We have been in the midst of another 60 or more days on no rain.

Today we had our yearly Kona Coffee Faremrs Expo at the old airport. It was a good time, even though I was not there for coffee-related reasons. I was helping man the table with my friend Sandra for pet owners. We encourage raw feeding for their health. Since many farms also have dogs and cats, it is a farm-related item.

It used to be that you were elite to have a telephone in your car. Now you have a phone, reading device, GPS, TV, radio, camera and more, all in one handy package. If you work it right, it is free (service extra).

Then there are checks. A check is a piece of paper that brings you money, or takes it away from you, depending upon whose name is on the top and bottom. years ago you paid your bank or credit union for checks and got a box or two of them. You may have gotten your first set free. Now you can use a company like INGDIRECT or Fidelity or many others to actually send out a check on your behalf for free, and you may not even pay postage!

Address labels. I used to get them free from Readers Digest ads, non-profit companies hoping I would donate, the Olympics organization and so on. Now you can easily print your own at home and add photos if you want.

As for postage, you can print USPS postage at home for packages and actually save money over what the post office charges.

Speaking of photos and stamps, the Post Office came up with a service that allows you to place your own photos on US Postage stamps (restrictions apply). Search PHOTO STAMPS for companies that have this service.

You used to get a tax consultant to do your taxes and now you can do them online or by a program that asks your questions.

If you wanted to write a story and have it published so others could read it, it was expensive. Now you can write a book and self publish. You can create a PDF or text version, set up your own website with shopping cart and sell your own book with no publisher. The same could be done with music you performed. No longer do bands have to find a record producer to cut a demo, they can post one on YouTube for free.

There are many other examples, but this shows you just a few things that have changed in recent years.

The interesting think to note is the Big Island of Hawaii where the temperature bands are VERY CLOSE to each other. Compare Georgias lack of different colors with Hawaii's.

http://planthardiness.ars.usd...

Someone once told me the difference between an amateur and a professional photographer is, the amteur will show you EVERY PHOTO they have ever taken. The professional just shows you the best ones :-).

Although the real difference may be whether you get paid for the photos, in any event, I have soldsome of my photos before. Some of the best are the last photo on a roll of film or taken a second before the event changes and is not interesting.

I took a photo once of the "Enterprise" shuttle landing at Dulles Airport on the back of a 747. There is an SST taking off behind the shuttle.

Another shot was of leaves on a pond and was the last shot before I ran out of film (Film was a temporary one-use memory card of sorts :-)

Some of my pohotos are on display at: http://phiotos.itskona.com however only a few photos are there. The farm photos were displayed for access by someone else. I actually have a series to upload showing the transition of macadamia nut trees to cleared land, to coffee and fruit trees to finished products.

I have perhaps 3000 or more photos to go through and some may need to be cropped or adjusted for contrast, etc. Perhaps when I get some time...

The theme song in the movie is "Calling You" and was nominated for an Oscar. Here is a link to the haunting song.

Decades ago, before cell phones were the norm, I had a phone in my car. It was also free to make calls. It involved Ham (Amateur) Radio.

Hams have always been at the forefront of technology, whether relaying telephone calls by radio or building satellites that hover over the earth. The first public access satellite made available to any licensed individual in any country, was a Ham satellite.

I mention this because on TV today, a show had a 911 operator answer a call and the operator knew who was calling and from where. That was not always the case. We hams used to call 911 and say "This is a Ham Radio Operator calling from my car. If you need it, I will give you a callback number to contact me in the future. You cannot call me back on this number I am using now."

We had a good relationship with 911, the police, other public service agencies and the Civil Defense organizations.

Once a month we would utilize Civil Defense equipment to peform a "net" or network where Hams would check in with the network contoller and pass traffic or information. This helped us train for emergencies where we would offer our training to help.

Once a year, many Hams get together to practice similar communications on what we call "Field Day". Oftentimes Hams gather in a field or under adverse conditions to get points for contacts and use of alternative energy and equipment use. The people with the most points wins :-)

One year my group quickly erected antenna poles, which were two vertical extension ladders with a wire strung between them. We also launched a very thin and light wire antenna by filling trash bags with helium and allowing it to hover over us. We quickly lowered this after getting our points so that we would not attract lightning!

So how did our old mobile phone system work? Quite well thank you! Without going into technical details. I talk into a mike and a radio on the hill hears me. Their speaker is connected to the mouthpiece of a telephone. The earpiece of that phone goes to the mike of a transmitter on the hill which send a signal I hear on my receiver. Since we used touchtones, we could route those from my radio into the mouthpiece of the phone on the hill and it would dial for us. Yes, if you hold your home phone mouthpiece up t othe TV speaker, it may dial a number you hear punched in on a TV show.

Since the phone line on the hill is owned by the radio club, it would not show any of my own information. Also, dialing that number may or may not cause it to answer. It is illegal to set up a system wherby a non-licnsed person can access a Ham transmitter such as randomly dialing a telephone number and having a radio transmitter transmit anything. Generally, the telephone line would answer and listen for a secret code from a Ham member who could then access functions on the remote equiment.

So why would we spend all this time and effort to build things like this? because we CAN! Where do you think the idea for cellphone came from?

Actually they were in use before Hams, and if you think Hams have great ideas, you have not investigated the famous actress Hedy Lamarr!

Anyway, I don't have an OOMA, rather I have the OBI110. Still for many people this may sve you hundreds a year!

Woot is a site with a deal a day and this deal will be gone in a few hours. Yes, it will appear some random day in the future though.

If you are considering sropping expensive home service, this box will cost $ up front then only cost perhaps $5 a month or less for unlimited dialing in the U.S.

As with other VOIP services, you can also buy, configure and ship one of these things overseas so the recipient gets a U.S. dial tone.

One possible drawback to this compared to an OBI110 is that this company "could" go out of business, but these things are sold in COSTCO at times so they have been vetted pretty well. The Obi unit from the other company has provisions for GoogleVoice and SIP connections from many providers.

I had spoken to him a few days ago and he sounded sad or tired, but I thought nothing much of it, other to call again in a few days.

I've talked to him every couple of weeks for many years and had no clue.

It is impossible for me to guess what his issues were, whether his "retirement" from our previous company, or personal problems or a medical condition. We may never know.

The upsetting statistic is that over one million people die by suicide every year. That is a million too many.

I have many mixed feelings about this. I'm shocked to hear the news. I'm sad that he could find no other way, I'm mad that he was not able to talk to me about this, but I understand that might have been difficult as we don't like to show our weaknesses to others. I'm upset that I could not say goodbye.

Although late, let me say it now.

Randy, you were a great coworker and friend though the years. I'm glad that you had a chance to visit my world out here and I enjoyed our talks on the phone, if only to pass the time of day. Your family, friends and those who knew you, will miss you greatly.

I am grateful I had known you.

I am also within the 1 month trial of Amazons streaming service and will renew that for a year at about $80 a year.

I also watched a borrowed Netflix movie last night.

A decade ago I had a big satellite dish and subscribed to multiple movie channels. When I moved her I had a free movie rental coupon and spent over an hour browsing the store for a movie I had not seen. Between the movies from the dish and the movies on many of the flights I had been on, There were few if any movies that I wanted to see or had not already seen.

This is one of the reasons I used to watch CBC (The Canadian Broadcasting System) on satellite. Movies created in Canada had mostly Canadian production crews, locations and cast members. Thus it was easier to watch a movie and believe the actors were who they were portraying, rather than a comedian here trying to do a dramatic role. You keep waiting for the laugh track.

I also have recently watched a few episodes of an Australian gardening show (on my Roku box).

I enjoy trying different technologies and that was the case with the 1st satellite dish I had. I was watching HBO before they scrambled or were a 24 hour service. I had a "cell phone" before most and mine was free (ham radio related).

If you are so inclined, try new technologies.

And so it seems that in the years past, I have made fun of those less fortunate than I. Those who have been locked in the cold regions of the planet, clothing themselves with a cocoon of fabric to hold in the warmth needed to pass the winter.

I too have been subjected to said coldness, with freezing air within a short drive and a mountain to sea level breeze to deliver the chill.

Over the past fortnight, the chill has enveloped us and caused us to wish for warmer times. We shiver as you have shivered and it is your turn to laugh at those less fortunate as you; as we have done.

You have been better prepared than we, having insulation and blankets of electric ability. You take comfort in comforters and have protection from the elements, unlike us.

So it shall come to pass that we too will aproach the warmer times as you wuill, with anticipation and smile.

So in other words, what goes around, comes around.

The temperature has dropped lately and again this morning I found inside the house has been in the mid to low 60's. I am cuddled under a blanket and keep trying to get the dogs to jump on the bed and keep "master" warm. It has not been easy.

The house has no insulation, no storm windows and no ability for heat. My normal heating control is closing the windows.

My comfort lies in a couple of blankets, an electric blanket that I don't use when the dogs are on the bed (they lie on it which is not good for an electric blanket) and an oil-filled space heater. The house is raised up off the ground and there is 14 feet of fairly open height under there. On cold days I have cold air under, over and around most of the bedroom.

So while I endure very cold sleeping weather, you may laugh and chuckle at my predicament, I would not relish in the though too long. Remember that as the sun rises here it will turn to a nice toasty upper 70's today while you may not come close to that level. Just know that while I joke about your snow, I also keep a watch on my own thermometer.

I want you to think about that for a minute before reading on.

Here is a news item from England:

A man who "accidentally" glued five plastic cups to his head put in a desperate call to 911 seeking medical attention.

You know, after the first one or two, you would think that he would catch on that this will not get any better.

Now I need to also confess that I have learned a valuable lesson myself. I won't tell you how, but I learned that no matter how many times someone uses the liquid type of Super Glue, you can glue your fingers together each time, no matter how careful you are. I will never buy, I mean YOU should always buy the gel type of Super Glue. It's not my fault those litle tubes leak so easily.

Also, although the tubes say that acetone (nail polish remover) will remove the glue, it does not do it as easily as one would expect.

I'm just saying...

The show was well-written and acted and had enough humor and real-life situations to make it interesting. I went into work the next day and told coworkers about it. I was unable to tell the the name or network, but told them to watch for it.

As I know now, it was The Wonder Years about a teen growing up in the 60's. It was nominated and won numerous awards.

If you get a chance to watch it again, you will enjoy the mostly simplier times.

I drove down there and sure enough, Norton was gon and we don't know for how long. I looked back a few days in the logs but don't see anything strange.

The customer had been on an international news site and looked at a video. Then he saw a screen about infections and called me. When I looked at one screen it had a link at the bottom to ANTIVWORLDXP.COM. Looking up that name yesterday showed nothing. I did a domain name lookup and it was registered a few hours earlier from a person in Canada. When looking today, it says it was updated and the owner lived in New York.

Today there is another user who has reported the fake virus site, so at least 2 of us are finding it.

Don't fall for a page saying that you are infected and should buy software to fix it. Check it out first. Also, don't fall for a phone call that your system is infected. The guy will have you browse your Windows logfiles (which are known for having cryptic errors in there) and then talk you into downloading their junk.

As an aside I also have been getting spam from what looks like a local online newspaper. They want me to spend $150 a year for an ad in their "mall". The paper is nothing more than an automated gathering of "news" items which turn out to be things like Facebook postings, etc. They just scrape news and aggregate it. Often the "news" is disjointed and jumbled. If you are a business owner, you may get emails about things like this.

Then there are the companies that look like the yellow pages but are only online and charge hundreds or thousands of dollars to be listed on their website. They use phrases like "If you don't renew, your customers won't find your website".

As a business, I get phone calls (that are really recordings) saying they are an affiliate of Google (which they are not). They want me to pay them to put my website higher in searches.

Then if you have a shopping cart you may get emails from your own site saying "do you ship to , what credit cards do you take and remind me of your website name. These are created from an automated script they run on certain types of shopping carts. If they really were browsing my store they would know my products, prices, shipping areas and would have been able to (in the past minute) remember the name of the website they were on. They are just fishing. Then if I was to reply, they would start the "I want t ouse my own shipper" scam or something similar. perhaps they already have stolen credit cards and need to know which sites take them, so they can quickly scam someone before the card is reported. If you are a small store, they may want to email you the card number. They hope that it will take a few days for you to discover it is bad after you ship the product.

Anyway, many of these scams are obvious if you read between the lines and question every email or popup window you get.

A common marketing ploy is when someone is looking over a product, to get them to answer "which item were you interested in" maneuvering them into a choice, rather than asking IF they are interested in any of the items.

A famous store in the DC area used to offer picture frames at 20-40% off. The sign was there all year long and it turns out they were never offered at the full retail price. They were admonished and froced to raise the price to "retail" for x numbers of weeks before again offering it at 20-40% off.

False advertising is shown in this example. A store wants to sell a hat. Priced at $50 and it does not sell. To get the price-concious consumer, they mark it, "WAS $70, now $50". If that still doesn't sell, the store might mark it "Was $100, reduced to $75, now specially priced at $50". WOW! 50% off, what a deal!

MCI and AT&T and Sprint and the rest used to market their telephone service as cheaper than the competition. The problem is they all based their calculations on the others FULL PRICE and did not compare thir prices against the competitions sale prices.

No wonder we are all confused and scammed.

I went to the tractor and attempted to start it, but it would not. I have a portable "power station" (battery/charger/compress or/inverter) that pretty much does all you need for a car or tractor. It was not fully charged and would not start the tractor. I also found that the battery terminal was corroded and cleaned it as best as I could.

I pulled the truck next to the "garage" and got my long jumper cables. The tractor still clicks but won't start. I then moved the truck out of the way and hooked up the Power Station again. This time I plugged it in and will let it charge the battery for an hour or so.

The tractor only has less than 230 hours on it, but the battery is a few years old and just doesn't get much use. Unlike an ATV I use in town, the tractor does not have an alternate way to start it. It is the battery or nothing. If it was cranking properly and not starting I'd suspect the diesel fule, but it is definately the battery. My next step would be to pull the battery and have a good charge put in it. If that does not fix it, it is up to COSTCO for a replacement.

It is now 10:30am and it looks like I won't get any mowing done today before heading to the raw dog food coop to cut meat. Actually they had a small order last week and I wasn't needed. I have not checked for todays order but even if I'm not needed at the coop, I may still have to head to COSTCO.

We still have a bit of snow and clear skies. A "boatload" of people are upm there at 1pm, I assume making snowballs from the dwindling snow. For them there is no ball game or hang over. You would know that had you ventured up there before.You drive perhaps an hour or two (depending upon where on the island you start) and drive partway acroxss Saddle Road, the road between two giant volcanos, mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Then you take a winding road up to about 9,000 fet where you must stop and acclimate your body t othe altitude. Even though there is rock and few plants, the ride is wonderful and the air pretty crisp and clear. At the welcome center you are reminded just how high up you are when you step out of the car. You rolled the windows up a long way back and now you are really really cold!

As you watch the videos, have a cup of coffee and browse the cramped gift store, you see many items that tell you how special this area is. Just feet from where you stand are endangered plants, seen only here and on Maui. You learn how the Hawaiians feel about this sacred place and how it was formed.

After an hour or so you can ascend the last 4,000 feet or so. By not acclimating yourself to the altitude you would have probably gotten terrific headaches, eye pain and felt very sick. Altitude sickness can quickly be solved by immediately heading to a lower altitude. Luckily from where you are, it is ALL DOWNHILL. You will have to drive carefully as it is cinders part of the way, only room at times for one vehicle and no guardrails. People coming up have the right away, as they probably have their foot all the way down on the gas pedal to get that 20 mile an hour speed they are zooming along with.

If there is snow, there will be skiers and it is very dangerous because under the snow is rock, not that wimpy grass and dirt other skiers rely upon. This is manly skiing!

At the top you will see a number of observatories looking to the heavens. They will generally be closed when you are there for the same reason flying a space ship to the sun must be done during the sunlit day.

The top of Mauna Kea is above the clouds most days of the year, however going down the mountain at night may land you in fog and rain. The people who work at the observatories are not allowed to lock their vehicles. It is very easy for the moisture to pick up and cause icing in the car door locks. Workers are not allowed to work outside alone because of the altitude, lowness of oxygen and possibility to get hurt and no one will know. The absolute closest medical help is 4,000 feet below and that is quite limited. The person would have to be taken to Hilo, perhaps an hours drive or more away.

By standing at the summit you may realize that ancient Hawaiians would come her to pray to their gods. They walked and there was no road. It gives a whole new meaning to Sunday morning chuch service (not that the Hawaiians came every week, but it is still a sacred place.

A few years ago a mainlander parked his car at the welcome station and set off down a path to explore. It started snowing and a serch party was formed. As conditions got worse, they sent helicopters to look for him. They took his rental car back down the mountain and he has not been found since. This is not a place to casually hike!

We still have far too many cases here in the islands where people come and expect it is Disney land. They turn their backs to the ocean and are inattentive around waterfalls. Even local have been swept out to sea after slipping on rocks while fishing.

There are places in Florida like Key West, where I think you can walk quite far int othe ocean and still be standing on sand. here on our island the ocean floor pretty quickly drops to 20,ooo feet pretty quickly.

Anyway, that is a bit about life here in the new year.

I always enjoy seeing people discover that Hawaiian music is NOT that hapa-type music made famous in the 50's, and not "hula music".

The live stream was here: http://prairiehome.publicradi... and a link to times when it will appear on your local station. Also there may be snippets of the show posted later after editing.

BY the way, I have a photo of me an Led somewhere I should post.

Although I have not read the book, I understand that "Men Are From mars, Women Are From Venus" describes what I have found. That is, if a woman has a problem, she wants to talk about it. Men will try to find a solution to fix it. Thus starts the conflict.

I cannot sit still for a long time listening to a problem without trying to find a solution to solve it. I just can't. Usually there is a simple suggestion I want to make, but that is not what is being asked for. I'll be told "You are not letting me finish" to which I think "I don't need to hear anymore, I know what is wrong. I know how to fix it".

I don't understand the reason to talk and talk and talk in detail about a problem without just getting it fixed. The woman can't understand my need to stop listening to excrusiating details about something and not try to address it.

This shows that we come to a problem with different expectations and you know what, I have a solution for that!

Many people have no idea what time it is in Hawaii. I can understand that because out here we don't care all that much either. Oh, there are jobs where you HAVE to be there at a certain time, but for many of us, it is "island time" and we can be late if we want.

I am often asked "What time is it out there?" and I also receive calls at 3am because people just have no clue. Hawaii is in the Hawaiian Time Zone. We do NOT do daylight savings time mainly because that is just silly. You change your clocks forward an hour then backward an hour and sometimes those dates change and you end up early or late for church or to watch "the game".

They say that one reason is the farmers. Farmers don't care what the clock says, they get up early before it gets hot outside. Here we get up early to try to get things done before the wind changes or the rain starts.

They say they don't want school kids to go to school in the dark. Well then, rather than change the clocks and disrupt everyone else, start school later. Remember the saying "Don't raise the bridge, lower the river". Don’t change the clocks, think outside the box!

You can take my suggestion and move your clock ONCE by 1/2 an hour and leave it there! Imagine the time savings of not constantly moving the time twice a year. You can always adjust your arrival and departure times to manage being 1/2 hour off from the current time. I mean, if you can't determine if it is winter or summer, then you have no right to be leaving the house at all.

So for the poor people who don't have multiple timezone clocks on the wall, we are earlier than U.S. Mainland time. If you live on the East coast, we are 5 or 6 hours earlier than you. From the West coast we are 2 or 3 hours earlier. I can't tell you exactly because you keep changing the time on your clocks!

If you think this is odd, then the following is even more complicated. Imagine losing a day! Almost everywhere in the world will have a Friday December 30th. Everywhere but Samoa. They chose Friday I guess so that they will still have a New year.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that the nation's prime minister said the current time zone, in which Samoa is a day behind Australia and New Zealand, means a loss of two full working days each week. Samoa is a major trading partner with them and they want to be closer in time to their partners. The newspaper reports that American Samoa will not undergo the change.

So how do they lose a day? Well, they push their island country westward across the International dateline. The dateline is already a bit jagged from being in the middle of nowhere and I guess the ocean currents move it back and forth like the shoreline because of the tide.

So today before bed, Samoans will grab a black magic maker and scribble out Friday from the calendars and go blistfully to bed for 32 hours it will appear. I hope that they do NOT take an extra day of medicine because that can really mess them up. There will be a giant drop in births for the week, month and year, having lost 24 hours in the process.

Statistics, calendars and trivia items will all be changed because of this decision. I hope they make the most of it.

There is a place in Kealakekua called The Korner Pocket, which appears to be a billiard hall, restaurant and bar. I have passed it a number of times but not yet stopped in. I have only been in town like 10 years, so I can't ne expected to have checked out every place here yet.

In the rural college town I used to live, we would go to a little fast food place, which was not much more than a window where we would buy burgers and fries. The name escapes me. Oftentimes while the guys in the dorm would play poker, I'd make a burger run. If their order was $3.25 they would give me $4 and tell me to keep the change. I only had to find a couple of people who were hungry to have gotten my meal for free. Back then the gasoline on sale was 29 cents a gallon and during a gas war dropped as low as 19 cents a gallon. I was only driving a mile or two round trip.

On the other side of our small town was a place called Bertha's where we would get burgers, fries and beer. Often I would get onion rings instead as I could digest them back then. Now I get indigestion from onions. I still eat them but in moderation. Virginia had "near" beer and regular beer; the near beer having less alcohol. As I remember the beer had 4.2% alcohol instead of the normal 5% which puts it in the classification of lite beers today. I could be wrong on the alcohol content but it was still alcohol.

I don't drink much anymore, not that I drank much in college. Now I usually have a couple of beers when friends come into town or I eat at the Kona Brewing Company up in town.

But I digress. I wanted to talk about pockets.

It must have been Wal-Mart where I bought this pair of shorts. I wear shorts almost exclusively now because of the warm weather. Long pants are usually jeans and only worn when I need to work on the farm and kneel down or cut weeds. In fact just yesterday I was cutting weeds with the weedwacker and stepped into a hole up to my shin. I had boot-like shoes on and my leg was really stuck. I was able to get my leg up high enough to slip my foot out of the shoe to get out. When I stuck a piece of PVC pipe in the hole I found it went down a couple of feet. I will leave the PVC sticking out until I fill it in or cover it. These little holes open into lava tubes of various sizes and can be just a foot or two big, or in the case of the one near the house, large enough for a family to fit into. My neighbor has a lava tube near his house, which you could drive a bus into. I'm sure he will give tours if asked.

Back to the pants though. These shorts were designed with two sets of pockets on each side. Side pockets times two. I am not talking about a regular pocket and a watch pocket but two independent side pockets one inside the other. By slipping your hand in the one pocket and missing the flap by a small bit, you are in the other pocket. It might be useful to put you cell phone in one and keys in the other so you won't scratch the face of the phone. However, I find that I lose my keys and shopping lists when I wear these pants. It may be that I have left-hander tendencies but I don't know. I think my left hand opens stuck jar lids better, but I write with my right hand and don't remember ever having been forced to write right-handed. In any event, I find that I put my keys on either side and with 4 pockets I am constantly shuffling in each pocket to see where I left things.

Back on the subject of holes, I also need to visit the dentist because I have a few cavities starting and a tooth or two, which have broken off. One is so bad that I don't think there is much they can do but suggest to replace it. The front is missing but the back is still there. If it were the other way they would just fill it. However a filling in the front would look odd unless they make enamel colored filling. I don't want them to send their kids through college by reconstructing my mouth. Last time I paid something like $1000 for the dentist to replace a tooth. They take a digital photo of your mouth, take the image of the opposite side tooth and reverse it, thus making a mirror image. Then they adjust it a bit so it looks good on the computer screen. A few mouse clicks later a small lathe in the back room takes a cube of material and cuts it down to the exact size and shape needed to put in your mouth. Although it sounds far fetched, it is in use today even here in Hawaii. The resulting tooth or cap is ready in an hour compared with having to take an impression, put a temporary tooth or cap in, wait a week or two for the real item to be made somewhere overseas or in some back room and sent to the dentist. he then removes your temporary and puts the final tooth part in.

So there you have it, a story about pockets and holes. If you can't sink your teeth into the story, at least you will have a leg up on it. And you can drink to that!

I don't listen every week but I think this week it will be one of the best shows ever. It is being produced on Oahu and there are some special guests according to prairiehome.publicradio.org.

Coming to you this week on A Prairie Home Companion, a live broadcast performance from the island paradise of Oahu, Hawaii. With special guests, ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro, slack key guitarist Danny Carvalho, and legendary Na Hoku Hanohano Award winner; multi-instrumentalist Ledward Kaapana. Also with us, vocalist Heather Masse, slack key Kahuna Jeff Peterson, The Royal Academy of Radio Actors; Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and the latest News from Lake Wobegon.

I wanted to stop on over, however, the airfares are a bit expensive fro that. Still, if you can at all listen, please do so. The music will be exceptional!

The above website has a link you can follow to see when the program will be available in your area and which station is carrying it on December 31st.

Last year I saw them at abbout $2 each and when I went back, they were gone. So I spent about $6 each for 6 of them, but thought it was still a great find.

There is nothing fun about setting up a table at a farmers market, standing (or sitting) all day and then packing it up, taking it home and perhaps unloading it again.

In this scenerio I think I can load these in the truck and drive up the driveway, stopping every few rows. Then going down one row and back another I can puck two fruits and load them in the cases. I think I could fill these things in 10 to 20 minutes. Then I drive t othe market, set up thje table, place each case side by side and open them up. I'm ready for business. Each case will have a card with a photo of the fruit and a photo of the inside. Then I can write up a small thing about each fruit and leave them in the cases. Everything is sorted and easy to pack back up that night.

I did pick up other items up there, but this was the item I especially wanted

Driving around the island still shows off our empty areas.

So being so rural, I guess I should not be surprised by this police report:

When officers arrived, patrons were holding 45-year-old Gregory Haas of Kailua-Kona outside the establishment. He had reportedly assaulted four men with what is believed to be the femur bone of a cow.

I'll reserve any other comments!

However, just up the street from me Nancy Pelosi slipped in for another holiday. She is staying at the swanky Four Seasons Resort on the Big Island and that means she has a few dollars to spend on our local economy. Her suite rents for $10,000 a night. I wonder is she will keep any of the soaps or little bottles of shampoo when she leaves, like the rest of us?

If she has that kind of money she could evan afford room service here! I'm impressed. It is reported that she is among the richest in Congress at perhaps 58 million or more. So she probably can afford the room, I won't begrudge her that!

Soon he comes back on the the phone and it sounds like he says "the house is on fire". I tekll him to cut his electric because I think it could be an electrical fire. He does so, and as he calms down some I find that his house is not on fire, however, the house next door (perhaps 10 feet away) is fully engulfed and the wind is blowing sparke and flames his direction.

As I listen, the first of what become 6 firetrucks rolls up. He is spraying the side of his house and later his back yard as fireman try to quell the flames. The wind is very strong today as the end of a wind advisory comes to an end.

As the flames continue to diminish and flare again, I suggest he grab his wallet, kets and any important papers he can think of, because the flames might catch his house on fire and the firemen would instantly get him to leave (ready or not). He does so and is relieved that so far, his house remains safe.

An hour into this the fireman are still not sure what happened, but it looks like it started in the garage. We think the children were home and parents were not, and that someone MAY have opened a window after the flames started. This is all unsubstanciated rumor so don't quote me, but by tomorrow we should know more details.

In defense of myself, when I buy houses, I look at where they are, what kind of traffic there is nearby (entrances/exits to the development), location of fire hydrants and whether I am in a flood plain or on top of a hill close to where lightning would find me. I would not live in a house with a neighbor 10 feet away with terrific wind all year round. But that is just me.

My particular farm is remote and not near a hydrant. It has a 4-wheel drive driveway that a fire truck could get down and I also opened another entrance to make it easier. However, I don't think the fire department knows where I live or how to get here.

I don't leave the dryer or oven on when I'm not at home, and even cut the hot water heater off if I'm gone for a couple days (moreso to save electricity). Being near the ocean I do have issues with light sockets and switches corroding and replace them as soon as I see a problem.

Then there is the 20,000 gallons of water sitting in the tank next to my house which could be used by a pumper. I also have another 60,000 gallons up the hill, but I think it would take hours to refill the tank at the bottom if it was being used by a fire truck.

It may be the perfect time to go visit the local fire station with Google Maps of my farm and tank locations, etc. I did look up specific connectors that could be used by fire departments but I think with all the catchment tanks on the island, they may be able to easily drop a hose into the tank. It is certainly a thing to ask about.

So far, my friends house is safe and no dage done except a couple bushes that burned and his yard got lots of water and foam all over it.

The neighbors have not had such a nice Christmas, except it look like everyone is safe.

Readers here will remember that I delivered the last 4 litters of puppies recently when my friends dogs all had deliveries around the same couple of months. This time I'm home and will head over there in the morning. This allows me to have a breather this time.

It is Zoe's first litter and it was not an easy task getting her pregnant. We are hoping for a big litter, but time will tell.

Zoe is not my dog, so I have no financial interest, just helping a friend and learning because my girl O'Lena (the yello Lab) will be bred perhaps in April. I think I'm already an expert in this having delivered over 30 puppies recently!

I'll try to post some photos and info tomorrow.

I have a number of cheap reading glasses but rarely wear them when I blog. The keyboard is quite different from the one I am used to, and I hunt and peck using about three or four fingers. So I often have the letters "to" in a sentence misspelled. I hit the "t" with my left forefinger and the o with the right one. I use the left thumb for the space bar and the thumb hits the space a millisecond before I get to the "o". Thus causing a "t" then a space then the "o" rather than the space coming after causing the word "to ". I try to correct that but often fail to find them all.

Speaking of never learning to type, yet having even less to do with the music theme of the blog, I must explain the British Hits. It involves TV shows from the far east (well further east from Hawaii than the mainland!)

I think one of the best comedy shows ever was Fawlty Towers, starring John Cleese. He plays an inn owner who has many problems, often created by his own hand. I have seen the 12 episodes perhaps 30 or more times each and still laugh. If I were stuck on a desert island (not necessarily Hawaii), I would hope that I would have a way to watch these shows, if nothing else.

Fawlty Towers is one of the series being offered now by Netflix U.K. (the UK version of our U.S. version).

I am not a member of Netflix here in the U.S. however I did take advantage of Amazons streaming video service for a month's free trial. If you signup for Amazon Prime you get special shipping service AND access to free TV and movies. The shipping service is not available to us in Hawaii but streaming does work for us. At something like $80 a year it is cheaper than Netflix.

A year ago I bought a box through Woot (now owned by Amazon by the way). That box is a Roku unit which allows me to watch TV shows and movies from a variety of sources which also include Amazon and Netflix. It attaches to my router (by using by LAN cable or wifi) and the output is RCA jacks or HDMI cable. The RCA jack model lets me connect to a VCR or DVD recorder or to an old TV. The HDMI cable hooks to newer TVs. Not all Roku models have both sets of input (LAN and wifi) or both sets of outputs. This box was something like $50 refurbished, is one of the early models and has all the connectors I need and want. The newer model comes with Angry Birds by the way.

Using this small Roku box, I can get video and audio from the internet and send it to my big screen TV. Much of that content is free however I can pay for Amazon, Netflix and other services to get extra programming. Some of the free content includes radio stations through a number of sources, old TV show, movies, the Supreme Court audio recordings, BBC news, weather graphics, NASA TV and much more. Add to that the paid movies and paid TV shows and you have a mini cable company. The box can be tucked in an overcoat pocket and is quite light. Thus I could take it with me while traveling.

I have been watching a number of channels, which most others in America may not be familiar with. For example, I watch a TV gardening show out of Australia. I enjoy the Supreme Court feeds and Tunein radio stations. You can add hidden channels like Justin TV and watch people who are broadcasting their Xbox and PC games.

Through Amazon I have seen some movies for free that I have not seen in decades, like The Hustler with Jackie Gleason. I also watched parts of some British TV series.

Now I am caught up in a series called "Downton Abbey". It is a series which can best be described as a cross between "To The Manor Born" and "Remains Of The Day". For those not up on British shows, here is a brief explanation.

"Beginning in the years leading up to World War I, the drama centers on the Crawley family and their servants."

The Crawley family owns a large manor, which is due to pass to a family member. However, that member dies on the Titanic at the beginning of the series. Back then, land was passed to males via British law and the show involves the family realizing that they may lose their claim to the estate. As the series is fairly recent, imagine my surprise when a line used was taken almost exactly out of the Fawlty Towers series and this new series is not meant to be a comedy.

Since the series takes place prior to WW I, you are reminded of the situation of servants in Britain. In one scene, the nephew (a lawyer and not accustomed to manor life) tells his butler that he does not want to be buttled. He is used to dressing himself and has no need for someone to dress him. He suggests that the butler go do something else. This off-hand comment is an affront to the butler who has no other job. It IS his job to dress his charge. That is his only job; one he has a great honor of performing; one he was groomed for.

The great thing about the series is watching to see how each character changes/grows as the episodes go on. A character you like, you may soon dislike and vice-versa. It is well written and as I say, bears a similarity to two or three other shows you may be familiar with.

So these are the things I am watching while the rest of you are watching Friends reruns or involving yourselves in the political banter.

Yes, I also could be watching the British Parlement instead of the U.S. Senate. The difference in the conduct of the two bodies is like the difference between a Court TV and Saturday Night Live. Where our politicians try to be reserved and ask the "gentleman to relinquish time", the Brits may very well use a phrase similar to "Jane you ignorent slut!".

Sometimes these differences make for very interesting viewing of British hits!