Category: From Kona

Still suffering from bandwidth disfunction. The hotel wifi needs Viagra!

Xmas day dawned bright and sunny and a crispy 70 degrees. Mr C and I bundled up in all the clothes we own and headed up to the country for a real Hawaiian luau. About 30 folk were in attendance. Carlton did take his car down a gravel road. And, he did have a good time.

Not enough bandwidth to upload a picture today. So, the Xmas Wrasse from a few weeks ago will have to suffice.

Have the very best xmas ever – and a bright and happy new year.

I spent most of the day shuffling thru old pictures. I am going to have to kick ass if I am going to finish a decade of photos by the end of the winter holiday.

Tomorrow, I am going up country to an old fashioned Hawaiian luau. There might be pictures.

The Good News – two rugby teams did not check into our building.

The Bad News – one rugby team did check into our building.

Today was chores day: laundry, defrost fridge, go to library, run down exterminator dude. And finish making my first iMovie. I do consider making little movies a chore. iMovie is pretty painless.

Also, the town is filling up for the holidays. Good for business. But, I like sleepy beach town better.

The food fairy provided *LOTS* of cookies, a bunch of oranges, a bag of kona coffee and the meatballs continue.

We would like to wish everyone the best of the festive season – no matter what it’s called at your house. In pagan traditions, the solstice is a time to put away the things of the old year and look forward to the new. One observance of the solstice involves extinguishing all the fires in your home before midnight on the eve of the solstice and lighting a new fire the next day. This probably won’t be quite as symbolic if you have central heating.

The winter solstice falls on December 21 – the word solstice means “sun stopping.” The winter solstice is the day on which the sun reaches as far south of the equator as it gets, and is as such the shortest and darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The solstice marks the rebirth of light for the coming spring.

The winter solstice also marks, among other things, the druidic festival of Alban Arthuan – a time for bestowing gifts upon those less fortunate than ourselves. Out of this observance has grown the more popular tradition of gift-giving, last minute shopping, maxed-out credit cards and 70% off sales. May the goddess be with you during this season – but don’t blame her if you get socks again.

We had a violent but brief and welcome tropical squall – the wind drove the rain horizontal. And, the rain did that wonderful tropical trick of raining as hard as possible – and then kicking it up a notch. Mr C and I knew the storm was coming – so we were safely up in our room. And, I unplugged all my toys from the wall sockets.

The rain was welcome because a grass fire has been burning for the last few days – making lots of unwelcome smoke. When the rain and wind stopped – Paul Allen’s boat had moved to slightly safer deeper waters up the coast. I do hope it comes back.

Upgraded to WP 2.9 – Don’t see any changes – but I haven’t looked for any either.

Had a magical experience last evening. I was asked over to the Palace to “take some pictures”. High school  kids were coming in the sing for Ke Ali’i Bernice Pauahi Bishop, founder of the Kamehameha Schools. Sure. Sounds like fun.

Well, it was a mind blowing experience. Or as we say in the island – give me chicken skin. Hawai’i is not like America. The kids who go to Kamehameha School consider singing as important as football and scholarship. The class “song leader” is as big a hero as is the captain of the football team. And, strange to say the acoustics of the Palace just worked. But, since some of the songs were written by people who lived in the Palace – maybe I should have been surprised. 40 kids and a couple of ukelele turned this cynical old woman to mush. I knew that kids from Kamehameha could sing – I had forgotten how good.

The Meduse, Paul Allen’s #3 yacht arrived yesterday.

The Meduse, number 90 in the list of top 100 superyachts is apparently still a favorite within Paul Allen’s fleet. Built in 1996, and named rather ominously after the opera Le Naufrage de la Méduse (“The Wreck of the Medusa,” written in 1839 by the German-born French composer Baron von Friedrich Flotow), the yacht has served the Microsoft cofounder on cruises up the Amazon River and many other undisturbed areas of the globe. I believe it has an “ice breaker” hull – like his big yacht – the Octopus. (BTW, meduse means jellyfish in french.)

A keen student of music who has broken his share of Fender Stratocasters, Allen had her fitted out with a full digital recording studio with the reported assistance of Peter Gabriel, who has cut tracks on board, as have other stars, including the Eurythmics. The vessel also boasts a 12-seater acoustically optimized cinema. This 200 foot Feadship has the owner’s and principal guest suites on the main deck and four other staterooms below, together with a gymnasium for guests to work off the five-star a la carte fare.

Essential toys include a helicopter and a garage full of tenders, jet skis and scuba equipment. Meduse has a maximum speed of only 16 knots, but a range of more than 5,000 miles. When the helicopter lands on the boat – everyone on land watches. It is a good show.

Are the people on the yacht happier than I am in the cheap hotel on land – I doubt it. After all – they don’t have a Macbook Air. And maybe it is an iPod free zone?