Sunday, December 9, 2012

Marathoners Are Wearing Yellow Finisher's T-Shirts Tonight.

This is how the home stretch looks through the eyes of marathoner as they approach the finish line off in the far distance (red arrow). The final straight·a·way is actually over a 1000 meters straight. More in the back of me than infront from the spot of the photo. Other major marathon courses may match this in length. But they wouldn't have a beach on one side and Kapiolani Park on the other.


What a relief, the finish line wasn't a mirage. However, by now, the international tv camera crew have already packed up and left. And so has the audience. But like they say, you can't have everything.


It's about 5pm and by now most of the runners have clocked in. You see the truck on the right, the workers are already gathering up the sidewalk barriers. However, these two cheer leaders haven't given up on the stragglers. Are they awesome or what. Found out they live around the corner from me. So what are neighbors to do. Why, chat. Not tweeter, chat. The sign that they're holding says in kanji(?), "Fight On." I didn't ask their permission to use their pic in my blog so that's why they're wearing designer sunglasses.

Did I mention to them that I authored a blog. No. My neighbors on the same floor aren't aware of my blog. Neither anybody in the rest of the entire apartment building. "There's RONW, he's gonna take our photo and post pics of us on the Internet." "What's Internet?" "That's where you buy things online." "You mean he's putting us up for sale on the Internet?" "No, no, but quick, we better hide in the elevator before he gets within photo range."


That, dear reader, is not a giant phallus under wrap by court order. If it were a giant dick with a 'Out of Order' sign on it, it would be a medical disaster. Rather it was originally a beach shower. A working one at that. This is a busy beach and people cannot wash off the sand from the beach and the free suntan lotion on the surface of the water that sticks to their skins. It's across the street from Kapiolani Park and nearby the hotels you see in the pic.

Neglected repairs like this is why the Gov. is demanding that the teachers take a pay cut. We need the money to fix the outdoor showers at the beaches and replace the missing handles on faucets in the public restrooms. And a few thousand other things la dat although not a major public works project by them selves add up to a substantial amount in total, but as I noted in an earlier post, the Gov. finds it far more urgent to build brand new prisons that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Puhleeze

7 comments:

Cloudia said...

nice look around our neighborhood, Ron



Wishing YOU
an Aloha-filled week, from up da block
Comfort Spiral
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Kay said...

Awww...I thought you were going to post pictures of the yellow Finisher t-shirts for Art.

I would really love to meet you someday, Ron.

RONW said...

Cloudia- a hello to you too. As you've surely noticed yourself, the hoards of marathons have departed, but like usual, we people remain in Waikiki, like forever.

Kay- this year's finisher's t-shirts are fantastic. Look like nylon fabric or something that has a satin sheen to it. I hadn't noticed that the years before.

Kay, my golden rule is that what's on the other side of the monitor screen remains on the other side of the screen. Fer ever. Chiselled in granite. In huge 20-foot tall letters emblazoned in neon lights. With a 1000-meter wide force field barrier surrounding the full perimeter too boot. If a person set foot in that force field they are instantly vaporized and their molecules sent to a rehab institution which specializes in reassembling bits and pieces into glass monitor screens as a permanent shrine for anyone even contemplating crossing the plane of the monitor screen. Mind you, I don't mean a "Too, dark, Too dark, I go no further" scenario, but rather a situation only as spectacular as a bird flying into an unopenned glass door.

I've been at this from when blogs were all-text, unlike the photo bling encrusted blogs nowadays, mainly reading of course, only much later blogging myself on TypePad® after I figured how to type, and perhaps life on my planet in it's solar system never evolved any further and I suspect as well for the a good majority of the inhabitants of that blogosphere era, too, as far as, crossing over arguably the barrier of the monitor screen.You people have it too easy today. However, due to an all-text environment, I attest that the pixels on the screen were held in equal value as the actual authors of those pixels, or I guess the words those pixels formed on the screen crafted by the authors. There was simply no separating the two entities from each other. The pixels were the authors in body and soul, and the authors were the pixels.

Kay said...

OK, but if you see me walking around Waikiki, I hope you'll say hello. :-)

RONW said...

Kay- Absolutely. And glad you deed dint misinterpret my illustrious philosohpy or manifesto wrongly like so many people on the Internet and on so many occasions. Than you have to explain. Then you have to explain the explanation, so on.

At any rate, if you're within 20-yards of me, you'd literally bump into me and I'll yell something in the order of, "hey, lady, stop rushing around, the marathon was last month." Prime example, when Kahuku (blogger name) and her hubby from Washington State was visiting Waikiki for a few days, she said she saw me at night riding my bike in Waikiki, and described my bike and the words on my shirt to the T.

She gives me the creeps sometimes.

But then, how can anyone speak evil about somebody who formerly owned a cat named Pickles.

Please take a few minutes to read her bio here (privately, now) to get an idea of the 'in the old days' of the Internet that I was muttering about ad nauseum.

Now, I know Kahuku will probably never post anything new again after her last post for the rest of eternity for reasons unbeknowingst to me, but she has her reasons which I'll leave to her alone, and she and her most probably last blog (she authored a few), can fade into oblivion on her own volution leaving only the glitering pixels on the screen marking what once was her b, l, o, g, or perhaps her blog will burst into a super nova, (for all I care). Actually I do care in a virtual sense. Anyways, her current blog didn't have the same ring to it. And no, I wasn't a paying reader either.

I know G'G' likes to arrange meetups, and that's fine and dandy, if not, in it's own way. I really appreciate her gesture of inviting me over for Scrabble. GG mentioned said she invited Cloudia too. Neither of us were able to attend.

If you're wondering, I never met Cloudia too, even though she lives just downstream from me, and we probably passed each other during the day like two ships at night.

However, grand lady GG has too much time on her hands, if you may, and she sees through the monitor screen a bit differently as a result. Not saying that's bad. An over abundance of leisure ain't bad if you can afford it. However she's about the only, or among the few, who likes to flesh out the bloggers she reads regularly. I personally feel that's not the norm.

kahuku said...

I thought about coming over for the race... but for the 5K portion. Alas, it's during my rush time. Looks like lots of fun for the runners. I do envy all the activity you get to see in Waikiki

RONW said...

kahuku- I remember, you ran track in h.s. Btw, you're still my forever favorite blogger. Glad you're busy. Have to pay the bills if only to make then more bills. Happy Holidays.