School days

I spent this past Sunday in a computer lab on the University of Hawaii, Manoa campus. It was a whole day to learn Lightroom 2.1 and otherwise escape from life and be my old self again. I loved it. Maybe too much. The Pacific New Media class was advertised as Intro to Lightroom with no prerequisites, but the instructor taught as if Photoshop was a prerequisite. This wasn’t ideal for me but I learned a lot anyway.

The shot above is one I did a little doctoring to after coming home from the class. I snapped it last June near Robbie’s school, which sits on a decommissioned Navy air base. I don’t know the era of this old hangar, easily Vietnam, maybe older. Since this was taken, I’ve since driven by and one of the doors was kicked in, revealing forgotten junk inside and looking even older.

My Thanksgiving shopping is done. If I don’t have it in the fridge or cupboard by now, I’m going to have to make do without it. I made the cranberry sauce last night; will make the pumpkin pie and cut fruit for a fruit salad later today. I’ll also prep the rest of the stuff for tomorrow, everything but the turkey which I'm not doing. Happy Thanksgiving to me!

Featured artist – wait, that’s me!

I write the monthly newsletter for the local bead society (of which I’m a member of, too) and communicate with some of the bead store owners on the island. Through the newsletter one owner saw a bracelet I made. And long story short, I’m teaching two classes in January. I was asked to send a picture of me over last month for the published class schedule, so I wasn’t surprised when I opened the new class schedule and saw my mug on page 2, but after reading the new classes posted, I’m really honored. There is a lot of new and innvoative stuff coming out of these stores. And about the description – I supplied the copy for the most part with the exception of the first line. You can see the bio and my class online at the www.ibeads.com site. I messed up the sample I supplied for the schedule. It has too much orange in the flower centers. Later revisions are toned down a bit and look better.

What you can get for $1.1 million

It was featured on the news recently (kind of like a “Fleecing of America” local-style): a bathroom in a city park here is going to cost $1.1 million. (Oh excuse me, I believe the term used was “comfort station.”) And no, the toilets aren’t made of gold. It’s a simple concrete structure with the basics. It’s not even bug-proof as it doesn’t have screens. Three words for you: Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure!

It’s just down the street from us, and we drive by it each time we hit the commissary. Original estimates and contracts were over $700K, but the price has now jumped because evidently someone didn’t factor in the cost of connecting the pipes. They need to dig a big ditch from one end of the park where this stands, to the other end where there is another bathroom. For a part of the $300K-plus oversight pie, I think I want to try my hand at ditch digging! Seriously, I’ll rent a CAT and plow through whatever you want me to for a couple of days. Or just take a fat paycheck for repainting it, for as you might be able to see, it has been tagged and will need a good cleaning when it’s finally complete.

Man down

I met with Robbie’s teachers a few weeks ago for a parent-teacher conference and said that we were having trouble getting Robbie to understand and communicate his feelings. She said they had been working on that a little in class, but she could send home some “emotion cards” for us to try using outside of class. They’re working! I was flipping through them last week when I found them in his backpack and said, “Look Robbie. This one is about Mom. I’m sick.”

I caught the bug he had but much worse. I went down hard. On Friday I managed to get to the grocery store, and through the weekend I continued my normal chores and household stuff, but I was in bad shape. I think (and I say this every day) today will be the last of it and tomorrow it will be gone. So keep your fingers crossed for me!

Other cards in the set include the basic emotions of happy, sad, tired, upset, hungry, etc. Parenting skills put to use no doubt in trying to explain the differences between “mad” and “angry.” So far, I’ve been pretty generic, but some day I’m going to get nailed on this one. He’s picking the words up pretty quickly, but Robbie being Robbie, he does like to just play with them and line them up on the table. You can tell he learned a few in school already. When he picked up the “frustrated” card, it was so cute to try to hear him pronounce it – what came out was a cross between frustrated and refrigerator. And as always, be careful what you wish for. As I lay on the couch over the weekend, he comes up and tries to tickle me, thinking it’s funny. I say, “No, Mommy is sick! Please don’t tickle me.” But he continues to anyway, and says, “Mommy, are you mad?” Tickle, tickle.

“Come here, Mommy. You take picture of the snake!”

Robbie has been sick so he’s been out of school. But here that doesn’t mean he’s confined indoors. It’s quite warm and our back deck was shaded through most of the early afternoon, so I let him play outside with his trucks and rocks. Cub was sleeping upstairs and I sat at the kitchen table beading a bracelet in calming silence (loving it!). Robbie comes in and says the above. I don't remember seeing a snake here before but I didn’t want to squash his excitement, so I follow him outside and say to myself, “OK, let’s see what he’s found.” Turns out it was a green gecko with a really long tail moving along the fence.

It really amazes me what he observes while he is out there. To us, he is totally absorbed in this trucks and rocks. He can play for hours, but little of the natural world around gets by him. And it also amazes me what he remembers. Earlier this year, I spotted another gecko on the fence (the green ones are infrequent). I got excited and ran into the house to get the camera. I’m pretty sure Robbie remembered that, and yesterday he was happy to tell me that one was back and he wanted me to take more pictures.

Noel and I are also secretly very happy to see that he can spot photo ops! We’ll be getting an SLR into his hands as soon as we can.

Hawai'i quarter released

We had a great, but too brief, trip to Maui over the weekend. I will be posting some stories and pictures when we can get the pics from the camera. Until then, other news this week: The Hawai'i state quarter was released this past Monday. There was a downtown event where children could get a free quarter, and adults who wanted a whole roll could exchange their $10 for one. I'll have to wait until I get one in circulation! All the states are now released, but it was mentioned that the quarters program will continue with the release of quarters from US territories in future years. This must have been planned; the US Mint doesn't strike me as an institution that can do much on the fly!

This from the official US Mint site:

The fifth and final quarter-dollar coin released in 2008 honors the State of Hawaii, and is the 50th and last coin in the United States Mint’s popular 50 State Quarters® Program. Hawaii, spelled "Hawai’i" in the Hawaiian language, is nicknamed "The Aloha State." It became the 50th state admitted to the Union on August 21, 1959. The release of this quarter signals the end of the ten-year 50 State Quarters Program.

The reverse of Hawaii’s quarter features Hawaiian monarch King Kamehameha I stretching his hand toward the eight major Hawaiian Islands. Inscriptions are the state motto "UA MAU KE EA O KA ‘ĀINA I KA PONO," ("The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness"), "Hawaii" and "1959."

Gold medal winners

Robbie’s costume is revealed!

He was Michael Phelps. Not too much imagination here beyond the fake medals. We didn’t force him to wear goggles or a Speedo. Red ribbon and gold foil paper from the craft store, reused food boxes to cut out circles, and there you go! He liked the idea of chocolate, but wasn’t crazy about putting on a costume, so Noel had to bribe him with some M&Ms before heading out to Trick or Treat. The shot here is a confused guy, not sure what in the world is going on as we are staging in the driveway of our friends’ home. Cal was a much better sport, although equally confused.

Stinks of a right-wing conspiracy!

Public schools on Oahu have the day off. Not sure why, I don’t recall ever getting a holiday for Election Day when I was a kid, but the times they are a changing. Not having to get up and get Robbie ready for the bus allowed me to sleep in. To 6:45 when Cub woke up. Hey, any extra minutes help. ;) I stumble downstairs a little after 7:00 and turn on CNN. But the volume wasn’t working! Darn cable, it’s always something here. I realize it’s going to be a pretty long day, so I take a deep breath, mumble the title of this entry, and turn my attention to morning chores. When I check about 30 minutes later, all is good. Whew! Crisis diverted for now.

Polls in Hawaii opened at 7:00, and I’m going to go out on a limb and call Hawaii for Obama. Lately Hawaii and Illinois have been fighting over the rights to call itself Obama’s home state. I consider myself neutral, and I don’t think Illinois has much more to claim than that’s where he settled as an adult. But that’s just me. As you may have read, Obama’s Grandmother passed away yesterday. Tributes are flowing in to the media outlets here. All I can think is that she must have desperately tried to make it even 36 more hours. No reports yet for Obama to come back for any services.

There are a few closely-watched local issues of note. Oahu residents are voting “Yes / No” on light rail. Windward residents (and taxi-cab lobbyists) are against it. Most Leeward residents are more or less for it. The mayoral race isn’t close, but interesting. The incumbent is pushing for rail, the challenger flip-flopped on the rail issue within the last month and now supports some whacked elevated freeway plan that would run from Kapolei to downtown. Driving through downtown traffic on Halloween evening Noel and I saw Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife Beth. They were stumping for Mufi, the incumbent mayor, near the City Hall building. Holding campaign signs and waving to passing motorists. That’s campaigning, local style! I was driving and my camera was in the trunk. Doh!

I’m not sure how long I can stay in the house today watching the TV news. I could very well go bonkers, so may take a break and go stimulate the economy at the Mall with some early holiday shopping. We’ll also be helping the state economy this weekend when we head over to Maui on the Superferry! Dog sitter lined up, hotel reserved; I think we’re a go.