HOTEL WAIKIKI

All Along the Ala Wai

via The People's Republic of Seabrook

However, if you already have a 48 million gallons raw sewage spill in the waterway in your neighborhood, then all you need is the paddle to be in business.  That's the reason the Ala Wai canal, normally a busy venue for canoe practice has laid empty these past weeks.  Ever since the individual that fell into the Ala Wai boat harbor downstream died due to complications brought on by a bacterial infection from the polution in the water, the Ala Wai canal that moats off greater Waikiki, has been closed to recreational use.  By now, any residual discharge from the sewege spill has been flushed out from the canal, nonetheless use of the municipal canal is still verboten.  Well, except for the resident Ala Wai ducks though who have their waterworld all to themselves under the circumstances. I've noticed that the sole availability of the Ala Wai to the ducks has reduced their irratic quacking late at night, which may be non-scientifically attributed to the ducks being tuckered out from being more active on the aquatic playground during the day light hours.  It's quieter at nights now along the Ala Wai without the night flights and the ducks buzzing the tower.

The Ala Wai canal during better days with Hawaii's version of a speedboat's rooster tail.

An example of the multi-purpose use that the Ala Wai canal provides to the community.  During a two-week period in the summer, the canal even serves as a venue for a sculling and rowing regetta, which is about as unusual a sight in the islands as is a canoe race in New York harbor.

My Cup of Noodles Runneth Over

Hamura's Saimin on Kauai island has been chosen as one of eight restaurants in the U.S. to be an honoree for the 2006 James Beard Foundation's prize for "preserving America's culinary heritage and diversity" to be presented in New York City.  If you ever invited one of the many many Japanese vistors to Waikiki beach out for a saimin lunch, your guest will be unsure what you're talking about, even though you're making like one expert tour guide and calabash cousin of the Iron Chef.  "Saimin....WTF is dat that?"  Thus grasshopper, saimin is more a local dish if not altogether endemic to Hawaii.  As in, hold the wasabi....pass the Coleman's mustard, as tradition would otherwise dictate. I'll explain the meaning behind that tidbit of local Anthropology 101 someday later.

For now, Hamura's Saimin is the classic example of the kind of restaurant that if you were feeling glum that you would want to stop in as otherwise was usually the habit. If you had a big deal in the making, you would be extra sure not to miss a visit just for karmac insurance. If you were about to leave for Las Vegas. If you had any money left over after you came back from Vegas. Mahalo, Hamura's, et al., for preserving the country's sanity. Supersize that.

Happy Aloha Friday in April

This is a rather large size picture but its GIF format doesn't allow it to reduce very well, so I had to upload it full-size. You can drag the picture horizontally if you like. Recently there's been news that freshly brewed magma is building up under Mauna Loa mountain ("x" marks the spot on the map). How was it....magna rises from deep below the earth to the surface, then pops the cork with a Vesuvius kaboom and all that, if access is temporarily denied? The Hawaii volcanologists aren't given specific dates for the impending eruption, but they caution it's but an eventuality. If FEMA gets their act together by then, I'm sure the federal emergency outfit will send over an adequate number of shovels and one Pliny the Younger so the Mauna Loa community is able to dig themselves out from under the layers of ash following the bake-off.  So fear not.  G.W. Bush approves this message.

I had the fortunate experience to see Mauna Loa once from on a fishing boat traveling from Maui to the Big Island and Mauna Loa is a sight to behold seen from that vantage point. You're looking in the direction of the Big Island and you know that there's suppose to be two big mountains over there, but somehow there's not a mountain (mauna) in sight as you would otherwise expect to see yonder. Thus, you surmise that the clouds must be obscuring the tops of the twin mountains from view. But as you focus higher, all at once, you're greeted with the sight of the tops of the mountains projecting out above the cloud level, and the experience has a Mt. Kilimanjaro effect to it. As previously noted just bobbing along with the oceans swells one day, steaming to the Big Island.

*This picture of Mauna Loa was taken at a higher elevation and cannot compare with the view from sea level.

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It was last month that my sister flew in from the East coast for her dream wedding at heavenly Hanalei Bay on Kauai island. She's works as the director of a prominent playhouse in a major East coast city. The only info about the groom that I feel at liberty to plaster over the Internet, is that I suspect he's also a vegan like my sister. You don't know what a vegan is? A vegan is a person whose diet consists of fruits and berries.

Heck of a job, Bushie.

I was reminded just last night that the U.S. Constitution is based on a Rule of Law as opposed to a Rule of Man. I know what you're thinking....ole warned-out overused cliche, and all that. Nonetheless, worth repeating every 20 years. Why is it better to rely on an artificial code of conduct than to let the chips fall as they may? Because relevant to a situation where an individual is allowed absolute power, the annointed one might act like one monkey outside of a zoo running free in the neighborhood if there were no checks and balances in place. Inebriated by power, the king rat's shit don't stink. And it makes little difference if it's a mountain of shit big enough to be the next source of alternative energy, it still don't stink because well, "I'm thy decider," no less. As Richard Nixon phrased it, "If the President does it....then, it's not illegal." That'll help.

There's this well-know case where students at Stanford University as part of a class assignment were to play jail.  This was suppose to be just a play jail experiment, no one being officially deputized.  However, at the site of their particular Guantanamo, things soon got out of control.  The students who played the role of jail keepers lost it completely and began to treat their fellow students who played the prisioners, as if the whole charade was instead a real inquisition.  Human veneer is that thin.

Nixon was born in a Sears Roebuck do-it-yourself house that his father built. He received a scholarship to Yale, but couldn't attend the Ivy League institution because he couldn't afford the associated expenses, so he pursued higher education by enrolling at Fullerton Community College in California. The makings of an Honest Abe, if there ever was one. But that proved no guarantee against becoming high maka maka (pomp-ass).  That said, Richard Nixon was one of the most efficient presidents ever. Mr. Nixon said he'd end the Vietnam War which he inherited from the previous administration. And a few years later, Nixon ended the Vietnam War, just like he said he would.  It would have served Nixon's legacy better if he had retired early then. However, he didn't, and the rest is history.

Bush, on the other hand, has already announced that the Iraqi War will be left as a welcome mat for the next president who succeeds him in the Oval Office as a gesture of hospitality. The furniture comes with the house. It would have been better if Bush had retired after the justified Afghanistan War. However, he didn't. Now, there are two states, Illinois and California, setting in motion articles of impeachment of the president, which reflect Bush's 60 percent disapproval rating nationwide, as the Iraqi War drags on. If after this year's November elections, should the Democrats take over Capitol Hill from the Republicans, and there's a bad hurricane season accompanied by another poor performance by FEMA, Bush might be history. Da coconut fall on top the cabasa.

In related news, our building has had a new apartment manager for the past 6 months.  Funny how he got the position even though he didn't agree to live on the premises though the opening clearly called for a "resident" manager onsite.  Probably had something to do with him being on the apartment owners Board of Directors.  I need not reinterate about "apartment board members", unpaid as they are, nevertheless, frequently high maka maka juveniles.  Well, the latest bright idea of the new manager is to lock down the laundry room at 9:00pm at night.  The laundryroom use to close at 10:00pm and it was not bolted close from inside as re the new rule.  In that case, if you ran a few minutes late with your clothes in the dryer, you just ran a few minutes late.  No big thing.

Since the new manager doesn't live in our building, he has to arrange for a relative of his who lives here to lock up the laundry room for him.  Problem is that his assignee has to close up the laundry room an hour earlier because she has kids and starts work early the next day.  So here's the problem, you're sitting in your apartment, it's 8 o'clock at night and it's SOB too late to take your clothes to the laundry room at that relatively early hour because there's no way then you could make the 9 o'clock lockup deadline.  How's that strike you?  How about even....it's 8 o'clock on a Saturday night and you have Sunday off from work....and it's ditto already too late to wash your laundry, so you can have your Sunday all day free.  I've already discussed the matter with the new manager numerously.  But as you would expect human nature dicatates that he hold the line and get hard head, inspite of one person's whims not overriding the inconvenience it causes to all the apartment tenents.

Happy Earth Day

About the leak of the President's secret war plans to nuke Iran....if ever there was such a thing as a bona fide "leak," I'm giving 100-to-one odds that the current case is not the genuine article.  Instead, it was probably all in the Administration's game plan to arrange for the press to stumble upon the story and thereafter for Iran to get wind of their country's impending doomsday.  Psychological warfare.  The subject, itself, of the leak making for such a juicy story, it would be expecting too much of the media to have restrained themselves from reporting the leak with fervor.  All the while savvy of the charade they would be embedding themselves into.  No, the media didn't naively play into the hands of the Administration's disinformation scheme by taking the bait.  It's more that political pundits have to earn a living. BTW, remember the Shah of Iran....with his Peacock Throne, and all that? It's really unfortunate that the U.S. propped up the Shah who maintained a security apparatus as evil as Saddam's. Then the Shah gets overthrown by his people. Then in the Iraqi-Iranian War, which by the way, started because Iraq launched an attack against Iran....the U.S. supplied Saddam with weapons to fight our mutual enemy, Iran? Just tidbits. Nurture or nature, something in there.

It's a foregone conclusion that you can't be exploding nuclear ordinances without permanently contaminating a wide circumference of real estate radiating tens of miles out from the initial target.  Radioactive material vented from the Chernobyl nuclear powerplant was disastrous enough, not to mention the increased magnitude of the catastrophe that would follow caused by the radiological fallout from mushroom clouds reaching a thousand feet in the sky.  Europe and the majority of the Arab states would be all too glad if the U.S. went on and nuked Iran and did the world a huge favor, with the U.S. picking up the moral tab on top of that.  Hypothetically, if the U.S. did chose to unilaterally nuke Iranian nuclear facilities, Iran is likely to retaliate by very aggressively funding the insurgency in Iraq.  Then the troops will never be sent home.  Then the U.S. will need more military enlistment.  Then there'll be a national military draft, even a no-exemption draft at that.  Then the Iraqi War will end.  Just like how the Vietnam War ended soon after a no-exemption clause was added to the ongoing military draft in that era.  History repeats itself.  Previously, I had always thought that the Vietnam War was the last unprovoked war we'd ever get shanghaied into.

I'm home, I'm home....there's Diamond Head.

Today....f**K....it's already yesterday, I took the bus up to my Union Hall and paid my monthly worker's dues for the rest of the year.  I still had to file in my 2005 Tax Return to the IRS, so I was in a hurry to get home to meet the filing deadline.  It takes a few hours to recheck the accuracy of the bean count on the tax forms.  Meanwhile after the bus gets into downtown Honolulu, I figured minus well hop off and pay my DSL bill at the telephone company while I'm in the area.  I get to the telephone company....but just before that.  I'm across the street from the telephone company, and I see the Honolulu City Prosecuter standing on the telephone company side of the street.  Can't recall his name.  Anyways there's a brief break in the traffic, so I figure I'd skoot on across the street.  So I'm a few steps into the street before I realize to my surprise, that a stoplight has been recently installed on this particular crosswalk.  However, the brand new stoplight's not in "walk" mode.  It's been an established custom, the way we've been using this crosswalk for decades on end....wait for a lull in the traffic, then walk across the street.  That is, up until the installation of the stoplight at this location.

Well, with the City Prosecutor on the opposite side of the street from me, It's not kool at all to walk against the new stoplight.  I met the City Prosecutor at the Union Hall the year he was solicitating my Union's endorsement for his election campaign, and had a brief chat with him.  "Carlisle"....that's the legal beagle's name.  So just the idea of crossing against the stoplight in front of the City Proscecutor, not so good make la dat, even for an inaugural.  The City has just recently enacted brand new laws making it mandatory for drivers to yield and stop for pedestrians in crosswalks or risk a heavy fine, as a municipal effort to reduce roadkill.  Albeit, directed to crosswalks without stoplights. That's da underlying reason that a City Prosecutor would have taken offense of my seemingly blatant action.  Pass go and collect a $70 ticket.  But Carlisle, I voted for you, not withstanding in that venue.

I'm at the telephone company's payment department, and of all things....the company's computers aren't working.  Wasn't I in a big hurry to get home to file in my taxes?  Haste.  His name is Mr. Haste, if you two weren't already acquainted with each other.  Yeah, I could have filed in the darn taxes earlier.  Since I'm already downtown, I stroll over to the thrift shop to buy day-old bread....no bread.  Well only a few racks stocked with, and of those, of other kind brands of breads.  None of the more premium brands of bread I'm in the market for at discounted rates.  Must have been a run on bread for the weekend Easter rites.  You didn't suppose that they pass around fresh bread croutons for Easter service, did you?  The preachers shop at the same thrift store for their bread as I do.  They got there before me.  Finally, get home.  Finish filling out the various IRS tax forms.  To my amazement, I'm to get back a refund of $1650.  Thus not, the occasion call for a quick trip to Ala Moana Shopping Center before the dye pack explodes.

Besides being an extended Tax Day deadline, the 17th of April, 2006....also marked the 17th year I have been living in my apartment I'm in along the Ala Wai canal, our City's arguably glorious waterway, in Waikiki.  Even with the 48 million tons of untreated sewege that spilled into the canal last week.  Earlier US Gov't photo below.

Happy Easter

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**Yet, still another update:

This is probably the last update. Could have written an entire week's worth of posts with all the updates I've added onto the original Easter post. The reason that I chose to display this particular picture is twofold. Reason #1 is that the rabbits' ears are formed by pouring additional batter with a spoon to the griddle and fusing the ears to the rabbits' faces, instead of attaching the ears mouseketeer style. Maybe you knew that yourself already. I hare you. But personally, I thought that was a nice touch worthy of 5 Michelin stars. Okay, Reason #2 is that the eyes and mouths on the pancake rabbits are not raisins. They're chocolate chips, instead. Albeit, maybe you knew that, too. from Slashfood.com.

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**Another update:

click on photo for round-by-round action.  Via The Sheila Variations.

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*Update: Opps....forgot the easter bunny.

 

No, the bunny doesn't belong to me, but thankyou anyway.  However, you can find out more about bunny at his namesake website Save Toby.

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....and some eggs, too. I have no idea from where I clipped these pictures, as far as, properly attributing credits.

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Have you been itemized?

Well alrighty then....where you can find the answer to what's on the opposite side of the Earth from where you're standing.  *Where if it's 12:00pm noon at your house, it's also 12:00 midnight there.  Through correlating the events that happen on the opposite side of the globe, may allow you to even predict events where you live at, yet to happen.  Understand better the yin and yang for your mood de jour.  Via Venomous Kate

 

A Finger in the Hole of the Dike

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Here's a map showing the New Orleans area. You can drag the picture horizontally to your left to get an unobscured look, if you like. I got tired of having the part of my pictures that's wider than the central column get cropped off by the sidebar, so instead I've chose to run the oversized pictures under the sidebar, which then can be moved manually (*over the sidebar for IE).  The scheme works out better in IE than it does with Firefox.

It's my understanding that a hurricane herds the water from the Gulf of Mexico (far right) into Lake Ponchartrain which floods New Orleans in the event the levees breach as they did last year.  At least by what's outlined on the map, an incoming surge would continue to build up the water level in the lake, having no outlet at the opposite end of the lake for the rising water to escape through. I'm guessing that they passed off constructing flood gates at the inlets, itself, to the Gulf, which would prevent a hurricane's surge from entering the lake to begin with, probably because building a sturdy foundation on marshy soil would have been an engineering nightmare, not to mention the humongous cost associated with such a project.  There are more commonly known tidal surges into estuaries like the Severn Bore in England with as much as a 50-ft swing in water level.  Or in the Seine River in France.  All with a much higher water level fluctuation than that generated by a hurricane.

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This cartographic sectional view of New Orleans gives an indication of the hazards inherent in the topography of New Orleans.  The land under foot is one big depression.  If not, originally a parcel of real estate once submerged under Lake Ponchartrain itself.  It may appear that the Mississippi River on the far left of the picture would pose the bigger problem to the City of New Orleans, than would Lake Ponchartrain on the far right, because the average high-water mark in the Mississippi River is 14-ft. above the normal level of Lake Ponchartrain, but then New Orleanians have been neighbors with the Mississippi for a while, and over the years they probably figured out the right safeguards to keep the river at bay through trial and error, such that, river and town continue to live happily next to one another.  Not as much the same case for the treat of a tidal surge when a hurricane makes landfall and elevates the water level in Lake Ponchartrain, with New Orleans being on the receiving end of an overflow value in a giant bathtub, if a breach in the levee system happens.   

It's already too near to hurricane season to complete the construction of a stronger levee system to effectively wall off New Orleans from the tidal surge of a Cat 5 hurricane agitating Lake Ponchartrain.  For that matter, I donno if New Orleans should be rebuilt at all.  However, I haven't lived in New Orleans, and that's not as simple an assessment to make for the people from the Big Easy who have lived there on the aina for generations.  A new levee system would have to survive for the next hundred years to make such a multi-billion dollar investment worth its while.  That's predicated on a Cat 6 hurricane not entering the picture at all.  Then, too, the levee system needs only to be breached in a single section and New Orleans gets reflooded all over again.  That would amount to a fiasco for your tax dollars spent.  April I4 (Good Friday, hurrah hurrah)....April 17 being Tax Day in the US, mind full.  I suppose they could also build the levees with double wall construction like what they do with the hulls of oil tankers to inure to the levees an added safety factor.  One thing though in favor of erecting a new levee system is that the levees would be required to have to withstand the tidal surge and the attendent sloshing effect upon their walls only for a few hours period, unlike, for example, the dikes in Holland which are under constant assault from the Atlantic.

All the News That Fits

A Day in the Life

This is how the weather should be, always.  Picture perfect. Umbrella free.  Unfortunately, it's not quite how conditions are at the moment.  Minus well, just kick back and reflect upon brighter days.  Thus, the above picture taken earlier this year.  May memory serve me well today.  All 512K's of it.

*I purposely positioned the pictures to underlap the sidebar.  If that offends your sense of aesthetics for whatever reasons, you can rearrange the pictures yourself to suit your own tastes, by dragging the photos further to the left side of the screen with your mouse.

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6 straight weeks of this already, and as I dare to speak, I'm beginning to hear some strange rumbling in the sky.  I say strange because it doesn't even sound how thunder normally sounds like.  With all the bad weather we've been experiencing non-stop, you become quite an authority on the way thunder is suppose to sound.  Not every day we heard the thunders, but frequenty enough.  As an aside, is it physically possible to "spell" the specific sound of thunder like you would with a "grrrr" kind of lexicon?  Like, convert the sound of thunder into alphabets.  Moving on, the best I myself can describe the rumble that's emanating right now out of the sound system in the sky is air force jets taking off at a nearby airport, but then abruptly shutting off their engines, than a few seconds later throttling up again, if that makes any sense.  Alrighty, how about Thor, the god of thunder, moving around some furniture on the floor above you with about as much tempo as an orchestra during pre-concert warmup.

FYI, prior to the invention of dolby, the way the sound of thunder was recreated during a stage play, was by rolling a cannon ball around in a rather large size cast iron kettle on cue, backstage.  Now to really get off topic, the way I've been searching out new blogs for me to read, is by clicking down the "favorite sites" recommended on a visited blog's sidebar, supplimented by scanning the blog's comment section, and clicking a commentor's URL.  TypePad, the blog hosting company I'm with, as well as, Blogger, et. al, maintains a running list of "recently updated" blogs, of bloggers signed on to their proprietary hosting services.  So I'm already fully aware of that option.  What's your advice for your humble correspondent on where to find new blogs to read?  Something that you have personally tried out yourself, of course.  As in, don't be recommending me to a restaurant that you never eaten in yourself analogy.