HOTEL WAIKIKI

Wednesday's Audience

Oh when, you look down from the lanai only to see a lady feeding the municipal ducks on the sidewalk in the morning, you realize that you do need that second cup of coffee.

Update: it's now 5:59 PM and the lady and the ducks aren't on the sidewalk below my apartment anymore. They went some place. I mentioned last week that The Wildest Show in Town is held at the Waikiki Zoo on Wednesday nights at 6-7pm, which also happens to be tonight. I decided to skip tonight's zoo concert because the weather appeared iffy earlier, and lo and behold, the skies mysteriously seemed to have cleared up on it's own accord. I suppose that could be an example of Murphy's law. It definitely would be Murphy's law if I would have won the ukulele they give away as a door prize every Wednesday night if I did have attended tonight's show.

Tuesday's Eggs and Things

I kid you not, the eggs almost went huli (fall) over the railing while I was taking the picture, still LOL. I really should bolt my pizza pan to the railing to use as an impromtu photgrapher's table. I suppose a large plate would do just as well. However, in lieu, the moment would be deprived of its drama. At any rate, these eggs are the best deal in town at 18 extra large size ones for $5.79....and don't, don't you rush out and buy them.

Monday Dawns and Yawns

(more later)    *whoops.

For Richer or Poorer

Iron Horse.

During the past two weeks I've been conducting an experiment to find out whether using cash to pay at the checkout stand, instead of with a credit card, would influence me to spend less. I've found that it actually does reduce the amount that I spend. I don't accrue bonus points with my card so that ain't an issue. I attribute the lower spending to simple things like if I had to buy two different items from two different stores, I would restrain myself from buying all kind unnecessary items at the first store mindful that I need enough cash left over to buy the second item at the second store. Here another way of putting it, I get only two nails left in my work pouch and the plans specify that a 2 by 4 must be attached to a wall with a nail through both of its ends, I would make an extra effort to pound the first nail without bending it so that I'd still have the second nail to attach the 2 by 4 at the remaining end. Then the building inspector gives me a passing grade. Also, while I'm grabbing my bills out of the wheelbarrow at the check stand, I make extra sure that I don't mistake a $20 for a $5, so literally and figuratively, I end up watching my money better by paying for things in cash. Priceless, or something in that order.

Wildest Show in Town

A photo of an elephant on this blog can only mean that it's the start of The Wildest Show in Town held during the summer months at the Waikiki Zoo on every Wednesday night from 6-7:00pm. Actually tonight's was already the 4th show in the series, but I put off attending earlier shows in light of the H1N1, with large crowds and all that.

Featured tonight were entertainers Roy Sakuma and his precocious keiki ukulele ensemble. If you don't know, keiki means kids. Ukulele means jumping flea. ♪♪ My dog has fleas ♪♪ There's something about a whole bunch of kids strumming a jumping flea instrument that matches up well together. The group's performance tonight is actully a run-up to their annual ukulele festival held later this month across the street from the zoo at Kapiolani Park.

The crowd gets larger as the concert series progresses into summer.

I wasn't about to settle for a seat way back on the lawn because my camera isn't able to zoom in that far away from the stage to snap those Kodak moments. Btw, it's as much a picnic as it is about listening to music.

The host of tonight's show related a story about the guy above strumming the uke. Way back in his University of Hawaii days, as a member of the school band, he was offered a job playing on the Johnny Carson Show, but didn't accept the offer because he refused to leave behind his girlfriend who was also attending UH. Btw, he had a voice.

Here's the main event at each and every Wednesday night's show....the drawing for a free ukulele.

Wednesday's Re-Jets

It was on this past Saturday or was it this past Sunday? In the early morning hours, when this car alarm went off on the street below my apartment and wouldn't shut itself off. Thankx. For some unknown reason that incident knocked me off kilter and kept me off kilter until today. Wouldn't you just know it that the very people who set their car alarms to a highly sensitive level usually have alarms that take forever to shut off. Odds are that the nincompoop owner also lives within earshot of his or her parked car and simply refused to get up and have the decency to disable the errant car alarm for the peace and quiet of the neighborhood. I was about to say that there ought to be a law against erratic car alarms, but obviously there probably already is to no avail.

The alarm was set off by one of those motorbikes with loud exhaust pipes but still other vehicles that later passed the darn car also set off it's alarm by vibrations. There's a motto that "loud pipes saves lives." The motocycle operator's, that is. There is enough merit to this adage that I've been looking into getting louder pipes for Iron Horse. However, that'll involve re-jetting my carburetor needles since louder pipes means more air out, means more air in, and therefore the fuel mixture has to be adjusted to infuse a richer mix into the increased air volume, otherwise you'll run lean and stall at the top of a steep hill and start to roll to the bottom of the hill and that won't be fun. Rejetting isn't all that simple either. However, I've been fortunate to have stumbled upon a simpler method of increasing the rumble and so too my presense around the proximity of my bike which doesn't require rejetting which is....

It's perfectly legal since the last baffle (shown above) in the exhaust system serves more as a plug to prevents hedgehogs and mice from making a home in the muffler.

All Coconuts on the Same Tree

Personally, I think that Gov. Linda Lingle has done an excellent job for the most part during her tenure. However, her plan to furlough state workers three days a month to make ends meet seems almost mechanical like issuing an executive order to shut off the air-conditioning in state office buildings to reduce the electric bill. The furloughs would affect more than 16,000 state workers, and that "three days a month" translates into 36-days a year, which at 5-days for an average work week, represents a reduction of a whopping 7 non-paid weeks off during a year for a state employee. There use to be a thing called "senority" where newer employees were expected to get bumped off the payroll during a periodic reduction of workforce if for no other reason than to preserve the 40-hour work week of employees who had already put in 40-years in the same organization. Oh, well.

On the other hand, furlough is a strategy to deny unemployment benefits to a large number of newer state workers who would have gotten axed had Gov. Lingle observee the senority rule. Mind you, I dunno this for sure since she hasn't returned my phone call. Between you and me, I suspect that "furloughs" exist as a temporary measure. That is, after a few months on the shelf, the governor would then issue a second announcement that lay-offs would be necessary, that furloughs were not sufficient to keep things kosher, despite having had promoted furloughs as the better of two evils to insure against the lay-offs that followed.

Oh

Nice thing about having the Aina Hina highway back to Waikiki almost all to myself was that after glancing into my mirror only to find an ambulance with all it's flashing lights a few feet from my bike in the left lane, I was immediately able to move off to the shoulder of the highway to allow the ambulance room to speed through. I would have sworn that the ambulance's siren was emanating from the approaching direction, instead from behind me, and after scanning for an ambulance on the road in front of me and not sighting it, I may have merged into a kinda doppler no hear zone. I pressume that the medics driving the ambulance were a bit chagrined. I'm usually more awares in the sense that I've been on the freeway during the morning rush hour on my bike and took the opportunity to follow behind an ambulance after allowing it through.

Thursday's Suds

Here's something worth passing on that's the kinda stuff you wouldn't have known about until you read it on a blog. Namely, the proper way to get those disposable plastic bowls squeaky clean is to use a sponge instead of a scouring pad. Dishwashing liquid is still required in the process. At any rate, things like this disputes the verdict that the Internet makes you stupid if only until tomorrow's session on the Web. via Jalna, scientific data available here.

Wednesday's Health Plan

I wasn't even aware that supermarkets sold "goat" meat, frozen or otherwise. This was at Don Quijote.

I read that there were 205 more cases of swine flu documented last week in Hawaii. On that note, after this lady in the same aisle coughed I sprinted to the next aisle faster than you can say H1N1, but to no avail, because we bumped into each other again in the aisle that ran in the perpendicular direction at the end of my escape route and her aisle. I am doomed. Such as that is, it has been very nice knowing you dear readers.

Tuesday's Randoms

As we speak, the Water Board is jack-hammering the street below for repairs which will last from 9pm to 4am.

Don' t knock it until you've tried it....walk along the Ala Wai in search of the water truck just to take a photo of it.

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Funchal Airport's runway, on the Island of Madeira.

Here's another angle of the same airport if only to prove that the airliner shown landing in the photo above wasn't making an emergency landing on the nearest freeway.

A direct benefit of an airport built on pillars is all the extra parking space.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

These fishermen musta been extremely hungry for Samoan crab. You eat anything caught from the Ala Wai canal, you'll start to glow at night.

Monday's Monday

Remember my Saturday's post on double-decker bicycle racks? I watermarked the photos used to illustrate the post with a generic "Internet photo" because I was simply unable to remember the specific website where I found them on, that is, until somebody on the Internet took it upon themselves to refresh my memory. Big whoops, on my part.

Bradley writes:

RonW, instead of putting "Internet photo" you could have credited my blog, or put a link to the post about these photos somewhere in your text.

http://amusedspectator.blogspot.com/2009/05/two-tiered-bicycle-stands.html

Okay, now it's done, however, belatedly. I sure that I'm not alone in valuing random photos taken and posted on the Internet by individual bloggers, as much as, the photos featured on the front pages of big media. 

Bradley notes that available bicycle parking is at a premium where he's at in Singapore since bicycles are a principle mode of transportation. By the photo, the bike racks appear to be built quite sturdily.

Social Media

Saturday's Random Internet Photo

Loading bicycle.

To read the specific instructions for this "2 Tier Bicycle Stand," you'll need to enlarge the pics in order to make out the print. However, the graphics in the photo above demonstrates how to load, while the graphics in the photo below illustrates how to unload.

Unloading bicycle.

Saturday's Pulp

Plastic from this OJ container will soon be recycled and fashioned into none other than rim protectors. As you already know, rim protectors are paddings that you insert in between a wheel and a worn tire, so while you're struggling to crow bar the rubber tire off the metal, you won't nick up the smooth edge of the rim during all the hussle and tussle. "Then, what's the use?" Note that even throwing your hands up in the air as a last resort might not work for an unusually stuborn tire. There are various brands of "rim protectors" available on the market today, however they're either overly thick making them cumbersome to shoehorn the tight rubber over metal, or flimsy and don't last. Plus if you bought one of those you wouldn't be getting your daily allowance of orange juice as a free bonus. Just cut along the dotted line as illustrated below.

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Friday's Vessel

Happy Aloha Friday wherever you are or hope to be. What's the feminine equivalent of masculine grunting while paddling a canoe? I mean like real loudly. With teamwork. That's wasn't meant as a riddle, but to depict the sounds these teenage girls and novice paddlers were making as a ways and means of expressing their enthusiasm for their sport, or for all I really know, they were aiming for an onlooking duck who shared the waterway. Aflac. Btw, do not buy that Chicken I posted about a few days ago. It's that bad, unless, you plan on presenting it with aloha to a friend who stole your cinderella watch and hid it in the bottom of her backpack.

Thursday's Annihilation

Before I begin, would someone be nice enough to straighten out my teleprompter. Contrary to popular opinion, North Korea is not about to fire a nuclear missile at Hawaii to transform us into an atoll. Even if they did launch, the odds are that they'd miss hitting even a single media journalist reporting live from the scene. I'm referring to the US Defense Secretary having ordered missile interceptors to Hawaii because of the North Korean threat. The larger revelation might be why we don't already have missile interceptors in place at some undisclosed military facility on the island.

Wednesday's Sparrows

How about that, I've found a more secure way of taking photos of objects placed precariously on top of my railing. That is to shim up the space between the lower edge of the beveled railing and the flat bottom of the featured object.

I bought a bottle of gourmet bird seeds at Long's for the sparrows. It all started off with a lone sparrow popping in and out of my apartment on a whim. Then he starting bringing along his comrades, et al. Or naively bragged about where the fish was biting to his circle of friends. The group of sparrows have a habit of tweeting or chirping non-stop which was starting to annoy me, and yeah, I know, they're only discussing the latest events happening in Iran, etc., etc. Btw, a group of sparrows are referred to as a "host of sparrows." Before you even realize it, they have hypnotized you into volunteering to be their host, and without question, someday you'll hop off the lanai and fly in perfect formation with them. However, the Ala Wai Blvd below my apartment has traffic like you'd find on any street in a city. The sounds that the sparrows make on the lanai (balcony) cancels out the din of traffic reverberating from the street below. That's purely on a psychologically level, but seems to yield more than a placebo effect.

Quote of the day on a proper gift to bring to a house warming party. Answer....an extra large size container of detergent. (from The Daily Dish)

Whole Foods

For $5, a whole chicken. I'm preparing in advance for hurricane season. This is just a test. That is, I'm taste testing various can goods which can be stockpiled as MRE's (meals ready to eat) in the unlikely event that a hurricane hits us this season and the electricity goes out for a week. There's only so much Spam™ that you can eat during an emergency period. Btw, a footnote on today's photo. The background is tilted because the can of chicken is balancing on top of my lanai's railing and the top rail is beveled so rain water will drip off its edge. In adjusting the straightness of the can of chicken, the background had to be rotated off plumb and level. There's a bit of suspense whether the chicken would tumble off the narrower and sloped railing while I was pressing the shutter button. You know how people balance objects on their dog's forehead then take photos of it. It's generally along those lines.