life in the old lane

Almost everyone in the parade. I think there are more participants than spectators.

My holiday decorations are up. The Kona Xmas Parade just finished. Everyone in town who had a red t-shirt and a dog marched in the parade. No decorated cement mixers this year. I guess the economy is too bad to for the cement company to waste the fuel to be in our parade. There are usually 3 or 4 decorated cement mixers.

At this instant, a really loud Hawaiian reggie band doing a concert at the luau grounds across from the pier. Thank goodness for industrial strength ear plugs. Marriott owns the luau grounds now. Old Mr Marriott would not be pleased with the loud music annoying the guests at his hotel. (If I can hear it – I am sure the Marriott people can too.)

As you all know – I haven’t had a really good night’s sleep in over 10 years. I stopped fussing about it. Or even worrying. There will be plenty of time to sleep when I am dead. Last night – I enjoyed my non-sleep time by watch a total lunar eclipse of the full moon. Splendid way to spend the night.

Today, I swam over to sneak a peak at Paul Allen’s house.

The ocean wasn’t as calm as I’d like – so I didn’t swim any closer. I wouldn’t want to get swept into his property. He has his own deep water access. But, his boats are all too big to use it. I hope Mr Allen comes to spend Xmas week again this year. He has cancer – so I hope he is able to continue to enjoy his toys and houses. Nobody is promised tomorrow.

When it is time to go – go peacefully in to the good night. How Doctors Die. 

Thinking about Cape Town, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo for my round the world adventure. That should rack up some frequent flier miles!  Or so I don’t leave Mr C Home Alone too long – I might leave off Cape Town and Dubai and just wander around Asia.

The donated fins seem to be working fine – I’ll schlep the Wal Mart ones back soon.

The halalu are still running. Fisher people line up from dawn til dusk.

Halalu, the juvenile akule or big-eye scad, run around 4 or 5 inches and school close to certain beaches which receive freshwater from streams emptying into the ocean. Kailua Bay doesn’t have any streams. But, it does have many fresh water springs. And the storm sewers empty into the Bay. Guess that works for the fish.

Most fisher people can catch 100 – 200 of these little guys. They are deep fried and eaten whole. Bones and all. They are also used as live bait. Speaking of bait. None is required. Just a tiny hook. Some folk add a sliver of green plastic to the hook.

I went to see Santa yesterday. I look a little dead.

Logged five miles walking today. No swimming.  Have a whole list of little mephitic duties. Will spend the rest of the day knocking them out. The hardest is done. Now on to estimated taxes and transferring (stealing) Carlton’s Delta frequent flyer miles.

Thinking about travel. 2012 might be my year for the round the world trip. I don’t want to wait until I am too old. Nobody is promised tomorrow. But, I don’t like leaving Carlton home alone too long.

Cloudy day today. A good day for surfing but crappy day for snorkeling.

It is hard to rationalize spending 50 cents on our local dead tree paper. But, the classifieds are always amusing. For example:

And how about these:

This must be the worse job on the island. Spoiled rich person wants house slaves.

As you can see, out hotel is not very crowded. The hotel gardener and the occasional large insect or gecko are our only neighbors on the 3rd floor.

I took the donated fins out on sea trials today. They don’t seem to be any better or worse than the Walmart ones. The Walmart ones might be going back.

Great article The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix.

Time to cook dinner. The food goddess provided  mahi mahi today. Plus 4 huge avocado and some tangerines. How about nuked mahi mahi  with a ginger sauce and rice, also some sort of avocado and tangerine salad?

And now I have replacements….

Now have replacement slippas, a new pair of Wal Mart fins (the lost pair were from Wal Mart) and a donated pair. They all require some breaking in or getting used to.

• Sunday, my slippas (that’s flip flops to you mainland haole types) got swapped at the beach. Meaning someone took my slippas – but – as is considered polite – they left me theirs – much older and too big.
• Today, got shit on by a very well fed bird.
• Later today – I left my fins on the beach by mistake. Less than five minutes later they had vanished.
• Still later today – the keycards to our room stopped working. Nobody told us that after 30 days, we needed to get new keycards.

Big event today was defrosting the dorm room fridge. It has to be defrosted every 2 weeks. Tomorrow is laundry day.

Exercisewise – 3 mile walk and 1/8 mile swim. Or was it 1/4 swim. Some folks say it is 1/8 out to the bleach bottle marker. Others say it is 1/8 for the round trip. I sort of think it is 1/8 mile round trip. It takes me 15 minutes to make the round trip. And, I don’t think I could swim a mile in the open ocean in an hour.

Foodwise – All the thanksgiving foods were polished off yesterday. Tuna and avocado salad with rice was on the menu. But, when I opened up the avocado – it was looking a little scuzzy. Canceled the tuna and dumped chili on top the avocado.

Investingwise – Took some of my Telephone stock profits today. AT&T really need the T-Mobile deal to go thru. They really have get my spectrum. I on doing very little except lightening up until Europe calms.

Didn’t do much today either. Walked 3 miles. Swam 1/4 mile. Offered up the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner. And, the beer fairy visited. A six pack of Steinlager arrived in payment for renewing the DHCP lease on an XP machine. All in all a fine day. Oh yes, the stock market has been closed for the last 2 1/2 days. So, I didn’t lose any money.