Recent events with Michael jackson have touched on his use or a "safe room" and hidden passages. The use of this type of conveyeance goes way back and stories of hidden rooms and secret passages is well known. While reading tonigth I was reminded of many links I have to secret passageways and hidden rooms.

Church officials and castle owners used scret passages to avoid persecution and death. During prohibition, they were used to hide liquor and allow guests to avoid the police during raids.

In Jenkins Kentucky, I used to work in a radio station in what used to be the old Consolidated Coal Company. In our studio was a large walkin bank safe which we used for record storage. I often would let people lock me in so I could show them how easy it was to break out. Hint: it is very easy because safes are meant to keep people out, not in.

Safe rooms are used by celebrities and the rich to protect themselves in case of breakins or criminal attempts at kidnapping or personal harm.

Many of us have played Clue where a couple of secret passages allow players to slip between rooms.

Here in Hawaii, lava tubes (similar to caves) would allow people to descend, travel up to a mile or more and ascend elsewhere. I have a few lava tubes on the property but they are short and lead nowhere. Just near the house are two tubes which are perhaps 10 or 20 feet square and underground. They might make a nice wine cellar or I could actually use them as a safe house if need be. One of them no one would find easily at all but I would ahve to slip through an opening about the size of a cinder block. I have decided I'd rahter be caught then to find out what is underground here!

In Kentucky I went in a couple of caves and almost spent my last hours in one, when the flashlights we had with us started giving us problems. I still can't believe we went underground with few preparations.

Then again, I have visited real caves in Virginia and Alabama, ones with guided tours and lights and so on.

I lived in Maryland and I used to be a Ham radio volunteer with Civil Defense. I manager communications in a bunker below the County Office Building, where a giant foot-thick door would close in a nuclear attack. The county 911 service was underground there and I remember toilets in the facility were flexible radiator hose and the actual toilets were in springs. The outside antennas would drop into the ground and re-emerge after the shockwave. The local maps of the Alexandria Drafting Company had mileage rigs spreading out from the Capitol, showing how many miles you were from the zero mileage marker downtown. We called them mileage markets to Ground Zero!

Near my house (and near the Montgomery County Airpark) was another underground bomb center with beds and more springy toilets. They also tested the air raid sirens from that location.

Just beyond the back yard fence of that house I lived in, was an abandoned government military base. It used to house Nike missles...

When I lived in Mount Airy Maryland, I could watch the President take off from the White House and minutes later the 3 helicopters would come right over my house on their way to Camp David, which did not appear on the maps.

Out in Virginia in the 70's a plane crashed and the report surfaced that Mount weather was an underground city used for politian relocation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Larger still was the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, large enough to hols all of Congress. You might enjoy reading this very long newspaper report which when published, meant the end of the facitily. The article leaves little to the imagination. http://www.washingtonpost.com...

Although not a secret passageway, I used to work in a 21 story building in Atlanta. We had a giant computer room in the basement with limited access and it was difficult if not impossible to find and get to, if you did not know where it was. More hidden was the slightly smaller computer room in the sub-basement :-)

Sometimes it is possible to hide in plain sight. On my farm, before clearing the trees off, I could walk a very short distance from the driveway and be hidden from view and feel lost because if turned at a slight angle, it coyuld take 4 or 5 times the distance to get back t othe driveway.

So there you have it, secret passageways, tunnels, hidden rooms and even underground cities.

Well, here it is, it happened Monday evening on my way home. Luckily I was able to pull over to take the photo. Note the indicator DOES say Park...

Readers here know that I am cheap. Some call it frugal, I call it cheap.

I prepare pickles, though not as most others would. I don't create the brine. Here is how I prepare them and you ca ntoo.

1) Buy a jar of Claussen dill pickels
2) Eat said pickles
3) Slice a cucumber slighltly thicker that sliced pickles
4) Place slices into the jar, screw on the top, shake and place the jar in the refrigerator
5) In 5 hours or longer, begin tasting the slices
6) When the pickles are done to your liking, eat them all

The pickles will be crisp because they are not cooked. They also will be a bit less salty and a bit less dill than the originals. Yes, you can use the brine for at least one more batch, although you may need to add a bit more dill and/or a bit of sea salt.

Try this and see if it isn't cheap and easy.

Speaking of pickles, have you ever tried "Bread and Butter" pickles? They are sweet and taste great. They also make a nice addition to things like chopped meat sandwiches. However, some think they taste a lot like relish :-)

I tried to make bread and butter pickles once, but never could get the crust just right... :-)

Then something made me do another search. This one brought up the dates of April 12th and April 14th, 1981. My friend Jeff and I were in Florida, watching STS-1 take off. The first shuttle launch was delayed and when I heard why, I made a suggestion, which turned out to be the solution. The 3 shuttle computers were all powered up at the same time, and all spoke at once and listed at once to see which computers are online. My suggestion was to randomly restart the computers. Sure enough, that is what they ended up doing.

I also attended the 3rd shuttle launch and cannot remember which one, but I am imortalized on the press transcripts as asking a question to Mission Control after the launch.

I still have many of the press kits including details of the soon to be infamous O rings.

At the launches, I took many photos and could see whet they looked like (before developing them) by looking in the newspaper the next day. Standing next to Time and Newsweek and the guys from the Florida local newspapers.

The photos I took are all 35mm and I have scanned a couple of the photos to digital, but they leave a bit to be desired. Perhaps I'll try again soon since I have a better scanner now.

The low-res photo is at: blog.itskona.com

On the last leg of my drive, I saw a young local guy trying to hitchike back the way I came from. Unusual for my road at night. About 300 feet from my farm road, there is a sharp turn. Just before that was a police officer directing me to turn around. A car was blocking the road having crashed. I wonderd if this was the driver who had crashed and was leaving the scene of the accident. These was no ambulance at that point and only 1 flare, so I guess there was no one injured and no one in custody.

I went back up to the main road and headed south (as that is the next quickest way home. There I almost immediately came upon another accident of what looked like 2 card (and lots of onlookers). I carefully made my way past it, down to Honaunau and around past Painted Church. As I cam back up my street to the farm road, I noticed nother young guy trying to hitchike UP the road towards the wreck. That was odd, because he only had about 300 feet before the sharp turn and another 100 feet until the other side of the car. Thus nobody would be going further up the road and would be turned back.

My guess is as follows:

The 2 kids were in the car (perhaps one was the driver).

They had been heading north on the main highway (perhaps intoxicated), caused the crash and then headed further north and made a left down the windy road towards my farm road.

They crashed the car (or it would no go any further) and got out; one going one way and the other guy heading down the road.

The guy down hill decided to hitch a ride back up to see what the damage was and get pst the police officer (perhaps figuring the car was not blocking the road or hd ben removed).

It will be interesting to see what the paper/police report says (if anything).

Anyway, it was an extra 6 or more mile detour for me last night. Luckily I was enjoying the glow of a filling meal at a very nice Chinese restaurant. The name...Wokcano (Like wok and volcano).

Thus, we are batten our hatches, so to speak, because by Tuesday 5am, I here in Kona will be in what was the eye of hurricane Felicia. Although, by the time it gets here, it will be a tropical depression (down from a category 4 hurricane).

Looking over the maps, it appears to be passing right over my house. Of course, I think the middle of the storm is less severe then off to the side, and I have these two big volcanos to shield me (13,000 feet above sea level) They are actually the tallest mountains (volcanos) in the world, if you count from the base to the top. The base is another 20,000 feet below sea level; however that extra 20,000 feet wont stop a hurricane :-)

The last hurricane that headed towards us got near Hilo and dissapated as the trade winds and our mountains ripped it apart.

I am off Tuesday, so I can stay home and try to keep dry.

As they say on tv, "film at 11".