HOTEL WAIKIKI

Tuesday's Bread

Rode up to Moilili to buy a loaf of bread at Long's Drugs Store.  Now why in tarnation wouldn't I just buy bread in Waikiki, my neighborhood, and save myself the round trip?  Well, because bread is expensive in Waikiki.  In fact, it's no big secret that all grocery items cost more in Waikiki.  It is a secret though that you can buy a loaf of Wonder Bread at certain ABC convenience stores in Waikiki for $1.65, but the individual slices of Wonder Bread are sort of like snowflakes, no two slices are alike, but in a very unaesthetic manner.  Reject bread.

Problem was, that I bought so much "other stuff" at Long's Drugs Store, that I originally didn't intend to buy, what's so new about that, that I couldn't stuff the entire kaboodle into my motorbike's saddlebags.  The bread, I tied onto my sissybars with a bungee cord.   Didn't want to squash it in the suitcase.  Btw, I transport a loaf of french bread on the back of my motorbike with the french bread just in its paper package, one end of the french bread sticking out of the package, secured with a bungee cord, so fellow commuters along side of me can imagine for a passing moment that they were in Paris, because that's the way the French bring home their bread from the market, I believe, ask Lesley Stahl.

Lord, tell the undertaker to drive slowly....

Since Sept. 4th, six out of the seven fatalities on this island's roads have been motorbike operators.  A motorcylclist approaching a fellow motorcyclist on the opposite side of the road frequently sticks his/her arm out below the handlebars.  The gesture is sort of a "hello" greeting to an essential stranger.  However the true message of the gesture is a "ride safely" reminder.

Friday's Metaphor

Happy Aloha Friday to you....Happy Aloha Friday's full moon to you even.  Stopped by Senor Frog's restaurant tonight.  An employee designated the official "balloon person" fashioned a balloon hat for me, well for every customer as well actually.  I suppose balloon person didn't want to leave anyone feeling left out as part of company policy.  Otherwise, maybe a few balloonless diners might feel slighted and react internally with a "why, I don't even rate a balloon hat," or something to that effect.  Here, you can have my balloon hat.  No, I want my own.  Recognize the subliminal message embedded in the freebie balloon sombreros?  Senior Frog lavishes you with balloons, with a balloon crown no less, in direct comparison, to those people whose life's mission is to burst other people's psychological balloons.  Marketing, that's it....that's eat.  *Be-assers, though, so filled with helium should have their balloons burst with the sharpest needle.

Tuesday's Hi Ho....Hi Ho

View from a room in my mansion on Waikiki Beach.  Fantasy?  Yes, fantasy.  I'm working at the Moana Hotel installing shutters as part of the hotel's latest renovation.  I thought it fitting to take a picture from a room in the Moana being that my blog is named Hotel Waikiki.  Be out of there by the end of the month unless I get assigned more carpentry work.  This is the closest I get to being a guest at the historic hotel.  Nice place.

Last night about midnight, this van plows into a fire hydrant below my apartment.  Kaboom.  Water starts spouting straight up 60 feet into the air.  Then the van smashes into a tall coconut tree in the same trajectory with such force that the jolt knocks the crown of the coconut tree completely off it's trunk.  Arbor night? 

Saturday's Voyage

I was at the Diamond Head scenic lookout and someone was exclaiming, "the SuperFerry....the SuperFerry."  Looked out to sea, and sure enough, there's the SuperFerry out on an excursion ride.  Did I rememember to bring my camera along with me today?  I did.  Then these visitors starting asking me questions if the passing ship was indeed the SuperFerry because they had previously heard that the SuperFerry's operation had been halted.  So, I gave them my personal rundown behind the shutdown.  Which is that most neighbor islanders don't want hoards of strangers armed with their personal cars invading their neighborhoods.  "The SuperFerry carries cars?" inquired the visitor whom I was playing tour guide to.  "Yeah, on the bottom deck."  "Oh, it has a bottom deck....I see.  Thanks for the info."  I've traveled to new places, and a local there introducing you to the nuances of anything about the new land that you're visiting tends to be kind of intriguing.  Nice people.

The way I see things, the court injunction against Hawaii's SuperFerry probably had little to do with the ship's environmental impact on the whales nor invasive species of plants that might inadvertently stowaway in its hold, but moreso because the SuperFerry enroaches upon the turf of the interisland tug and barge companies who have already been in the freight business for a century in Hawaiian waters before the era of airplanes and the tug boat gang are well connected politically.  Not to mention that ferrying passengers over to the neighbor island infringes upon the customer revenue of the interisland airlines btw who had been charging islanders up the wazoo to fly to another island under the justification that people would get extremely tired of flapping their wings flying to Kauai or Maui on their very own.

Nolo Recall

Happy Aloha Friday to you.  This entire week I've been forgetting about things.  Twice I left the apartment today forgetting to bring along my camera so that I could take a photo to post for today's story du jour.  Been that kind of a week.  I forget specifically what I forget about during the week already.  Otherwise, I'd be writing about those forgetful episodes.  Laughing hysterically.  Incidentally, I have frequent bouts with insomnia.  This week's armageddon with insomnia might have been the culprit behind the absent mindedness.  So complicated, huh?  The world moves on.

Tuesday's Consciousness

2 things to report of, in October, concerning the northern hemisphere, are that the sun sets earlier, and retail stores start putting Christmas items out for sale.  They use to start selling Christmas things around Thanksgiving Day in November, which always struck me as being "too" early then, but apparently they moved the date up even earlier.  As far as I'm aware of, this Christmas in October madness originated this year.  Is this global warming manifesting it's impact on the minds of humans, or what?

Moving on.... I've recently discovered the medical term for the psychological effect that the diminishing hours of sunlight has upon people.  It's called "Seasonal Affective Disorder."  Didn't know that?  Didn't even know that you had the syndrome perhaps?  Btw, tonight's picture of Hillary was just to pique your whatever.

President Albert

What do you think....will winning the Nobel Peace Prize induce Al Gore to run for President? Will the Peace Prize be the dynamite that breaks Gore's firm stance on "not running," thankyou Mr. Nobel? Had Gore ran for president in 2004, the odds are that he would have won against Bush, handily. DraftGore.com just ran a full page ad in the New York Times asking if not pressuring Gore to run, and the organization is not alone in their quest. My speculation is that Gore might just accept another vice president postion for a foreseeable 8-years. That'll give him 16-years as vice president. After that....

Thursday's Enlightenment

I wasn't aware that October was also National Popcorn Month, of all things.  I stumbled upon the fact over at SlashFood.com.  Brooches the question, though, if indeed this was always the case?  For the life of me, I can't remember a year that October was ever proclaimed "National Popcorn Month."  In that regards, any month of any year in the past.  Anyways, Happy Popcorn Month.  I'm fairly certain that "popcorn" kernels won't be diverted to ethanol production as other strains of corn have been.  So, popcorn will continue to remain affordable for a while.

Some of the comments left by the readers of the SlashFood.com article on popcorn brought up new ideas to me.  For example, micro-wave popcorn....one commenter wrote that you can make your own microwave popcorn by putting popcorn kernels into a paper bag.  You don't have to buy Orville Redenbacher's microwave packages.  A benefit via that method is that you get to use only the amount of kernels you desire for a particular occasion.  Btw, somewhere in my pantry, I have a electric popcorn machine stored away.  The year I bought the popcorn gadget, RFD chips weren't invented as yet.  Otherwise, I would have stuck a radio chip onto the electric popcorn maker and today it'll  be able to physically locate the device.  You've been there yourself.  For the record, I never did use the popcorn appliance again after the initial excitement wore itself off.

the Tropic of Cancer

photo heisted from Honolulu's Nightlife Diaries

I was at Long's Drugs store and this lady in her higher 50's was wearing a low neckline dress which revealed a portion of her sagging tits or a portion thereof that her bra failed to prop up.  I regret not making the connection with said cleavage and of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  At that very moment, that is.  Or perhaps, the lady dresses that style throughout the entire year.  If that's the case, she shouldn't.

Just to be fair and balanced, men don't own their own pair of breasts and consequently shouldn't overly spout off with their Adam's apple in regards to what passes as fashionable or not fashionable for the neckline of a woman's blouse.  And too, if a woman has been fortunate to remain cancer-free in her boobs at the age of 50, perhaps, she should be allowed to publicly display as much of her mammary glands, and shake her boobies, as she so chooses snicker-free [within the month of October].

A Saturday Evening Post

I've been busy making adjustments on my motorbike (Iron Horse), as you might have deducted by tonight's photo.  Just to be on the safe side, I take photos from various angles of the part of the bike I'm working on to compare before and after views.  Now, where or where, does that extra nut or leftover bolt suppose to have went?  Glad I took photos fer surely in that contigency.  Had to buy "metric" sockets because the nuts and bolts on the motorcycle are manufactured in metric instead of U.S. inches.

Anyways, I went to Sears at Ala Moana shopping center to pick up metric tools and I saw this stuffed elephant lying on the sidewalk outside of Sears.  So, I'm in the tools department in Sears, and I'm checking out the tools in the sales bin.  Just to check through if there was anything worth buying.  Wouldn't you know, this guy next to me just has to inspect the tools on sale that are in the same bin that I'm looking through, even though a billion-to-one odds, he won't buy a thing from the same bin.  I thought that phenomenon only happens in a grocery store.  Guess not.

I overhear this lady nearby with her 2 kids inquiring off a Sears' cashier, if anyone had found a stuffed elephant?  I pointed her in the general direction of the lost elephant.  I noted to her that I had previously returned to the parking lot to get my reading glasses, whereupon, I saw a kid, who was with his parents, pick up the stuffed elephant, and a few moments later, the kid holding the elephant, was talking with a security guard.  After, I purchased my tools, I ran across the lost elephant lady outside of Sears and she rushed up to a security guard and stated that "she still hadn't found the stuffed elephant."

So, I asked the security guard if he was the same person that the particular kid who found the stuffed elephant was talking to earlier.  I had surmised that the kid was giving the stuffed elephant to the security guard for safe keeping.  But the security guard replied it musta been a different security guard.  Wasn't him.  I bet we were making him confused.  So the security gets on his walkie talkie and calls his office.  I really don't know from thereon whether a sort of all-points-bulletin for the stuffed elephant led to its recovery.  You might not have lost and been separated from a stuffed elephant, itself, at a younger age, but there was probably something just as similar.

If you were otherwise at the beach, you would be getting stung by box jellyfish on their monthly influx to shore....

Living proof of what happens to grass after the soccer moms co-opt a section of Kapiolani Park in Waikiki.  Blades of grass are no match against kids' feet.  Yeah, I know the venue is a public park, for the most part centrally located and why not convenient to hold soccer games and soccer practice upon it.  And to stare away a person with his motorbike harmlessly kicking back talking story about world events with fellow members of a select club.  Dub it a scheduling thing, you know the juggle. 

Oh, Happy Aloha Friday.  Our topic tonight concerns depression on the blogosphere.  Not digital depression, but real world depression.  From time to time, bloggers reveal to their readers that they are stricken by depression, some abruptly.  Specifically, our story relates to a blogger I have followed regularly for years.  I won't be so crass as to name the particular blogger who recently chronicled that he struggles with episodes of depression, but his blog is listed among my favorites on the sidebar.  I'll let you know though that he packed it up and moved from the Houston area along the Gulf of Mexico, to Portland in the Pacific Northwest, so I know that the current state of his life with depression is not a party, I believe he left his spouse behind.  Had it not been for his blog, and the Internet, I would had never known about his depression, to care about or not to care about.  And that is the question.

Tuesday's

I stopped by the dealership where I purchased my motorcycle to check out bigger bikes.  The salesman of course had heard my story before of upgrading to a larger motorcycle....or at least the "desire" part of upgrading.  And yeah, "upgrading" may not be the proper word.  You "upgrade" to a faster laptop computer.  Or you "upgrade" to a leather sofa from bean-bag chairs.  Thereof, "super-sizing" may be more appropriate in context to a buying bigger ride.  Anyways, I've been becoming more one with my motorcyle in zen and motion.  Same thing happened to me on my 21-speed bicycle.  At moments, while I was riding on my bicycle, it seemed that I was just magically moving down the road, even though my legs were powering the bicycle.

Just in case you're rolling your eyes, I unequivocally realize that a bicycle is not a motorcycle even though both travel on just two wheels.  A big disadvantage with operating a bigger motorbike is the huge jump in weight which comes with the increased horsepower, my current motorcylcle weighs 500 lbs., larger motorcycles weigh in at 800 lbs.  However, the salesman explained to me that the heaviness aspect of a large motorbike was by itself deceiving.  Most of the additional weight is situated at low level in relationship to the motorbike's rider, not quite at your ankles, but at a low latitude still.  I tried sitting on some of the heavy-weight motorbikes in the dealer's showroom.  And what the salesman had tried to clarify was true.  A plus is that a heavier motorbike is more stable on freeways, albeit, on a rare occasion that you should drop a monster motorbike while stopped at an intersection, lifting it back up is something to consider too, you might need viagra in the sack that night.