Family Fun

Grandma arrived one week ago today and we're having a good time. On Saturday we hit Waikiki (a rare treat for us) for some time at the beach. Our resident mop-top is above, dashing in and out of the waves. Cub has been enjoying the extra arms around to hold him. His bottom-toothed grin is below.

Does this thing really float?

Not only does it float, it sails. And in recent years, like the humpback whales, it navigates annually between Hawaii and Alaska.
The SBX Radar, shown above, was back in Pearl Harbor for a few weeks earlier this month. I stumbled upon this photo op while on Ford Island one weekend. I also spotted it way out on the horizon last Friday while driving toward town as it was heading back out to see. It’s quite a site. It literally looks like a giant ping pong ball floating around. They say it can track a softball-sized object over New York state from here and that it was instrumental in shooting down the wayward satellite that was hurtling toward earth a few months ago. What I don’t doubt for a moment – its $900 million dollar price tag!

Vog update: Back to normal

The vog is long gone on Oahu, but folks are still talking about it on the Big Island. I saw a news report last Friday (but didn’t see it in print) that an early study shows that vog interferes with rainfall. The more vog, the less rainfall. A little bit scary, considering Hawai’I (at least Oahu) has had a pretty dry year. And on the Big Island, there’s been so much vog activity the crops have already been hurt. But, here’s a cheery, blue sky-and-clouds picture from our neighborhood once the vog cleared away to help one not get too down about it!

Note: The development on the coastline below us in this picture is actually an industrial area. The harbor seen just over the tree on the right is where Noel catches TheBoat (a 10-15 minute ride through Kapolei in the morning). Also, you can't make it out here, but there's an oil refinery and smoke stacks galore. Looks great at night though, 'cause all you can see is lights and you would think it's kind of quaint!

Kidney Walk this Saturday

This Saturday in San Jose, CA, my brother-in-law Brad will be participating in his second Kidney Walk. And this is the second year we’re rooting him on from far away. Robbie and Cub say, "Good luck Uncle Brad!"

Brad is the incoming 2008 – 2009 President of the Board of Directors for the National Kidney Foundation of Northern California and Northern Nevada (http://www.kidneynca.org/). Click here for his Kidney Walk fundraising page.

Click here to see a short speech he gave in 2007 at a Kidney Foundation luncheon with Jane Fonda as the guest speaker. In it he talks about when he first came down with his kidney disease and some of his life since then.

And click here to see him as part of a small panel appearing on a local news station promoting kidney disease and transplant awareness, as well the Saturday walk.

Note for those reading at work - the last two links above take you directly to YouTube and the audio should start immediately.

Mariah Carey seen on Oahu frolicking with a wolphin!

More from the “I just couldn’t make this up if I tried" files - Mariah Carey made the local gossip pages this week as she was here recently filming a music video. If I’m writing about it now, no doubt she is long gone, but here’s what was said in the Advertiser by the same local writer who predicted a Loretta Ables Sayre Tony victory (oops*):

“Singer Mariah Carey was indeed shooting a video ….at Sea Life Park…several segments were done, one of Carey with the park’s dolphins and also with the world’s only wolphin – that’s a whale and dolphin mix – at the park’s Dolphin Cove.”

Wolphin? Whaaaaat? And why only one in the world? My Mom is coming out next week for an extended holiday with me and the boys, and coincidently, Sea Life Park (think Sea World lite) is on our list of things to do. Now I’m even more excited for the day and the possible freak show that awaits us! I’m going to hold off on googling that thing and avoiding a sneak peek so I can be genuinely surprised.

In other gossip related news, it’s been reported that Matt Damon will be spending a chunk of his summer here filming a movie in the coming months. I’m not officially on Matt Damon Watch just yet, but will let you know when I am!

* No, Loretta Ables Sayre didn’t take home a Tony on Sunday. An actress from the “Gypsy” revival won her category. But Ables Sayre was ever gracious in defeat. She was quoted saying, “I’m just thrilled Kristen Chenoweth said my name right!” Ahh, how nice is that?

Bali Ha'i!

The revival of South Pacific is taking NYC by storm and “local girl” Loretta Ables Sayre is leading the charge in the role of Bloody Mary. The Honolulu Advertiser entertainment and theater columnist has filled us in here of her every move, starting with auditions many months ago. He reported this week that she is taking part in a pre-taped Broadway special to air on Saturday. Ables Sayre will be singing Bali Ha’i, the song for which she’ll probably take home a Tony for. Well, according to the Advertiser writer anyway. I realize he's a bit biased.
Here in Hawaii she’s worked the scene for years, in theaters and shows as well as print, radio, and TV ads, you name it. She’s even the voice of my beloved PBS Hawaii. For months her face also greeted me when I paid my cable bill online, as shown above.
So check your local listings and tune in on Saturday for this special. Sounds like an hour well wasted with music and theater!

"Daddy take boat!"

Since Noel has started commuting downtown he’s using more public transportation to avoid the highway traffic. There’s a new option for Leeward Oahu residents to get into downtown in the morning and then back home “pau hana” (end of day) – TheBoat. It’s a pilot program that started last summer and works alongside the established, island-wide bus system, aka “TheBus.”

They don’t have a parking lot at the harbor, so each morning he takes it we load up the kids and head out down toward the water. The first day we tried it, Noel wanted to catch the 5:30 AM ferry. So I roused Robbie around 4:45 AM. Not easy. But the following days and most days since have gotten much better. All I have to do is say, “Daddy’s taking the boat!” and he perks right up. Hence the title above, his version of my greeting. (Noel doesn’t take it every morning - he actually drives in early in the week and leaves his car parked in a lot near his office in the evenings, then drives home Fridays. At least that’s more or less his routine.) And we haven’t done the 5:30 much since Noel changed jobs. We get him on the 6:30 or 8 AM. Much better all around!

I’ve got to start carrying a “real” camera around in the car. Here are a couple more cell phone shots. Even I’m getting tired of them. One is the boat coming into the harbor in the evening, the other is the same evening, but shows the sunset the riders were privileged to just before entering the harbor. To get a sense of how “big” the sunset was, I’ve drawn an arrow to the outline of the boat Noel was on.

And in other “boat news” – it was reported early in the week that Oahu is officially taking bids from companies to have our trash shipped to a Mainland dump via a barge. Landfills here are already past capacity, and have been given an 11th hour extension while environmental assessments are done and shipping contracts are ironed out. Interestingly, both shipping companies named as top candidates will carry our garbage to the same dump in the state of Washington. Oh the irony…we get their beautiful, yummy apples – and here come the rotten cores, right back at ya! We got take out the other day and it made me sad to see that the fork was stamped, “Aloha.” I thought, “Great. They’ll be able to track the trash years from now because this plastic will never break down. Aloha Washington!”