HOTEL WAIKIKI

Aloha Friday and Then Some

made $10,000 today.  As I mentioned in Tuesday's post, I was in the process of bidding on a Valkyrie (pictured).  This is how things went.  Oh, oh....before I forget, I found a way to save a $1,000 on shipping the bike to Hawaii.  Just don't crate the bike.  I found this freight company that specializes in and only in transporting motorbikes cross country.  Apparently they have a customized semi truck which has motorbike racks or whatever on board, so they don't even pelitize the motorbike on a wooden skip to truck it to the West Coast.  Once at the West Coast, I would then have to pay the ship company a hundred bucks for them to secure my motorbike onto a skip (pictured) for the voyage over to Hawaii under the deck.  However, overall this method nets me a thousand dollars over transporting a bike fully crated.

The auction on Ebay for the Valkyrie was schedule to end this morning.  Make myself some coffee, turn on the computer.  Click to the Ebay Motors webpage.  T minus 9-minutes and counting.  I start bidding.  With each of my next four bids, I instantly get a "someone has already outbidded you" message.  Just in case you're not familar with Ebay bidding system, there is an arrangement where you can raise any current bid a split second after someone else submits the latest bid, up to a limit that you set, yourself.  So the bidding jumps up $800 in an eyeblink.

I keep at it outbidding the phatom bidder because I know he or she has set a prearranged limit of how high to up the ante.  I finally exceed that limit and I am moments away from winning the bike because the person I'm bidding against is probably at work, he or she is not bidding in person or online as I am.  T minus 55-seconds.  Take a last look at that immaculate bike in the inset picture.  I christen her Ruby.  Alrighty, seems like 55-seconds has passed, the webpage doesn't refresh by itself.  I hit the refresh page button and there's still 10-seconds left....9....8....7....6....like dat, in essense just a formality.  Holy Kawasaki, somebody has just outbidded me.  I immediately raise that iffin bid by another $100, but all po hoe I just miss getting in the would be winning bid buy a hair.  Goodbye Ruby Tuesday and.

Honolulu's Rail System, Part 2

Waikiki tennis courts near beach.

One thing about parking your car near these tennis courts....a 25¢ buys you a whole hour on the parking meter.  If you can find an empty stall, there's frequently lots of minutes remaining on the meter because the previous driver deposited two quarters just to be on the safe side.

Anyways, back to the subject of Honolulu's Rail System.  The Rail spans the section of the island from Kapolei to town.  They opted to start construction at the rural Kapolei end of the route probably because there's more vacant lots at the Kapolei end than there is at the town side for staging the pouring of concrete into the precast forms as nearby to where they are to be errected, and also more free space for storing building material like rebars and 2-by-4's.  The project is undertaken under a highly charged political atmosphere and if things don't progress rapidly enough, or at least seem to, it'll be a windfall for those who oppose the Mayor politically.  Naturally, the planners will utilize everything available to streamline and facilitate the building process.

The newspaper already mentioned that the Rail will reach Pearl City, not even the halfway mark of the total route....in a whopping 4-years from now.   I'm a card carrying member of the carpenter's union so you would presume I would be overjoyed.  Well, not quite.  The reason for this is that I would have to drive all the way to Kapolei from Waikiki every morning.  If they had instead started the Rail from the town end, a stone's throw from Waikiki, I would be happily singing "I'll be working on the railroad all the live long day," but instead if I do get hired onto the Rail project, the lyrics are, "I'll be driving all day just get to the darn railroad."  Know what I mean.

Tuesday's Ruby

I came across this on Ebay.  If I submit the winning bid I might even christen the bike, Ruby.  It's a 1999 Valk, which is an older year of the classic bike than I'm in the market for, however it has a low 6,746 miles on the odometer.  It's also a Tourer model with some extra bells and whistles over the Standard though more purist model.  The seller seems to be on the up and up with the mileage.  Something he said about the Valk still having the original tires on it.  Yeah, that could have been ebedded as disinformation, but it sounds genuine, not bait. 

Valk owners tend to sell their bikes just before or during the winter season when it isn't ridden during the mainland freeze.  Come spring, I'd have to wait until the end of the year for the next selling cycle to start all over again.  My bidding on any bike is limited by the extra cost of shipping, in this particular case, $2,500 from the East Coast to Hawaii, and bidding itself is limited by a window of opportunity where there's a larger selection of bikes for sale.  All in all, I'm not in any big hurry, if I can't buy it this season I can live without it.  It's just that I could live better having it.

The seller didn't post any better pictures on the Ebay page than the top photo. This photo shows the side view of a different but similar Valk Tourer.

On Track

Hurrah, the City Council finally decided on the technology to use for Honolulu's mass transit.  It wasn't a system that runs on magnetic levitation.  Not even a system powered by hot air.  But a modernized choo choo train.  Soon Honolulu's traffic problems will be a thing of the past, or you don't believe in the tooth fairy.

I don't know specifically what the local-motive's route will consist of.  Whether it'll be two set of tracks adjacent to each other or if the railway will be designed as a double decker.  I presume that train cars have to travel in the two opposite directions simultaneously.  Whereupon we reached the end of the tracks, and everyone hopped off and joined in the fun of turning the train around.  Opps, that was with a San Francisco cable car at the Fisherman's Wharf's turnstile.

A Day Late and....

nice day in the neighborhood.  Tune in later for a story.

I arrived back home after midnight.  I wasn't surfing the waves in the moonlight as many here partake, just bumped into a former co-worker and we ended up talking story for a while.  This is written tomorrow.  I received 2 separate bills from HawaiianTel, my ISP.  Apparently, HawaiianTel still has me incorrectedly listed down as having 2 Internet accounts, even though I only have a single account, and even though I thought we had cleared up the mixup.  If you recall last month I was disconnected for 2 weeks because of non-payment of the phantom Internet account.

HawaiianTel use to be Honolulu's only land line phone company, and they felt it their mission to take full advantage of their monopoly and this lasted until cell phones became popular, which they were not equiped then as yet with the newer techology.  Then Verizon bought HawaiianTel.  Then Verizon sold HawaiianTel to a group of local investors, and the new owners screwed things up with the billing.  HawaiianTel is currently in restructuring and the guy directing the restructuring is charging HawaiianTel $6 million a month for the services of his crack squad.  Incidentally, the same person was in charge of restructuring Enron.  At any rate, I'll be sticking with HawaiianTel for my ISP because both 2 bills that I received state that I owe zero dollars....?

Who Knows

One and only one among these two Democrats will make history either by being elected the first woman President or alternatively the first black President of the US.  A black President would be a bigger achievement because this would be the first and probably the only black President elected in the Westernized world, pending a repeat in the US.  South American too hasn't had and never will have a black president.  Canada will never ever elect a black president.  Moreso, Great Britain.  The list goes on.  Europe.  Eastern Europe.  Russia.  Mexico.

You are already aware of how I feel about Obama's presidential bid.  I never thought Barry should have thrown his hat in the ring for the 2008 presidential election cycle.  Mainly, because when Obama did announce that he was entering the presidential race, Obama had only accumulated 2-years of legislative experience in Washington D.C., itself.  At that point, his only claim to fame was the electrifying keynote address that he delivered to the Democratic Party National Convention in 2004 which made Obama an instant household name throughout the nation.  I had never heard of Obama myself before then.  Let me run that by you again, a virtually unknown Obama delivers the opening speech at his political party's national convention where Obama doesn't hold even a token role in confirming the party's presidential nominee, and at the political party's very next national convention 4-years later, the same Obama will be there running for his party's top post as president.  Is this a form of impulse buying or what have you?

We have 50 states in this country.  Obama would never had been elected Governor of any of the 50 states with the credentials he brings with him to this year's presidential race, not even the people of his home state Hawaii would have voted him into the office of Governor.  Yet Obama aspires to be the next President of the entire United States.  Incidentally the most powerful man in the world.  Inexplicably, Obama is almost there.  It's plain to see that the propelling force behind Obama mania has been Obama's nonpareil speechmaking abilities.  He could effortlessly break Fidel's 4½-hr. record for the longest speech given at the UN General Assembly without breaking a sweat, and none of the UN delegates would be bored.  In that sense, all the presidential candidates are above average orators and skillful debaters.  The bull no shit the grass no grow, if you may.

Just in case you was curious, I cast my vote for Obama like the 99% of Hawaii voters, but that's strickly because Obama's from Hawaii.  However I always held reservations why Obama would not have better sought a vice president postion.  Then run for a shoe-in presidency 8-years later, if and that, whomever the president from the Democrat Party won a second 4-year term in office following this year's victory.  That political itinerary would have gained Obama 8-years of invaluable internship at a not too shabby second-in-command post.  But my whole premise was wrong.  As aforementioned, the country only knew of Obama from his keynote address at the 2004 Democrat National Convention followed by a general lull publicity-wise after the introduction.  Taking that into consideration, none of the Democrat Party's presidential contenders would have considered a rookie Senator Obama as a vice president running mate.

That said, if Obama's plan was to run for president to draw attention to himself so that a Democratic Party presidential hopeful would be impressed enough to select him as his vice president running mate, things sure worked out larger than planned.  Also, the talk about a "dream team" of a Hillary/Obama or an Obama/Hillary ticket in the November general election only works in Obama's favor.  Essentially, Obama can't lose if that's in the cards.   On other hand, Hillary might have to be content with the title of "First Lady" at least for the moment, not the other way around, that is, "ladies first."  Unless she takes steroids, a Vice President Hillary will be too old in 2016 to physically endure the rigors of the campaign trail if she sought to upgrade to President.  Another thought, will Al Gore be Hillary's choice as her vice president running mate at this year's Democratic Party National Convention?

President's Day

today went by fast.  The 6 o'clock news is already on.

Chelsea Clinton Gets Lei-ed

The genius of it.....Chelsea Clinton is holding a political rally at tomorrow's Farmer's Market at Kapiolani Community College (7:30 am) on the slopes of Diamond Head crater.  I bet the food vendors at the market are estatic about the increased crowd that Chelsea's appearance will gift them with.  It's guaranteed to be covered by local TV.  Not so much for what Hillary's daughter speaks in behalf of Hillary, but moreso because everyone will be anxious to know just what Chelsea ate at the Farmer's Market.  Securing the popular Farmer's Market venue could be considered a coup by the Hillary campaign even though the Farmer's Market is held on the parking lot of the Kapiolani Community College.  Meanwhile on Sunday, Barry, or Barak Obama's campaign is throwing a potluck at Kapi'olani Park in Waikiki, across from the fountain (10 am–1 pm).  Talk about cheap eats for the resident bums at the park.  

Unchained Melody

   

Somehow this doesn't quite render the intended effect.  Oh, well.

All Balls

On the mound, Roger Clemens with McNamee (far left).  I didn't plan to watch today's Congressional hearing on the use of steroid and human growth hormones in major league baseball, just tuned into CNN at about 5 o'clock in the morning, and the next thing I know, the Congressional hearings were on.  To me, Clemens doesn't look all bulged up with chemical steroids, and how was it that his name came up pursuant to illegal steroid and HGH use is beyond me.  At any rate, McNamee had been Clemen's former physical trainer, and McNamee not only recounted injecting Clemens with steroids and HGH, but saved the very needles and syringes that he used to inject the drugs into Clemens for later DNA testing.  "Because...." testified McNamee (paraphrasing), "if things went down, Clemens would only think of his own hide."

I came away with the impression, that some Senators and Representatives who cross examined Clemens and McNamee, would like to taint Clemens as much as possible to dilute the criticism of Barry Bonds' illegal use of the same preformance enhancing drugs.  Maybe, it's just me, but I sensed that there were some Barry Bonds fans among the Congressional panel.  Clemens opened by citing the dilemma that when he had been silent regarding the accusations, people mistook that for he was guilty (he balked), but if he spoke out in his own defense, people mistook that for he was trying to squirm out of the public noose (wild pitch).  As always in any trial by media, you're guilty til proven innocent, albeit proving your innocence would really spoil things.  The proper legal solution in this venue is to unzip your pants and show that your balls haven't shrunk, and are instead of normal size.  "Now....you believe me?"

Tuesday's Tidbit

I had some thoughts recently about mopeds getting tickets for parking at bicycle racks on the sidewalks, and sure enough, this couple today on their mopeds struck up a conversation with me and they brought up the subject at random that it is legal to park mopeds at public bike racks because mopeds are deemed as bicycles by virtue of their common license classification.  Both moped owners and bicycle owners are issued the same official registration stickers in Honolulu.  I guess as long as the mopeds are parked within a certain distance next to the bike rack they fall within some kind of legal safe zone.  The couple whom I mistook at first for visitors spends 6 months out of the year in Waikiki and actually live about a block from where I live.

Monday minus a $40

I bought a DVD drive at CompUSA for a cheap $40 because of the store's closeout discounts.  There wasn't much of a selection of products remaining with the sale already on for weeks.  The DVD drive that I grabbed off the shelf was a SATA drive.  As far as I was aware off most drives are "ATA."  "SATA" translates into "serial" ATA drive.  Problem is that my computer interfaces with a "parallel" drive not serial, who would have known?  Did I mention that there is a no-return policy in effect.  If I added up all the $20 that I mis-spent buying items that never fit like was standard but should have been metric instead,  I would have enough money on hand to out bid Microsoft and buy Yahoo.  Albeit, most items could have been returned, but putting it off to return the merchandise the following week lapsed into eventually forgetting completely about it.

While I was at CompUSA, I didn't pass up the opportunity to buy a "sirloin steak" hot dog at the vendor outside.  This is one of the few places where you'll find a shaker filled with celery salt among the condiments.  

Saturday's Nice Weather and Some

There's some whales wintering in Hawaii out there's.  Just ask my 4-megapixel camera.  The camera has a 24x zoom, but the resolution would be grainy because of the low pixels if I were to crop out the flukes and flipper section of the photo.  I've been in the market for a higher resolution digital camera for whale days and other impromptu events, but the higher megapixel cameras that I could afford to buy came with a lower zoom.  There are bulky digital cameras available that offers both the higher megapixels and high-zoom features, but then these models are inconvenient to luge around at least for me.  Anyways, I was kicking back at the senic lookout at the Diamond Head Lighthouse, and when I decided to bag to my dismay I found that a tour bus had pulled up and parked infront of my motorbike blocking me in, but the female tour driver who chose to stay inside sees me, and reverses the tour bus to make space for me to leave....lest I forget, still second nature for local people to be nice like that in their own little ways.  Mahalo, as always.

A Pro Bowl festivity at Kapiolani Park undeniably proving there is truth in dat if you build it formula.  I didn't get any closer to the masses as the photo clearly depicts.  Crowds and me are like water and aspirin.   As you already know, there's the block party on Kalakaua Ave. in Waikiki tonight in celebration of tomorrow's NFL finale.  By noon, the food booths were already fully set up, if you build eat, left on the sidewalk, they'll move them onto the street a 5 o'clock sharp.  With all the fans mingling in tonight's crowd wearing their favorite football teams' jerseys, any real football players in attendence might not be full recognized, fans might even ask an impersonator for one signature.  

Today's Thursday

Above is part of my motorcycle's lights electrical system with the seat removed during today's works-in-progress stage.  I had to buy some electrical connectors and a wire crimper to perform the surgery.  I also bought an eye glass repair kit today because both nose pad cushions on my reading glasses fell off.  That's the package they sell with a miniture screwdriver and those tiny screws.  There's something that they call a "screw starter" to make it possible to grab and insert the itsy bitsy screws, but the indespensible screw starter was missing in the package that I bought.  I tried and I tried to reattached the nose pads to my glasses by fumbling with the screws.  It can't be done.  Moral of the story is, look first, inspect well the contents of the eye repair kit, if you must buy one yourself, for that "screw starter."  I thought I'd past that on.

Btw, a foodie, listed on my sidebar favorites, noted in his post today that the century is only 8-years-old, which I thought was quite an original observation.  Imagine, too, people who start their lives during the year 2000, they never lose track of how old they are.  What else.  A box of birthday candles has only 24 candles inside, so adjust accordingly for decorating the birthday cake, for example, in the event that the birthday person is 25-years-old.  Waikiki has been practically rainless throughout today, not like it was on many other parts of the island that were flooded out, but as we speak, the storm has arrived in Waikiki.  The Water Board is bound to raise the price of water with the large amount of precipitation we've been having.  They raise the price of water because when people don't have to water their lawns, total revenue drops.  For some stranger reason, the Water Board has never resorted to increasing the price of water to discourage people from wasting water during a drought, not that I know of.

Here's the finished product.  That module, the rectangular plastic box, has been spliced and tapped into Iron Horse's lighting system.  It's a safety feature.  I have only the brake light on the back side of my motorbike, it does of course stay on as a running light in low intensity red beam.  However, the two turn signal lights on the back side of the motorbike only lights or flashes when I press the brakes flick the turn signals.  The module converts my two rear turn signal lights into running lights, they stay on in low beam, and on top of that, when I hit the brakes the two rear turn signal lights switches into bright mode together with the larger regular brake light in the middle also in high red light mode.  The more better to see me, I can only presume.

Other thoughts....the media ought to leave Britany Spears alone.  *I had the great opportunity to watch the space shuttle launch off today on TV.

P.S., I received a package of coffee just today that I had ordered from Kona.  An astronaut from Hawaii was from there.

All Pro and No Con....Don't Buy Fake Tickets

We can be glad for both the fans as well as the All-Pro football players that the weather's clearing up for the Pro Bowl's pre-game festivities to be held at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki.  Rant: the freaking traffic around my neighborhood.  Yeah, yeah....I know.  That was simply a traffic advisory.  Rave: in fact, I am in favor for keeping the annual Pro Bowl game in Hawaii permanently.

Happy Fat Tuesday

Of a Super Bowl

David Tyree's (No. 85) incredible reception took a few minutes to sink in after instant replay showed the play close-up.  How Tyree managed to retain possesion despite pinning the football with only his right hand to his helmet on his way down and being slammed to the turf was not human.  Wasn't ballet but it worked.  At that point in the Super Bowl game, if you weren't fortunate enough to be cheering for the NY Giants as I was.... 

Sunday Outside

7:07am and it's still dark along the Ala Wai, plus there's a flash flood watch through this afternoon.  Minus well stay indoors.  Make pancakes.  Feed leftover pancakes to the ducks.  Here duckie.  To think they have the gaul to call a bad pass a duck in football.

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Later the skies above cleared up, and scullers took to the field.  At least they were able to get some exercise.  The $64,000 question is are you too getting your daily supplement of required exercise even on a Super Bowl Sunday?  Same here.

The Internet Makes You Stupid?

There actually was a blog entitled "The Internet Makes You Stupid," that I visited regularly in 2000.  After a quick search, indeed, the blog is still alive today, however the phrase, "the internet makes you stupid," serves as the blog's blurb on it's marquee.  Instead, the blog's official title is "Something Awful: the Internet makes you stupid."  Either way, there's truth in them words.  It does though appear that the original copyright owner of the The Internet Makes You Stupid blog may have sold or transferred the website to some other party judging from the type of material that's now posted.  I dunno.  Maybe it's the same author.  The earlier version of the blog didn't have all its present day advertisements.

The relevance of the Internet's ability, arguably, to make you stupid is that in the previous post I mentioned that I had not tossed out an empty spaghetti box, and thus, didn't realized that I was entirely out of spaghetti until the water in the pot was already boiling, while I was preoccupied on the Internet.  You can draw your own conclusions, today, I opened the cubbard and inexplictably that empty spaghetti box is still there in the same spot.

Friday over the Internet

While I was exploring and discovering all kind new things on the Internet last night, this girl was screaming in panic below my apartment building.  The new things that I discovered on the Internet in no particular order were that NY City hasn't had any snowfall during the entire month of January.  The last that happened was 75 years ago.  People have attempted to eat tamales without first peeling off the corn husk wrappers.  That there actually is a Boeing 797 passenger airliner that seats 1000 people in one swoop.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another big discovery of sorts.  Water in a pot came to a boil on my stove while I was exploring the Internet, so I reached for a box of spaghetti to dump the noodles into the boiling water, but the box was empty.  Make sure to toss out your empty food boxes.

Outside, a car driving on Ala Wai Blvd. stopped to assist the screaming girl who was being accosted by a man.   It happens that the driver and the passenger in the car are both fearless females and they leave the car parked in the middle of the street for the duration of the drama.  Soon, a bunch of neighbors came out and along with some bystanders started yelling at the man to leave the girl alone.  But he would not be deterred from harassing the girl.  In desperation, the girl flags down a passing taxi, but then the man attempts to climb into the backseat along side of the fleeing girl.  But before he can barge himself into the taxi, cops arrive in full force.  The interesting thing was that three of the arriving policemen had unmarked cars and were dressed in plain clothes, so apparently there's a few undercover personnel on duty in Waikiki that we weren't aware of.

The cops yank the man away from the girl in the backseat of the taxi.  But the guy's so filled with rage that he fights his way back to the girl.  Next thing you know, there's five cops on top of the struggling suspect and they finally manage to handcuff him.  The cops leave the now subdued suspect laying on the ground.  The girl's sitting on the curb, trying to calm herself by smoking a cigarette.  I'm watching all this from above off the lanai of my apartment and I see people who live in my own building already downstairs checking things out, they always do that.  Anyways, it turns out that the girl's a prostitute, and she had stolen the john's wallet during the course of their transaction.  Most likely the damsel had stuffed the loot in her bra or wherever leaving the john to paw at her to retrieve his stolen cash and ID's.  Btw, was the public commotion pre-arranged privately between the two parties for an added service charge, after that they fuck?