Borrowing Books on Kindle

The Hawaii State Library System just upgraded their online library site and it is wonderful!  I'm amazed because frankly the previous format was hard to negotiate.  This is so much easier and there are a ton more books.  I am so impressed.  I love it that it also provides a synopsis of many of the books and a customer rating.  Wow!

Hawaii does not have adequate funding for its library system so I can imagine what kind of fantastic library sites the rest of you have on the mainland.

The only problem I have now is trying to find time to read the books that I download onto my Kindle.

I also found that I can go to my Amazon account to Manage My Kindle and Return books as soon as I finish them.  I can also delete the books that I don't want on my account. 

There's so much to learn, but I'm slowly picking up things as I go along.

Training for the Hapalua

Coincidentally, both of our children, Tiffany and Jonathan will be doing a Half Marathon in Washington, D.C. in March also.  I'm totally amazed!  It will be Tiffany's first Half Marathon.

2012 Hapalua, Jon and Art

Jon was here last March just when Art was scheduled to do the first Hapalua (Half Marathon) in Waikiki.  Art signed Jon up and they (sort of ) ran together.  Jon used to be on the cross country team in high school and is in good shape.  He turned in a very good time even without training which surprised Art.

Art was finally able to run 13 miles a couple of days ago so he's feeling pretty confident that he can handle the Half Marathon on Sunday, March 10th.  It's been difficult to train with all the rainy weather we've been having.

After his training run we took a trip to Burger King just because we happened to have a Buy One Get One Free coupon.  Art felt he could use the calories.  No, I didn't need the calories at all but I benefited from his hard work.  For some reason, we've been getting hungrier lately and I don't know why.  I must be having sympathetic hunger pangs or something.

The only problem is that he's burning his calories off.  Mine is still in me and finding wrong places to call home.

Oscar Opinions

Did you watch the Oscars?  We managed to watch it from the Red Carpet all the way until the ending song to the Losers.

I rather enjoyed it actually.  I'd never heard of Seth McFarlane.  Now I know he sings well, is not bad to look at and has a raunchy sense of humor.  Granted some of his jokes were somewhat over the top or below the belt, but it kept me entertained.

I took this photo with my iPad of the TV screen.  Turned out quite well, I thought.  I have some opinions about the acceptance speeches.

 

I wish they'd stop using time to thank their lawyers or accountants or whatever. 

I really like it when they recognize and give their respect to the other nominees who didn't win in their category.  Anne Hathaway did that beautifully. I was happy to see more stars taking the time to do it this year.

One annoying thing I saw this year and have seen before is when the designated speaker of a group acknowledges people who were part of the project, but then  spoil it by sending greetings or thanks only to his or her family or friends.  He should have said something like, "We would all like to thank our family and friends for their......."

I was surprised to see Michelle Obama announce the Best Picture award.  She looked great and was so beautifully poised.  Wow!

The actress with my favorite dress?  Charlize Theron.

Did you watch the Oscars?  What did you think? 

Driving Phobia

I had a 7.5 minute drive to school where I taught in Illinois.  I could manage that just fine.  Eventually, I could drive 10 minutes to take our children to their orthodontist appointment.

Once I retired, I almost never drove.  When we moved to Hawaii almost 5 years ago, I stopped driving completely.  About a year ago, the kids insisted I get back behind the wheel again.  They were alarmed that I was too dependent which would be a problem if Art is ever not able to drive for any reason.

It was raining furiously this past Friday so an umbrella would probably not have sufficed for my walk to my Zumba class.

Art would have driven me, but I decided to take the "bull by the horns" and drive myself.

I know it sounds silly but it was really scary.

When I retired from teaching, one of my very good teacher friends, Carole wrote a song that the staff sang to me at the retirement party. The song is sung to the tune of MTA by the Kingston Trio.  The refrain goes:

"Oh, will she ever return?
No, she may never return..
Her future's still un-learned (What a pity!)
She may ride forever
'Round the streets of Chicago--
She's a driver, who doesn't left turn!"

The final verse was:

"Yes, she'll come back--she'll surely return!
...She'll  come back-- she'll surely return!
She'll be back, but she'll never left turn!

And that was my problem.  I got to Zumba OK, but decided to go home doing only right turns.  I discovered to my chagrin that by doing so I drove three times farther than I intended!  There was no good way to return home doing right turns only.  I ended up having to do a U-turn and going back the way I came doing some left hand turns anyway.

Was Art worried?  No.  Actually, he just found it all rather humorous.  Well... I'm a bit stressed out right now.  I'm going to take a nap.

Enjoying Roses a Little Longer

We received some beautiful roses from my cousin and enjoyed them for several days.  However, a few soon began to droop.  I saw a post that Denise of An English Girl Rambles wrote about just shortening the stems and putting them in a smaller vase.

I tried it and it worked out beautifully!  I love the effect and now we can enjoy the flowers a little longer.

Thank you, Denise.


Super Garage Sale Update:
We were going to the Richardson Super Garage Sale on Saturday but it was cancelled due to weather.  That was a surprise.  (I didn't see any snow.)  

Sigh...  We've had an awful lot of rain in the islands for the past several days.

Meals on Wheels in Hawaii

Our friend, Alan does Meals on Wheels in Chicago and has always told us that it is a rewarding way to spend some of his retirement time.  When we learned about a similar program here in Hawaii a few months ago through AARP, Art decided to look into it.

Art, filling out application form

We met some very nice people on Wednesday at an orientation session in a Manoa church.

Meals on Wheels has nearly 320 volunteers and delivered 82,000 meals around the island in 2012.

The meals are cooked in hospitals and nursing facilities using dietary and nutritional guidelines Monday through Friday.  Clients are mostly over 60 and younger people needing this special assistance.

Volunteers do more than deliver meals.  They provide a smiling face and friendly words.  They are checking in on their clients to make sure all is going well. If something is wrong, the office is immediately contacted so further assistance can be sent out.  People who are able to pay for the meals do.  Those who can't are not denied the food.

Volunteers were cautioned not to do more than deliver the meals and have a short friendly chat.  I'm saying short because they have quite a few meals to deliver in an hour and a half.  There is also the liability issue if volunteers start trying to help in other areas.  I'm glad they were very clear in cautioning the volunteers about this because I know Art would be the first one trying to help mow someone's lawn or painting their porch or whatever.

I was really impressed with how caring, organized and enthusiastic the leaders of Meals on Wheels were.  I also liked the fact that although the program began with the cooperation of about ten churches, they are very strict about not proselytizing.  They told everyone to keep their bias (or prejudice) of any kind away from this very worthy endeavor.

Art happily signed up today to be a back-up driver for now, and I'm glad he did.  Regular volunteers usually do it just once a week.  I know Art will enjoy this since he always likes helping people.

"Borrowing" a Photo

Recently I was looking for information about the Richardson garage sale by Pearl Harbor that I enjoy going to every so often. I wanted to know what time it was being held this Saturday. One of the sites that came up was my own, written last year which made me chuckle.

I also found a website advertising an eatery.  One of the photos looked really, really familiar!  Holey Moley!  It was MY photo!

What really made me laugh after seeing my photo on their website were the words at the bottom:
"Content copyright 2013. All rights reserved."

I did dash off a quick e-mail to the person the site belongs to telling her to please ask for permission the next time she would like to use my photo and she wrote back quickly and kindly saying:

"I didn't realize that.  So sorry.  I will tell the person helping me out that it belongs to you..."

"If you are going to this coming Saturday's garage sale, please introduce yourself and I will treat you to lunch."

The fact of the matter is whatever you put on the Internet is not a secure place by any means.  Any photo you post can be easily taken and reused.  Sticking a watermark or signature on a photo can be removed using PhotoShop or other means.

Therefore if you'd like to keep a special photo secure, I really think it would be best not to post it.  Just a little cautionary word to all my friends.

Art and Morris

When we moved back to Hawaii, Art was thrilled to discover that an old Honokaa school friend of his was living just a couple of blocks away from us.

Art and Morris have a standing morning coffee date every few weeks that Art always looks forward to.  It's a guy thing.  I like having regular girl type get-togethers too.

A week ago, two of Art's classmates suddenly passed away.  It was a shock!  He and Morris had just seen them last year at their 50th high school reunion.

Morris has always said he is determined to exercise, lose some weight and be healthier.  The difficulty was in getting started.  I know what that's like!

Perhaps it was the shock of losing their friends, but Art has decided he wants Morris to stay healthy enough so that he'll be able to continue their coffee sessions for a long time.  He persuaded, cajoled, convinced Morris to go walking with him twice a week and Morris agreed.

They walked three miles today!  I was amazed.  I don't like walking more than a couple of miles and warned Art not to push it.  He insists it was Morris that kept walking.

I guess Art will be walking with Morris in the morning and with me in the evening.  He was also trying to convince my brother to exercise more which did make an impact, I think.  Because Dennis knew he'd be doing the Aloha Run, he had to train for it.  It isn't the race so much as the journey to it that is keeping us healthier and making us willing to get out there and stay in shape. 

Hmmm... who knows?  Could it be that Morris will be walking with us next year at the Great Aloha Run?

The Rainbow Warriors

Prior to 2000 all the men's sports teams at the University of Hawaii were referred to as the Rainbow Warriors.

The logo was a rainbow.  I liked that a lot since Hawaii does seem to have a rainbow floating around the sky almost everyday, especially in the rainy months.  Besides, I love colorful flags!

Then the UH decided to change its logo to the stylized H and each team was able pick their own name. The baseball team chose The Rainbows.  The basketball, swim and tennis teams are the Rainbow Warriors and the football, golf and volleyball are the Warriors.

Now it's been announced that as of June, 2013 all the Men's teams will be The Warriors and the Women's teams will be the Rainbow Wahine (Wahine means woman).

Why all this controversy?  Apparently the name change in 2000 happened because the UH athletic department felt the rainbow logo looked too much like the flag of the gay community.

I think it's all about as silly as you can get.  We should go back to the days when I was a college student and call everybody the Rainbow Warriors (Men and Women).  And here's the flag I propose.

Then again, I've never been a dedicated sports fan so I suppose nobody will listen to me.  Ah well...

My 5th Great Aloha Run (Walk)

The sound of winds howling and rain battering on our windows woke us up at 2:00 AM.

"Looks like you, Dennis, Dave and Kristin might not be able to walk today," said Art worriedly.

"What about you?" I asked.

"I'll still run," said Art.  He refused to let rain stop him.  At 3:00 we got out of bed and checked the weather map.  It was predicting strong winds and scattered showers throughout the day.

Our good friend, Dave and his daughter, Kristin joined us at 4:30.  We picked up my brother, Dennis at 5:00 which was a real trick since they had so many  of the roads closed.  The last bus was supposed to leave at 6:00.

When we got to Aloha Stadium, we found horrendous lines stretched, snaked and very slowly moving toward buses that must have arrived too late.  The Start time for the race at Aloha Tower in Honolulu was 7:00.  At 6:30 we were still waiting to board a bus.

We were finally able to board a bus to Honolulu and walked with 22,000 other people to the Start line.

Art jogged to join the runners up front.  We joined the throng of walkers, people with strollers, etc towards the back.

We started at a brisk pace.  Luckily the gusting 50 mile per hour winds were at our backs.  Well, I'm not sure how strong they were exactly, but it was recorded at 50+ in parts of the island and it caused trees and branches to fall.  It was cloudy, but no rain and the winds kept things cool.  High School bands performed for us along the route.

The sun was coming out so it was good to know we were nearing the freeway viaduct.

I made sure to drink some water at each water station as advised.

When we got to the 4 mile marker, I was ecstatic.

Kristin had an app on her iPhone that gave our pace and distance covered which was really helpful and encouraging.

Dennis' foot seemed to be working OK and the Motrin I took before the race helped my knees stay pain free.

It was fun to see the kaiko drummers performing again.  Their beat was motivating.

A rainbow greeted us at about the 6 mile mark.  We all oohed and aahed about it until we saw the rain clouds closing in on us.  The winds were whipping people's hats off their heads.

I was taking comfort knowing that there were a lot of people behind us.  Then we got a call from Art at the stadium saying he had been waiting for over an hour for us to arrive.  (Art came in #10 in his age group of 265 runners.  His time was 1:15:39.  Our time was more like 2:33 + a bathroom break.)

Then the rain started!

It didn't matter!  We made it to the finish line.  I could hardly believe it!

The race was easier this year.  I know it was because we had Dave and Kristin with us which gave us that extra energy, stamina and enjoyment that spending time with good friends always gives you.

We collected our Finisher t-shirts, bananas, cliff bars, water, coconut water and headed home.

We were really ecstatic, proud of ourselves and tired.

Aloha Run Expo

Sunday was the Aloha Run/Walk Expo where you pick up your racing bib and check out different running/walking booths that sell things like sun glasses, hats, energy gels and what not.

I'm a little (LOT) worried about this 8+ mile race from Aloha Tower to Aloha Stadium because the most I've walked so far this year is 2 miles.  Can I do 8? I don't know.

My brother, Dennis says his foot is better now, but will his arch stay painless for 8 miles?  I don't know. 

We started Sunday morning by going to an 8:00 garage sale at McKinley High School.  Since we were going into town, I thought it would be good to hit two birds with one trip.

It was a ton of fun.  Well... It was for me!  There were some excellent bargains.

We picked up our racing bibs and "chips" at the Blaisdell Center when it opened at 9:00 AM.  The money they make from this race goes toward a multitude of charities in Hawaii.

There were a variety of exhibits and booths selling lots of racing, traveling, health related items.

After seeing this exhibit, I was glad I'd gotten my colonoscopy last year.

This exhibit gave you three tries to putt your ball into that hole.  For every putt you sunk, you got a Kit Kat bar.  If you got three in, you could have a back scratcher.

Art sunk one putt.  Dennis also got one Kit Kat bar.

"Go ahead," said Art.  Was he taunting me?  "You did get that A when you took golf in college." 

Art loves to laugh about how I got that easy A, but still don't know how to play or understand the game.

I sunk TWO putts and got TWO Kit Kat bars!!!  How many?  Yes!  TWO!  Next year, I'll have to try for the back scratcher.

When we got home I checked out our happy buys from the garage sale. All this cost $14.00! 

I'm posting this before the run, of course.  We'll be getting up at 3:30 AM on President's Day (Monday) in order to catch the bus at the Aloha Stadium which will take us to the start line at Aloha Tower in Honolulu. 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Dennis' feet will be alright, that my knees don't give way, that I don't wear out, that Art makes the running time he wants, that it doesn't rain, that it's not too windy, that...

Making Our Own Cards

Tiffany often encourages KC to make her own greeting cards to send to us which we always enjoy getting. 

This year was no different and Art and I received our own personal valentine from our little granddaughter.

I decided to give her some positive reinforcement and made a Valentine card for her too.

Tiffany said KC really loved it and was awed by my effort.  Well... KC is in kindergarten.  Even if I scribbled something, she would probably have liked it.

KC's enjoyment spurred Art and me to go to the Ben Franklin craft store where I bought a set of watercolors.  I've been enjoying the watercolor paintings of Laurie from I love a cloudy day and thought I'd try my hand at painting again after several decades.  Once I started, I remembered how hard it is for me to get what's in my brain onto paper. 

It was Art's idea for me to cut that hole on the front of the card so KC would be able to see a photograph of her face through it.

We'll be sending it to KC before March 3rd which is traditionally Girl's Day.

Art is in charge of Easter so he'll be making that card, but he's choosing to use colored pencils instead.  I'm seeing a rather original looking chick starting to take shape.

Hmmm... I wonder what other card I can make now that I've got all these tubes of watercolors?

Thieves on Airplanes?

We love to travel, but we do have to be careful.  Tourists are often seen as easy marks.  I know I'm one of them since they've attempted to pick my pockets and backpacks several times in Portugal, Rome, Paris, etc.

Now it appears you have to be careful while you're on the airplane too!

My friend, Myrtle just sent me an e-mail about thieves that:

"...sit in the back row of the plane observing where bags are behind or away from the passengers and systematically pull them from the overhead lockers, while passengers rest or watch movies, take them to the back of the plane and steal any valuable contents.
  They prey on foreign airlines as the penalties are so lenient, the pay-off makes it worth the risk.
  I naively have never thought of robbers operating on planes, but now I have experienced it first hand, there are a few takeaways:

  1. Hand luggage should ALWAYS be locked.
  2. Do not assume luggage under your seat is safe....last week one passenger had her purse stolen by the guy sitting next to her while she slept!
  3. If in doubt, wear or keep any valuables ON YOU at all times!
  4. Don't assume, like me, that everyone on a flight is a law-abiding citizen.
  5. Do not assume business class travel is secure....robbers can be wealthy..."

This is so annoying. I shall be getting some locks for my carry-ons now.  I guess you can never be too careful. Another thing I never do is wear or carry any valuable jewelry with me when I travel.  Well... to be honest I don't have much valuable jewelry.  They've already been handed down to the kids.  

However, I shall be much more vigilant about other things since we do carry our iPad and Kindle with us.  Those things all have security code locks on them just to be on the safer side.  I guess we'll also be careful about not going to the bathroom at the same time.  Please be careful, everybody.  First there's annoying vacuum salesmen and women.  Now there's airplane thieves!  What next?