When my Mom went back, the lei-maker created a little carring case out of ti leaves. It worked fine, however, now people have been trying to use gel-packs.

With the recent airline scare, passengers cannot use gel-packs in carryons and are having to pack the whole thing in their carryon.

And so it goes...

I was tasked with finding 12 farms to donate 2 pounds of coffee. One pound each was given out each half hour in a drawing. The other pound from each farm will be shipped throughout the year to one winner of our Grand Prize. Merchants displayed contest boxes and we drew a lucky winner from those boxes. Thus, the Grand Prize winner gets 12 pounds of 100% Kona Coffee! Kinda like the coffee of the month club. This is an idea we may incorporate in the KCFA website at (KonaCoffeeFarmers.Org). By the way, we are about ready to open up the shopping cart for all of those logo items we created and to sell a few items from the event which people wanted to buy online and have shipped to their home, rather than carry it on the plane. Items will include t-shirts, caps, aprons and other apparel. We also have specially created coffee-based barbeque sauce and honey.

The local newspaper took photos and we expect the event to show up in perhaps Monday's paper. I'll post a link if and when.

We offered a coffee contest where the public tasted and voted on their favorite coffee. There were some surprises in the results.

We had an opportunity to tell the public about various aspects of coffee production and more people now know the difference between a blend and the real thing.

I planted another couple hundred coffee beans (parchment) to the keiki nursery. This time I made sure they were not too deep. Also, they are growing under a new shade screen, which affords 70% shade. I am still waiting on October before I can have the bulldozers come in and it appears that I may have to find a different guy to clear the land. I have not heard back from the guy I want.

Each time I visit another farm, I am reenergized to get mine in better shape.

I need to replace some of the brakes on my truck, so if all of a sudden these blog entries stop... maybe the truck didn't...

I have updating the software on a number of shopping carts I manage for friends. There was a security bulletin and I had to go back and update a few again.

I need to recreate my Quickbooks for the year. That will not be fun! I also have to go back and clean up some data entry.

As mentioned days ago, I'm signed up to man the election polling place near me for both the Primary and General Elections. I've done the training and almost figured out all of the "TLA's" (Three Letter Acronyms).

Little of the above were exciting if you were not involved, but most are fun to do.

We are offering free coffee tasting and a contest to determine the best Kona Coffee. We are also holding a few drawings, twelve half-hourly drawings are for a pound of 100% Kona Coffee and then we have a grand prize for a pound of 100% Kona each month for 1 year!

To add to the event, we will be pan-roasting coffee to show people how they might be able to roast some at home.

We will even be offering our KCFA logo wear (t-shirts, coffee mugs, coffee based bar-b-que sauce and even coffee jewlery.

If you are in Kona next Saturday, look for the Lanihau Center Shopping Center and stop on by.

For those collectors, the above website will soon be selling those items and more online. Watch next week for that!

Sometimes in life you find that the tables have turned and you are on the other side of a situation. Perhaps you have been waited on in restaurants all your life, then find that you become a waitress. Perhaps you always watch the news, then find you are ON the news.

Over my life I have never missd an opportunity to cast my vite in a General Elections. I don't know that I have vote din all the Primaries, but I can tell you I cast every general Election vote I was allowed.

Things I remember are checking my name on the registered voters list, having them check my drivers license, then receiving, voting and submitting my ballot.

Now I am on the other side of the table.

I amd mambers of my non-profit group, the Kona Coffee Farmers Association (http://KonaCoffeeFarmers .Org) will be helping out in both the Primary and in the General Election as Election Officials. I am not yet sure which position I will be filling, but each of the jobs is critical to a smooth and honest election. Let me not belittle that idea with the information that we also get paid... but we have asked that the stipend be donated to our non-profit group.

Tonight we spent 3 hours going over each position manned during the voting process and tested ourselves in each function.

It will be a long day for us because we report to work at 5:30am! However, we will be part of a process that most people have only seen from the other side of the desk.

It gives you cause for thought too as other countries begin using a Democratic process of voting where they used to elect who they were told to vote for. By volunteering here to help, we are not afraid, yet in some countries, people doing this same task might have invisable targets painted on their backs.

Freedom to vote. Enjoy it. Excercise it. Protect it!