Once when I was about 17 or so, a neighborhood bully decided to beat the ^%$^ out of me. I was very scared as he was quite a bit bigger than I was. he also arrived at my house with his posse (some kids in the neighborhood who were egging him on).

After much thought and worry I finally decided to let him beat me up and I would get over it. The fight started and in seconds I had the guy pinned on the ground. No one could have been more surprised than I. As I let him up, he swung at me again and I again had him on the ground squirming. Upon letting him up again, I told him quite honestly that if he wanted to claim credit for the fight it was OK with me. I still wanted not to have fought and had no reason to claim victory as I was away at school most of the year and expecting to move soon.

I saw the guy a few weeks later and was invited to his house for some reason. I went and we never discussed the fight.

Another time I was at a dave and Busters restaurant in Atlanta and while standing there with a coworker, a guy came running through the crowd and headed the long way around to the front door. A voice behind us hollered "stop him"!

I don't know why, but I jumped over the rope (not very gracefully) and, taking the shortcut, mappeared at the front door just steps behind the guy. As I chased him through the parking lot, he turned to look at me and at that moment, I realized that I had no business being there and he *might* actually have a gun or could kill me. At that very instant, as the thoughts went through my mind, the security guard passed me and grabbed his arm. I then considered what an idiot I was.

I had no dog in either of those two fights, yet there I was.

Speaking of dogs, a friend had her small dog attacked by a large dog and we are waiting to see if the owner will pony up the vet bills.

In the above 3 stories, you can see that there is no certainty in the outcome. My first fight I would never have thought I would win. My running after someone just because someone asks? I never thought of myself as a crime fighter and still don't. Also, whether someone will do the right thing like pay for a dog he helped get injured.

However, there IS one thing that I can guarantee, without a doubt, no matter what. There is one item in my email yesterday that caused me not one second of "maybe". I decided on the spot, "Hell NO!".

Over the years I have come to have a love / hate relationship withg Microsoft. The software is quite bad, horribly designed and even worse is the way it is written. After all these decades, they still cannot create a secure operating system and many viruses and bots take advantage of things like uninitialized buffers and bounds checking that never takes place. As often as they have fixed problems, more arise and allow people to break into your system.

Just a simple thing like their firewall not being enabled until AFTER the network came up. This would be similar to a bank putting all their cash on a table in the lobby and opening the door in front of a bunch of crooks. While the crooks run in and start grabbing the money, the security guard then, and only then, begins to load his weapon to stop them...

Why the abover Microsoft story? Well, Kaiser Permanente just said that they will be working with Microsoft to allow me to view my medical records online!

I don't just say NO, I say HELL NO!

If anyone believes that Microsoft could possibly protect data, please think again.

This is the first time the convention was held in a place which grows coffee. Although the show was a great success, we did not have the crowds that would have shown up on the mainland.

Our Kona Coffee Farmers Association booth looked great and we offered tastes of many different Kona Coffee offerings for various farms. However, as of Sa turday night we had sold very little coffee. That may change by the end of the show today, as with conventions, many attendees wait until the last day to purchase things.

One thing we loved at the show was the gelato which is similar to ice cream. Our booth ws sampling a Kona Coffee Liquor, which by the way, tasted great with or without the gelato!

We DID sell a *TON* of calendars though and many of them were autographed! The calendars are called "The Naked Truth" and depict real female Kona Coffee Farmers in the buff. We have received much press about the calendar and our supply is almost exhausted and we will have to print more. Even Borders locally sold out the first day! Yes, the calendar is tastefully done enough for Borders to carry it.

http://starbulletin.com/2008/...

If you want to see the calendar, go to http://KonaCoffeeFarmers.Org and there is a write up currently on the homepage.

I have to work today at the condos so I'll leave it up to others in the organization to man the booth.

The weeds and brush are getting very high again on the farm. If I had the house and ohana in better shape I might take in a woofer (someone who works on organic farms in return for a place to stay). Although I'm not organic, generally it is possible to find people to help in exchange for food or a place to stay. Imagine people who want to travel the world but don't have or want to spend a lot of money. They might come to a place such as Hawaii, pull weeds or help build a fence, and in return get a place to live for a couple weeks. The farmer might negotiate a room, food, use of a bicycle, us eof a motorcycle, etc in return for a number of agreed upon hours of work. There are organizations which match workers and farmers.

I hate to pay $1200 or more to have the farm mowed by someone else and cannot afford $30,000 for a tractor and mower. I also cannot keep trying to use Roundup to kill weeds and I can't carry the backpack for any length of time due to a shoulder problem. Perhaps I just need some goats :-) Anyway, because I'm not organic, it somewhat limits the woofers I could get, because many work on the farms specifically because the are organic. The name Woofer comes from the idea of Working On Organic Farm (WOOF). As I say. not all workers are that critical on the organic part, but it would help me if I was organic.

Also, my friend Sandra was able to sell all of her puppies and I'll be changing her website yet again to remove the current group of photos. If you are really quick, go to http://AlohaLabradors.Com and click on Puppies. Perhaps I'll move that page over to a "Previous Litters" page. I don't know yet what she would like to do.

Aloha for now.

They are willing to "bare all" to tell the world about 100% Kona Coffee.

The Kona Coffee Calendar is tastefully done, but gets the idea across. The Kona Coffee Farmers Association is getting quite a bit of press over our calendar and sales are high. We expect to sell out soon. The calendar will debut this weekend at Coffeefest here in Hawaii.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser...

You may also enjoy our latest newsletter where we describe creating the calendar. It is located at: http://www.konacoffeefarmers....