Reliving Hawaii

I used to love Hawaii for short stretches. Stay too long and it feels more and more like an island. The surfing, snorkeling and hiking in a tropical setting is hard to beat. It's not cheap but I always found a way to do it on a shoestring.

The first couple visits were in the Navy in the early 1960's. It was a required stop when heading to the Western Pacific. Our first chance to wear our tropical white uniforms, drink beer on the beach and see some tourist sites. A buddy and I stuck our heads in a fancy beach bar and listened to 5 minutes of Don Ho.

The next trip was in the early 1980's when I bought a one way ticket and stayed 6 months. Rented a cheap place just off Waikiki, bought a bike and spent a lot of time on the beach. Snorkel fished with locals, boogie boarded off the Waikiki pier and took the cheap bus over to Sandy Beach and around the island. Even tried driving a Pedi-Cab from the International Market for awhile but those over weight mid-western tourists got the better of me.

Sometime in the early 1990's my sister and husband bought a condo in Hawaii Kai so didn't have to rent but stays were shorter and I was working in Seattle. Sandy Beach was only a 10 minute drive from their place so I was there often. Sandy's shore break is really pretty dangerous if you don't know what you are doing and can be even if you're experienced.  I saw a couple tourists pulled in for not paying attention. The waves can slam you into the sand if you don't bale out. When I first went in the lifeguard came to the edge of the beach checking me closely. After I surfed a couple he relaxed and went back to his tower. Very exhilarating but I'm way past trying anything like that including Skim Boarding here is Mexico. 

Sandy looking toward the Blow Hole

It breaks in shallow water

A photographer

Can get a little crowed

With and without boards

All the unhappy people

My Internet friends ;)

The TomZap Message Board

This little scenario all stemmed from a comment I made on the price of beer. I only said when the beer prices in a more or less average bar/restaurant go above 20 pesos it's time to look elsewhere. Many places here sell for 18 pesos and are on the beach. That's not counting happy hours of which there are many. if beer prices go up for everyone that's another story. From the comments you'd think I made a direct attack on these two bar owners ... Aaron and Nohands

Spammer of all Spammer's starts off with

Aaron

Sparks out of there? He was never there, here or any where else to start with.

WTF was that ? Give me your life story !!

Sparks the only lack of sense is that you always comment on everything even though you have no first hand knowkage? The market price is what it will be. My staff of 4 is here and open year round. I know that my staff/family is worth more than the min. wage here. Min. wage is less than 10$ a day. So I work hard to pay them much more. Yes to do that I need almost 2$. Does that make sense to you, Sparks?

Nohands Jack who makes up stuff and never makes sense pipes in with

Nohands

hey aaron, you are so right about sparks. he could be a benefit to the community and tourism but he survives by rumours of others. as you know our very reasonable beer prices are changing  fast and even though prices are rising it is still a steal for our NOB customers.

so CHEERS EVERYONE suck it up LIFE IS GOOD.

SPARKS stick to the corner stores....

And my old time enemy Dryhouse piles on after months of behaving himself

Dryhouse

oh jesus...two more raining on sparky's parade?...my, oh my...

I'm tempted to say it's hilarious but it's too sad that people feel better about themselves by trying to belittle others. They've got to be in some kind of pain ?? Aaron even used to post his restaurant Spam under his wife's name with hopes that a woman would be criticized less. And these three never answer people's questions about the area. They don't Blog or have a web site. Only Spam or smart remarks.

These guys are almost as sad as the Wicked Witch of West Melaque .... none other than Elke Gasvoda who said I contributed to Shoe's death .... in public on this message board.  There is a nut case.

Couldn't resist ;)

While we'er at it but on a different message board the almost always nasty Chinagringo.  This guy is just plain nasty without a doubt.

The Question - Re: [lindalacruz] Do I need to stop at km 21 going into Mexico?

My Answer - Aduana might stop you but don't need to talk to INM ..... unless you got an FMM when leaving

chinagringo speaks

What if someone at km21 has a different understanding of the law or rules/regulations? I am sure it will go a long way when the OP claims that "Sparks" told her that it was ok to pass straight through. 

Regards, 

Neil 

Albuquerque, NM 

So even though these people may piss you off in the beginning .... get over it quickly and move on. Happy I'm not sure is the desired state but don't let these unhappy people regulate your your life and emotions.

Had Mistletoe for Christmas and didn't know it

I went up on a ladder to cut some "suckers" (branches that shoot straight up) out of my Carambola tree. Noticed a bunch of leaves that did not match those of the tree. Looking further I could see a vine wrapped around the branches. Parts of it were glued tight and some just a dangling vine. I assumed a strangling fig or Ficus. The neighbors called it "malojo" (evil eye) and said that birds eat the seeds and then deposit them in their poop. Still didn't tell me what the English or scientific name was until I found an article on Mexconnect below. Gonna get my saw back from Ron today so I can cut out the last little bit.

My tree with the embedded starting point

Not the Christmas kind of Mistletoe

An embedded "root"

Of the Mexican mistletoes, some are herbaceous; others are vine-like, even treelike. Their leaves and flowers vary but several have tubular orange flowers growing wherever there is sufficient light. Phoradendron species are "hemiparasites", meaning that they are capable of some photosynthesis and have green leaves, unlike Cuscuta. Various birds including thrushes and tanagers feed heavily on mistletoe berries. Their sticky droppings deposited on branches contain the seeds which give rise to future mistletoe plants. Phoradendron flowers are well adapted to pollination by hummingbirds, though bees and other insects also help. 

One of these mistletoes, locally called "Mal Ojo" (Evil Eye), is very much in evidence at present in the Chapala area. Left to its own devices, it will quickly kill its host trees. It is so prolific that it seems in many cases that the whole tree is in flower; unfortunately, it is not the tree's flowers that are such a dramatic orange in color but the parasite's. 

Evil Eye - MexConnect

A Coffee Cup from memory lane

Coffee cup from 1993 working at AIM Aviation

The Cup and the Coffee

Cuzalapa

Who would have thought a coffee cup would last for 22 years but this one is in daily use. Everything else in the kitchen is plastic.

So in '93 I was working contract for AIM in Renton Washington upgrading and expanding their computer network from Arcnet to Ethernet. They had some big new contracts and with computers being added Ethernet was much faster. They did leave Arcnet out on the factory floor because it's less sensitive around heavy machinery and can go longer distances. Not only were they installing new computers and the software on them, AutoCAD, but hiring draftsmen that had never used a computer. They had to figure out the inner workings of the software but I taught them how to use the computer and how to send to the Plotter/Printer via the network.

That was also my first encounter with a very old version of Novell Netware which helped in '95 when I got the SVI school job. Printer/Plotter drivers varied with the version of Windows and the version of AutoCAD so that was a constant job chasing down the right match. 

All in all a very good experience and led into the next job of upgrading the City of Bellevue's network from mainframe terminals to PC's connected on Novell Netware.

It's Elvis season again

David Weber the Elvis Impersonator is back in Melaque

Schmoozing it up in Cancun

Not in drag in Manzanillo

I've got to smile every time this guy is back in town although his first visit 4-5 years ago he irritated me and a lot of others with his Spamming Ads on the Tomzap message board. I've never seen his act because Elvis is long gone and female impersonators don't interest me much either. Maybe a Cancun beach bar on your one week vacation kind of thing to do. Anyway, he's at the Salamandra restaurant in Melaque sometime soon.