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| Secure All Channels! |
| 07.29.05 (1:29 pm) [edit] |
It sounds like a command from the bridge of Star Treks Enterprise, that analogy is not far from my meaning.A current news item mentions that “Wireless Wallets” are becoming the rage. A wireless wallet is the ability for you to pay for items by waving or pointing your cell phone at them. Parking meters might get a text message from you or a cash register a swipe of the cell phone is all you would need to pay for things. I’m sure that there will be some procedures to avoid the problem of “I was trying to buy a candy bar and ended up buying a suit in the store next door”. However, that type of problem has occurred recently with people who subscribed to a particular satellite TV service. That service used “wireless” remotes that could go through apartment walls. When a neighbor decided at 3am to watch adult material, their transmitter might also trigger their neighbors box to receive the same program. Without a local password, both systems would buy the program. The answer was to ensure you had a password in your satellite box, which must be used to order programs. The trouble is, most people never set one up. Speaking of security, how many people use their birth date or house number or last 4 digits of their phone number as their bank pin? How many people use an animals name for their login password? Even when a system tries to be secure, it can fail. Have you ever entered correct data for the question “Mothers maiden name”? Remember, this is NOT a test; it is a away to help verify that you know how you answered a question last time. For example, when asked to enter “Mothers Maiden Name” you could use a word, which you associate with Mom, yet not be her name. Perhaps when you think of your “Mother Maiden name” it reminds you that she worked in a bakery. Thus you might answer Mothers Maiden Name as “Cake”. As long as you correctly answer the question with the word CAKE next time, you win. Why would I propose this? Imagine that your bank will let you transfer large amounts of cash over the phone, IF you can correctly answer the question Mothers Maiden Name. I could go to a genealogy site and look, or I could just call you and ask you. “Hello Mrs. Smith. My name is Mark and I hope you can help me. I may be related to you and if so, you may be able to save my brother’s life. He has a rare blood disorder and I need to find a match of T-BLA cells. The doctor said it has to be someone on my Mothers side of the family. Were you a Kroft before you were married? “NO, MY MAIDEN NAME WAS JONES’… After just a few seconds this person revealed a correct security answer. Think about the questions you are asked when prompted to create a verification phrase… Where were you born? Mothers maiden name? Name of first pet? First car?, well you get the idea. Any of these responses might be easy to discover or be forthcoming from you under simple circumstances. The cell phone issue is funny. I would not trust cell phones to be secure. Years ago cordless phone were touted as secure. Yet their transmitted signal could and may still be heard in the top UHF TV band on certain TV sets. All you had to do was tune up around TV channel 83 and there were people on cell phones driving around. Even computer programs are NOT secure. Microsoft, a self-proclaimed world leader in operating systems cannot produce a secure system. Each week they have to supply patches fro the same problems over and over and over again. You would think that a company this large could protect their product from such giant holes. An example just this week is that Microsoft now requires people to validate their copy of Windows XP to keep it from being stolen. At the same time this was being enforced, word spread around the Internet on how to defeat this protection. Many people have set up a wireless router in their house, yet not secured it from outsiders. They may find that their neighbor or perhaps a person sitting in a car across the street is browsing your files or using your Internet connection to break into a bank. Big scams for Seniors include statements such as “You have won!”, “You just need to pay taxes up front…”, “We need a deposit before we can issue your prize…”, “We would like to send a courier to your home…”, “We were in your neighborhood and have this driveway sealant left over…”. Get information and investigate! If someone calls you on the phone or sends you an email asking for you to “update data” or “verify” something, look up their number and call them back. If a bank or PayPal or whatever asks that you do something to your account, tell them you will handle it and then go into a branch, call the number in the phone book. If someone contacts you to donate to a disaster, YOU look up the charity and contact them; don’t rely upon information the person gives you directly. Verify things! To ensure you are safe, start asking questions of the technology you use and don’t just rely upon the salesman to tell you. If you buy a router, check to see how you can secure it. Browse the Internet for security issues with products you want to use. Determine if you must answer a validation question with correct data or only with a consistent answer. A quote from another TV show may be appropriate here, "Be careful out there"! |
| Wassup? |
| 07.27.05 (8:35 am) [edit] |
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Wassup? is a common pidgin expression in the islands meaning "What's up?" Over the years I've enjoyed many TV shows, which were based upon reality. I think some were more real than others, but once you stick a camera in someone’s face, their whole attitude may change. Then again, with careful editing the whole story may differ from the facts. That appears to be what happened with my favorite episode of Trading Spouses. The idea is that two completely different families trade their Mother for a week. Each family experiences a different slant on life. Because I have not yet read all of the comments on the one family involved, I would rather direct you thoer website and let you read things first hand. I posted a few messages and also described how I learned about editing first hand with a satellite TV news feed. Anyway, head on over to http://www.centertao.org/ts/ I realize that people who have not seen the show will not understand the basis of this families complaint over editing, but there are some pretty interesting examples of TV editing on the site. As for me, I have been working on websites for people. One site has only needed a few hours work to bring it online, but the owner just cannot find time to load the products in. Hopefully we can get that solved this week. Also, I have been creating press releases and newspaper ads for the 2nd Annual Cream of the Crop coffee tasting event on August 6th. Last year I won one of the 1st place awards! I have lots of projects especially here on the farm, which are not getting done. That will have to change soon. I think once I stop giving away free website help and the event is pau (finished) I can get some needed things done here. One item is the grubbing permit. I can't begin to clear the middle area and prepare it for coffee until I have a permit. One neighbor has some concerns that I may cause some soil to enter the swale (a shallow depression that carries water away during a rainstorm). I'm looking around and don't see much "soil" that could cause problems and besides, the clearing I'll be doing is nowhere near the swale, but I'll meet with the neighbor and see what's up. I am ready to start my new coffee plants and I think I'll start them from seed rather than plants. This saves money considering that coffee plants could be costing $5 and up and in total I need 5,000 plus perhaps 10 or 20% extra in case of problems. Because I'll be pruning with B.F. method, I will only need to plant 2/3 of the plants the first year and 1/3 the next. To complicate matters we have had tremendous increases in construction here recently on island. This has tied up most of the people who have grading equipment and so on. So if I start growing plants now, in a year I may not be ready to plant them. I would have to sell them and start anew. Because that possibility is pretty high, I think I'll start a thousand or two now and keep a rolling stock in the pipeline. It could also be up to a year before I can get the catchment system in for watering. I have been looking for a shelter for the young plants (keikis). I wanted to use a moveable "carport" which are common here. In 10 by 20 or 20 by 20 foot formats, they are an aluminum frame with canvas or plastic stretched over them. This keeps direct sun off the plants as they start to grow. At a cost of hundreds of dollars each, I may opt for a simpler solution. A poly tarp can be attached to the side of a building and stretched out at an angle, thus creating a lean-to at a cost of perhaps $20-$40. That may afford enough protection and yet be inexpensive. Another alternative is to place the plants under the houses lanai where they would get some afternoon dappled sunshine. Wherever I decide, I need to run some PVC and put in some sprinkler heads. Well, I've got an Ebay auction running to sell some coffee but due to some orders pending may have to shut down the sale if I run out of what I have roasted. I have been juggling things lately as I have medium roasted currently and want to fill some special orders for Full City roast this next week. Then I [i]HAVE[/i] to have some absolutely freshly roasted Medium just a day before the coffee competition on August 6th. I hope to do well but the event is also fun in that I get to meet hundreds of coffee lovers and while I'm there, sample my competition! Needless to say the coffee flavored deserts are worth the trip if not for the Kona Coffee. Speaking of Kona Coffee, can I remind you of a specific fact? A KONA BLEND is NOT a blend of various Kona Coffees! It is a way blenders have found to legalaly use the Kona name in hopes that they can sell you a coffee that is NOT mostly Kona. Their blend is generally 10% Kona Coffee and 90% coffee from some other country. You might never buy that coffee from another country because of its taste, but because this blend has the KONA name of it, you think it is something special. A popular "other Hawaiian island" coffee is mechanically picked. They pick all sorts of coffee cherry and not all of it is ripe. Then they use machines to test the cherry and try to pick out the ripest product. In Kona, we pick all coffee cherry by hand so human eyes can ensure it is ripe while evaluating each cherry. IF it is not, it sits on the tree until the next picking. We feel that this gives you a better cup of coffee than machine picked product. Although I would love it if you would buy MY 100% Kona Coffee, I realize that some people may like a different roast than I offer or perhaps they have found a better deal. In any event, if you are drawn t othe Kona name in coffee, please consider buying 100% Kona coffee. Our organization, the Kona Coffee Council has a seal, which helps assure you that you are getting what you are paying for. Even 100% Hawaiian is not 100% Kona. Just know what you are buying and if unsure, ask. |
| Knock Knock |
| 07.27.05 (7:11 am) [edit] |
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(I have no idea what this blog title means except maybe "who's there", as in, I don't know who is sending me mail). I continue to receive emails/spam from people wanting to sell me supposed prescription drugs. I guess they are making billions of dollars while fishing for customers, but I'll never bite. I don't know who does. While I am all for buying generic drugs, they have to come from reliable sources. Spammed (unsolicitaed email) from unknown sources is NOT a valid option for me! I suggest people read the Forbes article in the May 23rd 2005 issue. It describes how a clandestine website in Canada may be getting its drugs from India or China. People were buying counterfit glaucoma drug found it contained boric acid (which is what we use in this country to kill cockroaches). Pardon the pun but THAT should open some peoples eyes. Some druga analyzed contained no active ingredients or the amount varied widely. In one case an acne medicine had 17 times the active ingredient and the boy using it had a stroke. I'm sure that thse people sending spam are making millions or billions of dollars and don't care who they hurt. SOMEBODY is buying this stuff. I just can't figure out why? Then again, I can't believe that people are still falling for the "I am xxx from xxx and I have these millions of dollars that I can't get at. If you will let me launder it through your bank account, you can have half" type emails. Then there are the messages in the newsgroups that have been circulating sinc time began. "This is completely legal. Just send money to the top names on the list....". This scam is brought up to date by the recipients having a PayPal account. What people don't realize is that all 5 names on that email may belong to the same guy and he gets $15 per email that people follow. At least we had a laugh once when a guy in Alabama pleaded for people to send him a dollar towards him being able to keep his dialup account. A quick check of his connection showed a DSL connection to the internet... You have to be careful out there and know that many people want to take your money. |
| Flashy Business |
| 07.18.05 (1:42 pm) [edit] |
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I'm sorry if many of my blogs relate to the internet but for many of us the internet is a part of our lives. Common world wide is the idea that people selling things have a "right" to advertise how and where they want. They advertise on websites, on the sides of buildings, on busses and benches and even in the air. One memorable advertisement from my youth was the airplanes flying along the New Jersey beaches, pulling a giant banner behind them. Advertised on the banner were such things as bars holding special concerts or special drink prices, or perhaps suntan lotion and so on. Another advertising medium is the roadside billboard. One memorable set of billboards is the massive numbers along the north/south route from New York to Florida. Who has not seen more than enough of the "Pedro's" signs for a stopover area located between North and South Carolina on I-95. The signs are like "Pedro says "Only 500 more miles to 'South of the Border'". "Pedro says 'Don't Miss it' and then finally, "You missed it, easy turnaround here'. Here in Hawaii you will notice a complete lack of billboards, building advertising and planes with banners. It is great to be spared those. However, online I still get lots of ads. The type I particularly hate is Macromedia's Flash. I don't see the popups much anymore but it used to be when you went to a site with Flash and you didn't have Flash, you would be hounded to download it and the popups would continue until you did. Removing Flash was equally as hard and had to follow a very specific removal procedure. Then the popups would start again. I spent countless hours trying to find a specific way to not load Flash and also to not have the browser keep trying to force me to download it. Another reason I hated Flash is that many of the annoying, flashing and moving ads that distract you, are in fact Flash. Oh I'm sure there are valid reasons to use flash, but when you discoiver that by enabling Flash all your enjoyment of a quiet webpage goes away, you think twice about downloading it. For those who want to uninstall it, although some browsers may still continue to prompt you to load it... http://www.macromedia.com/cfu... An interesting thing to notice if you DO have Flash installed... right click on a Flash ad and notice the following items are there "Allow the remote site to access your camera and microphone" without prompting you... Imagine a virus that turns that on so you are not prompted and then someone spies on you, listens to you giving someone your credit card over a nearby telephone... it is just scary. Anyway, just another rant from me :-) |
| The Haves and the Have-Nots |
| 07.14.05 (9:56 am) [edit] |
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An interesting news item has been appearing around the country recently. That item involves the National Association of Counties' conference, which begins in this week. The conference appears to be an annual meeting where county officials gather to discuss the problems of running a county and discuss solutions. The big contention appears to be that the newspapers and now the public are being told "but they are meeting in HAWAII!" as if that was a bad thing. Many of the news items approach the meeting as a vacation the conventioneers are taking and infer that they will not be working. I believe that is not correct! I have attended many many conventions and conferences and usually you spend most of the day stuck in a hotel or convention center. You have food and beverages brought in, sometimes have a locally produced show during a lunch or dinner and one or two of the days you may have an "off property" event which could be a show, boat ride or tour of a related business. Attendees may extend their time at the location for an extra day or two, since they are already there. Often the trip to a remote convention or conference includes a bit of jet lag. Often this is the only opportunity a person has to "get away from the office" for a few days and an extra day is welcome. I am not quite sure why there is so many objections to this particular trip. It can't be the cost as many papers seem to report that including inflation, the trip is not overly expensive compared to last years trip which stayed on the mainland. It might be that the "have-nots" are upset because some one else will "have" something they can't. Often I hear (and have reported many times) that people think "Hawaii is Expensive". It is not and again I back off from needed work to explain yet again, that Hawaii is NOT expensive unless you want it to be. It is certainly not the money hole people think it is. Some of our islands are more upscale than others. Compared to the Big Island, Maui and Kauai might be considered expensive; but is Hawaii much more expensive than a city on the mainland? Well, we have some extra taxes here, and there are upscale hotels here too, but just how do hotel prices compare? Well, here is an idea. A very nice hotel one block from the beach in Waikiki on Oahu cost about $150 a night. That includes breakfast, newspaper and local telephone calls. I checked the Beachcomber because I have stayed there and know the hotel. Alternative hotels might cost $85 a night. Oh you could spend $350 a night at some hotels, but why? The rate at a convention hotel in Las Vegas would be $105 a night. A Holiday Inn in Orlando (another convention town) was $108 a night. If the conference were held in Orlando Florida, would not the people back home be suggesting that since the attendee was going to be staying near Disney that they should take the family and make a trip out of it? When you eat at a hotel, you might pay a premium, but Hawaii offers many reasonably priced restaurants and venues. For local shopping, we have COSTCO, Lowes, Home Deport, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and so on. Many of these stores charge the same prices as they do on the mainland. For example, I see 5,000 BTU air conditioners for sale this week at $80. Not that many conference attendees will be buying air conditioners, but it gives you a comparison point. So why do people think Hawaii is expensive/ I think one reason is that we advertise it as Paradise, and everyone knows that Paradise comes with a price tag. Others watch these TV shows like the “Price is Right” and “Wheel of Fortune” and so on and hear about the 3 night prizes costing THOUSANDS of dollars. What most people don't realize is that the "Suggested Retail Price" of these vacation prizes is jacked up to make them sound expensive, but that they NOT sold at those prices. In the above discussions of county officials heading here from the mainland, some reported their airfare at $600 round trip. Their cost for 3 t o5 days here for a convention including meals hotel, transportation and so on was $2,000. Is that much different from a trip to Disneyworld or Las Vegas? As for what the attendees would learn here, I don't know, because I'm not an expert at running a county. However, Oahu is smaller but similar to a county I would expect. Each island here has various problems, many of them reflected back on the mainland. We also have positive and negative results we can share. Our state unemployment is the lowest in the US. It will be interesting to see what happens AFTER the conference. Will the cost of the trip really be as high as people were suggesting? Will this happen next year if they choose New York or Los Angeles or wherever as their destination? Time will tell. |
| The Remakes |
| 07.12.05 (11:18 pm) [edit] |
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Ok, so I admit that Merv Griffin came up with a goldmine in creating Wheel of Fortune. When you watch the show most people still have not figured out that he created a multi-million dollar empire out of the kids game of Hangman! Speaking of remaking one thing into another, have we completely run out of new ideas? Do we have to rehash every movie and TV show that ever existed? It may have started with I love Lucy, then the Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour and Here's Lucy and the Lucille Ball show and... oh you get the idea. They even did a movie called The Long Long Trailer which was essentually, Lucy and Desi in a trailer on a long trip. Then there were spin offs from Happy Days which included the Fonz, Lavern and Shirley and Mork and Mindy, Joanie Loved Chachie and maybe 150 other shows. Ok, so I understand spinoffs with different characters. I can see that, but if you look at recent movies which have been or will be released, you begin to wonder if the writers went on strike or they think we forget easily. There is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I guess like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), and Bewitched, The Grinch (as in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?) and the Bad News Bears are being remade. How about the Dukes of Hazard, the Honeymooners, Fat Albert and Charleys Angles? Come on. The next things they will think of is to haul Uncle Milty out of the grave. And speaking of old timers, I will turn the TV off when they bring back that sidekick on the Joey Bishop Show from the 60's. What was his name? Regis something? |
| 5 times the fun? Nope! |
| 07.11.05 (2:43 pm) [edit] |
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What would you do if all of a sudden, you go into your local store to buy a candy bar and that candy bar, overnight, went from 50 cents to $2.50? Your two options would be to 1) Not buy that particular candy bar anymore or 2) Find the same candy bar elsewhere at a cheaper price. Verizon Wireless just sent me a little note that beginning August 1st, the cost to receive a text message has gone from 2 cents to 10 cents per message. Sening a message still costs 10 cents. While 10 cents per message sound like a small amount, it is the giant increase that bothers me. This is a typical ploy of the old telephone company. Charge a little, then when everyone relies upon the service, charge them extra. Can you imagine how much money Verizon Wireless will make in August because people don't realize the increase? Verizon is not the only company to make lots of monet on text messaging. With people sending news items, stock updates, Yahoo messages and so on, text messaging can cost more a month than your monthly talk time! When I called to block text messaging I made sure to have them note that the ONLY reason I am blocking the messages is the giant increase on Verizon's part. Whether that does any good or not, who knows but at least I voted with my feet! Should cell phone rates increase dynamically, I'' be off to another provider. I have no problems with Verizon Wireless and chose them because they had the best service and customer relations here in Hawaii. I'm just not going to pay a 500% increase becase they want more money! |
| Tempest in a Teacup |
| 07.11.05 (9:20 am) [edit] |
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The title seems to fit and I'm not quite sure how it came to me so quickly. Usually I have to think and re-write a few times to get the title to fit my ramblings. Right off the bat I tell you that I am NOT anexpert on these matters and I encourage you to investigate yourself. I think you will be dismayed at what you find. My information is meant to get you to thing a bit about history. Imagine living in a country, you can imagine America if you wish, where you are free to do what the leaders allow you to do. You are happy, you are sovereign; an independent country. You are there for over 1500 years. Over time, foreigners come to your land and you welcome them. They start businesses. All of a sudden, these businessmen decide that your way of government may hurt their business interests and they decide to do something about it. They tell their foreign government that this country is planning to curtail their business. Whether that is true does not matter. Their country sets a warship in the harbor with guns pointed at the capitol. The leader(s) of this country are imprisoned while the businessmen create their own government. The leader(s) of the country plead with the foreign government to see the light; to return this country to its people. The foreign government refuses (even though some of their people know this was an illegal takeover of a sovereign country). I know that this sound somewhat fanciful and that so forth, but it really happened, and it was wrong! It happened between the United States and a foreign country Captain Cook called the Sandwich Islands and we now know as the state of Hawaii! In 300-700 AD, Polynesians arrived from Tahiti in an island kingdom soon to be called Hawaii. In 1778, Captain Cook "discovered" the islands. In 1810, King Kamehameha the Great unites all the Hawaiian Islands into one kingdom. That kingdom was recognized by the world as a country, separate from all others. The missionaries came in 1820 and began telling these gentle people why they were heathens and their gods were wrong and, well you get the idea. With Captain Cook and the missionaries, came diseases the Hawaiian people had never known and had to natural defenses to. Before long great masses of native Hawaiians were dead! These "uncivilized people" were so backward that they didn't get their first telephone system until 1883. It was not until 3 years later that AT&T started offering private service to customers in America... It is my understanding that Honolulu was wired for electricity before Washington DC. So in 1880's and 1890's, things begin to change dramatically. In 1887, a "Bayonet Constitution" imposed on Hawaiian monarchy by white business community, significantly decreased the power of the king and effectively disenfranchising the Hawaiian people. In 1893 the then Queen, Lili'uokalani, attempts to implement a new constitution that would restore power to the throne and restore the voting rights of the Hawaiian people. Queen Lili'uokalani is overthrown by local businessmen with the help of the U.S. Marines and is forced to surrender the Hawaiian kingdom to the United States. In 1894 the Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed with Sanford Dole as president. Soon after, the Queen is arrested and accused of plotting an aborted attempt to restore herself to the throne. In 1896, the Queen is released from Iolani Palace and goes to Washington to ask President Cleveland for help. Help does not come. In 1898 Hawaii is annexed by U.S. President McKinley Then in 1900 Hawaii becomes a U.S. territory All this time, native Hawaiians are dying and "foreigners" build up the islands. In 1959, a vote was taken amongst the invaders. It would decide whether these islands would become a territory or be integrated as a state. I dare say most people did not know the history of the islands or what the result of their vote would be. Actually, since the "takeover" of Hawaii was illegal, a vote really makes no difference. There are those who will say, "Prove that the takeover was illegal" and I refer them to the US Congressional declaration that YES, indeed, the takeover of the Island Nation of Hawaii was illegal! Look it up! [b]UNITED STATES PUBLIC LAW 103-150 103d Congress Joint Resolution 19 Nov. 23, 1993 To acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and to offer an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. [/b] Let me tell you, our Congress does NOT apologize at the drop of a hat for things it did not do! Now let me tell you that in what I have read, I agree that this was a complete and illegal takeover of a foreign land, where I now live. I cannot do much except to add my voice to others and try to let people know what happened. I can encourage them to read their history. If you want a better idea of exactly what happened, why not read the story by someone who was there, the actual Queen of Hawaii. http://digital.library.upenn.... Even amongst people here with native Hawaiian blood there is disagreement as to what should happen. There is not an easy solution because so many years have passed. Senator Akaka has a bill in progress; many disagree with its direction. In a perfect world, the people with native Hawaiian ancestry should decide how they want to unwind this fiasco, because why again should foreigners determine Hawaii’s fate? You decide. Here are a few links to get you started: Free Hawaii http://freehawaii.org Hawaii Nation http://www.hawaii-nation.org/... Akaka Bill http://akaka.senate.gov/akaka... Opposition to the bill http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/... I think the last one is kinda funny. A PHD says that the bill by Akaka would create a sovereign political entity of people of one race. He thinks that is wrong. Perhaps, but isn't that exactly what Hawaii was before the US came? As I say, I have no answers and don't attempt to say I have much information. I just ask you to do a bit of reading and gain a bit of understanding. Now you know that the Boston Tea Party was not the only Tempest in a Tea Cup the US has been in. |
| My Blood Pressure Rises |
| 07.10.05 (8:59 pm) [edit] |
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I keep getting calls from 571-522-6559, which appear to be a political "survey" and exempt from the Do Not Call List (DNCL). Here is what bothers me. When Congress allowed the DNCL, they allowed specific exceptions. These included businesses you already had a relationship with (your bank, insurance company, etc) which would also allow bill collectors working on their behalf. Congress also allowed non-profit organizations to call you. I honestly can tell you that every "non-profit" that called me was a scam or in one case, a company supposedly calling on behalf of a charity, but when I checked, they kept most if not all of the donations. Finally, politicians and surveyors can call you; even if you don't want them to. If someone is actually on the other end of the line when you pick up, you can ask and they are required to put you on their own DNCL. However, in the case of this particular smarmy company there is no human there; it is an auto dialer and recorded message. Waiting on the line for a human does not work, they hang up. So the only thing I can do is go to donotcall.gov and report the call as a violation (even though it is technically not). Although Congress, the FTC and the FCC took most of the harassment away, they left an avenue for continued grief on the consumer. Why can't we say we want NO unsolicited calls, including from our politicians? If Congress had allowed us to completely stop political calls, how could the politicians call us to go out to vote or contribute to their campaigns? Allowing Congress to bypass our wishes was like giving a wolf the keys to the henhouse. I say that the public should TAKE BACK our telephones once again! Let's push for a REAL Do Not Call List! |
| What a day! |
| 07.10.05 (6:29 pm) [edit] |
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Saturday I got up early and finished getting my 2 ounce coffee bags ready to fill. I had helped my neighbor get her website and shopping cart ready and she agreed to help me fill 250 bags. The labels were made, sprayed and dried so the ink would not run if they got wet. I packed the car and headed north about 8:45am. The trip to her farm is about 10 miles and I decided to stop at McDonalds in Kealakekua (about 1/2 way there) to grab breakfast. As I entered I thought about what kind of drink I wanted. I saw the pot of coffee on the burner and thought"coffee, coffee.. naw, I have 60 pounds of ground coffee right outside in my car... wait, I don't remember putting the burlap bag of coffee in the car... OH NO!" I had travled halfway to my destination yet forgotten the most important part of the trip, the coffee. I grabbed an Egg McMuffin and headed back to the house to get the coffee. Filling the bags took about 3 hours and I finished about 1:30pm. Soon thereafter I headed into Kailua-Kona and waited for another neighbor who wanted to look at some store fronts. We hiked through town for hours and we exchanged thoughts about foot traffic and so on. Then is was on to help a friend get his computer working. It developed an intermittent shutdown problem, which I diagnosed as a sticking fan in the power supply. I cleaned it some and got the computer running again. I graciously accepted the offer of dinner and soon thereafter headed home to work on some projects. I went to bed early and then got up early Sunday morning. I chatted with a couple people from Atlanta and Washington DC and worked on my friends webpage again. She is now officially ON THE AIR and ready to accept orders. We may have to fine tune the site, but I think it will work out well for her. Then I hauled out some of the 250 bags of coffee and took some photos of them. I would have liked having a pile of 250 of them on one table, but I stopped short of that when I realized I'd have to carefully repack them again. Tomorrow I'll take the bags of coffee over and see how we will pack them for shipment to the convention on Oahu. |
| It's in the bag |
| 07.08.05 (7:47 pm) [edit] |
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One of my neighbors, a coffee farmer, called me the other day with a problem. She had an order for lots of small bags of coffee for a convention and needed help. I agreed to supply 250 two ounce bags of ground coffee in the next few days. Although I usually sell 4oz, 8oz and 1 pound bags of whole beans, I sometimes provide smaller bags of ground coffee for parties or stocking stuffers. I hauled 60 pounds of beans up to my roaster who did a medium roast and ground the coffee for me. You have no idea what a mess it can be to grind that much coffee. The interesting thing about coffee is that when you roast the beans they lose weight but gain volume, kinda like popcorn in a way. You can actually put different roasted beans next to each other and see how the size of the bean differs as it roasts darker. Then I had to set my "staff" on the task of creating the labels and labeling the bags (you DO know that I am a staff of 1, don't you?). Since all my official labels for regular coffee bags are professionally printed, I have to create the 2 ounce labels on my trusty HP Deskjet. I found a regular white address label that fits and made 14 labels per page. Since ink jet printers from HP use a vegetable dye, the ink is not waterproof. I bought some Krylon Kaymar Varnish that coats the labels and makes them water resistant. To create a template to hold the bags and get the labels on straight, I took a manila folder, folded it and taped it to the table. Then I could position the bag in the small pocket and get the labels attached just right. My neighbor needed some strips that said 2oz to cover up a different size on her labels and I created them too. After putting the Karmar on them, they pretty closely matched her bag and look quite good. Big farms can go spend thousands of dollars on professional labels for every sized bag, but we small farmers have to make do. I guess that also helps us try to keep costs down and give more personalized service. Tomorrow I head to a different farm where a friend will help me fill and seal the bags. Then sometime the beginning of next week they are on their way to the convention and hundreds of people will experience a bit of Kona Coffee and a bunch of Aloha! |
| Pau Hana |
| 07.07.05 (8:54 am) [edit] |
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Sometimes you have to remember the saying "pau hana". I have just read a few interesting postings on the KonaWeb site. The first involves all of the famous people who own homes here in Hawaii and on this island. They range from Graham Nash to Oprah and Woody Harrelson to Steve Case. Why I hear Bill Gates even owns a place just past Kona. Each island has its share of celebrities. Then I read a note from an "IT" person, wondering if there was any work for him here. IT is short for Information Technology (he's a computer geek just as I was). I suggested that Hawaii is NOT the place to look for IT jobs. Oh, there are a few jobs available, but he would have a better change finding work removing viruses from PCs or building web sites for people than by wiring networks or managing mainframes; especially on the Big Island (which was his destination). Finally, a woman asked if her silver would tarnish more by being here (I guess being near the volcano and ocean). The general answer was not whether it would tarnish; rather why she was bring it here to begin with. Excluding sentimental reasons, silver silverware is just a bit too formal for a place where we eat outside on the lanai, perhaps with our fingers and it is not uncommon to cook in a hole in the ground :-) Moving and living in Hawaii takes a bit of a change. Many of the things that are important elsewhere are just not as important here. People are often encouraged to dress the same for both weddings and funerals, that is, in casual aloha wear. Oh you might put on long pants for a funeral. In my case, I wore a slightly less loud shirt, but it was still a Hawaiian shirt at a funeral. Most of what people think is important and needed here, will end up sitting in a corner unused. I met a couple that is still wondering why they spent thousands of dollars to ship antique furniture here. It warped and is not in that great of shape anymore. Fancy dishes, silverware and antiques might do well on the mainland, but it might be construed as an insult to people who stretch their earnings to shop at Wal-Mart. So why do famous people buy land here? Why did Jimmy Stewart buy a farm south of Kona? Why would they build a house so far from Hollywood or where they spend their time? Pau Hana? Perhaps it is to get away from the big parties and fancy silverware. Perhaps it is to hide from the press and to be treated as a neighbor than a star. What does "Pau Hana" mean? Done with work. Now the fun can begin! Perhaps keeping up the fancy parties is work? I’ll let you decide! |
| Deja Vu |
| 07.04.05 (2:18 am) [edit] |
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I'm ready to write a blog and call it "What goes around", only to find that I called the LAST ONE "What goes around". Now I have to find some other title. I thought of a good one on my way home tonight, but now I can't remember it. Today, NASA placed a hole in a comet 83 million miles from Earth. They did it with precision. They did it with pride. Sometimes NASA was not able to sucessfully complete a mission, but this time (to use a Southern expression) they did good! I had a few choices of where I'd be to watch the impact and I opted for Waimea Hawaii (a short drive up Mamalahoa from my house). I attended the open house at the auditorium of the Keck Observatory. The actual observatory is up at the 14,000 foot level of the island, but I wanted to stay relatively comfortable so I went to the open house. There on 3 big screens we watched the JPL feed on on one screen, some telescope view on another screen and the Keck scientists on a third monitor. Although I kinda knew the answer, I had to ask for the group, "Are most of the observatories on the mountain trained on the event today?" Yes, all of them" was the reply. There are perhaps a dozen telescopes up on Mauna Kea, which Hawaiians consider a sacred place. From that sacred place, scientists are one step closer to discovering how the universe formed. Because there are so many telescops here in one place (above the clouds), the event today was times to occur just after sunset Hawaiian Time. That is why it happened when it did. Watching "Mission Control" on the big screen brought back memories of my attendance at both the first and third shuttle launches (STS-1, STS-3). Somewhere in the NASA archives, I am seen asking a question of the Mission Control Director. I have photos of Columbia and still have the press handouts of the complete launch transcript. In a small way, I may have helped with this mission. Years ago I used to work for a company called Microdyne. Microdyne made telemetry equipment which was used by the military, NASA and in later years, the satellite TV industry. Knowing that NASA is somewhat frugal, they may still have those receivers I aligned years ago. They certainly covered the frequency bands still used for tonights telemetry. On my way home I stopped along the upper road, well out of the way of headlights or house lights and I looked up. There were no clouds and the sky was crisp and clear. I had no idea which way to look and would not have been able to see the comet up there. But I knew where to find it. I would only have to look up at Mauna Kea and see where every telescope was pointed... |