Retiring a Back Pack

I think I may have bought my Hedgren Urban backpack around 8-10 years ago.  I have these photos of me in New Zealand/Australia in spring of 2005 carrying the bag everywhere.  I'd bought it in Wisconsin's Outlet Mall in Kenosha at a Samsonite store.  They were selling it for $20.00 + $1.00 for a second bag.  I just couldn't pass it up.  Two bags for $21.00?  Wow!  Since then I took it with me everywhere.  It's very light, durable and sits comfortably on my back.

I brought it with me to see the Punakaiki pancake rocks in New Zealand in spring of 2005.

And here I am near Christchurch where we'd gone to see the Moeraki Boulders (giant geodes).  However, I took photos of the flowers too.  You can see my bag more clearly.

In 2007 I took my bag to Alexandria, Egypt.

In spring of 2009, mom carried my back up backpack to the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver.  Here we are at Skagit Valley's awesome tulip fields.  We're both carrying the Hedgren backpacks.

And here is my bag now in 2012 looking very sad and worse for wear.  The bags are not indestructible.  It lasted only 8+ years of constant use.  I just hate parting with it.  I tried to repair it by sewing it together, but it just ripped on the repair seam.  Actually there are rips all over.  It's like a tired old friend and very frail.

My daughter, Tif bought me a beautiful Baggalini back-pack a year ago which I also use, but the Hedgren has been my friend of long standing.

I'm using the back up backpack now and someday I'll work up the courage to throw the old one away.  I've also bought another Hedgren online because it was on sale for $49.98.  Sigh...  Quite a bit more than the other two I bought 8+ years ago, but I like having a back up.  What kind of bag do you like to carry?

Neighborly Request

Well, it's done.

We've been aggravated by those pigeons who keep roosting on our roof, pooping in our gutters and over our solar panels.  We've also suspected them of leaving bird mites to bite me leaving horrendous welts that take several weeks to heal.

We were talking to another neighbor, Steve who didn't like the pigeons stalking his dogs, eating from their food dish and sitting on his roof also.  Before he retired, Steve's company had a problem with pigeon mites too.

Well... Art and Steve decided to take the difficult step to confront that pigeon feeding neighbor.  It was really, really hard.  You just HATE telling anybody not to feed birds or not to do something that might be giving them so much pleasure.

Art and Steve walking toward the pigeon feeding neighbor's house

Today Art and  Steve decided to go ahead and do it.  They planned out the most tactful way of stating their case, walked down the street and met Jim who turned out to be the nicest fellow.  Jim said that his wife fed birds as a child and still loved to do it, but he most certainly understood our concerns.  In fact, he said they were noticing bug bites on their children as well.

What a wonderful feeling!  After months... years... of being unhappy about the pigeons, the problem was remedied just by talking to our friendly neighbors in a non-confrontational, neighborly way.

Now then, I wonder how long it will take the pigeons to realize there are no more free hand-outs in this section of the neighborhood.

How Do You Break Your Fast?

Our breakfast is almost always, pretty much, sort of the same.  It depends also on what kind of fruit are available although we usually have papaya throughout the year.  My mother eats her breakfast at 5:00 and has the unenviable task of dividing the papaya into three parts.

Art and I eat later.  We don't enjoy waking up at 4:30 like she does on most mornings.  Whereas mom eats oatmeal every morning, Art and I alternate our breakfasts.

On one morning we eat cereal with our fruits (fresh and dried).  Art eats his fiber type cereal and I eat a cereal concoction of about four different types that I like at the moment.  I have coffee with a little chocolate milk mixed in.  Art drinks tea.  We add soy milk or yogurt to our cereal.


When we took this photo a friend had dropped off blackberries and strawberries so we had additional fruits on top of our usual papaya and apple banana.

On the alternate morning Art makes the breakfast with prunes, craisins, apple banana, cinnamon and Quaker oats.

He cooks them all together (except the bananas) and it may not look great, but is quite tasty.

Then he adds the banana on top of the oatmeal with a dash of soy milk.  It's really very good and is extremely filling.

It starts our day off very well.  What do you have?

An Almost Perfect Craigslist Buy

Since I blogged about standing while working on the computer and people mentioned how standing for too long a period might be a problem, I got to thinking I needed a chair, or maybe a bar stool.

Before

I also wanted something that would look better than our folding table to hold the keyboard.

I looked on Craigslist and found bar stool height table and chairs that could work beautifully.  We bought it for $75. from a fellow who'd just gotten his Ph.D.and was going to be moving to Texas.  It was more than I was going to pay.  However, it was so perfect for our needs that we paid his asking price despite the fact that we knew we'd have to do a lot of work on it.

He'd bought it unfinished from City Mill and used it that way.   There were gouges and a lot of stains on the table and chairs.  Wooden screw covers were also missing.

It took a lot of elbow grease to sand the surfaces to remove as much of the stains as we had the strength and energy to do.  We bought wooden covers from Home Depot which fit perfectly to cover the screw holes, tack cloth to take off the dust and Polycrylic sealer to finish it.  We filled the gouges with wood filler and sanded that down also.

After the sanding was done, we brought the table and chairs up to my office and I gave it two coats of the sealer.

After

And there it is!

Now I can stand or sit. Since there are two chairs, Art and I can sit side by side to talk to our kids and grandkid on Skype.

Now... then, I think I'll look for little cushions for the chairs.  No, not on Craigslist, maybe Ross?












POSTSCRIPT:
Commenter Hilorain asked exactly how we did the refinishing.

Here are the supplies we used.  I forgot to include the wooden plugs.  The grade of sandpaper we used was 100 for the first sanding.  Then I used 230 and the final sanding was 400.  I did sand with the 400 (extra fine) between sealer coats.  The instructions say 2 hours between coats and 24 hours before using the furniture.  Art is making me wait 48 hours.  My brother just came and said 3 days!  Arggh!

Since you're doing your hand railing, we're thinking you'd want to use a polyurethane or oil based sealer instead since it's going to undergo heavier traffic. An oil based sealer or polyurethane would be much more durable, I would think.

Food and Fate

When my daughter, Tiffany, her husband, Ed and our granddaughter KC were here last month they took us to another wonderful restaurant that we would never have gone to if they hadn't introduced us to it.  It's called Marukame Udon and is on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki.  There are often LONG lines outside, but it seems to move pretty quickly.

When we went for lunch, the line wasn't too bad.

Tif took this photo when they passed by the restaurant one evening last month.

Edward Sugimoto did a thorough review on his blog, Around Hawaii.  Click on this link to find out more about this place if you're interested.



When we were in Japan we were introduced to something called Sanuki undon.  We really liked it.  I'm not a huge fan of the thicker noodles, but this was great.  It was silky and soft and just plain yummy.

Marukame Udon is sort of cafeteria style.  You order your udon, pick up whatever tempura or musubi you'd like, get a drink and pay at the end of the line in cash.

Only then do you search for a place to sit.

  

The food was excellent!  They cook it right in front of you so it's extremely fresh (and very reasonably priced).  We were grateful to Tif and Ed for introducing this place to us and decided that we would take mom there someday.

POSTSCRIPT:

The above was supposed to be my post for the day, but then some pretty extraordinary things happened.

We took my mom and her sister, Auntie Grace to Marukame Udon restaurant today.  They both pronounced the sanuki noodles excellent.  They especially liked the broth.  We all had the Kake Udon and different kinds of tempura.

We managed to avoid the long lines by going a little early.  Art thought it was going to take a long time so he put enough quarters in the meter for an hour and a half.  We were done in 35 minutes so we decided to walk around Waikiki's International Market Place to work off some of the carbs we'd had.

Mom at International Market Place

Mom says she has never been to the International Market Place.  That was a surprise!  She enjoyed walking under the huge shady branches of the gigantic banyan tree.

There's a lot of kiosks under the banyan selling tons of tourist trinkets.





We gave our 36 minutes left on the parking meter to a happy local person who drove up behind us and we headed back to Auntie Grace's home to drop her off before heading back to our house.

As we were waiting for the light to change there was a huge accident that happened before our eyes.  Art says he saw an SUV plow into a car, 4 cars up that crumpled like an accordian.  I saw another car who might have been trying to avoid the crash plow into the sidewalk and store.

Emergency vehicles arrived right away.  We were going to try to back up and head out but the person behind us said there really wasn't another way to get up to Auntie Grace's place from where we were.

Two ambulances carried away the injured.  We saw one woman on a gurney.  One person had to be treated on the sidewalk first.  A tow truck arrived to pull away the SUV.

Eventually the police came and told us that they were going to hold up traffic so we could get onto the highway to find another way to get where we all needed to go.

We were all counting our blessings that we weren't that first car at the intersection.

In the evening we were watching the news tonight and heard about a couple who were injured when a large branch from the banyan tree fell on them at the International Market Place in February.

I guess you never know when something bad might happen.  We were lucky this time, but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

We can only hope for the best.

Battling Ants

Could it be true?  Have the ants really gone away?

I wrote a Helpful Ideas post about ants a while back.  It said you could get rid of ants with corn meal.  There was also another post that I can't seem to find that said I could put vaseline on branches to prevent ants from attaching their aphid herd.  Looks like I goofed.

I just checked this website called Gardening Know How and it said I was supposed to smear the vaseline on a paper collar and put that on the plant.

I hope I haven't killed our Dessert Rose.  It was on its way to dying with the ants and aphids anyway.  I tried soapy water, but the ants kept coming back.

The vaseline and corn meal seemed to do the trick because I don't see any ants anymore.  Unfortunately, I may have killed my patient in trying to save it from the disease.

On the other hand, I spread corn meal below this area of our patio and after months of battling ants with soapy spray, they've stopped coming.  You can see remnants of ants dead from the soapy spray, but no new live trails.

Could it be?  Is it possible that it might have actually worked?

We'll see.

Standing Ernestly

My wonderful commenter, Hank sent me a link to Ragan's PR Daily about five writers who stood while they wrote.

Listed were Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, Lewis Carroll and Thomas Wolfe.  Someone added Victor Hugo. 

Unfortunately aside from Philip Roth (who is still alive at 78) most didn't live all that long, granted they were mostly writers from a time when people didn't live as long as today.  Then again, Victor Hugo lived until he was 83.  Ernest Hemingway committed suicide at 61.

Of course they didn't have Pandora to move to while they worked.  I like standing and moving to Pandora music while I work.  If I don't move, my muscles tend to cramp up. 

I'm looking for a perfect bar stool in case I need to sit occasionally.  Then again if I'm too tired to stand while I work on the computer, maybe I need to take myself away from it to give my eyes a break.

It's a thought.

Transit of Venus

Art has been looking forward to seeing the Transit of Venus for several weeks now.  He's always been interested in astronomy.

Photo from Wikipedia

This morning I got an e-mail from a dear friend whose husband is an astrophysicist at Northwestern University.  She sent us lots of fabulous information about the Venus transit through history.  Jeremiah Horrocks observed the transit in 1639. 

Art read that Captain Cook himself was involved in studying this sky event.  I found this article in the Herald Sun:

"...Captain Cook traveled to the island of Tahiti in 1769 to observe the transit of Venus and it was on that expedition that he later came upon the east coast of Australia...."

Well before I got up Art saw clear skies and excitedly got out the box of supplies he'd saved since July 11, 1991's Solar Eclipse in Kona which was totally awesome.

Art with sun protection card and monocle

About 1:00 PM Art used the sun protection card and a monocle to see Venus transitioning across the sun.

I guess it is a good thing he kept all his Eclipse supplies for the past 21 years.

Now he'll never throw anything away.

Besides somebody else could use his equipment in 2117 which is when there will be the next transition of Venus.

Sun protection card and Panasonic Lumix camera

And of course now he was determined to take photos of Venus' progress.

I told him he couldn't do it without hurting his eyes or the camera's lens.  I told him he should give up.  I told him to just watch it on TV.  I told him to look at it on Internet.

So of course...

Transit of Venus by Art

I'm going to send this photo to my astrophysicist friend in Illinois.  They know Art.  It won't surprise them.

Camry Anagram

We've owned two Camrys in our lifetime and have loved them.  Our daughter, Tiffany was in an accident while driving our first Camry back to college.  The car flipped over into a cornfield and Tif survived the accident with just a tiny bump on her head after crawling out of the upside down car.  We promptly bought another Camry.

The other day we noticed this Camry on the road. (I rubbed out the license plate out of respect for this Camry owner.)

When Art told me to look at the back of the car I didn't know what was special about it.  Then I looked closely.  The owner must have had the word CAMRY removed and repositioned.

What fun! It's an anagram!  He turned CAMRY into MY CAR!  Too funny!

So what could I change PRIUS to?  RIP US?  SUPIR?  SIRUP?  Ah well...
We do also have an ODYSSEY... never mind.

Another Craigslist Buy: Computer Desk

It really is hard to find decent office furniture for affordable prices in Hawaii.  Therefore, I've been checking Craigslist for furniture every so often.

Since we have a new desk top computer, I needed a desk to put it on.  The folding table just doesn't look very nice with our cherry bedroom.

This afternoon I checked Craigslist and saw a desk going for $25.00.  I showed it to Art.  He was very dubious since the last two we went to look at were priced at around $100 and were in horrible condition.  I didn't even want them as temporary desks.

But this seemed to have possibilities judging by the photos.  I wrote to Bob and asked why he was selling it for so low.  He said it was priced to sell.  I asked if it had termites and he said none that he knew of.

He did say he had a couple of other interested people so I told him we'd be right over.  He promised not to sell it to anybody else until we got there.

Bob lives high up the mountain in Kaimuki... way high up.  We'd never been in that high altitude, high priced area.  When we saw the fancy houses we didn't know what to expect.

The huge, beautiful gate had us even more puzzled.  Why would  somebody who lived here want to sell something on Craigslist?  (I respectfully did not take a photo of his house or area to insure his privacy.)

Well, we met Bob and he was just the nicest fellow ever!  We liked him right away.  He and his friend helped us load the desk in our van and we headed home.  He joked that he hadn't seen any termites but if there are, it would be our problem now.

Going down the hill we could see a different view of Diamond Head.

What an amazing place to live.  If I had a trillion dollars I wouldn't mind living here too.

 

It really is sort of just what I was looking for.  It may be particle board with veneered paper, but it's in great condition.  I've had to glue down some of the veneer and we're going to have to cut the back out of the cabinet on the left because the desk does not have enough depth for the tower to fit.

But this will do very nicely until I find the PERFECT desk for the perfect price.

 POSTSCRIPT:  And here's the desk all set up and being enjoyed. 

From a Different Angle

Now that we've got a new desktop computer and my son-in-law is in the process of migrating stuff from our old to the new from remote I didn't feel like I wanted to touch my computer for fear of throwing something askew.  It still amazes me how he can do that.  It's like the old Twilight Zone TV show where they say, "I control your vertical.  I control your horizontal" as I see Ed moving the cursor around the monitor screen from Chicago.

Well, now that I have time on my hands I had this bright idea to move things around the shelf over my computer desk.

I've been trying to stand while I work on the computer so I'm not sedentary.  However, the monitor screen is now a little low.  It's not bad, but not the best... so why not move it up?

Art built that shelf for me quite a long time ago and it's really  convenient.

I told him what I was planning to do.  He said, "Uh hunh.  Tell me if you need anything."  And he went back to reading his morning newspaper.

"I'd like the drill, please."

He jumped up from the kitchen table where he was reading the newspaper and came right up.

It was a good thing because I was trying to pry one of the plugs out of the computer that was stuck on with screws.  Oops!  I didn't know those were screws.  I was also unplugging stuff when I hadn't turned the computer off.  Oops!

Art carefully drilled in new holes so I could move the shelf down to where the monitor would be easier to see.

I moved the tower up where it's easier to reach and the printer below the monitor.  I used the extra shelf for my keyboard and mouse.

OK... so it isn't very pretty, but it works great.  Art says I might be able to hire the original builder to make a nicer matching key board stand someday.

Granted this will have to be after he's finished with the rest of the house renovation (which could take a few years).

Ah well... I'm happy.

Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin

One of my son-in-law, Ed's favorite dishes is tonkatsu.  Tonkatsu is deep fried pork cutlet coated in panko which is a flaky bread crumb.  I like it too when I'm not watching my weight or cholesterol.  When they were staying in Waikiki, Ed and my daughter, Tiffany found a really great tonkatsu restaurant.  It's called Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin.  They found this place on Yelp.  It's in Waikiki.

Tif and Ed treated us to dinner there and I have to say it really was quite wonderful.  Whenever the kids come to Hawaii, they always manage to have us try things and places that we normally would never had done on our own.

This was a whole new experience for us.  For one thing we each had to grind sesame seeds to mix with our tonkatsu sauce.

Our very sweet waiter ground mine for me, especially since I was so busy taking photos.

Even KC got to grind some.  Actually it did take quite a bit of muscle to do it.

When it was done, it was pretty powdery.

Then you had to pour in the tonkatsu sauce and mix it with the ground up sesame seeds.  I was worried that 5 year old KC would create a mess for the serving staff, but she was extremely careful and didn't drop even a tiny bit.  Notice who she had to sit next to?  Tif joked that when grandpa was around, the rest of us were chopped liver which they didn't serve at this restaurant.

I chose the pork cutlets because I figured they would be more tender.  They were really, really fabulous.  Tonkatsu is served with a lot of cabbage.  Tif made a point of telling me I should be happy to see her eating so much vegetables.

Everybody else ordered the thick cut pork loin and said it was totally, wonderfully, amazingly tender.  Ed says it's the best tonkatsu he's ever had.  And that's saying a lot!

The price is not really cheap.  The meals  we ordered were between $20-$25.  No, not cheap, but yes, I think it was worth it.

We had the green tea ice cream with little mochi balls for dessert.  While it was OK, it wasn't my favorite dessert... meaning there was no chocolate.  Still it was quite refreshing and a nice finale to our meal.

One thing they weren't able to find yet was the best Korean restaurant in Hawaii.  I'd like to have that ready for Ed the next time they come.  Do you know a fabulous Korean restaurant in Hawaii that you can recommend for my son-in-law who is kindly, lovingly doing all my computer techie work on our new desk top for me?

Good Bye to My Nordic Track

It was sad to say goodbye to my Nordic Track Classic Skier.  We've had it for such a long time and we did use it in Chicago.  Unfortunately, eventually we stopped using it quite so much.  I really did try to exercise on it.  It does help you use all your muscles.  However, I lacked the motivation here in Hawaii maybe because we don't have a place to put it where it faces a TV or something to distract me.

We needed the space it took for our new desktop computer so we took our Nordic Track to the Salvation Army.  The fellow accepting it laughingly said, "Ehhh... no mo snow in Hawaii so no need train on this, hunh?

Don't think for one minute that I didn't hear Art tell him on the side, "She was using it for a clothes dryer anyway."

On the other hand, mom has been using the treadmill we got her everyday, morning and evening.

It's a good thing because it doesn't have much space to hang clothes on it anyway.