Hawaii Boy

I might need it someday…..Not!

I have a similar story. I went to culinary school and was a chef. I had accumalated a wall of cook books. My passions were Pacific Rim cuisine, Southwestern style and Creole. Every time we moved, I boxed them up, carted them to the next abode and lovingly arrranged them back on their shevles. One day at our previous house, I was looking at that wall of culinary ideas, thoughts and solutions and came to the realization it wasn’t the books that I wanted, it was the content. It was 2008 and I had just become and early user of Evernote and had an idea, what if I scanned the books and put them all into Evernote.

The content of the cook books would be searchable and digital and I’d never have to move them again. Since I didn’t have a book scanner, I took an approach I had at hand. I used a scroll saw, cut the binding off the books, then they were just a stack of recipes. It took a couple of months, but I took apart and scanned all but the rarest and most unique cook books I had.

Now I have a short shelf of about a dozen really good cook books and few special ones in a small box with some out of print books on Hawaiian history.

The real cool part is that I can, for instance, search Evernote for Chicken Florentine and get about a dozen really good choices from among dozens of cook books in seconds. It would have taken quite a bit longer to source even few choices from the actual books.

Post note:

I had a short tenure with this restaurant. I was hired to turn the restaurant around and grow volume. The absentee owner comes from a Fast Food background and didn’t agree with my ideas, even though employees and customers raved about the changes. Since he signs the checks, I left. Cest La Vie or “O ia wale nō ia“

Our ultimate road trip

so far…

Last summer, my wife and I went on the trip of our lives - to date.

We went to London, Paris and Ireland., which from Hawaii is a haul.

It all began when my wife got notice that she had about 140,000 United Miles that were going to expire later that year. In the winter of 2012, we starting thinking about where we wanted to go. Initially we were planning a trip to the East Coast. My Dad is from Boston and my wife Ann has always wanted to spend some time in New York. I have no interest in New York, but wanted to explore the Boston area. My idea was to base ourselves in Botson and take the train to New York for a few days. Ann wanted to do the opposite. This discussion went on for weeks, when one evening Ann finally said enough with this, do you think we have enough miles to go all the way to Europe?

The next day we called United Air and all of the miles, plus $350 in additional miles would get us from Kona to London and back.

We tentatively booked it for June of 2012 and after clearing the dates with out respective employers confirmed it about a week later.

Now the fun, we had 14 days to fill and lot we wanted to see and do. Ann had London and Paris on her list and I wanted to see Ireland; we managed to get it all in. One Saturday last spring, we took my Mac to Starbucks, sat there and mapped out each day of the trip.

First we figured out where we were going, how we were getting there, then where we were going to stay. We chose to use public transport for most of the trip, but did rent a car in Ireland to get out of Dublin.

In London and Ireland we stayed at Travelodge, which had spartan accomodations, but all we needed was a shower, bed and wifi. They were clean, convenient and price was right. In Paris we stayed in a B&B right in the city. We also traveled with carry-ons only. With all of our moving around and using trains and the underground, we didn’t want to be lugging aroung big bags. This was a challenge, but worked out.

Here’s how it went. We flew into Heathrow, spent 2 nights in London, caught the train to Paris, spent 4 nights in Paris, flew to Dublin, spent 4 nights in Dublin and 2 in Cork, then caught the ferry back the England and the train back to London with 2 more nights there before flying home.

We saw everything we wanted for a first trip. All of the major London attractions, castles and a lot of pubs. We spend a morning in the Louvre (not near enough), went to the Eiffel Tower, walked the Champs, the Siene river and sat in many a cafe. We toured the Guinness brewery, the Jameson’s Distillery, Grafton Street and many more pubs.

We took in Football Matches from the Euro2012 championships in local pubs in all 4 cities. We also met some amazing people and some no so much so.

The one thing that challenged us was the weather, it rained and rained and rained, and it was a lot colder than we had planned for.

All in all, it was an amazing trip. To share the trip with friends and family, we used and app called Mobily Trip which tracked where we went using passive GPS. I added pictures and comments and our family could login to the website and follow our trip in almost realtime. Here the link to our vacation

We also packed a box of stuff we bought during the trip and mailed it home. It wasn’t cheap, but not having to lug that stuff to the airport and to plane trasfers was worth it. We bought an Oyster Card for London transit and pre-paid cards for the attractions we knew we wanted to see. We also got Paris and Dublin transit passees and pre-paid for everyting we could. Pre-paid debit card were very helpful, as debit card use is prevalent in the cities we visited.

For our next act, we’re planning to return the UK in September 2014, but this time stay put and go a layer deeper into London with a possible trip up to Scotland for a couple of days.

Things we learned: Get a prepaid phone with a local carrier. We were pretty much limited to wifi accessibility, which was worse than we were led to believe. We will also pack warmer and really try to go to less places, but see the ones we do go to deeper.

It’s a long way from Hawaii, but well worth the long flights.

Can’t wait till next fall.

Cheers

Of the people, by the people…

for the people.

The recent release of those NSA documents sure has opened a pandora’s box. I have not been able to get the whole issue off of my mind since the story first broke. I wonder how far things would have gone if none of this came to light. Let me frame this by saying, I’m not an alarmist or conspiracy theorist and am generally a conservative and believe in a smaller government (I won’t get started on the Affordable Healthcare Act). Though generally I’m inquisitive and look for the “why” in everything. I’m just plain curious. I’m also a direct descendent of Andrew Kimbley who fought in the Virigina Brigade of the Revolutionary war and was a founding father of Louisville Kentucky.

First off, whether Edward Snowden was right or wrong in what he did or how he did it not really important to me at this point, what is important is that he DID stand up and bring something to light we all suspected.

I have some fundamental problems with this entire issue. The United States of America was founded on one basic principal; Freedom from Tyranny. This was the driving force in the revolutionary war. America was the first country in the history of the world to make such quantum leap away from monarchies and autocratic rule to an entirely new system of government built on specific values. A core value of the United States of America is a government by the people as stated in Declaration of Independence: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Americans fought hard to gain these freedoms and many lives have been lost protecting them.

The Patriot act has turned this upside down. What was first developed as a means of preventing terrorism has gone too far. We’ve all tolerated the TSA at airports, but in comparison to the NSA, the TSA is a very transparent agency. The NSA operates totally in the dark.

Our American system is based on the people being in control of the government, not vice versa.

I don’t have a problem with the basic surveillance actions of the Patriot Act and the NSA. I fully understand the need to listen for potential terrortist action that may harm American citizens. I also understand that once I make a mobile phone call or send an electronic communication, it’s out there and can be read or heard by someone with the right tools. If I need to tell someone something private, I need to meet them in person or use a dual encryption method, though even that can be broken.

The problem I have with this whole issue is the government harvesting data on Americans without their knowledge, either legally, or not, and keeping that information in perpetuity. This reeks of a violation of due-process. They get to request information on Americans from a service provider and hold that information without prior proof of involevment in illegal activity.

This also tips the balance of power in our country from the people to the government. The system they’ve built is a mini secret government within the bigger government. It is a very short leap before this goes too far to turn back. It would only take a small group of people who believe that they know what’s better for the people that the people do themselves. Low voter turnout feeds right into their hands. Think of the recent financial crisis, it was a small group of people thinking they were smarter than everyone else and their greed took over.

And all the while, they’ll be saying, trust us, we’re doing this to protect you.

We can’t let this issue go away, we the people need to keep asking What? and Why?

Why I switched to Football

The other Football, the one the rest of the world watches.

I grew up in Hawaii where Football is huge. the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors area religion. It starts with flag football, midget football, Pop Warner then school ball. I was also a huge Baseball fan. I played t-ball, little league and school ball. I played both football and baseball growing up and through school. “Soccer” was around growing up, but it was a fringe sport.

I read Major League Baseball box scores as a kid and listened to Hawaii Islander AAA broadcasts on my AM radio. This passion for these two great American pastimes followed me for the next 30 years. I paid for cable sports packages and whenever I was on the mainland I made it a point to attend MLB games (usually the Dodgers) or an NFL game if my timing worked out.

I kept coming back after strikes and lock outs, but something changed in 2012. I was really getting tired of their shenanigans. I was also getting annoyed at the length of games and the incessant commercial breaks. Coincidentally, my wife and I went on a great adventure to the UK, Paris and Ireland in June 2012. The Euro2012 Championships were in progress while we were there and we were fortunate to experience matches from a Pub in London (while England was playing). We also took in the Ireland v Italy match from a Pub in Cork (Ireland got devastated). This experience coupled with my displeasure with the direction of American sports was the tipping point.

I came home an English Football fan. I took Arsenal as my team (that’s another story) and dove into the Premier League season. I’m also a fan of AS Saint Etienne in Ligue 1 in France and Parma FC (they suck right now) in Serie A in Italy. I love the tactics and strategy and that they play 45+ min no break, have a half time break, then play another 45+. I love relegation and the Champions League, the NFL should do that. I love that a match TV broadcast is 2 hours, period. I’ve even adapted to most matches being on between 2:30am and 7am in Hawaii. You still have a full day ahead.

I don’t think I’m going back, besides, can the entire rest of the world be wrong about football?

In My Humble Opnion - World Football is a more exciting and enjoyable sport to watch.