Plants and Flowers

Here are some pics I took this month of plants and flowers, mostly around the property, although the first two were taken in Akaka Falls State Park.

Merrie Monarch

So, as I said before, Annie came out to visit. She was coming out to the Big Island, as someone she works with had 10 days in a beach house all set up, and was going to be staying Kona side. She had a little extra time at the start of her trip, so I met her at the Kona airport, and we drove across the north-central part of the island. Waimea was lovely, as was the coastline drive down to Hilo from Honoka'a. We did a few of the usual sight-seeing adventures, but we had one really incredibly special treat.

We had the extreme good fortune (thanks to Kaleo and her friend Laura) to get a pair of highly sought-after tickets to the Merrie Monarch Festival. Merrie Monarch is THE premiere hula showcase and competition in the world. It's held right here in Hilo every year.

I was going to go into a long explanation about it, but I figure their website already does better than I ever could.

http://www.merriemonarchfestival.org/about_merrie_monarch_festival.html

At any rate, it was fantastic. We got to go on Saturday night, for the 'Auana part of the competition. 'Auana is the "modern" hula event, although from what I can gather, a better description would be "open" competition, as any and all styles are acceptable. Friday night's event was the Kahiko, or traditional hula competition.

Let me start off by saying that I know almost nothing about hula. All I know is that they're telling a story with the hand and arm movements. That's it.

But this was pretty magical. I was telling Skye later that it was a lot like going to Christmas Mass in Latin, or a really great son in Spanish.....I may have no idea what's being said, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what it is.

As I said before, these tickets are in very high demand. Ticket prices are intentionally kept low, so most anyone can afford to go. Even though the event is every April, they start selling tickets on the day after Christmas. Ticket sales are limited to two seats per household. From what I've been told, they usually have so many requests, that they end up using some lottery system to decide who gets tickets and who doesn't.

Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling a bit, so I'm going to wrap this up for today.

Oh, and sorry the pictures are blurry.... it was night under lights, and they didn't allow flash photography... so not a lot of luck with the photos.

On the Road Again.....

That's right, Jim!
(remember? I'm calling you all "Jim" now? Ok.... I should let that go)

Anyway, that's right!
Cameron is once again mobile of his own volition!





This vintage vehicle vests its vivacious voayager with vim and vigor vis a vis vehicular vivacity. This vagile voiture, though veraciously not velivolant, is not for the verecund. It's ventral vermeil veneer of vesuvian vernition is verily ventorious! This vettura takes the viaggiatory viator..... ok.... enough vaniloquence....I should let that go too.

So here's the sccop.

It's a 1973 BMW 2002.

It's a bit older, but it's got character. It's got older parts (drum brakes, manual windows and locks), but it's also got a taste of new technology (nice sound system, complete with iPod connection). It certainly needs some exterior and detail work, but with some time and patience and hard work, that could all be fixed. But the important parts (engine, brakes, etc.) all work really well. As it is right now, it's pretty quick off of the line, but doesn't much care for long hauls at high speeds. Fortunately, this is an island, and the highest speed limit is 55. It's a lot of fun, and girls really like it, although very few would actually want to have it as their own.

Both Kaleo and Annie (who came to visit) said "This car is so you!" And in rereading the previous paragraph, I suppose they're exactly right.


Here's a 4± minute video of me driving over the Saddle Road on the way to Kona. This road is crazy fun to drive on.

Fifty is Nifty!

Yep. By the time anyone reads this, it will be my 50th day here in Hilo.

Interesting facts:
On my 1st day I had this great hamburger at the Hilo Bay Cafe that had bleu cheese on it......oh, so good.

On my 12th day I took my first walk along the beach at Hilo Bay (the bay, not the cafe) and got my feet wet in the ocean.

On the 19th day, I took a picture of a large snail.

On the 27th and 28th days, we didn't have power.

On the 34th day, we moved the instruments over to the yurt.

On the 37th day, I moved into the yurt.

The 47th day was the first day I went snorkeling.

The 48th day was the first day that I was here that I didn't get rained on.

:)

Blog About Nothing 2 - The Wrath of Khan-stant Rain

Ha! I still crack myself up.

Anyway, it's Thursday, and we all know that's Blog Day. Ok.... it's not really, but I feel like it's been a little bit since the last one, so here I am again, working my fingers to the bone on this little laptop keyboard to put food and the table and a roof over your heads.....
Uh....sorry. Got a little carried away there.

So...events of the last week:

TAX DAY
Hooray! Tax Day! I know, you're all worn out, as it's only been one full day since April 15th. I, myself, got my taxes turned in early (5:00 is early, since the post office doesn't close until midnight on Tax Day). In the remaining 7 hours, I had nothing else to do, so I sat around thinking of ways to make Tax Day better for everyone. Rather than bore you (or induce repetition of "what is he, on crack or something?") with all of the details, let's just say it involves heavy drinking, flooding the streets with people on foot (old school style, with torches and pitchforks), all moving methodically towards the post office (think the end of "V for Vendetta") chanting and being drunkenly agitated (think European soccer game), and then as the masses arrive at the post office, we all place our tax forms quietly and politely in one of several bins set out just for this day outside the post office door.

I don't know about you, but I think it'd be fun. It sounds like Paul's kinda holiday. :)

Blog Comments
Speaking of Paul (if that is indeed is real name), I've got two things to say:

1. It's not that difficult to post as yourself, buddy. They've even got a way to do it without signing up for anything at all. Just a name and a fake web address. So I've got to assume that either you're testing the waters (blog waters, that is.....) Mmmmmmm blog water...... Where was I? Oh yeah. You're either testing the waters to see how we'll all react to your latent transgender desires (and we're all cool with that, we support you) OR you're blatantly disregarding all internet protocol and perpetrating IIF (which is either Illegal Icicle Fabrication or Internet Identity Fraud, and given that this is on the internet, and it's not that cold here, we'll assume it's the latter). Either way, given that you've been outed as a "Not-Jennifer-But-Posting-As-Jennifer-Anyway-er", I'm going to assume that your first instinct will be to never post again. That's a fair response. But think of all of the wisdom (see example below) and fun we'd all miss out on if you never posted again. So why don't you go ahead and post now, as yourself, and we'll all be generally proud of you and somewhat happy for you, and something about 77 virgins or something. We'll work out the details later.

Cool.

2. Yes, Paul, yurt life is cool. And it is fun to say. I'll probably be ostracized by my fellow "yurties" (that's what people who live in yurts call themselves) for letting you in on this secret, but...... we say "yurt" for everything!!! Yep..... we're just like the smurfs, except we're not blue and we're more than three apples tall. And we've got more than one female in our group (or so I've been told). And....well..... we're nothing like the smurfs at all, other than we say yurt all the time like they say smurf all the time. Like, for example: "Yurt me that yurt, you yurting yurter." Things like that. Or another yurtample would be: "Yurt it again, Yurt." or "Frankly, my yurt, I don't yurt a yurt." It can get a little confusing, and then a fight breaks out, and someone has to go stand in the corner (ha ha ha that's a yurt joke....).

Rumble in the Jungle!
We had another earthquake the other day. 5.0 on the Scale of Richter, as I'm taking to calling it, because it sounds more interesting, and less like it's about a hockey goalie. While the first quake we had while I was here was only slightly smaller on the scale, this one was completely different. The first one was just a quick thud, making me think that someone had backed a truck into the corner of the house or something. This one, though, was a rumbler. It felt like a tank was driving by right next to the house, shaking the ground. It lasted for just long enough for us to look at each other, for Skye to say "Earthquake!.....Get off of the deck! Get the dogs! I'm going to get Popo!" and then it was done. It was pretty interesting. The best part is that after it's over, you're waiting for it to happen again. And that feeling just sort of fades away, I'm assuming at about the same rate as the adrenaline coursing through your veins at that point.

Nothing was damaged, no one was hurt, and lunch was resumed within moments. Like Skye said though, afterwards, it's spooky but it's kinda cool to be reminded that the earth is alive here. It's changing and growing and you're part of it. That's the "romantic" version. The less romantic version is that we're living on a giant pimple on the face of the earth that may or may not pop at any time. :)

I've had requests for more pictures, but I think I'm going to put those off until next time.

I hope you all are doing well, and would like to tie up this post by bring it around full circle, back to the title, by saying, "Jim....." (that's what I'm calling you all collectively, now... as a group, to me, you're "Jim.")

"Jim.... Don't forget to take that slug out of Checkov's ear......."

"Oh, and don't forget your umbrella, because it's still raining like mad out there......"

"Jim....... you have been.....and always will be...... my friend(s)."

"Oh yeah.... and don't let them forget to do that Genesis project here, so I can be reborn, ok? Thanks."

:)

Blog About Nothing

Hey everyone.

Nothing much of noteworthiness going on these days, but I thought I should drop a line anyway, just to let you all know I'm still around.

Things have been busy, but not so busy that life has gotten out of hand. Mostly, though, life this last week has been a series of mishaps followed by work to correct them.

For those who don't know, my laptop crapped out on me. I'd been having troubles with the power cable, and the day that a new one arrived, Windows stopped working. Once I got Windows reinstalled, all of my installed programs were missing. Most of them still are, but I'm really trying not to worry about that too much at the moment. But that whole process ate up a whole day right there.

Skye and I have been working on getting electricity to the yurt this week. We've run into some problems there too, which then led to problems with power here at the house as well, but I think we've gotten them pretty well ironed out, and while the power to the house is working great now, I think we'll also have the power to the yurt up and going in a few days.

The weather has still not been incredibly cooperative, with rain every day. At least now we typically have at least a clear afternoon or morning (of course I say that as today has been cloudy and rainy all day long), but everyone keeps telling me that the big break in the weather should happen in the next couple of weeks. Everyone also keeps telling me that even in the typical rainy seasons it doesn't rain this much. When I first got here, everyone I met would ask "How do you like all of this rain?" and I'd always say that I really enjoyed it, because it just doesn't rain like this in Colorado. Last week, Linda across the street asked me if I still liked the rain. I told here that I do really still like the rain, but I'm starting to think that it doesn't like me. :)

On the upside of things, the work on the yurt has been going pretty well. We've got the painting all done (other than the ceiling and floor in the control room. The soundproofing in there is working really well, and with a few more added items where the ceiling meets the yurt, I think it's going to work great. We've moved in some furniture already, as well as the drum kit and the guitars. Kaleo gets home on Thursday, and will be here for over a week (11 days, if memory serves) so I'll be officially moving in to the yurt on that day, whatever shape it's in (I'm betting "round"). And for those of you that are curious, yes, I'll be adding more photos once all of the trim and furniture and everything is in.

Speaking of photos, Skye and Kaleo have started really encouraging me to make some large prints of some of my photos that I've taken, and to display them for sale at a local restaurant. While I know that I like my photos, and I know that my friends usually have nice things to say about them, I've got no faith that they'll sell. But as the upfront cost is not that much, and as it's not going to take very much time to get it all together and set up, I think I'm going to give it a shot. With a little luck, I'm hoping that I can make enough money to at least buy a new camera, so I can have even more flexibility in the photos I take. I'll keep you all posted on that one.

Well, that's about it from Hilo.

I hope all is well in your parts of the world.

OOooo I almost forgot.
HAWAI'IAN WORD OF THE DAY:
Koneko (koh-nay-koh): donut. (I can't believe I haven't done this one yet)

As a side note, thanks much to Jo for asking for the pronunciation for the words. I was thinking that myself after the last one of these, and with her confirmation of the idea, I think it's best. For the record, though, if you'd like to know how to pronounce the previous words, it's pretty simple. The consonants are usually pronounced the same way as in English. As far as I can tell, there's no such thing as a "silent" letter. W's are usually pronounced as an English V, but it's acceptable to use the W sounds as well. Each vowel is pronounced the same way in every word. A is "ah", like in draw. E is "ay", as in play or grey. I is "ee" like in see. O is "oh", like in grow. And U is "oo", like in food. Sometimes, though, the vowels kinda seem to blend together a bit when pronounced next to each other. For example, a previous Word of the Day, "Kaiwiki." It's pronounced kaee-vee-kee and the kaee ends up usually rhyming with "guy" or "sky." From what I've been told and been able to figure out, this kind of sound mixing with the vowels does happen, but it's not that big a deal, since the word "kai" means salt water, and it's one word. If it was two words, that needed to be distinct, then it would be spelled "ka'i" where the apostrophe is a gap between the vowel sounds, thus pronounced "ka ee" with a clear space between the A and the EE.

That's what I've been able to figure out. I'm sure if I'm wrong, someone here will read this and correct me.

Ok... that's it for your lessons today. There will be a pop quiz later in the week (maybe).