Problems in Paradise: From Drought to Drowning

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

12/11/21

Aloha Everybody!

Last week I mentioned that we were getting some rain and that it had snowed on Mauna Kea. "Some" rain wound up being a total of 3.4" at our house and there was a bona fide blizzard on Mauna Kea.  However, the rain for us wasn't as much a problem as the wind that came with it. Our internet was knocked out for almost 2 days, and some nearby areas also lost power.  Both north and south of us the rainfall was much greater -- as much as 14 inches!  Things quieted down late Monday and starting Tuesday we were able to begin getting things cleaned up. However, as I write this our pool still isn't functioning the way it should -- our pool guy and I cleaned out the leaves that had blown in, but some debris must have gotten into the filtration system and messed up the pump or clogged the lines somewhere so that the water is barely recirculating.  And of course three days with very little sun has cooled the water to below our tolerance level.  Finally, no sun has also put us in the red for producing electricity so far this month.  We might be able to make that back up if we have enough sunny days over the next few weeks.

On more positive news, the carpet cleaners returned Thursday and finished the rest of our

!5 and Still Looking Good

carpeting.  We again lucked out on the weather, which was sunny while they were here and for most of the rest of the day.   We did get a little rain that night, but by then the carpet had pretty well dried out.  We'll move stuff back today, but yesterday we took the opportunity while the other part of the house was still drying to put up our Christmas tree in the living room.  No decorations other than lights yet, but it should be done by Monday. This is a pre-lit tree that is on its 15th season and still looking pretty good.  It comes in three sections that we can squish into a single box for storage -- with a LOT of effort.

Speaking of Christmas, I have to finish buying presents.  Ugh.  I find this more and more challenging, particularly when it comes to getting something for Karen.  And of course it means venturing into a store somewhere or even worse, going online and picking something based on just photos.  I really am a terrible shopper, to the point where I nearly have a panic attack when I'm faced with a huge selection of merchandise.  Where does all that stuff go, anyway?  Having lots of choices is my idea of hell. Karen says I really don't have to get her anything, but I've been married long enough to know that would NOT be a good idea....

No golf this week.  Karen's favorite course is closed while they try to fix the damage caused by the

Hope the Birds are OK

storm. We did get to Planet Fitness yesterday and worked out for the first time since before Thanksgiving.  It felt good, particularly since we haven't been able to exercise in our pool this week.  However, we immediately counteracted the health benefits of the workout by having lunch at Taco Bell.  A guilty pleasure if there ever was one.

Ok, off to market and our beach breakfast picnic.  Take care, stay warm, keep a grip on reality.

 

Snow On The Volcano, Carpet Chaos

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

12/4/21

Aloha All --

Winter has arrived in paradise!  This week we got our first snow of the season.  No shoveling for me,

Mauna Kea Summit

though, because it fell only on the top of 13k-foot Mauna Kea, where the telescopes are. Blizzard conditions are forecast for the weekend, with up to a foot of snow and 100 mph winds. The snow is visible from Kailua, and it has given a boost to the Holiday Spirit.  We finally have a decent rain that started last night and is still going on as I write this.  Haven't checked my rain gauge yet but it should be a fair amount. The timing isn't the best, though because this will cancel our usual Saturday morning beach breakfast and trip to the market,  another instance of our normal schedule being thrown off by the holidays.

I now have outdoor lights up and nearly all of my decorations, but the neighbors have been slow to get with the season.  So far there is just two others that have outdoor lights.

As if the rain and the usual Christmas discombobulation weren't enough, we had our carpets in the main part of the house cleaned on Thursday.  It was been many years since this was done, and we've been putting it off too long. Some people don't make this a big deal, and just clean in the "high traffic" areas. Not us. Karen insisted on moving a lot of the furniture and this in turn required relocating a lot of stuff temporarily.  And it takes a while for the carpet to dry before you can fully get back to normal. Thursday was sunny and helped a lot for partial drying,  and Friday wasn't bad until evening when the rain started. Today we will probably be able to move most of stuff back in and maybe get our Christmas tree up.  I can see the allure of the current fashion here which is to install stone tile everywhere in a house.  Last week we went through an open-house at a $1.8 million place nearby that even had concrete floors!  

We're not done with the carpet cleaning, either. On Thursday the crew will return and do the two guest bedrooms.  This will will require less effort to get things ready, thankfully

No golf this week for me, though Karen may play tomorrow with her Oregon friend who arrived Wednesday for a short visit.  Also, her regular golf partner is eager to go sometime next week, and they may make it a threesome. No Planet Fitness this week, either.  This is my yearly holidaze slugfest.

Ok, that's it. Take care. Stay warm. Stay safe. Avoid buggy people. Find something good to think about...

Holidaze Discombobulation Begins

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

11/27/21

Aloha All!  

Hau'oli La Pelehu! (Happy Thanksgiving!)  Funny note:  in Hawaiian, "pelehu" means puffed up or swollen, so the phrase is literally, "Happy Swollen Day."  Seems right to me...

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving.  Ours was pretty good.  It was a pot luck at a neighbor's house.  My fears about too much togetherness were only partly realized.  There were about 20 people but we

Dinner Guests Arriving

ate on an open-air lanai well spread out.  The real test will come in about a week, however, when the virus will have had time to do its deed.  I'll let you know.  The new variant that has been identified in South Africa sounds scary, but we need much more data before assessing how bad it will be. Mutations occur when there are lots of vulnerable targets to infect, and unvaccinated people are indeed vulnerable. Cases that occur in those who are vaccinated reach the same level of viral load as unvaccinated, but the data show the amount of the virus declines much more quickly.  This means, of course, that those who choose not to get the vaccine are contributing to the emergence of problematic variants and thereby prolonging and worsening this sh*t show.

Karen and I played golf on Wednesday instead of our usual Tuesday and opted to forgo our weekly Planet Fitness workout altogether.  Wednesday's round continued my slide toward mediocrity -- no pars, no bogeys, no birdies, no skittles, no wigglies, no banshees this time.  Actually I did ok, and hit quite a few good tee shots, but I wasn't all that consistent on the follow up shots.  Karen again got a par and several bogeys. Karen's golf buddy may be available again soon, so I may be taking a break for a while.  That's ok by me.  I've really enjoyed the outings but I definitely resisted getting totally hooked on the game.

Received my replacement skylight opener and installed it on Thanksgiving day.  Wow, what a difference!  I put the new mechanism on the heaviest of the two skylights and it is now much, much easier to open.  I'll put the one it replaced on the other skylight which right now has the defective unit. This will require a visit by my handyman to help move our heavy dining room table top so that we can set up a ladder underneath it, probably next week some time.  So far I consider the whole project a definite success.

Well, as I've mentioned in previous years, I have mixed feelings about the holidays.  I've begun putting up outside decorations and lights, and maybe tomorrow we'll get out our artificial tree.  It's a bit disheartening though to be bombarded with the commercial hype of buy, buy, buy.  This year we started to see Christmas stuff in the stores before Halloween! And the Black Friday sales seem to now go on for weeks.  I try to ignore as much of it as I can, and to avoid going to some of the shopping centers unless absolutely necessary until after January 1.  Oh, and the tv schedule is all messed up with Christmas specials and football games taking the place of my favorite shows.  Bah, humbug!  Occasionally, though, the true spirit of the season breaks through and I get the warm fuzzies, so I don't feel entirely like the Grinch. 

Good news on the medical front.  I saw my retinal doctor yesterday and I got another reprieve from an eyeball jab.  That makes 2 1/2 months since the last injection.  My next appointment will be in 6 weeks, so if I hold out until then it will be a record interval of 4 months!  Although I was able to deal with injections every 4-6 weeks, it certainly is a relief to go this long between them.  My acuity in the bad eye hasn't improved much (20/80 to 20/100) and never will most likely.  But if it will stay where it is and my left eye remains at 20/20, I can deal with it.

Ok. Off for our usual Saturday morning routine.  A welcome antidote to Holidaze Discombobulation. Take care, enjoy the season as much as you can, try to stay sane and healthy.

Let's Bogey; Skylight Blues; Foreclosure No Mo'

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

11/20

Aloha Everyone!

The front that came through last week brought us hardly a drop of rain.  We did have a couple of days of mostly cloudy weather and an uptick in humidity, but that's about it.  The remnants of the front are still around and it has been warmer -- we even ate dinner outside by our pool the other night, and we ran the a.c. in our bedroom a couple of nights this week.  We did get some light sprinkles Thursday and Friday night -- not enough to do the garden much good but enough to wake up the coquis and to obscure the lunar eclipse.  I see from the weather reports that at night you've been dipping below the temperature at which water turns to ice.  As I recall that can be downright painful....

In Covid news, our island inched up another notch in terms of vaccinations to 68%, still going slowly but at least improving.  The daily infection rates have been dropping a bit, too, but we'll have to see what happens after Thanksgiving -- lots of gatherings means lots of opportunities for viruses to crash the party.  At least with breakthrough cases the severity has dropped and the demand for hospital facilities has eased off.  The unvaccinated folk will at least have a shot at a ventilator. We're going to a friend's house for a pot luck, and I'm a little nervous because there will be almost 20 people.  We will be outside most of time, and I plan on wearing my mask.  We're pretty sure that all of those attending will be vaccinated, but that still doesn't mean we will be 100% safe. The odds are good enough though to give it a try.

My skylight project is all done and it really looks better.  Of course, this is one of those projects where only I notice the difference.  I'm going to have to revisit this in the near future though, because one of the opening mechanisms has to be replaced because of a gear problem.  I've located a source online and it should be a simple job.  I'm also toying with the idea of installing motorized openers with remote controls.  Right now we open and close the skylights with a long rod that attaches to a crank mechanism. It would be much more convenient to just push a button.  On the other hand, the motors and buttons would add to my growing inventory of electronic gizmos and gadgets that could go bad....

A big event in the neighborhood this week was that a boarded-up house at the end of the street is finally getting some attention.  The property has been in limbo for years because of legal issues surrounding its foreclosure. Several years ago a squatter tried to move in but the neighbors got together and nipped that in the bud.  It was then boarded up to prevent others from trying again and has been an eyesore ever since.  But suddenly this week a big dumpster arrived and someone is cleaning out the debris and starting to fix it up.  The neighbors are ecstatic.  This is certainly the time for a new owner (or maybe the bank) to fix it up and maybe sell it.  Our real estate market is hot, and houses are selling for ridiculous prices, including ones that aren't particularly desirable. This will also spice up the neighborhood gossip, too, as we find out more and speculate about the progress.

Enjoying the Show

My golf outing this week went well, though I only got one bogey (Karen got 2 pars and several bogeys).  In general I think I played better and more consistently.  Some of my tee shots were surprisingly good this time, but my putting wasn't so hot. Yet again the weather was beautiful, although the course is getting very dry and the fairways were somewhat brown.  However, the dry grass allowed the ball to roll a long way and probably saved several strokes on the downhill holes.  But on the uphill holes there were a few times when the ball rolled backward away from the

Snack Time

green, despite my loud verbal commands not to. Bad ball!  We counted 28 Nenes this time.  Remember, these are the endangered state bird that looks like a Canada Goose, but is in fact indigenous to Hawai'i and has a number of characteristics that are quite different. One that is the same, however, is the poop that we have to watch out for when we play.  Golf courses are a haven for Nenes.  The have ample ground cover in the rough areas for nesting,  plenty of room to forage on the fairways and greens, and even ponds and small lakes to swim.  Nenes migrate but not very far, usually just from one end of

Definitely A Tough Shot From Here

the island to the other, and from higher to lower elevations.  They'll be at Makalei from now until late next spring, and we should start seeing babies in mid-winter.  

 

 

Ok, that's it for now.  Hope you've got your winter gear ready. Make sure that thing ... do you call it a "snow shovel?" is handy.  Heh, heh.

PARdon Me!

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

11/13/21

Aloha Ohana!

Our dry weather continues and it's getting old.  Since we returned from our trip 3 weeks ago we haven't had any significant rain in our area, though the southern and eastern parts of the island have.  It is taking a toll on our garden, though we keep everything going with our low-volume irrigation system.  A front is coming through this weekend and that may give us some relief.  We'll see if it actually materializes.  The upside is that the weeds aren't doing very well either, and also the coquis are quiet. Plus our solar panels have generated a good surplus credit after our balance was reset last month-- this should give us a nice cushion that can be used to offset any months when we fall short.

Well, the big news for me this week is about my golf outing with Karen.  This was Monday, at Makalei, our usual course. Sad to say this time I didn't get any bogeys -- instead I got TWO PARS!! Damn!  Move over, Tiger. Oh, and I actually completed 18 holes.  First time ever for both of these things! Now as I understand it, "Par" in golf doesn't mean "average," as it does in almost all other contexts.  Rather, it is the number of strokes an expert golfer is expected to take to finish a particular hole. "Expert," got that -- or in my case just a lucky duffer.

Now, I shouldn't leave you with the impression that the entire round was excellent because in fact there
were several holes where I took the maximum of 10 strokes.  On one hole I really fell apart and had five do-over tee shots (remember, Mar-a-Lago rules allow this).  And on another hole my tee shot got buried

I Need My Lava Wedge

in a stack of lava rocks that are an Hawai'ian archeological feature.  I adjusted the position for the next shot using the "Pele" exception to the usual drop rules.  In case you're wondering, neither of these were my "PAR" holes.  Honest.  Anyway, the overall experience was still positive enough that I'm certainly willing to go again. (By the way, Karen got 1 par and several bogeys and overall is way better than me).

My home projects this week included replacing the wax ring under one of our toilets.  This required my handyman's muscle, but I did shut off the water supply and drain the toilet. Oh, and I carefully supervised and kibitzed.  This is a common problem, according to my handyman, and it usually starts when the toilet is installed using wax rings that are not thick enough. This can allow a small leak that if left too long will rot the floor and require a much bigger repair ($$$). This happened to us in Ohio and I wound up replacing all of the flooring in one bathroom. The other project was a bit harder and required some high ladder work.  Over the years rain had splashed into our operable skylight openings and had left streaks on the wood enclosures.  I sanded down the water spots, re-stained the wood, and then coated it with an outdoor grade urethane varnish that may help prevent this from happening again.  We usually try to close the skylights in case of rain, but sometimes we are away or the rain comes on suddenly and with a lot of force. Since we seldom have lightning and thunder here, we usually don't have much warning like you do on the mainland.

A final bit of news this week is in the "only in Hawai'i" category.  On Maui the Highway Department has positioned some portable electric signs along roads where people have been speeding and driving

Da Kine Sign

recklessly that read "Eh, Bra. No Drive Like One Clown."  This is pidgin for "Attention Please, You are Hereby Forthwith Requested to Attend More Closely to the Velocity of Your Vehicle and to Subsequently Observe a Higher Degree of Decorum in Exercising Control Over Its Directional Configuration."

Off to Farmer's Market and our usual beach breakfast picnic plus errands.  Be safe and stay as sane as you can.

The Bogey Man is Back!

Ghoulish Gecko

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

11/6/21

 

 

Aloha, Everyone --

Happy Halloween! It was pretty much a non-event here, as usual. There are almost no small kids in our neighborhood, so the action is always elsewhere. We don't even buy candy. Which means, unfortunately, no left-overs (I particularly used to like the little Snickers bars).

I hope you're well and staying warm. I've noticed a definite downward trend to your daily temps, particularly at night. Same here. Last Monday night it got down to 63d! I got that new pool cover on just in time, and it has been working well -- despite the frigid night time temps our water has stayed about 82d during the day. It does drop the water temp at night, but only by a couple of degrees, and the frequent sunny days we've been having bring it back up to a comfortable level.

On Tuesday I went golfing with Karen as her substitute partner while her regular golf buddy is on the mainland. We saw about 20 pairs of Nenes and at least 30 Peacocks (the course mascot), and once again

King of the Club House

the weather was very nice. I made it through 16 holes but pooped out.  Remember, we duffers take a LOT more shots that anyone else. The best part, though, was that I got TWO bogeys again! As you may recall, I've done that once before playing with Karen. I was very pleasantly surprised that I did so well, given my lack of practice. I should confess, though, that we play by "Mar-a-Lago" rules, which means there is a somewhat loose connection between reality as it is and reality as we want it to be. Do-overs are permitted and not counted, and adjustments to the location of the ball before a shot are ok as long as your partner doesn't see it. Anyway, I really still did ok, enough to agree to go again next week.

Our governor has deemed the state's Covid situation to be improved enough to relax travel restrictions for international visitors beginning next week. This has pleased those who depend on tourism for income, but it may mean a return to our over-taxed infrastructure situation that we had a few months ago. Visitors from other countries can escape quarantine by being vaccinated and having a negative test within 48 hours of boarding their flight to the US. Hawaii will accept that as long as they go straight through.

Also announced was a relaxation of occupancy restrictions for businesses as long as they require proof of vaccination or a negative test result. This is good news for restaurants, bars and gyms who have been barely breaking even at 50%.

What????

Our island has reached 67% vaccinated but it has been excruciatingly slow. Part of the reason is that anti-vaxers are still trying to save us from the evils of science and logic. For example, one roadside proselytizer here claims that THE leading cause of death worldwide is "medical poisoning." Got it? Medical drugs and vaccines kill more people than all diseases, old age, wars, and accidents combined. Relative risk assessment may not be this guy's forte....

Ok, off my soap box and on to Farmer's Market and the beach. Take care. Stay healthy and sane.
 

How 600 Horsepower Helped Me Try For A Darwin Award

 A few years ago my wife gave me the best Christmas present ever, a bucket-list dream come true for a geezer sport-car enthusiast like me:  5 laps each in a Lamborghini Huracan (602 hp) and a Ferrari 488 (660 hp) at a track just south of Las Vegas run by Speed Vegas. They have a stable of cars you can

Me and "My" Lamborghini

drive, and although the Huracan and the 488 aren't the tippy-top of their lines, they were close enough for me to make the experience nearly stroke-inducing, which was what I was after. Now they have added some new cars to the buffet, including the jaw-droppingly delicious Corvette C8 (undoubtedly the best Vette ever). 

Ever since I was a teenager I've been a fan of sport cars, and I even owned an old classic Austin-Healey roadster which I managed to keep running with duct tape and baling wire.  It was a piece of junk, really, but it cornered well and looked really cool.  My fantasy, though, was to experience the thrill of a truly high-performance machine and Ferrari and Lamborghini were at the pinnacle of my hormone-addled dreams.

Me and "My" Ferrari

There are several of this kind of self-indulgent opportunities in Vegas, as you might imagine.  Other tracks allow you to go faster than the one I chose. For example one consisted of three straightaways connected by sharp turns at the end of each.  But the 1.5 mile track where I had my OmgI'mReallyDoingThis! experience was specifically designed to showcase ALL the performance capabilities of these marvelous machines. The back half of the course involved nearly continuous turning in both directions, accelerating and braking in between. The last turn entering the .5 mile straightaway requires that you slow to about 35-40 mph but then give it full acceleration (aka "full exhilaration") before having to brake for the sharp turn at the end.  I hit 134 in the Lamborghini and 141 in the Ferrari, and somehow resisted the siren song to go just a little faster before I hit the brakes.  Both of these cars are capable of 200+mph with enough room, but not on this track -- a good thing, according to my wife.

They don't just let you hop into one of their $300k cars and take off, however. First, they collect your money and make you sign a liability waiver which essentially says (1) you're crazy, (2) you admit that this is a very dangerous thing to do, and (3) you agree not to hold them responsible for A.n.y.t.h.i.n.g.

"Oh sure, piece of cake..."

Then there's an extensive briefing on the layout of the track and the operation of the cars' paddle shifters. Paddle shifters are a great invention which allows rapid shifting without using a clutch and without removing your hands from the steering wheel -- a far cry from my old Austin Healey that required frequent one-handed steering as you shifted with your right hand, and worked the clutch pedal with your left foot, while your right foot operated the brake and accelerator in a complex action called "heel and toe."  Anyway, in the photo you can see me pretending to understand the explanation of the best "line" through the course. After this you are fitted for a helmet (aka "brain bucket") that might allow for an open casket ceremony, if you're lucky.

Finally, you are accompanied while driving by a "coach" in the passenger seat who gives you turn-by-turn tips.  Also, he has a brake pedal of his own so as not to be totally in the hands of some crazed geezer like me who would consider this to be the perfect way to die, or who might have a coronary from the thrill of it all.  I'm not sure I would want the coach's job -- it would be a little like being a high school driving instructor at 130 mph. My couch got a little nervous that I wasn't braking hard enough at the end of the straightaway, but he never used his pedal.  I think he knows that novice drivers like me may be lulled by the (false?) sense of control these cars give you -- he was a teense more rational, plus he was young and had many more years ahead of him if he survived this gig with me behind the wheel.

An option which the track offers is a video package which includes views of the track from the front of the car, and interior shots of the dashboard instruments.  Naturally I had to have it.  

In the photo you can see the onboard display of my speed and my position on the track during one of my laps (yellow dot) in the Ferrari.  Traffic flow is counter-clockwise, and so you can see that I don't have much distance to bring the car down from 140 mph to about 40 for the next turn. However, these cars are engineered to do just that -- accelerate fast, brake fast, and corner like they are glued to the road surface.

I did pretty well and by the end of my 10 laps I was on Cloud 9. But then it got even better.  The onboard video for which I paid extra had failed during my Lamborghini laps.  I expected just a discount, but instead they gave me four more laps in the Lamborghini free!  Fourteen laps altogether! Viva Las Vegas!

Here's a link to me in action in the Ferrari. The video was taken by my wife from the observation deck. At times she had trouble finding the car in the viewfinder, so be patient.  You really can't see the back part of the track very well, but the acceleration in the straightway is very clear. Make sure your sound is turned up.

There's no deep philosophical insight I can offer here, other that perhaps this is another example of how we often appreciate things all the more when they come later in life, rather than being wasted on the young.  Also, there is a clear lesson that it's never too late for a Darwin Award, which is given to those whose deranged behavior removes them from the gene pool -- in my case before senescence robs me of that, too.