Bronze Ponies

There's two bronze ponies if you can make them out the photo. They and the two stone statues are the latest additions to the Stone Gardens along Kahala Ave. Dunno why the objects in the pics always seem blurred. Perhaps the lens needs cleaning okay why I never look then. Anyways, if I had arrived an hour earlier the sun would have been in a better angle for the photo shot. Perhaps, again this weekend. [edit] *Whoops, I forget the Honolulu Marathon is on this weekend and the home route is Kahala Ave. Oddly I didn't see the Arc de Triumph set up at the Kapiolani Park finish line when I passed there today.

A Bunch of Lolo Grinches

Good thing the homeowner above been wake up when he heard his dogs barking at 2am in the morning. This happened last week Thursday night. He get up, he hear somebody outside in the dark, sound like they breaking into his house. So the home owner been yell at the intruders and they been run away one got caught later down the street. Here's where the story gets beyond pathetic. The next morning he check the outside of the house and he found a few window screens partially pried open. He keep looking around and to his utter disbelief, he discovered that the thieves been steal all the christmas lights that was strung up on the eaves. Effin lolo's. So if you run across somebody trying to hawk strings of christmas lights to get money to buy their meth .... no call the cops. We take care of the lolo's ourselves.

I usually put up my christmas lights by the stroke of midnight Dec. 1st. If I don't put them up by then the odds are that I'll skip this year like I did the last 2 years. Something related to not making a proverbial deadline ordained in the horoscope or some other type of temple of divination that the jungle has overgrown and shrouded from modern civilization. Of course Dec. 1st been pass already. Up until now that would mean no christmas lights on my lanai railing (balcony). However, the story above has inspired me to dig deep down and find the energy inside myself to string up the christmas lights anyway. So, bruddah, above. Sorry for your lost. But you can come my house and look at my christmas lights dedicated to you and your family. And your family dogs. Bellieve me, I gotta dig way inside my locker room underneath stacks of things for the christmas lights. But I find them. Aloha.

When I walk around my neighborhood at night, I notice that not very many people have strung up christmas lights. The exception is the people who didn't take them down from last year and they just plug them back on. Their plastic trees will keep a year too. I'm not mocking you dear reader who have the evergreens. However, this lack of christmas lights, the ceremonial spirit, whatever, has been going on for a few years now. I guess the economy has dampened people's spirits not by any measure to a melted snowman demeaner bah humbug christmas is plain overrated I'll regrift the joy and the send it to the next recepient down the line like a chain letter no kurgerrand for you red kettle, but the genuine meriment doesn't overflow the cup as robustly as it did. That is, before the economy went to the south pole, there were visibly more christmas lights set up everywhere on this side of the Ala Wai canal and on the other side of the Ala Wai too.

In other news, or should I intone, in other observations, soy beans were on sale for 4 for $5.oo at the grocery store. That's $1.25 each. 16 ounces packages. However, usually a 16oz package of frozen soy beans is almost $4.oo at the going rate. They use to be perenially on sale for $1.00 to $1.25 almost all year round. It remains a mystery to me why the price of soy beans been fluctuate so high. It's not real important in the grand scheme of all things grocery-wise, but they were my favorite snacks. I use to eat them frozen. Rarely less than a bag or two a week.

On a Clear Day, You Can See Gov. Neil Abercrombie

As you can see in the pic, today was not a clear day. Variable winds drove in the vog that always lingers in the atmosphere south of the islands. Vog is volcanic haze. Or at least, as I endear it, The Veil of Pele, the Hawaiian volcano godness.

Now back to our story du jour. As usual it's a rant. Rant or Rave. I try to keep a healthy balance between the two, but know what when was the last you remembered I raved about something? Anything at all. Alrighty, then, from now on I'll rave hysterically about this or that like someone overdosed on their happy pills. Won't we like that? Just trying to be humorous. Seriously, though, it's not sane to rant with every keystroke. Fyi, there is a Bloggers AA. They meet every Friday night 6 o'clock at Kapiolani Park under the two coconut trees. Free refreshments. Be there. Unfortunately there isn't a Rant-ers AA chapter on the entire island. "Hello everbody, my name is Ronw Waikiki, of the clan Waikiki. I have been sober have not ranted for 5 weeks and 2 days and 6 hours and 7 minutes." Applauds. "Mahalo."

Hawaii teachers supported Gov. Neil Abercrombie in his campaign bid for Hawaii's governor. So what's a Governor to do for people who supported his acendency? Why, simply relegate their status to an inconvenient liability. The gaul of the teachers trying to collect on a bygone favor with something more substantial than a hearty thankyou, my friends. "Just sign the freakin contract, already!" Never mind the terms are so lopsided that the teachers at 40 schools are rallying en masse that the Governor draft a revision.

Before Neil was governor he was a professor at the University of Hawaii. You'd tunk that public teachers are his comrades-in-arms insofar as the issue of pay. Yes, the contract dispute is all about money. Specifically, less money for the teachers. In the lastest and greatest proposal, the State with Gov. Neil Abercrombie presiding sought to restore teachers' pay back to the 2007 level. Now it makes dollars and cents that kids taught proficiently in grade school are more likely to past entrance exams to enroll at the university level where Abercrombie, himself, formerly earned his livelihood.

True, the state has just semi-recovered from a brush with near bankruptcy and money is tight. Part of the recovery was made possible by furoughing teachers 2 days a month without pay. Oh never mind about the kids roaming the streets who no longer had a classroom on those furlough days. However, inexplicably, Gov. Abercrombie earlier this year proposed the incredulous idea of building new prisons so prisoners that Hawaii shipped off to mainland private prisons can return home and those prisoners could be repatriated in body and soul with their families on local prison visits.

By Gov. Abercrombie's metric, the mainland method is cruel and unusual punishment even though the average citizen would suspect that the Governor is ante-ing up to the terms of a blood oath he tendered behind the campaign curtains between himself and the prison guards industry as such offshoring Hawaii prisoners is cruel and unusual punishment to the livelihoods of the prison guards. Thus it must follow that it is unconscionable to let Hawaii prisoners be locked up in Gitmo and the humane cover is they be brought back home albeit shackled to the ulterior motive disguised in this instance as thinly as the vog in today's air with islanders rubbing their eyeballs. The state already has in place a prisoner program for readjustment back into society where Hawaii prisoners are shipped back to the islands to serve the final year of their sentences so they may acclimatize themselves to the warmer weather and tradewinds to foster an orderly transition leading up to their release.

I don't how many prison guards actually vote. However, I have a strong hunch that almost every teacher does vote. Thusly, Gov. Abercrombie's odd behavior defies political logic. At any rate Abercrombie isn't catering to the teachers behalf. Instead he's read them the riot act that there is no money, period. But there is money to build brand new prisons with humongous price tags. Btw, the current prison guards are set for life. They don't need new prisons to insure the future of their livelihoods or necessarily give a hoot about newbies entering their profession with the prospectus of new prisons. The last student dormatory built a year or two ago at the University was the first new dorm building the state built in three decades on the university campus.

From the very beginning of time and I don't meant time served it's been a fact that new prison eventually become old prisons and old prisons need refurbishing. The state can barely keep up with the backlog of school repairs and potholes how do they reckon to fix even more. It's also a fact of life that spacious new prisons become overflowing prisons in a matter of years. Then it'll be the revolving door scenario where there'll be law suits and the state will ship the overflow off to mainland private prisons. Then there's the legacy costs of the prison guard retirement and health insurance benefits for the pensioners that will come back to haunt Gov. Abercrombie. Obviously, he won't be still in office by then. So no skin off his oklole.

U.S. Mulling Leaving 10K Troops in Afghanistan After 2014

What is so wrong with the headline above besides being both beyond unbelievable and stupid at the same time? And if you must ask, no, I did not get everything I so desired over the weekend however neither did I approach near the fiscal cliff. I haven't forgotten about tomorrow. Cyber Monday. Every day it's a cyber monday for the US policy makers it seems. For starters, how long will the 10,000 troops be stationed in Afghanistan after 2014 as a matter of policy? Until 2016. Then 20xx. The US invented mission creep and now apparently the policy is to take it to even another level. There is nothing permanently worthwhile that the US has accomplished in the past decade in Afghanistan.

As it is, the entire US military force is fighting a contingent of 200 al-Qaeda soldiers throughout the entire Afghanistan and those include the imaginary head count. It's been said of Osama bin Laden that he couldn't lead 7 ducks across the highway. The US is fighting his ducks. Oh, it's about the Taliban. See, becuz the Taliban are harboring al Queada in their poppy fields. Thus to exterminate the last remnants of al-Qaeda, every Taliban member must be rounded up and imprisioned indefinitely. Or shot. I agree. However, in Afghanistan, every other person and his gecko is Taliban.

LED Bulbs vs. CFL bulbs

Might sound a lame on a super shopping weekend, but I went shopping for a light bulb tonight. Since the compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) last forever I couldn't remember whether it was 'bright white' or 'day light' that I bought the last time. Now you may ask, "why don't you take the old bulb out and read the fine print?" Well, of course I did just that after I returned home. It would have saved me hours deciding in the store aisle. Oh, I ending up buying 'day light.' And yes, it's real important.

If you weren't aware, CFL bulbs are old style. The bulbs modern day people are using are LED's. CFL's replaced incandescents, and now LED's are replacing CFL's. Well, almost. LEDs are still too expensive, and I don't really know if they last so much longer that they're money effective. Another thing that I realized after I returned home was for some reason it never occured to me to order light bulbs off the Internet. Anyways, the way I understand it, is that the hour ratings for an LED's are based on the LED's fading to 80-percent of their original brightness. The CFL bulb that I replaced was still working but the light was getting so dim. Thusly, so even if the label on a CFL bulb states it'll last 50,000-hours, it doesn't mean it'll provide useful light for that many hours. That's where LED's are better. Well enough talk about how better LED's light up our lives because I still ended up buying a CFL bulb. Actually, with LED's threatening to make CFL bulbs fade away into extinction, CFL's are getting cheaper.

Word Verification

I've recently disabled word verification becuz who needs the hassle. Then some of the comments were getting flagged as spam. So, I disabled comment moderation. Unfortunately, I've been receiving a lot of spam. So, of course, I'll have to re-enable comment moderation.



I stumbled upon a new type of word verification scheme on the registration form above. The simple instruction is in the green box. It sure beats the Blogger word verification rigamarole. The word verification alphabets on Blogger et al. are so well disguised or alterred that it's almost impossible to recognize them for what they really are. Then you have to resubmit them over and over again.

Pakalolo Prohibition

Below, excerpts from a letter that members of Congress in favor of legalizing marijuana sent to the federal government.

The people of Colorado and Washington have decided that marijuana ought to be regulated like alcohol.

The voters chose to eliminate the illegal marijuana market controlled by cartels and criminals ....

These states have chosen to move from a drug policy that spends millions of dollars turning ordinary Americans into criminals toward one that will tightly regulate the use of marijuana while raising tax revenue to support cash-strapped state and local governments.

.... we ask that your departments [the feds] take no action against anyone who acts in compliance with the laws of Colorado, Washington and any other states that choose to regulate marijuana for medicinal or personal use.

The tide of public opinion is changing both at the ballot box and in state legislatures across the country. We believe that the collective judgment of voters and state lawmakers must be respected.

I haven't the vaguest idea who it was that grouped pakalolo together with meth, cocaine and heroin in the War on Drugs, but it must have been someone high on morality. No one has died from an overdose of pakalolo. Ever. If they were tossed in the same bin of cadavers, than it was with a mixture of other drugs in their system. Ditto with traffic statistics in that context. Thus, it's high time that the laws against reacreational use of pakalolo was updated to, well, no laws against it.

It costs too much to prosecute and incarcerate pakalolo offenders with money that could have been spent elsewhere. And, of course, the tax revenues that the legalized product would have brought in and will never be recouped. If this wasn't bad enough, pakalolo prohibition has proven a windfall to it's beneficiaries, both the prison-industrial complex and the drug dealers. The last thing that either of them would like to see is recreational pakalolo use be decriminalized. Meanwhile, pakalolo prohibition has made the image of pakalolo as a gateway drug a self-fulfilling prophesy simply because pakalolo people have to intermingle and rub shoulders with the hard drug crowd, just as in the Prohibition era, alcohol parlors had backrooms that served the heroin clients and prostitution johns.

To clarify, decrimalizing pakalolo does not legalize wholesale pakalolo growing. In the 18 states that allow medical pakalolo, only hardships cases are allowed to grow their own and limited to one or two house plants. The argument against legalized pakalolo that goes something like, "but legalization would create a huge underground market to resell to minors," is true to some extent, but the fact is that there already is a black market for minors who like blow the weed.

If you haven't been out in your neighborhood lately, I'll kindly inform you that there's an ongoing meth epidemic. I don't smoke pakalolo myself nor inhale so forth, but I personally blame pakalolo prohibition for the meth plague. Meth is readily available to anybody and meth doesn't take months to grow. Then there's the meth related crimes especially home burglaries. There is nothing good in meth. Every part of the pakalolo plant can be used for something useful. For example, The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. There are parts of the pakalolo plant that possess the medicinal effects without the high.

The costs to produce heroin is a whopping 2% of its street price. Ridiculously low for pakalolo as well. Oregon had legalizing pakalolo, Measure 80, on the ballot, along with Washington and Colorado. Oregon voters gave it a thumbs down. The difference in the Oregon version was that  licensed growers would sell their harvests to the state, and the state would dispense it exclusively through licsensed outlets. However, Measure 80 was excessively progressive. It would allow adults to grow and possess limitless amounts of marijuana for personal use. The limitless growing amount is not so far out as it seems. The grower would be wiser selling surplus stock to the state instead of risk being caught for selling without a licsence to strangers who might rob the seller or rat on the seller.

Sex, Lies, Emails and the Media

If you haven't heard 'Petraeus' repeated over a trillion times on the tv by now, your electricity was off becuz you failed or forgot to pay your utility bill, or if you have heard Patraeus ad nauseam, than warning this will be the trillionth and one time. The reason that I'm more negatively effected by the non-stop media frenzy over the Petraeus affair than the average human is that I almost always watch 24/7 news channels on tv. And that's all the news channels have been spouting about this past week. Petraeus Petraeus Petraeus Petraeus. At this point I only wish the democrat administration had traded keeping the Petraeus affair silent to the repubs in exchange for extending the Bush tax cuts another decade, well almost. Okay, it's a deal. Oh, you have to forfeit the Obama re-election too, of course.

Mind you, the annoyance is not entirely what you may think it is. I am starting to get a bit captivated by the developing events. Originally it had all the trappings of media malfeasance of hyping a non-story into a news bonanza. It still would remain a mundane story at the most of tabloid value had it not been for the new characters that have emerged outta the woodwork. Essentially like guest stars on the Hawaii Five-O series. Seriously, though, these bimbo's whom instigated the chain of events .... don't they realize that we still have a war going on. On top of that, they're not your average variety of bimbo's swept up in a media storm and cowering away in secret safehouses. Instead they're savvy in how to flex their muscles. Both buttocks and shoulders and why wouldn't they, shovel ready, if you may, for example, the harrassing Emailer can only benefit from the windfall  publicity for the sales of her new book devoted to the Gen. Petraeus and her service as a his laptop. Meanwhile, the victim of the harrassing Emailer enjoys life as a socialite with nothing better to do than bask in the spot light of the elevated celebrity.

Votes R (not) Us

The excerpt below is from an article about increasing the percentage of voters by law. The last presidential election was something like a 60 percent turnout.

The Case for Compulsory Voting  [The National Interest]

Jonathan Levine | November 2, 2012

Nevada offers an interesting solution: in 1975 .... Nevada became the only state in America to include a “none of these candidates” option alongside the major parties. And while it was a step in the right direction, the initiative was nonbinding and toothless. In the 1976 Republican Congressional primary, “none of these candidates” trounced its competitors, and yet, despite the abjectly clear will of the voters, the nomination went to the nearest runner-up ....

Tight Race in The Polls

It's Friday

Frequently during this season of the year, we've greeted with a nice view of the mountains looking out from my lanai (balcony). The air or something. Of course, this is before the annual wet weather arrives. Then there're be days that you might not be able to see across the street or even want to walk across the street.

I was about to leave a rousing compliment for a YouTube video blogger that I regularly visit. Before I could do this, up pops the page above. Is YouTube even serious. How important is it to the V-blogger to know who I am? What purpose would it even serve. Then once you have your info on record, every V-blog that has their videos hosted by YouTube, and then you comment there, will display your name, rank, serial number, photo if included, to whom out there.

While Watching The Racheal Maddow Show

Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show put out a friendly reminder that the American Red Cross does not like people sending them well intentioned canned goods etc. for disaster relief. "It only creates an extra job for the Red Cross who already have a logistical nightmare on their hands."

The American Red Cross webpage:

The American Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations such as food and used clothing, which must be sorted which impedes the valuable resources of money, time and personnel that are needed for other aspects of our relief operation.

[Instead] financial contributions allow the Red Cross to purchase what is needed for the specific disaster relief operation. Monetary donations also enable the Red Cross to purchase relief supplies close to the disaster site which avoids delays and transportation costs .... and also stimulates the weakened local economy.

Obviously, there are varying degrees to how the advisory applies or exceptions, for example, I don't think the Red Cross would mind you dropping off canned goods in person at the disaster zone's Red Cross shelter to keep the onsite kitchen stocked. Otherwise, as the Red Cross website said, you usually end up doing more harm than good. If unsolicited canned goods is a headache for the Red Cross, showing up in person as an uninvited superhero at the disaster zone to aid in the clean-up puts it's own strain on the relief efforts, since volunteers need to be housed, fed, take showers, in an area that is already low on these facilities. On the topic of canned goods, personally, I feel it's unnecessary to give the expensive stuff even if you can afford to part with it. That applies as well to local food drives because nobody expects it and the odds are unscrupulous volunteers will take the expensive canned goods home. That might sound cynical but unless you implanted an RFID tracking micro chip in the donated item I'd place my bets on the side of human instinct.

Strategically, Mitt Romney put his presidential campaign on hold to show his respects. I say strategically because when Obama puts his campaign on hold, but the media zooms in and focuses on Obama, what else is Romney to do except what Romney does best and that's connecting with the American people. I forget but it was either the host of the MSNBC show before or following Racheal Maddow noted that New Jersey will take the next decade to recover. Meanwhile, Romney didn't forsake absolutely all media coverage. His Ohio rally was altered to a disaster rally where of all things the republican organizers asked the audience to bring in canned goods and disaster relief supplies just the opposite of what the Red Cross said they needed in these types of situation. It's reminiscent of Romney's visit to the London Olympics when and where he took the occasion to overcook things too.

The plan was for supporters to bring in hurricane relief supplies to the event and then [hand the] bags of canned goods, packages of diapers, and cases of water bottles to Romney .... To complete the photo op, Romney would .... carry the goods out of the gymnasium and into the Penske rental truck parked outside.

The Making Of Romney's Storm Relief Event
McKay Coppin | BuzzFeed

---

But there was another problem: what if supporters showed up without materials to drop off? Team Romney prepared for that, too -- the night before the "relief event," campaign aides went to a local Wal Mart and spent $5,000 on "granola bars, canned food, and diapers," which could then be displayed for cameras.

'Just grab something'
Steve Benen | MSNBC

No Tsunami

The all clear was sounded at 1:40am. The folks at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center didn't get the height of the wave right, *fortunately*. Waves were predicted between 2 to 7 feet. Only at Kahului Harbor, Maui, did one wave front reach 2.5-feet. However, the PTWC's projected energy map (below) was spot on based on the readings of the NOAA pacific bouys. This level of accuracy wasn't even on the radar a few years ago. As shown on the map, the looming spectre of a direct hit on the islands heightened the sense of alarm irregardless of the size of the wave a coming. The projected 7-feet wave might not seem extremely destructive but it's packs enough volume of water to flood the land a few hundred yards inshore. In fact, the distance between the ocean and the Ala Wai canal where I'm at is only a few hundred yards wide and I'd been saturated from two fronts as a 7-foot wave traveled upstream on the Ala Wai. As usual, much of the night's traffic congestion was instigated by people filling up gas and buying survival supplies the last minute. Honk if you like, perhaps the proprietors should forgo the windfall profit and voluntarily shut down their stores, at least, for the hour or two immediately following the civil defense siren so the street stay open for more reasonable people just trying to get home. True, the odds of that ever happening is nil.

Even for a sense of relief, I've never found anything humorous about these non-disaster outcomes. A few years ago, there was a new products exhibition, and one booth had a mega screen which played videos of Hawaii's last hurricane. People would get up in front of the mega screen with the hurricane video as a backdrop, and perform impromptu reditions of a tv weather reporter. Meterologists, I guess is the proper term. Aspiring meterologists, so to speak. There was this kid who got up in front of the hurricane screen and was laughing and being funny with his reportage, and a local tv station showed the kid's antics as part of their coverage of the new product exhibition on the 6 o'clock news. To me, that showed a total lack of empathy for the victims of the hurricane. Suffice it to say that the kid didn't know any better. However, the tv station did know better. If you've ever been to a natural disaster zone, the air is thick with the quiet after the storm. The air is also thick with dispair allevieted to some degree by the numbness of the shock over the level of destruction. Many people have lost personal belongings and numerous items possessed irreplaceable sentimental value. Less fortunate victims will never be able to afford to rebuild their property ever. Also, in the interim, there's no hot water to take warm baths. That's if there's even water flowing in the pipes to come outta the water spout. There's no electricity to cook. Or, for that matter, neither for lights at night. So the nights are dark with an eerie quiet. When daylight breaks it's the same scene.

T-Minus 2 Hours (HST)

And boy, am I pissed. The sirens started blaring at 8 PM tonight, however when I checked with the Hawaii Civil Defense website, the latest printout already stated that the 5pm British Columbia earthquake HAD already been upgraded to a WARNING at 7 PM. What may I ask is the reason for an entire hour's delay between the 7pm upgrade to sounding the sirens at 8. Mind you, this is for a 10:28pm tsunami arrival. This past June, Hawaii had been experiencing sporadic siren malfunctions due to an electronic signal somewhere in the mainland inadvertantly setting off sirens in a few local communities because those particular local sirens were using the same software programs as their mainland counterparts and when the mainland people ran tests on the mainland sirens, the same test signals remotely triggered the local sirens all the way in the middle of the Pacific. So, I thought perhaps the previous malfunction issue hadn't been fully resolved. But this isn't so.

This is a Saturday night with hordes of local people spending the evening in low lying Waikiki thusly an extra hour is crucial for the non-tourist evacuation. As we speak, there's a huge traffic jam on the Ala Wai Blvd. which has the least number of stoplights. Even when the traffic light turns green, there's no room on the other side of the intersection for the cars to move up. Ridiculous. My bikes are parked in a below sea level parking basement a mere 50-feet across the street from the Ala Wai canal with no higher level parking floors. The canal empties into the ocean downstream about 1½-miles from where I live along the Ala Wai so should a wave traveling up the Ala Wai overflow the banks across the street from me then water will pour into our below sea level parking basement. It is too late to move my two bikes to higher land with all the traffic, I have to walk back home for the second bike, and that's even without being picky about finding a vacant but safe parking stalls, and splitting lanes high tailing it over to the higher elevation. Most likely the forecasted tsunami will have a subtle impact. We'll see.

A Chair in the Oval Office

I bought the chair above for my computer desk over a year ago from Office Depot on Ala Moana Blvd. for $180. Assembly required. Since the very day I put it together, it has not appreciated me sitting on it. Yes, It, apparently has a temperment all to it's own. When I get up, the chair swivels, specifically the seat of the chair points to a different direction from whence I left it. It's a swivel chair so it's suppose to swivel. However, it should only swivel while you're seated and and only becuz you turned it to face in another direction. Not swivel on it's own digression. Why? Becuz when you sit back down without looking, you end up sitting on the armrest. Either the left armrest or the right armrest. It feels the same to the back of your tigh. Or, okole (butt) for that matter. It's plain aggravating. I do get up from the chair frequently, for example, just reaching for things that are out of reach. I know better to look before I sit, but I forget due to poor memory. Not funny.

Anyways, I finally got tired of it. Over a year of this rigamarole, take it from me, you do get tired of the same routine after thousands of what would you call it, musical chairs solitaire, etc., day in day out, until you're only this much away from tossing it into the Ala Wai canal or mailing it to Clint Eastwood, maybe that. What I did was I turned the chair upside down and there's a retention clip at the very bottom of the column that houses the gas chamber. The column connects the seat part of the chair to the five-legged base. The retention clip, there's a protective washer that backs up the retention clip there to prevent the edges of the retention clip from grinding away the metal component as the chair swivels clockwise or counter clockwise. The secondary purpose of the washer is to provide the necessary friction to keep the chair from swiveling on it's own. Unfortunately, the washer that was used wasn't thick enough to keep things tight enough and in turn provide enough friction. If the factory had used a nut instead of the slip-on retention clip you could just re-tighten the nut a few turns. I did try facing the five-legged base to different clock positions to see if the heavy point of the seat, logically the backrest portion, was not in fact swiveling to the lowest point of the floor since all floors aren't perfectly level, and the five legs of the base may not be perfectly level to each other which might explain in more scientific terms why the seat of the chair swivels on it's own instead of remaining at the incumbent position, albeit you would tunk that if off level-ness was the culprit there would be a specific compass direction that the seat wouldn't swivel at all if it was already pointed in that direction much like a lazy susan on a level table but not so. Back to the washer. I detached the aforementioned retention clip. Then stacked a second backup washer behind the retention clip to provide the required friction. That simple.

[edit] I did ask the floor salesman about how to prevent the chair from swiveling on it's own, but he didn't have a clue as usual. That's what I meant by, "That simple."

*Found this pic on the Internet today. Note the single backup washer under the retention clip.

Stone Lanterns

I ride pass the Stone Pagodas on Kahala Ave. almost every day. How many pilgrims will find solace there when the stone garden is finished and opened to the public. For some reason it appeared that there had been a few more stone fixtures added to the area. What it was though was they had bulldozed the topography more flat so more pagodas were visible from the street. For years, this property had an 8-foot tall wall fronting the street. What lay behind those very walls? Well, walls are for privacy. So I guess privacy lay behind the 8-foot wall. The lantern above is 7-8 feet tall. And it's chiseled out of stone quarried from some perfecture in Japan, not cast concrete for seven dawrfs. Btw, all the houses on Kahala Ave. have U-shaped driveways. Cars don't reverse blindly into the street that's why I like riding through there.

The tall stone lanterns are stationed on opposite sides of the front gate. There's a hollow grill at the top section, so for all I really know, the lanterns might even be functional to illuminate the path once the wires get plugged in. If they're thinking it which I'm only too sure they are, Hawaii Five-O should film elsewhere. It should be off limits if they 10-4. With a pair of Chinese guardian lions, those animals that flank a Chinese restaurant's front entrance, one lion is yin and the other yang. I never knew which is which, or whether yin has to be always on the left and so forth. One lion has a ball in his mouth or his paw on a ball, etc. The other doesn't. I surmise there's yin & yang to the stone lanterns as well. Friendly reminder .... while you're out shopping, every now and then buy the expensive item. There's no virtue in being prodigal, but if you always, always, buy the cheaper item, virtue has it's limits. You'll feel cheap. I've mentioned my frugality in earlier posts, for example, a roll of paper towels last me 6 months. I haven't even opened the last roll of paper towels that I bought two months ago, but it's the kind that's perforated in such a way that you can tear off half sheets. Save trees.

Targeted Online Ads .... plus a few more Romneys

Guess what's playing on YouTube these days? The answer is political ads. And not any political ads, but, rather, local kind political ads. On my screen, political ads for Hawaii Senate races. That's before you get to see the video, but at least somebody knows I vote and I guess their way of thanking me. Also, if  I shop for Maserati's on Ebay, then a few innocent clicks later, I visit The New York Times website, lo and behold, there's a freshly minted ad for Maserati's staring at me on the NYT's website. 'They' track you so well, but how they do it nor who they are I don't know. (*Maserati is a fictional object. Just using it as a figure of speech.*) Meanwhile back at the ranch, how I wish the spell check icon would magically appear back where it use to be on my Blogger's editor page. I don't spell well, and I verify proper spelling at Webster, ect., switching tabs, instead of simply highlighting the word in question. After a while, it gets distracting switching back and forth between tabs.

Anyways, do you remember the political aphorism that, "Republicans worry about what to steal next, while Democrats worry about whether to steal." It's anologous to Mitt Romney denouncing Obama for unkept promises during Wednesday night's debate. Obviously since false promises have always been the Republicans strong suit, what Romney really objects to by using this tactic is Obama's infringement on a GOP's patent. That is, the Republican's own the rights to teflon. The size of the bridge they sell you is irrelevant. You shoulda known better, dummies. Albeit, Obama's promises were the stuff of lofty ambitions that matured into falsehoods largely due his inexperience with Washington DC. Obama was far from a veteran Lyndon Johnson who knew how to twist arms and sweet talk the republican opposition into a deal. Obama's style failed largely on the illusion that he could get oil and water to mix.

Meanwhile, Democrats have just got to stop this feeling bad about failing to fulfill campaign promises while the Republicans make the most of the opportunity and plummet them on the ropes all the while the Republicans never met a campaign promise they would hesitate to renage on (billionaires excepted). At Romney's slightest whiff of unkept promises, Obama should have unloaded on Romney to the tune of, "So you want me to make you more promises, I hear ya loud and clear. Not only will I grant your request, I will hand write said promises on the paper that it's not worth, sign it, stamp it with the presidential seal, frame it, gift wrap it, special delivery it, so you can hang it in your mansion." So is it a worry after the promises fall through? "Now, what?" Nada, a "So, what." Mind you, this is not bipartisanship. Its just that the Repubicans have taken things too far.

Tonight's Obama vs. Romney

Obama was flat during tonight's debate and appeared almost battle weary. In the eyes of the tv viewers Obama might have lost the battle, but I'm adamantly voting for Barry election day. Obama's strategy is to play it safe so why dribble the ball on a political stage and risk getting called for traveling and foul out. Romney has to unseat him. Let Romney get up and do gangland Gangnam to get personal with the common people. A Mormon president might work out well who knows. I admire Romney for not backing down on the '47-percent.' That said, Romney is playing a hypocrite by vociferously holding Obama accountable for past promises that didn't pan out. Romney is committing the same cardinal sin of what he's criticizing Obama of being guilty of body and soul, via Romney foot and mouth. He's issues promises without warranty. Promises? ..... you can always make more. Unless this country is a monarchy, it's meritless to hold a president liable for campaign IOU's.

Hypothetically, if Romney wins but can't lift the economy and get us $2 a gallon gasoline in four years, does he plan to step down and refrain from running for a second term which he summarily demands of Obama? Mitt Romney has forked tongue written all over his face. Then he has the gaul of taunting Obama of repeating things over and over so that people begin to believe false things as fact. Remember, WMD's. Bush & Co. kept repeating WMD's until Bush led the nation into a needless war in Iraq. Then after WMDs failed to materialize the republican excuse was, "Oh, we didn't invade Iraq because of WMDs. We invaded Iraq because they're next to Iran and we can now keep a closer watch on Iran." The truth remains, the world is not ready for another republican US president. Not in a mere four years later. Albeit, Obama will have to defy history by being the only president re-elected with the kind of low economic figures he has on his hands. However, I personally feel his hunting down bin Laden will negate that.

Gensiro's Stone Pagoda Garden

I'm sure the absence of pics in the previous posts didn't go undetected by your eagle eyes. It's a hold over from the days reading blogs when the Internet was picture-less and abstinence was my way of re-experiencing the nostalgia even though back then I didn't author a blog myself and truth be told I never thought I would be up to the Herculean task. The bandwidth or whatever simply didn't allow picture transmission and at the odd moments that it did, it would take a day and a half and a few crashes to load a single photograph, some pixels missing, some re-arranged.

The nostalgia part is that what made reading all-text blogs so enjoyable was that many of them were written by professional writers during their off hours who articulated their thoughts so shamelessly well and even more amazingly by using the least amount of words. For example, I would post an every which way yard-long question on their comment page and they would obligatorily respond back with an eleven-word answer so coherent and comprehensive that, well, it inspired me to be like them some day, not meaning a clone now, but the realization was that I would save years of my life getting from point A to point B in a straightener line with my thought life. Writing is nothing more than thinking out loud properly, so coherent writing is a free bonus.

Without further ado, now back to our story du jour .... In a land not far from Waikiki town, at the very last lot on Kahala Ave., there is beach front house with a front yard that. Oh forgot, we have pics today. No need for words. What it is though is a works in progress at it's early stage. I pass by there daily and it's always a sight if you happen to see billionaire Gensiro, 70-80 years old, directing the landscaping or standing across the street surveying what Google Maps missed on the last flyby.

Pan right.

Pan left.

This is more how the finish product will eventually look.

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As you can see for yourselves, we're back at Gensiro's Museum and Statue Gardens a few hundred yards up Kahala Ave. The neighbors were originally pissed off with the ecentric billionaire's extravagant plan. You simply can't do this next to our mansions even though Gensiro's beach front mansion was more a mansion than theirs. That however was the neighborhood reaction at the very start. Today, they've probably embraced his grand illusion which he's managed to realify undaunted as his style has always been on his visits to Hawaii throughout the years. Simply put, it's 50 or more marble statues on a single plot when Hawaii doesn't have any public marble statues anywhere that I know of. The Statue Garden is far from finished and whether the focus will shift to the Stone Pagodas is anyone's guess.

Meanwhile, the Kahala neighbors should walk softly here because on an earlier day the Kahala land owners stole the land from the original Bishop Estate Land Trust through legal maneuvering. Bishop Estate's beneficiary is the Hawaiian ancestry Kamehameha Schools. The legal premise was that Bishop Estate owned too much land at the detriment of leasees and because these residents were super rich they were able to get the courts to convert their leases to fee simple. Less well off people living on other parts of the island were renting Bishop Estate land but the same concept escaped them preoccuppied as they were scrapping out a living and shopping for cans of Spam on sale at Long's Drugs. If there were the kind of justice in the world how the Kahala millionaires promoted it, these lessor people were more the type of individuals deserving and entitled to a leasehold-to-fee simple conversion rather than their Kahala counterparts who flew in on their private jets to stay a week or two each year at their Kahala mansions. Of course the lot of poor asses weren't included in the same ruling on the weight that the legal landmark was not a class ruling. What distinguished it apart was that Kahala already had class galore and the fruits of the suit was strictly their private reserve and their's alone.

A glimpse of the sheer number of marble statues on just one sector alone.

It's beyond me how the curator decides to group the different individual statues.

What would a statue garden be without a yawning lion.

Don't Ask Me Why

There was a table with free food samples at the grocery store today. They were serving either won ton or gyoza's, both items look alike to the untrained eye, but the product that they were really marketing was their brand of specialty sauce, so I sumise they needed something tasty to pour the sauce over. That would contaminate or enhance the sauce's taste test. However, won tons are so expensive, that when it's free, who's to quibble about the sauce. Btw, the sauce was terrific, and thank you girls if you're reading this. Before I'm misunderstood and misinterpretated, the food sample table was in the aisle that I happened to be in. I don't search out free food samples with binoculars or even know which day of the week the food samples ladies show up. A few weeks ago, I saw this older guy walking around  in the fruits and veggie section snacking on something the way a person would snack on M&M's and I'll add totally oblivious to the world around him. I assume it was loose grapes freshly picked off the vine. He definitely wasn't chewing on salad potatoes by the size of it. I thought it was despicable. Mind you not his bliss.

However if you dwell too long on these things you just might forget to buy things on your very own shopping list. I've never been one to write it down. A few minutes later I came across this food sample table offering coconut squares. Lo and behold the guy from the fruits and veggie section shows up and asks his personal buffet server to dish him out a sample of something that was still sizzling in the crock pot. It resembled very thinnly sliced sukiyaki style meat. The larger point is that they didn't have it on display for the taking quite yet. However by order of the moocher's royal request the server gives him portion of the sliced meat in a paper cup. The guy wasn't carrying any vegetables or any can goods. Nothing. He probably would leave the store just as empty handed. I bet he does this as a routine. Knows the best stores, the best itinerary, and so forth, for free food. I have a hunch that some of these nibblers are well-off people in real life. The way I grew up always made me a bit sqeamish about accepting free food samples. Til this day I feel a little guilty inside.