Filed under: B.O.B.s
These days there are a growing number of bid websites where, they claim, you can bid, perhaps, pennies to by expensive items for a fraction of their usual price. These are sometimes called penny auctions, however, one bids, one must pay careful attention to how they work.
When you sign up, you buy your bids, that’s right, you pay ahead. Next, you find something you would like to bid on and start bidding. You watch the timer and as the seconds tick down, you can keep placing bids. There may be quite a few people bidding all at the same time. In fact, more than one person may bid in the same millisecond, according to one complaint I read. Of course, the final seconds of countdown won’t start until the website has made enough money to cover the item.
These websites must be extremely successful, since there are more and more of them popping up. They even advertise on T.V. They seem legitimate, however, I don’t think a real auction site would charge you money in advance. Sure, you may win a bid, but, how many will you lose.
Before you get involved, Google the name of the bid site and then the word scam. I have not tried any of these websites and am writing this to encourage you to check first, as I did. I am also not going to include a list as you can easily find them yourself.
Bidder beware!
Filed under: B.O.B.s
I just heard a statistic that there are more wireless accounts than human beings in North America. Wow, what does that say about our society?
Refs for more reading and exploration:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/the-u-s-has-more-wireless-devices-than-people/
Filed under: myWhys
This week, Facebook has been in the news as it is going to move from being a private company to public with an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Over the past week, I have heard many comments about Facebook and they have raised a concern that has irked me for years. It seems that people, society, accept the Internet, not for what it is, but, for what it is not. What do I mean by this? Why is Facebook so popular and worth so much money? Why aren’t people more concerned about their personal information being used for purposes they are not aware of?
Take this comment I heard on the radio this week. Someone stated something that I have heard many times before leaving me to believe that it is a generally accepted truth. People seem to think that the Internet contains information and information is knowledge. To me, as someone who has been using computers for nearly 25 years, the Internet for over 15 years and who has studied the field of education to the level of a Masters Degree, I feel I can make a comment or two on this matter in an attempt to clear up some misconceptions.
Information is not knowledge. Information is information and knowledge is what you know. Well, now that is clear. No? Then let me give you an example. I have an interest in vintage jazz music and with nearly 40 years of interest in this genre of music, I know quite a bit about it. If I were to tell you everything I know, you would have information and perhaps some of the information might become, to some degree, knowledge. However, if I were to spend time engaging you in listening to jazz music and discussing it, you would begin to have an experience with it and make it familiar to you. That is learning and learning results in you acquiring knowledge, that is, you are able to use and apply the information. There, you can see, is a huge difference.
To truly turn information into knowledge, one must engage and have experiences with it. This is the purpose of education. The richer the engagement and experiences, the better the education and the resulting ability of the learner to be able to use and apply what they know. This is a concern I and many educators have about online learning. It does not, and can not, provide the same rich learning experiences that a classroom or other real life situations can. One would never want a surgeon with an online degree to operate. Well, that is a sort of extreme example, yet, you should get the point.
It seems to be an ongoing quest of purveyors of the Internet to relate it to real-life applying common nomenclature to new purposes. Even before the World Wide Web (WWW), with only text interfaces to the Internet, people searched for ways to make users feel comfortable with the service. In the early days, we operated bulletin board services (BBSs), initially with a text interface and later with a graphical user interface (GUI). As you can see, the idea of naming the service a bulletin board makes it somewhat easier for people to become familiar with it. Most people have seen and even used a real bulletin board. Some services offered methods to type back a forth in real time. This was and still is known as chatting. Chats on particular topics were called chat rooms. Not a room at all. Not really a chat either.
When graphics began to be used to enrich the online environment, designers made images that looked like real surfaces and controls with textures and buttons and knobs. These were and are fake. Why not invent something completely different. Perhaps because, the goal is to help users be and feel familiar with the environment, an environment that does not really exist.
Consider other terms used to sell users into the online world. Adapting already familiar words to digitally represented images, allows people, or users, as they are referred to, to be able to perform tasks in the digital environment. Is a window a window? Is a page a page? Do you actually go somewhere when to enter an address. Not really, These things and places do not really exist. It is all an illusion. As users, we really need to be careful that we understand what the digital environment is, what the services are and who we are in this new world. Traditional terms and understandings take on new meanings. Often, people take on a completely different persona online.
Let me return to the example of Facebook. Facebook has literally rocketed into ubiquity in our lives and I don’t think most people understand what it really is. On the surface, it looks like a way of allowing people to connect with each other and share information. That seems like a simple service and a great contribution to society. In fact, it is referred to as a social network. Yet, a comment I heard this week reveals the true nature of Facebook. Someone pointed out that, while Facebook makes people think they are customers of a service, in reality the users are the product of Facebook. So many people freely upload vast amounts of information about themselves and all that information is stored online and the privacy of that information is supposed, by the users, to be under their control and private. The true customers of Facebook are the people who can use that information and pay for it. That means advertisers. That’s correct, Facebook is providing a service where you give them information about yourself, tell them who your friends are and what you and they like. They even ask you to ‘like’ things to make sure they know what you like and to make more connections. They then sell you to corporations for money, and a lot of money.
Facebook does state that they do not sell your information. Perhaps not directly, however, what do you call it when they have a system that can use your information to show you ‘relevant’ ads. By placing an ad through Facebook, an advertiser is paying for Facebook to make sure the ad is shown to users who would be most likely to be interested in the product or service. The ad may then be shown to your friends. So, while your information is not sold for use outside of Facebook, it is part of the structure of selling advertising. The question is, how safe is your information? Can an advertiser find out who viewed and showed interest in a particular ad and then use that information to advertise outside of Facebook?
Could it be possible that our society is quite out of control. The idea of Facebook may have been hatched in innocents as a social network, however, it is much more now. Even the term friend seems to have lost it’s true meaning. How many people actually have a hundred or even hundreds of friends. Another idea that is not grounded in reality. How many people have told you they talked to somebody on Facebook. How did they actually talk?
Communications seems to have taken on a new sort of connotation. Communications should mean a two way exchange of information disseminated through a rich environment. By rich, I mean one that allows as much information exchanged as possible and reliably, resulting in an understanding of the message. In face to face exchanges, over 80 percent of the message is non-verbal. This fact should be kept in mind when we consider the Internet as a communications medium.
Facebook neither has a face, is a face, allows for face to face, nor is it a book. It simply does not really exist and neither does the Internet, that is in a physical sense, other than the equipment used to transmit and store the data. This is an important point as the online digital world does exist, since it does affect our physical lives.
Throughout human history we value things with physical substance. Information has traditionally taken it’s value in the physical form it exists in, such as a book. Even with the development of recording techniques, it has been the physical form of the information that has carried the value. This is changing with the world of digital due to the information residing in a non-physical form and in more than one place. This is upsetting how we deal with value, copyright and what is and what is not.
Google arose much like Facebook. As the amount of information grew, so did the importance of being able to search to find exactly what you wanted. Google was not the first search engine service, however, it soon became the most used. Supposedly, it was the best. Search services have several forms. Some catalog information for users to browse through. Others, like Google simply gather information from everywhere and present it to users for them to wade through. Even the term searching is often replaced with Googling. People often say they Google something.
Google, like Facebook, also soon discovered that advertisers would pay for the ability to advertise to a particular user who was searching for something related to their product or service. So, Google could match advertising with users who might be interested or hot customers. This is target marketing.
But, how reliable is the information you Google, or any information found through the Internet? In traditional publishing methods, information is published through reliable sources. With the Internet, anyone can publish information, even those with incorrect, misrepresented, misinterpreted, unsubstantiated information. Some even maliciously attempt to do this.
Sometimes I want to learn about a product or service and use Google to locate information about it. This usually includes some of the many forum areas where other people share information and hold discussions through threaded messages. A thread is a series of messages on a topic where people comment on an initial message and the messages that are comments on another person’s comment stays with that comment in the thread of other messages, despite it’s chronological order. Forums are similar to BBSs.
One would think that a discussion by users of a product would be a reliable place to ask what is the best one to buy. Here is an example. Suppose you want to buy a blender. You can locate a forum of other people who are either users of blenders or are interested in purchasing one. Here you will find almost endless comments and useful information about which blenders are best. However, there may be employees or other people with a vested interest in pushing one particular brand. They might be masquerading as someone they are not.
Then, there are scammers. This is not new, however, avoiding scams is a bit trickier online. Anyone can look like almost anything or anyone. One may get an E-mail from a bank stating that they need to confirm their banking information. Graphics may even include the bank’s logo and that logo could be linked to from the actual bank computer server. I have even had E-mails with links to entire websites that look like a legitimate commercial website, however, many links would not actually work on the website. More of something that is not what it really is.
The point to remember is that the Internet, Google and Facebook are here to stay. They cannot be turned off or deleted. The Internet was devised as a Cold War communications system that could survive an attack on the United States. As I have written before, the Internet is learning about us as we add more information about ourselves. In a sense, we are migrating into the virtual digital world of the Internet. Is this a good thing? This is a question we really do not seem to have time to sort out. There are always people who want to forge forward into the new with complete abandon, wether they truly understand what is happening. Change is happening so fast that, for most people, they simply follow the fads and trends.
I have always been bothered by the notion that information about me personally exists as a sort of growing footprint of my life in the uncontrollable world of the Internet. It is there forever. Is it safe? Is it secure?
Let us consider banking. Many people, including myself, use online banking services. Yet, we occasionally hear of hackers stealing information and even digital money funds. I am convinced that we only hear of a very few instances. If we truly knew how often systems storing valuable information are hacked into, we would lose faith in the systems we have built our lives around. Our society suffer some severe impacts. Of course, one might say, bank robbers have existed as long as banks. Yes, however, the point here is that the amount and value of money or information is huge and the procedure of tracking the perpetrators down so complex.
You may be asking, if I have such concerns, why do I participate in and use such services. Well, it is difficult not to. There are many reasons. The services and systems are interesting and fun to tinker with, I suppose. For most people, one reason might be, that everyone is doing it and, in some cases, it is necessary. In some ways we are forced to use computer and online services either by companies and organizations requiring one to access information this way or through traditional methods becoming more expensive.
A company might find it easier and cheaper to put their brochure online. There are many perceived benefits to this. They can include more information, more types of information, such as video, and they can make changes at any time. So, now it is up to the customer to access the information and search for what they want or need to know. This can take time. What if you need to actually talk to a real person? While most companies do include a phone number, this is becoming increasingly rare, just as physical stores, in some cases, are less abundant. Some companies can do more business online. So, you may not be able to go to a physical place to have a full communication session with a real person, but, may have to communicate through less reliable means that might take extra time, due to the asynchronous nature of these methods. A reply to an E-mail may take a day or more.
For years now, I have heard many explanations for what is happening and what the digital online world means to mankind. Perhaps, the virtual reality is becoming a reality, that our online footprint is becoming who we really are, and that may well be different than who we are in the real physical world. Many people have different characteristics online than they do as a real person. Some people would even say that we are in the process of migrating into a digital existence. That we should shed our physical skins to live forever in a virtual world. Could we still be human? This is certainly extreme and I doubt it will ever happen.
I had a conversation with a friend yesterday, and he mentioned that, throughout history, mankind swings from one direction to another. It is hard to imagine the technological trend changing or even swinging the other direction. We always seem to add more technological innovations into how we live. It is also difficult to imagine unplugging from the Internet. We are there in some way and can never be erased. I guess we could change who we are in real life, become a different person to evade our online persona. Sort of like a witness protection program. One would have to disappear.
For some people, worrying about these matters is simply of less importance than actually plunging in and letting what may happen go ahead and happen. At this stage, they seem to be leading the way for everyone else. Is it possible to participate to some degree and still maintain control? Or, is it too late? Have we lost control? What could possibly happen that could be so bad?
What about genetics and DNA? It is now becoming possible to discover what diseases one is predisposed to. This raises some huge concerns. What if insurance companies knew you were going to get a disease or die. How would they insure you? Would they refuse you altogether?
There is a growing concern about the possible misuses of personal information. Many people have had a bad experience resulting from too much of their personal information getting into the wrong hands. We really do not know who knows what about us now. We often do not know who is hacking into our information. Problems can range from irritating inconveniences to personal disasters. I won’t go too far into this right now, however, I’m sure many, even most readers have experienced an inconvenience or two.
One day I decided to check my Facebook account. My attempt to log in failed. I received a message stating that someone tried to log in and the system had determined that it was not me. I had to reset my account. The reset process did not work the first time, or the second. After wasting a couple of hours, I managed to get back into my account, determine that someone not even in Canada, but, somewhere in the mid-west of the U.S. had tried to hack into my account. I then decided to minimize what I show on Facebook, tighten up my security settings and to not use Facebook very often. I even considered deleting my account, but, remembered hearing about how much trouble other people have had trying to get their account deleted.
Facebook is not the first social network, as these services are referred to, however, for some reason, it has become the largest. I remember many people using MySpace before Facebook. I’m sure there will be more, such as LinkedIn. Even Google is in the game now. I wonder why Facebook has become the defacto? Perhaps, it is because, at this stage anyway, Facebook is about advertising masquerading as a social network. Could there be a larger, more important reason? I would not doubt it. As I have pointed out, they seem to be perceived as something that is not what they really are. We should be concerned about the acceptance of things, not for what they are, but, for what they are not.
Refs for further reading & exploration:
Facebook
Facebook — Wikipedia
Information — Dictionary
Information — Wikipedia
Knowledge— Dictionary
Knowledge — Wikipedia
LinkedIn
Google+
Facebook advertising
Personal information — Consumer Reports
How safe is PI on FB — Avoid Facebook
An unconfirmed report came from my daughter yesterday that she bought POG at a Real Canadian Supterstore. My daughter is living in Kelowna, BC and accompanied the family for a Christmas in Kauai where we discovered POG. POG is a combination of passionfruit, orange and guava juices, hence the name POG. The juice has become a sort of official drink of Hawaii. I was surprised to discover, after reading Wikipedia, that the commercial version contains a large amount of sugar and is therefore not as healthy as it seems.
Today, I visited the Superstore, a little over a block away from our house in North Vancouver, and indeed found a variety of juices in the refridgerated produce section from a company called Bolthouse. In no time I located a juice that listed passionfruit, orange and guava juices and a description that it was a Hawaiian style juice. When I read the ingredients it listed apple and grape juices before the tropical juices. The last one is beet juice. I guessed that these other juices were for sweetness, to eliminate the need for added sugar, and that was fine with me.
After dinner tonight, we cracked one open for a taste. It did indeed have to tropical taste and seemed very close to the POG juice is had in Kauai. I should note that I did order POG everywhere we went and I presume that not all was of the heavily sweetened commercial origin. As I was cleaning up after dinner, a few minutes later, I noticed that it did make me feel good, just like the POG I had in Kauai.
To me, POG has a unique taste and makes one feel nice. I’m not sure why it makes me feel good, but, it is nice to know that I can buy it here. I still plan to try mixing it myself using separately purchased juices. I suspect that I may have to experiment, particularly with finding something natural to use as a sweetener.
Refs for further reading & exploration:
POG — Wikipedia
Filed under: myNews
Yes, we returned safely and life has taken off again. One project that has occupied many of my hours is editing video. We received a pocket video camera from my sister as a Christmas present, a red Samsung W200 that shoots in full 1080p HD and I waisted no time in shooting videos. Of course I ended up nearly running out of storage. I had only accounted for files coming off my dSLR Nikon camera. Video files are substantially larger than photos. I think I ended up with around 1500 files of photos and videos. So, I have been editing and producing a two hour movie, complete with music and rolling credits. This is taxing our little MacBook, which is getting slower and slower. I even went out and bought a 2TB external hard drive to off-load files to make room for working on the photo and video projects. I have completed the photo slideshows, sorting out all the shots and adding music. Now, I am thinking of doing further video editing, but, may just take everything to DVD and be done. When I have completed everything, I will get some photos on my photoblog and feature photos websites.
We have returned to curling and now we are into some record breaking cold weather. My wifey has got us enrolled in a 28 Day Healthy Eating Challenge at Whole Foods Market. This week is about getting more greens and that has meant making smoothies that include as much kale as we can. All I can say is, this is going to be challenging, for sure. I will post a log every week.
This health trend is interesting because opportunities have been popping up everywhere, it seems. We do eat pretty good, yet, my wifey decided to get us into the four week program at Whole Foods and recently, I have had some conversations with a fellow who does wellness programs for corporations. Today, we were at a mini wellness fair. I found out that, while I am 56, my body age is 61 and my obtainable age is 48. Just a little goal to shoot for. While we were there, we got mugs and free tickets for a very large wellness fair at the huge convention center downtown next month. Health is trying to gang up on us.
Filed under: myNews
Whew! We are flying home from our fantastic vacation at the the Marriott Waiohai Beach Club in Poipu, Kauai. My sister made sure we were kept busy experiencing all that we could. I have already mentioned some things we did. I continued to take an enormous number of photos, many of waves and sunrises. My storage for photos has been eaten up by the unexpected videos I shot with the little waterproof camera my sister gave us. I am now down to the onboard storage of both my cameras. I should make it, however, I will have to do some real juggling to find storage space to sort photos and edit all the videos into a short movie.
Back to the activities. Our hosts, my sister and brother-in-law, were truly generous by not only stocking the unit we stayed in with plenty of food, but also, getting us out to eat in the local dining places. For them, it is the experience with the dining rather than the price, however, they always point out that we are the least expensive guests to take out since we do not drink alcohol. So, the food is even more abundant.
One night we went to a semi-outdoor restaurant nearby. We sat right near the live music which included a fellow who surfs by day and plays the electric ukulele and sings by night. He was good too. Besides the fellow playing guitar at the outdoor bar at the Waiohai, we did not hear much more live music. Oh, there was a small jazz combo at the Grand Hyatt bar as we walked through.
One morning, we went for breakfast at the local golf course and had another huge meal. It seems that the World War II canned meat spam, still has a following in Hawaii. There are many dishes incorporating the meat, long forgotten elsewhere. I also had Kalua pulled pork, on other occasions too, even on the airplane a while ago. I tried my sister’s breakfast burrito and had a banana and Macadamia nut pancake with coconut syrup. I simply could not resist.
Another night we went to a Mexican restaurant, yes, Mexican in Hawaii, just to be different, I guess. The unique experience here was the table-side guacamole. Pedro came and made the guacamole, two servings, in a lava bowl right at our table and it was surely the best I have ever had.
We were treated to more surfing lessons. Our instructor, looked like true Hawaiian surfer. No family, just teaching surfing everyday, all day. He was there at sunrise and still around after sunset. Very dedicated. We were learning on reef surf, different from the beach surf at the previous lessons. All I can say is, it is still hard to do. But, we sure had fun. My son really took to stand-up paddle boarding and spent some hours on the last day trying to graduate to catching waves on the board.
The resort has a new contract to have daily scuba lessons available. Our instructor struck me immediately as very confident. There was my sister and three of us from my family. Neal told us that we had to do the academics first, so, he gave a short lecture, but, at a high velocity. One rarely runs across someone who can speak so fast. He assured us by giving his long list of qualifications, including the fact that he is the top person for the Pacific area and does work in movies and trains and qualifies instructors. Next, we had a couple of performance skill to master and demonstrate, such as clearing our mask of water and finding and clearing our regulators, all under water. It turned out to be so simple that, in no time, we were swimming around the pool underwater and having a great time. After, my sister invited Neal for a drink where we talked more about scuba and other interesting stuff. We came away from the experience knowing it had been a real treat. We had been in the company of a true master, just as we were with Mitch and Nelson, our surfing instructors.
As the trip was nearing its end, my sister urged me to do a few more things. One morning they took me to a somewhat remote beach for some photography. The drive was rough, through some private land. The road was the common red dirt with deep potholes, however, the Grand Caravan finally made it. We walked along the beach, along some rocks, I took many photos and then we did some snorkeling.
It was the last day, so when we got back from the early morning trip, my sister still had a few more activities for me to do. I had to keep up, somehow, so I grabbed some food and then we were off to have a swim with my wife and daughter at another beach and then, do some boogie boarding at still another beach on the other side of the resort and past a park. It was a crowded beach that we went to. People were body surfing and boogie boarding. It was difficult to keep from running into each other. On one ride I crossed over and my son ended up riding on top of me all the way into the shore.
I was not finished yet. My sister had some fish food to feed fish while snorkeling, so, off I was again to snorkel. My wife even went too. Not knowing where to put the food while we swam out to the reef, my sister suggested I shove the plastic bag into my bathing suite pocket. At one point, as I was using my small video camera, I realized that there were more fish than normal. A quick check of my pocket and I knew they already got the fish food.
Finally, it was time to get ready for the New Years Eve party on the beach. We started at the bar with some fancy drinks, virgin for most of us, and some dinner. People were already setting off fireworks on the beach and launching fire lanterns (I know there is proper name for them, but, I don’t have at hand) that would float high into the air and drift away.Then came the big Poipu Beach fireworks display and the party was over before midnight. We went and had some ice cream, watched TV and then got tired, so we went to bed.
I feel as if there is so much I have not written about. We really did pack plenty of memories into this eight days of fun in the sun. We are about to land in Seattle for our connecting flight to Vancouver.
I will post some photos on my PhotoBlog and Feature Photos website once I get them sorted. I may even post some video on YouTube. I amy also post links relating to the trip, if I get a chance.
Filed under: myNews
One reason for hesitating about this Hawaii trip was the possibility of me being too hot. I truly need mild temperatures. My sister assured me that the weather would be mild due to the wind. Actually, some find it cold at times and I think I would rather put on my shirt, and it only takes a shirt or very light jacket, to escape the coolness that keeps me from over heating, but, not from over eating, what I have done on several occasion already. I am taking this morning, sort of mid-point in the trip, to write about the trip and unwind a bit. Let me take you through what has happened thus far.
I said the winds blow here, the trade winds, and with Kauai being surrounded by open ocean, that means waves. We are staying at the Marriott’s Waiohai Beach Club in an area of Kauai called Poipu. The bay here is very interesting. It has breaking surf, rolling surf, calm swimming, surfing, snorkeling, so many types of ocean to enjoy.
It was early the first morning, when I heard a rooster crowing right outside our window. Did I tell you that chickens and roosters are abundant on the island and run wild everywhere, including your house, if you leave the door open. This offending fellow, who interrupted my attempts at slumber, crowed a few times and then began to work his way along the complex making sure everyone could hear him clearly. As his crowing became fainter, I rolled over to try to sleep a bit more. A few minutes later, he came again, like a snooze button. I could have become angry, but instead, I got up and headed out to see the sunrise.
I thank the little rooster now because I ended up on the point watching the the sun move up the horizon and photographing every moment. A great sight and photo opportunity. Once it was up, I turned slightly and began to photograph the surf. Waves are extremely fascinating and I now have hundreds of wave photos, each one different, just as snowflake are said to be different, even though you can’t see the differences easily, beautiful waves showing the power of the ocean.
I have gone to the point three days in a row and took today to sleep in. The weather in the tropics can change instantly, however, not drastically. Sun, then a bit of cloud, sometimes rain, and all in a matter of moments. Sometimes you just turn around and there you see a rainbow. On my early morning visits to the point to capture the sunrise and waves, I have seen a dead eel, the tail of a pacific type lobster and Monk Seals. The seals are an endangered species and spend their nights feeding and avoiding sharks. When morning comes, they often drag themselves out of the water on the sand or lava rocks and sleep. When one appears on the beach, a little Hawaiian fellow rushes out to put up signs and rope off the area keeping the growing crowds away. I have also observed a local fisherman climb out on the lava rocks, into the surf, to throw his net. A couple of times I have also caught the sunset.
The other night, I was appointed BBQist for a family and friends dinner. There are a couple of areas here that have BBQs, perhaps there is only one area, and I went and lined up with the guys to cook my assigned eight steaks in the dark, well, there is a goosenecked light. I was warned not to overcook them. I have become better at this since my wife stopped telling me to cook meat well to make sure everything is dead. Thus, I cooked, piled them on a plate and sent them in with my son and orders to have them approved or sent back. We went in to eat another huge meal.
I don’t think there is anything like a big city here on Kauai. I would not even consider any area to be a particularly busy urban area by mainland standards, however, they do have Costco, Wal-Mart, Kmart and a mall. We did go do some shopping, but, did not buy anything.
My sister and brother-in-law, our hosts, have a collection of snorkeling equipment, so off I have gone a few times, with my new little waterproof video camera, to see the underwater sights. I now have many minutes of video with fish, the kind I have only seen in somebody’s big aquarium. From an inch or two to many inches and many colors, they swim by and, when they think you are going to get too close, they swim quickly away, often inviting a chase. A few may become curious and, if I stay still, will come closer to see the red camera. I should just hang around to see what they might do.
Yesterday was surfing day. My sister had arranged lessons with an older king of surfing guy. We had to drive to the other side of the island, a trip of about an hour and a half. We drove through some towns, some looking like what I expected surfing towns might look like. We passed the run down dilapidated hotel used in the Elvis Presley movie Blue Hawaii.
Finally, we got there, found the little shack by the side of the road where we were to check-in and get our rash guards—shirts worn to protect one’s chest from rubbing on the surface of the surfboard and getting sore. Then we headed down to the beach in a well used park. Mitch greeted us in a traditional manner and met my notion of what a old-time surfer might be like. He was in no rush, he assured us and said he was going to get us surfing.
Beginning on the beach, he guided us, in his own unique way, through what we would be doing in the water. Then, it was time to get into the water. We paddled a bit and then, with him waist high in the water watching each small wave, sizing it up for us, he sent us with a push and then the orders, right knee, left leg, pivot. Even with the very small waves, it was tough to get it right. Once you did get it, the board would provide quite a nice ride. My son, a snowboarder and much more agile, got into doing a pop-up—jumping straight to his feet. He even got to hopping and turning to face the other side of the board. Oh that kid again!
Then there is POG. On the very first day, we entered the lobby of the resort and there I saw a table with two drink dispensers, nice ones, glass and silver. One had ice water and lemons, the other had a pinkish-orange drink. I had to have some and when I tasted it, I very nearly went crazy. So refreshing and nutritious tasting—yummy! My said, maybe it is something they call POG. POG, as it turn out, stands for Passion fruit, orange and guava. Invented in 1971 by Mary Soon, who won the Kaleakala Dairy internal competition for a new drink, it seems to have become the official drink of the Hawaiian Islands and mostly rare anywhere else. I have ordered it in restaurants and seen it at Costco here in a big jug. I have read that some of it is mostly water and sugar, and therefore is called a nectar instead of a juice. Oh well, it is great stuff.
Hawaii is a strange place. Very pleasant. Always the same. What is the weather like? Usually the same, the temperature, usually the same, the wind, usually the same, the waves, usually the same, the tide, usually the same, etc. Everything is always the same, very pleasant and, I am told, usually the same all year around. Would that get boring, I’m not sure. It is so strange, you can make plans to do something and usually count on being able to do it. No back up plans for rain! Even if it does rain, the rain is only for minutes, or you just go ahead anyway because it is not cold enough to cancel plans. Strange!
Filed under: myNews
I asked my wife to start filling in the customs declaration as we flew to Hawaii. I was tired and needed some snoozing time. She woke me to ask a question, or something, and I read through the form to see what she had done. When I saw she had indicated this was her fourth time to Hawaii, I was amazed. Then she reminded me that she had worked for a charter airline and they had sent her to Hawaii at least a couple of times. Well, this was going to be familiar to her, but, not for the rest of the family. It would be be new to everyone in our family to have Christmas away from home.
We landed and were met by our hosts, my sister and brother-in-law in a minivan. They have already been here three weeks and come every year. That means they have plenty of extras, like snorkel equipment, and really know the island of Kauai.
Christmas in Hawaii seems, well, quite unusual. There are some Christmas decorations that are similar to what we see at home. They do seem out of place indeed. I suppose they do it for the tourists, however, the real meaning of Christmas, Jesus, is alive and well in Kauai, due to the large numbers of Christians. There are many churches. On Christmas Eve, our first night, we went to the Grand Hyatt for a Christmas Eve service that rivaled any modern almost mega church service, certainly matching the name of the Grand Hyatt. The massive ballroom of the hotel was full and the service was not particularly geared for the tourist, but, for those who regard praising the Lord part of their life. Fine for some of us in our group, others, they just had to come along.
After the service, we looked around and saw some wood carvings in a shop that were so unbelievable they left my son and I puzzling on how they might have been done. My son likes woodworking. With such mild weather in Kauai, many halls and rooms simply do not have walls, making for an unusual experience walking through the building for those of us from other climates.
The Grand Hyatt is truly a sight and the grandiosity was exhibited with flair at the Christmas brunch we attended the next day. Such an endless array of food that I could barely walk out. No turkey though.
So, that was Christmas. Oh, I forgot to tell mention my Christmas present from my sister, a small waterproof video camera. I am used to my dSLR and this little fellow is quite different. Not the same quality, but, the convenience is great. Even greater is snorkeling with it taking videos of fish.
I have so much more to write about and will get to it as I can. Also coming up will be photography and videos that I will put on my photoblog and my gallery website. The problem is deciding from the hundreds and hundreds, just which are the best photos. We have been so busy and I have taken so many photos and videos that all I seem to have time for is to dump the files off the cameras and go take more. I am running out of storage space. I also need to talk about surfing and about POG.
Filed under: myNews
It’s off to Hawaii we go for Christmas and it is a very early start. This is our first time and it has taken us weeks to decide just how to begin our trip. There were several choices. The first leg of the journey would be to actually get to the airport. Several options were considered, including driving to the airport and parking in one of two long-term parking lots. Other possibilities would involve asking someone to drive us, or taking a taxi. We had a notion, since the main flight would be leaving from Seattle, that a drive south and an overnight stay might be nice. Then there was the big splurge, the one my sister recommended. It was an expensive idea that made us cringe a bit, because we would stay at the Fairmont Hotel at the Airport. With check-in at three in the afternoon and our wake-up call at three the next morning, it seemed like two hundred dollars for 12 hours, most of it trying to sleep, was extravagant.
A splurge of extravagance was it. We drove to the YVR (Vancouver International Airport) Long-term Parking and took the shuttle to the Fairmont. We had borrowed carry-on luggage with wheels and only one of us had a suitcase that would require checking-in. Once at the Hotel, the rest of the family went exploring dinner options and I made a B-line for the spa. I enjoyed the hot tub and sauna and had some interesting exercise in the swimming pool. When I say swimming pool, I mean you swim against a jet stream of water, sort of like swimming up a river.
For dinner, we ended up sharing A&W hamburgers, because my son was craving it and then went to the Flying Wedge. We then attempted to sleep and found it a difficult prospect. I was told I snored, but, I felt I was awake all night.
So, here we are, half way across the ocean to Hawaii and we are tired. We got up at three in the morning, went through customs, and then took off at 6:20 AM for the short hop to Seattle. We had to wait couple of hours, not to mention, a long walk and train ride to N Gate. Along the way we had some breakfast and bought some food to take on the plane. The SeaTac Airport on Christmas Eve, was bustling. At breakfast, we had live piano playing. As we walked, we saw entertainers, including a guy on a unicycle and a quartet of carolers, just to mention a couple. Now that we have finished our food and we are about half way through the trip across the water, I think I will try to have another snooze.
Here is a bit of a commercial. I should say a bit about Alaska Airlines. Not only do they seem to be everywhere at the SeaTac Airport, but, the flight has been really good with several servings of water and juice and even cookie and a little snack pack. At SeaTac, Alaska Air is everywhere.
Filed under: B.O.B.s
I stumbled upon another great CBC Radio program. I am already addicted to The Vinyl Cafe(Apple’s best podcast of the year). This one, Day6 seems really interesting. There were a few topics, however, let me mention one. They were talking about the recently released movie called The Adventures of Tintin, a computer animated presentation of the famous comic book character from yeas gone by. The animation is so realistic that it seems creepy and this is what is not referred to as the Uncanny Valley.
Here is the explanation. One may create something that is 95 percent accurate or realistic and people will be fine with it, however, make it 96 percent and it becomes so real it is creepy or uncanny—it enters the Uncanny Valley. The percentages are for example only, I’m sure. Check out the refs below and be sure to watch the video of Marcel the Shell. It’s not the animation that is uncanny, it’s the voice. Now go explore! And check out the many other wonderful CBC programs and podcasts.
Refs for further reading & exploration:
Vinyl Cafe
Day6
Tintin
