dose of medical attention.  First was my eye exam, and as I expected I needed a shot.  The edema wasn't too bad, particularly considering it had been a little over 3 months since my last injection.  I'll go back right before we leave on our Ethiopia trip, but I may hold off getting another shot until we get back.  

 

The second medical appointment was with the Physical Therapist to assess my back. This was my first session and, after completing the usual 200 pages of medical history and signing promises to pay my bill, not be late, and allow them to turn me into a pretzel, I spent about 45 minutes with a therapist.  He was very knowledgeable and thorough, and he seemed to be very careful to identify my specific problem.  He first did an assessment of my flexibility, strength, symmetry, and balance. This was a similar exam to the one the orthopedic guy had done, but I thought it was even more thorough.  He wanted to know what exercises I do routinely, had me demonstrate them, and then suggested just a few others that were simple, quick, and portable. I was very impressed that the exercises he recommended were complimentary to what I am routinely doing now rather than replacements or add-ons. Whereas I was expecting a regime of strengthening exercises, he indicated that his exam showed I really don't need those.  His suggestions focused on stretching the lower back in ways I'm not doing now, and on increasing my hip extension and range of motion. I also appreciated the simplicity of his suggestions very much, because I told him up front that I am a minimalist -- I don't want exercise to become a major focus of my daily life.  And get this -- his overall assessment is that I don't need any more formal sessions and he advised me to cancel the ones I have scheduled!! I definitely agree with him -- this problem began about six months ago and at that time it was a serious concern to me, but it has gotten better and better and at the moment is really not much of an issue.  Wow! I'm a PT reject! I will certainly return, though, if things get bad again -- I'm a strong believer in PT.

Speaking of exercise, Karen played 16 holes with our mutual golfing friend on Monday.  She did pretty well, including 1 par and she saw quite a few Nenes that have returned for the season.  She also saw all three of the white peacocks.  The male is getting quite big and this year might be his time to debut a white fan tail. It will be interesting and we'll see if we can get a photo or two.  I didn't play golf this week but on Monday I went to Planet Fitness instead of playing golf -- not as much fun but much faster.  A full workout on the various machines takes about 1 hour, in keeping with my minimalist philosophy. Then, in a blazing burst of energy, we both went to PF yesterday!  This certainly is a high water mark for the time since we returned from our Balkans trip, and it hopefully means we're recovered from our double vaccinations.

My latest techno/house project involves investigating the possibility of switching to fiber internet instead of the cable service we have now.  Hawaiian Telcom has now strung fiber lines all around town (a logistically huge and expensive project) and has begun offering service to home subscribers.  This is really good news because it breaks Spectrum's near-monopoly as an internet service provider and the competition will hopefully keep prices down.  One problem for us, though, is that it would require running a new network cable from the spot in the garage where the fiber line would be installed to the main house in a way that would hide the cable and not be hideous.  Our house isn't the typical mainland setup where the cable could just be run through the attic. We have no attic.  In fact we have no ceiling per se -- the wood we see above is in fact the roof.  No drywall, no dropped ceiling of any kind except in the garage. Anyway, I think I've figured a way to use our crawl space and an existing conduit that will work.  If so, then if Spectrum raises my rate too high, I can use the possibility of switching to Hawaiian Telcom as a bargaining chip.  And running the new cable might be a challenging and fun project!  I'll keep you posted.

Ok, that's all for this week. Hang in there.  I don't know about you, but it seems like I'm in the center lane of a highway and the drivers to the right and to the left are going berserk, even bouncing up and over the guard rails.  Anyway, try to stay warm and healthy!

Wordle In 1, Coffee Festival, Snoozerama

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

11/11/23

 

Aloha Everybody ---

 

I started this week on a real high note -- solving the Wordle word puzzle in one try!  Karen and I usually give this a go as a way of exercising a few grey cells and of neutralizing some of the toxicity of the

Yippee!

morning's news. If you play this game you know that the starting guess is a key ingredient in successfully guessing the solution in less than six tries.  Up until Monday I've had pretty good results by alternating between two words, one of them generated by an AI bot that has apparently studied the game.  For some reason, on Monday I decided to try a different start word, and damn if it didn't turn out to be the day's solution!  This was obviously accomplished with a huge dose of pure luck, so I can't take much credit.  Still, human egos being what they are, I'll boast a teensy bit anyway.

 

This week is our annual Kona Coffee Festival, a celebration of the island's signature industry (aside from tourism, of course).  The festival isn't really geared to tourists but rather to the community itself -- particularly those of Japanese heritage because of their success in running small coffee farms in the late 1800's and early 1900's when a world-wide crash of coffee prices led the owners of large coffee estates in Kona to divide their holdings as a way to survive.  All week long there have been events and activities,

The Winner

including a parade, coffee picking contests, crowning Miss Kona Coffee, a Kona Coffee Cupping contest with international judges, a cooking recipe contest, and a lei-making competition.  The vibe here is very positive and supportive, even with all the "contests."  I have to confess that I no longer drink Kona because it has become VERY expensive -- $40-60 per pound.  The growers have succeeded in making the name Kona a legal appellation, and blends have to have at least 10% beans grown in the official region and be labeled as blends.  The blends are considerably cheaper, of course, but hardly the real thing.

 

As I mentioned last time, we had appointments a week ago today to have our flu/covid shots.  We have our vaccinations usually at the pharmacy where we also buy some of our groceries (Safeway) because we get 10% coupons for shopping. The pharmacies here are short-staffed, so you really have to schedule this in advance.  All went well.  Until it didn't.  Nothing catastrophic,  and certainly better than the alternative of getting the viruses, but both of us had "vigorous" reactions.  For about 6 hours I had achy joints and itchy crawly skin but that was gone by Sunday morning.  Karen had a very sore arm for about 3 days, but I didn't.  Both of us, though, have been Zombies all week -- sleepy and lethargic much of each day. This is all probably a good sign that our immune systems kicked into high gear and will be much better at recognizing and fighting the real thing.  We're feeling better, and in fact we managed to spend some time at the Makalei driving range on Thursday and did fairly well.  Maybe a round next week....

Ok, off to farmer's market, a beach breakfast picnic, and to the lei-making contest.  Take care, try to ignore the crazies if you can.....

 

 

Sliced, Diced, Pumped & Shot

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

11/4/23

 

Aloha Ohana ---

 

Karen's Mohs surgery on Oahu went very well. As you probably know, this technique involves removing the offending cancerous thingy, then immediately examining it carefully to see if all of the nastiness has been removed.  If not, more "slicing & dicing" (my attempt at a dark humorous way to refer to surgery) is performed right then.  Karen was lucky and the surgeon got it all in one slice.  There were people in the waiting room, though, who were up to four rounds of this -- each time requires waiting for a half hour or so for the tissue examination. The surgeon advised Karen against stitches because the skin on her leg is too thin to hold them, so the quarter-sized hole is open at the moment.  She's supposed to keep the initial bandage on for a week (!) before changing it and applying two kinds of antibiotic. No pool time for a couple of weeks.

 

It was interesting to travel the way we did.  No luggage -- I used my backpack and Karen used a large purse.  We had our boarding passes in our phones, so we headed right through TSA and to the gate, then didn't have to fight for overhead bin space because our stuff fit beneath the seats in front of us.  When we

Our Outfits for Ethiopia

got to Honolulu, we walked out the terminal door and within a few minutes caught the bus to Waikiki, which went right by our hotel.  The next morning we took an Uber to the doctor's office, and another one afterwards to the upscale Ala Moana Shopping Center, where we had lunch and spent the afternoon shopping until it was time to take the bus (which stops right at the mall) back to the airport for our return flight.  Since we were only gone about a day, we drove ourselves to the airport and parked in the long term lot, which in Kona is an easy walk from the terminal. Whole trip was 36 hours, max.  We enjoyed seeing Honolulu and Waikiki.  It's been several years since we were there and we were impressed by infrastructure improvements and by some of the striking architecture in the downtown and Waikiki areas.  Plenty of tourists, but it didn't seem overrun.

No golf this week, partly because of Karen's surgery, but also because she hosted a book club meeting yesterday which involved a fair amount of cleaning and house prep.  However, on Thursday we went to Planet Fitness for a full workout.  I even upped my weights slightly and increased my reps on some of the machines.  I was particularly focused on the back and core muscles.  There are about four machines that target these muscles in different ways.  My sacroiliac problem seems to be waning at the moment, but I figured the exercise was still a good idea.  We rewarded ourselves with a Vietnamese Lemon Grass Chicken sandwich on the beach.

Today we have appointments to get the latest Covid/Flu vaccinations.  I decided to do the combo and get it over with.  Some friends who have had the shots experienced pretty vigorous reactions, so I anticipate some down time later today and tomorrow.  We'll see.

Ok, that's it from here for the week.  Enjoy what's left of your good weather, and get set for the holiday merchandising blitz.

Bones, Vanishing Electrons, & The Poop is in the Mail

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

10/28/23

 

Aloha Everyone ---

 

A fairly eventful week here in near-paradise -- well,  by my low standards anyway.  It included visits to two doctors, giving our electric company a $400 gift, and exercisus maximus.

The first doctor visit was on Monday, with my internist.  We went over my routine blood test results and he confirmed my own impression -- "nothing to see here, move along." We also discussed the progression of my emphysema (still no miracle cure), high altitude medication for our trip to Ethiopia (diamox), and getting another probe-up-the-butt-oscopy.  That last topic generated a surprise response from my doc. He said that he has had experience of having the necessity of the procedure questioned for someone of my age with previous negative results and with my high level of current health and lack of family history.  (Turns out the government guidelines for colon cancer screening every 10 years end at 75 unless there are specific problems to be diagnosed.)   I then mentioned the Cologuard test and he thought that was a very good alternative for me, though he laid out the possibilities of false positives and false negatives and their consequences. Bottom line:  I'll get a kit in the mail and send in a sample for analysis, which looks for DNA signatures associated with the major forms of colon cancers and precancers.  If it is positive, the follow up will be a colonoscopy to see if the result was a false alarm.  If it is negative, I'll have a low possibility something was missed.  However, the test can be repeated every few years with a good chance of catching whatever wasn't detected previously. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Sticking with the Geezer medical talk, on Wednesday I saw an orthopedic specialist about my hip issues. 

That's the spot!

Good news is that the x-ray shows my joints are in very good shape -- "the hip bones of a young man" he said! No hip replacement in my future! The pain is located in the sacroiliac joints, likely caused by a touch of arthritis.  I don't have shooting pain, numbness, etc., which means my case is very mild and can probably be controlled with occasional anti-inflammatory medication and special exercise.  The bad news, of course, is that it isn't likely to go away completely and is yet another sign of the relentlessness of geezerhood.  Anyway, I'll try some physical therapy sessions and see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.

In other news, this week is the end of our solar contract year with Hawai'ian Electric Company.  This means that any surplus we've generated over the last 12 months is forfeited to them and we start over at zero.  Our gift this year was a bit over $400, and in most years it has been about $300.  We just finished out 10th year of having the system, so that means we've donated around $3000 to the company coffers. Hopefully they've been putting it to good use, like a new fishing boat for the CEO.

 

In more positive news, on Thursday we went to Planet Fitness and I managed to get back to my previous settings and number of reps on the machines.  It felt good, I must say.  Then -- get this -- yesterday Karen and I also played golf!! We both did surprisingly well considering being off for a couple of months.  On one hole we both got pars, on another Karen got a birdie, and on a third I got a bogey. We pooped out after 12 holes, and I have to admit that we played by Kona-lago rules, meaning that we skipped holes we didn't like, took unlimited do-overs, and sometimes "assisted" each other's ball in finding its way into the cup, which is rewarded with a "pardon" of one stroke off the helper's score. As an added treat we saw about a dozen pairs of Nenes that have returned for the winter breeding season. 

Tomorrow we're flying over to Oahu and spending the night so that Karen can have Mohs surgery for a cancerous thingy on her leg.  We'll fly home Monday evening.  This arrangement isn't unusual here.  Many people travel for treatment because Honolulu is the closest place for certain kinds of specialty care.  Anyway, it might be kind of fun -- we haven't been on Oahu for several years.

Ok, that's it.  Take care and have good Halloween.