Mowee Wowee

I'm back. Tanned. And ready to go. Well, two out of three ain't bad. We flew to Mau'i via Aloha Airlines. Aloha recently tried to merge with rival Hawaiian Air to help it survive the downturn post-September 11. But they could not make the deal work so they are trying to make it on their own. Their cost cutting efforts can be seen in two places. The first is in their First Class lounge which used to have cable TV and free soft drinks and refreshments. The sodas are still there but everything else is gone. The second is the advanced age of their aircraft. You may remember the Aloha Air flight that had an 18-foot (~5.5m) section of the plane peal away in-flight due to metal fatigue/corrosion (see one account here) and looking at the plane we were to fly, did not engender confidence. The interior cabin panels were torn or broken in several area and gave the general impression as being past its service life. Further, the door through which we entered the craft looked like it had been patched at least once, given the number of rivets and the different color of the metal patch. I'm not sure we will be flying Aloha anymore, even if they survive economically.

Otherwise, the 20-minutes flight to Kahului airport was smooth until we got in close to landing. That last 1,000 feet (~305m) was probably the wildest ride I've had in an airplane. The prevailing winds whip across the area where the airport is. This causes landing aircraft to yaw, pitch, and roll in ways only roller coasters should. Happily for us, the wind died down a split second before touch down. Until then, I thought we were going to hit awfully hard on our left wing tip.

We made it down, got our luggage, rent-a-car, and since it was around 1:00pm and hotel check-in is not until 3:00pm we headed to the Mau'i Ocean Center. The Center is located in Ma'alaea on the coast about 20-minutes due south of the airport. It is a relatively new aquarium so it has the requisite walk-through underwater tank full of sharks and manta-rays. The exhibits take you from the tidal pool denizens down to deep water species. Other than it being very windy, it was a very nice experience.

From there we headed over to the Westin Mau'i at Ka'anapali. The Westin is a medium-sized hotel (about 750 rooms) situated on 12-acres of ocean-front property. There are five heated pools covering about 85,000 sq. ft. (~26,000 sq. metres). We had requested a room with a king-sized bed facing the gardens but none were available when we checked in. They wanted to "upgrade" us to a room with two single beds facing the parking lot. After a few minutes of, ahem, negotiations, we got a corner room on the second to the top floor facing the ocean. When I have some time I'll but up some pictures taken with my new Kodak 4900 digital camera.

I'm running out of time so I'll leave the rest of the vacation for tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.

Aloha!

Mowee Wowee II

The second day of our vacation was a trip to the Wailea side of the island to do some shopping. Then it was back to the hotel for some swimming in the pools. There are four pools open to everyone and one intended for those over 16, sometimes referred to as the adult pool. In a family resort like the Westin, this is a Good Thing. While I like kids as much as the next guy, I am not thrilled by noisy kiddies splashing water all over the place. So, except for some exploring between the pools, we pretty much stayed at the adult pool.

Wednesday was more shopping until evening, when we went to see the play "Ulalena" in Lahaina. The play is based heavily on the myths of Hawai'i and uses dance, song, and chants to tell the stories of creation to post-Western contact Hawai'i. Note that there is no dialogue as such but is a melding of "Blue Man" in its use of percussion instruments and Cirque du Soleil in its use of acrobatics.

I can't say for sure if it makes any sense to someone not brought up in Hawai'i, but since the vast majority of the audience were visitors to these islands, and they seemed to understand the general drift of what was going on, I can recommend it to anyone and everyone as being something very different from your usual Polynesian entertainment.

Thursday was our last full day on Mau'i so we wanted to get as much sun as possible. So that's what we did. Friday morning we checked out and headed home. Unfortunately, not all of our luggage made it off the plane as one of our bags went AWOL. Luckily, the bag was found the next day and Aloha had it delivered to our house by 11:00am.

A note about where we ate. We made use of two places in "Whalers Village." We had breakfast at the "Rusty Harpoon" and dinner at "Hula Grill." Hula Grill, under Chef Peter Merriman, one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine, is known for its fresh fish. When there, try the opakapaka.

We also ate at the " Fish and Game Brewing Co." in Kahana. This fish and steak house had the best rib-eye steak I have ever had. It was 16-ounces (~454 grams) of the most tender, flavor-full meat. It is slow cooked over kiawe wood to perfection. While in Kahana, and for the most adventurous among you, you may also want to check out "Roy's". Chef Roy Yamaguchi, another founding member of Hawaii Regional Cuisine, has not one, but two restaurants in Kahana: Roy's Kahana Bar and Grill and Roy's Nicolina Restaurant. This is Pacific Rim fusion so if you are not into this kind of food, you can always go the Outback Steak House.

And finally, we ate several times at the hotel's "Ono Bar and Grill." It is an informal, outdoor restaurant with simple, good food. The only problem is the lack of wait help. It is not unusual to have to wait long periods for anyone to help. I know many hotels are complaining about problems post-September 11th. And one way to deal with the alleged downturn is to cut staff. But if the Westin was any indication, the hotels are doing quite well, thank you very much. In fact, so well that the Westin did not have any discounts or specials during the period we were there. So if they are doing so well, why don't they bring back some of their staff?

The Truth

Once again, we get the inside information from someone who has been there and done that. And once again, we find that the powers that be are telling the Big Lie. In this case, it is the RIAA and NARAS. And this time it is a diminutive singer/song writer by the name of Janis Ian who is blazing the truth across the Internet sky with her essay here. Point-by-point she puts down the lies of the recording industry mouth pieces. Point-by-point she shows what is actually going on. You go girl.

Shall Set You Free

Headline in the morning paper: Bush targets corporate crooks.

Q:Would any of what President Bush is proposing have prevented either Enron or Worldcom?
A: Probably not.

If this is true, then other than fooling the credulous for political gain, what use is this? Does it not increase cynicism and distrust in government?

Aloha!

Run for your lives

Our firewall seems to be acting up again this morning so this will get posted when it gets posted. When I do, you lucky 11 readers will get to see my vacation pictures [quick, grab the kids and pets, and run while you can - ed.]. The pics are on a separate page here. That page will take you to thumbnails, each of which will have links to three versions of each pic (2448 X 1632, 1152 X 768, and 900 X 600). The sizes are not exactly the standard monitor resolutions but it is as close as I could get. The native size my digital camera shoots in is 2448 X 1632, which prints out to a nice 8 X 10 inches (approximately). Be aware that if you go for the high priced spread, the files will be about 1.5MB so don't try this without a broadband connection. Note that some of the 1152 X 768 files will be about 200k but most will be half that.

Log rolling

Howdy to you folks at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center! I don't check my server logs that regularly, but when I do, I am always humbled by the number people who link to this site. I thank you very much.

On the other hand, those of you searching for "Ghana news", ummm, I think you have the wrong site.

Aloha!

It's Friday!

Quick Bytes

Opera 6.04 is out. Get it here.

For the really adventurous (i.e., don't blame me if it blows up into a billion beautiful bits), Mozilla 1.1 Alpha can be downloaded here.

Want to know what others in your occupation make? Check out salary.com here.

All the news fit to pay for

See this article on, among other things, on-line newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times who are either thinking about charging for access or have already done so. The article refers to a survey of 429 newspapers which found, in North America, 5 percent already are charging a fee. See the article here.

Long story short

I don't have much of a post this morning because I've been running down problems with our new HP2200D LaserJet Printers. It seems the drivers for PCL6 and 5e are not compatible with our internal mail program, Lotus cc:Mail. If I install the HP IV driver, all is well. But if I do that, I loose, I think, some of the features specific to PCL6. Talk about one step forward and two steps back. I will be doing more research but I think we will just have to wait until we have Lotus Notes installed. Real Soon Now. Like by the next millennium. Sigh.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!