HOTEL WAIKIKI

Final Post of 2007

Kuhio Ave. in the afternoon.

I always take off from blogging the final two weeks of the year.  Hotel Waikiki (this blog) will reopen on January 2, 2008.  Even if it snows in Hawaii on that day.  Dub that my one and only new year's resolution.  Wanna know how I feel about people who make ton's of new year's resolutions to themselves, year after year?  They are setting them own selves up, self-inflicting themselves, with failure.  I understand that there are different degrees of "failure," and failure to keep a NY resolution is not the end of the world in severity.  To begin with, there's no penalty for the breach.  Much of a NY resolution has to do with refraining or "not" doing something to attain the objective.  Like "not" stuffing yourself if that's habbit in order to lose so many pounds.  A yin and yang sort of thing?  Other thoughts that come to mind...."NY Resolutions for Dummy's," or "An Idiot's Guide to NY Resolutions."  That said, have a safe and happy holiday season.

From the beach at Waikiki....until we meet again.

2nd to the Last Post of 2007

The sun rose over the Ala Wai canal, and the day wisked by in an eyeblink, that's why this post is actually being posting after midnight, but stamped at 11:59pm just so the title of the post makes sense.  Meanwhile, our trade winds are back in gale force.  Beats the humid conditions in the absense of the Trades.  Unscientifically speaking, the raw power of the returning trade winds blew the sun faster from horizon to horizon.

Tonight's topic....for the past few years, greed has flourished in this city.  Rent in the Honolulu area has escalated at the speed of someone about to kukai his pants rushing to find a restroom stall. Terrible.  People have had their rent hiked from $200 to $400 extra a month, and more, without renovations.  Even with a low end $200 increase a month in rent, if a tenant's rent is was $800 a month, that amounts to $2,400 extra rent a year, or paying an equivalent 3 month's rent in the same 12 month period, for the same apartment.

It all started, and I don't believe this is the stuff of urban legend, when the University had to kick 1000 students who roomed on campus, out of their dorms, to make room for incoming freshmans, because the University didn't adequately upkeep their existing dorm rooms, and these were condemned, and more so because the University failed to complete new dorms buildings on schedule.  Honolulu is not that large of a city, and 1000 students en mass seeking rentals in Honolulu flooded out the rental market.  The tower crane in the photo is being used to build the two dorm buildings within its radius.  The sooner the brand new dorms get completed, the sooner students will be able to move back on campus, freeing up more available rental units in the Honolulu area, and consequently, less demand on the rental market should cause a drop in monthly rents.

Saturday At the Park

"Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright."  Diamond Head crater vividly attests to the "green" part of the lyrics, but a rain-check for the "brightness" attribute of the islands due to the recent squalls.  Consider your ears fortunate that I didn't sing the lyrics.  I actually have been subscribing for 2 years to an audio software service that allows me to post music or voice clips, at will.  Every month the software service company still charges me a fee.  So, it would make dollars and cents to actually use the software, the service pastes an audio player on the particular blog that you instruct it to, the kind of audio player with the triangle button. My computer doesn't have sound, is mute due to a past glitch, in that incapacity, I'm unable to hear what I would produce, thus it's been strictly text blogging here, possibly until I risk the dreaded reboot in an attempt to restore digital hearing.

There's a soccer goal post in the foreground in the upper picture because this area of Kapiolani Park is the established domain of the soccer moms and to the hoards of soccer kids.  A soccer version of Fields of Dreams in the bottom photo.  Yeah, all that news about the illegal use of steroids and human growth hormones in major league baseball justifiably raises the same questions about all other major sports as well.  In the meanwhile, all the future soccer greats who hone their athletic skills at Kapiolani Park have it as natural as it gets.

P.S.  it was Nate who asked whether Diamond Head crater was "green" in a past comment.  How otherwise non-descipt things that local people bring up are but music to another local's ears, the nuance of Diamond Head crater being green this part of the year would have little value elsewhere, duly noted.

Un-Wet Okole

Despite all the rain showers today my saddle has remained dry, guess why, because I've been sitting on top of the seat.  Also, I've been riding around town utilizing a trash bag for a makeshift rain coat.  Works well.  The trash bag fits tight and keeps me dry, and yes, I prefer it to an umbrella especially while on a motorbike.  Unfortunately, once I get to Star Market (Moiliili), in the pictures, I have to hop off the saddle exposing it to the rain drops, and that means, I only end up sitting on a wet saddle upon exiting the market with my groceries, getting wet okole (butt), but then it occurred to me why not wrap the trusty trash bag on top of the saddle, double duty, and keep the saddle dry, since by no means was I planning to grocery shop dressed up with the fashionable trash bag, anyway.  And, that's today's Newton's apple.  Oh, well....

Family Tree

Somewhere in New England, someone is bringing home a Christmas tree, not store-bought, but from the forest, hewed.  The person with the tree on his shoulder is not breaking the law with an illegal harvest, actually he's an in-law who lives in New England, pictured on one of those Christmas Tree farms, where you select your very own live tree and saw it off yourself.

The best part of the shopping trip, I surmise, is that they don't play Christmas music on premises.  The junk part, I've been informed, is that freshly sawed Christmas trees still retain a huge amount of water within its capillary systems and consequently weighs tons.  On the light side, the residual water in the tree must keep the Christmas tree fragrant and fresh for a while, ideal for people who refuse to part with their Christmas trees until mid-March.

Imitation 101

Parking is banned on Kuhio Ave. (middle street) in Waikiki, thus I've been parking my motorbike on an narrrow enclave off to the side of a Kuhio Ave. store that I frequent.  So narrow is the requisitioned stall that I have to reverse my motorbike back onto the street to drive yonder.  Btw, 99 percent of motorbikes do not have a reverse gear, as mines.  The cemented area is not meant to be used as parking stall, but the store's employees know me well enough to look the other way and grant me the perk.  Neat.  But not neat is a copy-cat who parked his motorbike on "my spot," a few nanoseconds after I had vacated it.  I immediately pulled back on the sidewalk and explained to the interloper that I've been buying things from the store since the day that the store opened.  And if other people start parking, what a marvelous idea, on "my spot," the store would most likely bar me from parking there, thankyou.  To this hint he agreed.  We'll see.

---

The Hawaii Super Ferry re-launches later this week, after protests halted additional trips following it's debut and only voyage.  Since, the Super Ferry can carry several hundred cars, perhaps it could double duty as a mobile parking lot moored on the Ala Wai canal.

Chocolate Sunday

This week's deluge colored our city's glorious Ala Wai Canal a delicious shade of chocolate.  The family of ducks that make the canal their home didn't seem to mind at all.  They had the canal all to their feathered selves.  There were numerous duck ponds on the adjacent golf course itself.  I woke up at 4am and inexplicably there's the same regulars holed up in their cars in the golf course's parking lot....no can....the weather too bad.

Some community spirited person left this ashtray at the Diamond Head Lighthouse lookout.  If you're there and smoke cigarettes, please make a deposit.  Rode up the Diamond Head road and there were runners still out finishing the last mile of the Honolulu Marathon.  It must have been 4pm in the afternoon, the race kicked off at 5am in the morning.  One girl marathoner was limping across the crosswalk, and I beep-beeped at her.  She stared back.  I waved, arms in the air as a triumphant salute to her.  She might not have appreciated my gesture.

Tent City

This week in preparation for tomorrow's 2007 Honolulu Marathon, a city of tents was errected for pre-race activites at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki.  I would be remiss in not mentioning, thereof to the chagrin of the soccer moms who otherwise confiscate this sector of the park throughout the rest of the year under their dumbfounded idea of eminent domain.  "Hey, you with the motorbike, get out off eye range from our kiddies."  "You talking to me!" Kapiolani Park is where the finishing line is.

With all the windy and wet weather we've been through this week, the marathoners sorely needed shelter from the storm.  It's even amazing that the tents didn't fly away from the gusty weather.  The wind, itself, seemed to have died down tonight, and if things hold with dry overcast conditions, as it is now, tomorrow may produce some records.  As always, the annual marathon begins at 2:00am directly below my apartment on the Ala Wai, with the endless caravan of buses shuttling the thousands of runners from their Waikiki hotels to the starting line in downtown Honolulu.

Flight Plan

This vehicle is not an airplane.  Rather it's its own version of an economical smart car (picture below), aerodynamically designed upon a motorcycle chasis.  This particular post is inspired from the ultra windy weather we experienced last night and early morning.  Specifically, driving to work, giddy up, through the storm in the 5 am darkness on Iron Horse.  Stop lights were out at many intersections in the wet and windy winter wonderland.  Pictures via Ursi's Blog.

Tuesday's, Things that are Wrong with the World

....imagine Debra Lafave, a mild mannered school teacher, taking your 14-year-old son out for a ride, would she have then committed a heinous crime or just engaged the teenager in a mature liaison?  Ooh, the poor kid, a psychological wreak for life.  So sexually repressed from the experience that he has to be put on viagra to get an erection.  Miss. Lafave, is back on the news again, for breaking the terms of her probation relating to her notorious conviction of lewd and lascivious battery, LOL.  Still, LOL.

Extra Extra

  ....Joy to the World.

  via Leaves of Grass