Responsible Browsing

Obviously I don't write in this web-log for the money. If I did I'd be better off sating my writing jones transcribing Bibles in an itchy rode and a bad haircut.
As a web professional in a vein different from that of the professional "blogger" (ugh for the name, oh how I wish I could be one; to loiter in coffee shops or my house all day, reading articles and composing thoughtful commentary for your consumption), I am acquainted with some of the vagaries of Internet-based advertising, but I found this article on Slate fairly enlightening, since the vagaries with which I am acquainted are of the "upload a banner ad and set it to run on a specific part of the website" variety, not so much the "how the stats are reported" kind.
Remember, knowledge is power, and knowing is half the battle.

Post Necromancy, Failing Memory?

I'm looking over my Google Analytics for the web-log, and I see a post that got 4 hits (what's up Zagreb!); but, it is a filename I don't remember and it's from July 2008 no less. Not long after I started my word-sharing over here vs. on Myspace. The post was this:

homo-sinister-temporarily-suspend-plans

The problem is I don't remember writing this. I'm really good about citing sources - between High School, Undergrad, and Grad School I've written too many papers to blatantly lift something without giving credit where it's due. I mean, I'm not Eric Bauman (a/k/a "eBaum"). Did I get that right? Bauman? Whatever.

So am I losing my mind, or do I need to edit in a source?

Tweeting the Words Right Out of My Web-Log

I bought the iPhone, and right around the same time I found out that my username was available on Twitter. I then installed the Twitfon app, and the rest is a series of 140 character or less statements, a good chunk of which may have become full-blown web-log posts.
Depending on how you feel about these web-log posts, that is either a good thing or a bad thing.
Either way I've been neglecting my web-log. I apologize.
I do not make any promises to write more, because that's most likely lying. I'll just drop a list of random thoughts I might write / have written about, twitter style:

-My garden is still growing. Hot peppers, volunteer tomatoes / cantaloupe are the crop of the moment. I'm hoping to get a good fall planting in within the next couple of weeks. I'll grow radishes if it kills me. Swedish ivy is an amazingly hardy plant.

-School, the Final Semester is starting up again THIS WEEK! Oh man, and thanks to a weekend of working on work, I feel like I'm already behind on school stuff.

-Stanza is awesome; I've adapted to using my iPhone as an eBook reader handily.

-Seriously, I'm telling you, the iPhone 3GS is an amazing piece of technology. Snapshot taking, quick videos, surfing the inter-webs, checking email, twitter, playing games, making notes, etc. etc. It's the digital Swiss Army Knife I always knew I needed but could never find.
Did I mention it plays music?
I do still miss album shuffle, though!
Maybe I'll do a search on that.
I promise I'm not a shill for Apple. I just really dig the thing.

Okay, now I'm just rambling.

Ka'awa Loa Plantation Bed & Breakfast: A Review

We planned to stay an extra few days in Hawai'i after the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival ended. After all, I didn't want to arrive on a Thursday evening just to come back the following Tuesday. Not when I was traveling a quarter-turn away from the old home sod. We needed a place to stay, and since the Mrs. was the expert on the island, she found us a Bed & Breakfast at which to stay. I honestly didn't think that our accommodations in those final days would be noteworthy, but here I am.

All Photos From Hawaii in Brief unless otherwise noted

The Ka'awa Loa Plantation is nestled - yes, nestled - on the side of the steep hill overlooking Captain Cook. It's so nestled, in fact, that you can't see the monument from the place. It's so nestled that the driveway is only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. If it were any steeper they'd have to forgo the driveway for a monastery's basket and rope system. Greg and Michael assured us that cars almost never crossed paths, however (in fact out of the half a dozen or so uses of the driveway we only came upon another vehicle once; our first time, of course).
Greg and Michael are the proprietors and hosts of the plantation, where 29 different kinds of fruits are grown, including ridiculously delicious pineapple, bananas, and dragon fruit. They also grow their own coffee. Damn.

Per the name, they offer breakfast each morning, our two breakfasts consisting of banana pancakes, fruit, breads, and juice one morning, with quiche in place of the pancakes the next. There is also free Wifi access offered by them, which is a godsend for those of us with a need to be connected, as there is almost no AT&T reception on site (a problem not encountered elsewhere on the island, likely affecting all cell signals due to the dense vegetation surrounding the place). For those looking to be out of cell-touch, it's another piece in the paradisaical puzzle.
The house itself is impeccable. Huge, airy, every room seemingly glowing with Aloha. The nick-knacks that are sprinkled throughout accomplish with elan what I in the past have completely failed at with action figures and Happy Meal toys. The bed in our room was a welcoming embrace the two nights we were there, softly cradling us to sleep in tropical comfort. The half-bath in our room did the job, and though there is a shared shower for guests indoors, they recommended we use the outdoor Lava-rock shower. So we did.

(shower photos provided by the Mrs.)

For you literalists out there, the name refers to the building materials, not the nature of the cleansing. The rock walls were home to a number of bromeliad species, clinging and blossoming happily as they drank in the shower's water supply - hot water was solar-heated from morning til evening, and electric-heated the remainder of the time. How cool is that? It was refreshing to shower outdoors and not have to stand on pallets, an ingenious solution used at longer SCA Events like Pennsic (how I miss thee, o War). The beauty of the grounds did not end with the showers, mind you.
There's a hot tub and a Hawai'ian sauna a short walk from the showers, between which there is a small stand of banana trees with a rubber tree or two mixed in, in tropical style (I can only hope my rubber tree lasts so long!). Near the hot tub there is a statue of a buxom mermaid in all her glory.

Mangoes, avocados, and COFFEE trees all grow right near the house, with flowering bushes and a green lawn completing the look as they are bisected by a wall running parallel to the house itself. There is a swing tied to the mango tree in the yard, the tree dropping fruit on the ground as I was snapping pictures or sharing a quiet moment on the veranda (lanai?) with the Mrs.
The veranda/lanai (let's roll with lanai - it is the name of one of the islands, after all) wraps around one side and the entire back of the house, multiple doors leading out to it. There are a few small tables for dining or enjoying a cup of their on site coffee, some rocking chairs, and a large daybed perfect for whiling away hours with a good book, or contemplating the Pacific, readily visible from your vantage. The panorama from the lanai is nothing short of breath-taking. One can only wonder what Captain Cook himself thought of the view from down there as he came into Kealakekua Bay for the first time. You know, before he got himself killed.
Down on the shore there's reportedly good snorkeling, the aforementioned monument, a good beach (show me a beach in Hawai'i that isn't good), and the town of Kailua Kona is a short (20 minute?) drive away for your other needs. We honestly didn't explore the shore area much because we'd already made other plans.

We're going back there, and I recommend you go there, as well. We didn't realize how much there would be to do there, or else I think we would have planned more of our stay around the immediate vicinity rather than driving back to Kona. We're going back because we fell in love with the place (almost as much as the island itself), and because we want to explore the local area, though we plan to do so in a rental car (convertible) so that I'm not mistaken for Lono.

Ka'awa Loa Plantation
82-5990 Napoopoo
Captain Cook, HI 96704
808-323-2686
info@kaawaloaplantation.com
http://www.kaawaloaplantation.com
Hosts: Michael Martinage & Gregory Nunn

Delta: It Be Showin'

This originally took form in my head on the flight from Kona to Los Angeles as an open letter telling Delta where to stick it. I must still address the awfulness of that leg of the journey, but now it will stand in some contrast to the remainder of our trip home from paradise (I will live in Hawai'i one day, God willing).
Honestly, we were running a little behind getting to the airport, and when we arrived on line at the Delta check in counter we were faced with an admittedly short line, but one of the check in terminals was broken, with tape covering it in places to prevent anyone from trying to use it. Not a stellar impression. We made the flight, which was our first mistake.
Sure, flying in coach (sorry "economy") is never what one would describe as fun, but it's normally tolerable. Except this time the AC on the plane was wonky, uncomfortably so. And the dude in front of me had a seat back that never made its way to the fully upright position. At least I had an aisle seat. Finally insult, the attendant was borderline rude and dismissive as multiple people complained about the stuffiness and warmth of the cabin. It sucks to fly coach. We got to LAX a little ahead of schedule, but it felt like forever before we got onto the ground and out of that sauna-flight.
Upon arrival at our connecting flight's gate (leg 2 of 3 for the flight home), a short jaunt to the end of the terminal, we soon determined the flight was overbooked, and if anyone of us travelers were flexible in our plans, might we make some alternate arrangements? The Mrs. and I stepped up, to see what was in the offing; we needed to end up in Dulles at some point. The agent offered us a Dulles arrival time of 1140pm EDT. It was around 8am PDT. There was no way I was getting home that late (originally we should have been back in Htown around dinner time); we walked away, and time passed.
We discussed it a little further, and as we were talking it over, events coalesced in our favor: they were very over sold on the flight, and to make matters worse needed to board the plane on the double-quick as an international flight from Sydney was on its way in, and the shared jet way was going to be locked down for quarantine purposes. The gate crew were worried. When we realized that the Mrs.' name wasn't appearing on the voucher list for obtaining a boarding pass while I had my pass, it was time to act. There was no way we were splitting up for the trip home. We returned to the counter.
"We're flexible, what can you do for us?" we asked another gate agent.
She offered us travel vouchers, first class on the LA to Atlanta flight, and some meal vouchers. We'd get free food, we'd get home around 930-10pm, we'd travel in luxury for a good long leg, and we would get some heavily discounted future air travel. We took it.
The flight from LA to Atlanta was the opposite of the first leg. It was comfortable, damned comfortable. The attendant referred to me as Mr. Murray, and I could have had free booze (sorry guys, I stuck to my water), and we sat in the very front-center of the seats. Awesome.
Totally Awesome.
It was everything I'd hoped it would be. Hot towels, even.
We even got to stay on longer because they put us into a holding pattern outside Atlanta. sure, I'll hang out in First class a little longer.
Then we got to Atlanta, and God reached down to keep us humble. Our final flight home was repeatedly delayed (it did give us time to eat some delicious Sbarro at one of the food courts) first because of the weather, and apparently later because someone died on the plane that was coming in to take us to Dulles. Damn.
The final leg was mercifully short (it finally took off at 1040pm), and we landed in VA somewhere after midnight. Our bags were waiting for us outside the baggage office (great security, guys), and we parted ways with Delta Airlines.
All told, I want to say that the later actions of the airline make up for the foul attitude and crap conditions of our first leg, but really, our windfall was largely due to serendipity, timing, and my acquiescing to my wife's insistence. So Delta, if someone is out there reading blogs, we're grateful for the upgrades and vouchers, but maybe you might want to stop over-selling flights, and remind your flight attendants that those of us in coach are people, too. We don't need hot towels or free booze, but as in many things in life a smile and a kind word go a long way.
Thanks for getting us home safe.

Traveling Man, Hawaii Day 1

I'm sitting in LAX as I type this, at the top of a 4.5 hour layover. MY day actually started yesterday (7/22), because since I got home from work yesterday afternoon I've only aught a few catnaps, some watching TV, some while in the plane. I might just be exhausted enough to sleep from LA to HI. Of course, there's a Starbucks 30 feet from where I'm sitting, so bets are off. I do know that I'll sleep the sleep of the dead tonight. Whenever tonight is.
Back home it's 1130 in the morning - it's only 830 here (just in case you couldn't do the math). It took us just about 5 hours to get from Virginia to California.
Speaking of the flight, as I stared down at and took photos of the stark beauty that is the Western half of our nation I had a thought: it's called 'flyover country' by those of us on either coast (East Coast represent) as a derogatory term, but I would state that one of the few ways to truly enjoy the magnitude of the austere majesty of our nation is from the air.
Here's another thought - why not make the seats on the planes out of the same material as the seats in the boarding lounge? These things are comfy! Well, let's see if I'm still saying that in four hours.

Other random thoughts:

§Industry and Government should partner to use commercial aircraft as atmospheric data gathering platforms, if they aren't already doing so. Think about the real-time data that could be gathered as planes criss-cross the country.

§I'm hoping for a few celebrity sitings over the next four hours, but do celebs fly Delta? After all, Delta loves them some flyin, and it be showin'...

§My Teutonic Tourist count is presently at 9. There were 5 young ladies speaking German (I almost understood them ... almost) that shared the flight from Dulles, and there is a German speaking family here in the lounge. What's the deal with German tourists this year?

§I'm not giving it a full review, but "17Again" was the in flight movie, and it didn't suck. Sure, Matthew Perry's acting range makes Jeff Goldblum look positively Shakespearian, but it was a fairly clever retelling of "It's a Wonderful Life". Thomas Lennon was pretty good, and even though it's a goofy movie, it wasn't Twilight bad.

- - - The Next Day (T + 1) - - -

Sat next to a Ms. Swan analog on the flight from LA to HI, and watched the following movies:

§ Dragonball: Evolution; I invested a lot of hours in Dragonball Z years ago, and I was afraid of what this movie was going to be, but maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was the desire for escapism, but I enjoyed it. Shut off your brain fun, but that's what it was always about. I actually think they did a pretty good job of translating it from animation to live action, of course if they'd been exacting, the fight scenes would have made it a 4 hour movie. I've already typed too much, but I'd pay to see a sequel in theatres. Again, not Twilight bad.

§ Monsters vs. Aliens; Another fun movie. Dreamworks did a good job with this. I enjoyed the jokes, especially those that were intended to go over the heads of kids, which made it even funnier. We need more multi-layered cleverness.

§ Taken; only the first 2/3 I think, but enough time to watch Liam Neeson kick ass on 2 continents. I really want to see the end of this now, because I'm hoping he gets to stick it to the kid's mom and her 2nd husband, because they act like toolbags.

- - -

I've had dinner, half a concert (where the singing was good but I was exhausted), about 12 hours of sleep, and some freakin' awesome breakfast, and I've even managed to get the Internet connection working where I'm staying. Seriously, though, Waimea Coffee Company. They are completely awesome. We got there just in time to get a pretty large piece of Organic Blueberry Coffee Cake with icing to go with my 2 shot Americano.

There's a stream with just enough of a waterfall right outside our window to generate soothing white noise, and the view is amazing. Honestly, though, some of it reminds me of home; the hills, the standardized signage. Down by the shore is definitely a Martian environment, with lava fields just in the first stages of growing grasses and lichens that are breaking down the rocks and generating the biomass so future plants can take root. I'd love to see some of these in 1000 years, it'll probably be jungle.

As you can tell my thoughts aren't incredibly organized at the moment, but I wanted to share in some more detail than Twitter might allow. Check out my Twitter feed (look to your right) for some iPhone photos I've taken so far. I promise to aim for some more coherency as the trip progresses.

Aloha!

Garden Ramble: WTF Edition - UPDATE 7-24-09

I've mentioned the volunteer cucumbers and tomatoes that choked out what little spinach I grew and have been thriving in a corner of my garden (well, the "cucumber" has been slowly vining out into the rest of the garden) ? Well if not, there you go.
Anyway, I was looking at the garden this evening and I noticed that the babies on the vine looked a lot rounder and fuzzier than any cucumbers I've ever seen.
I, I think I might have some kind of melon or something. Now I'm trying to think of what sort of seeds have been tossed into the compost - watermelon, cantaloupe?
It is a mystery, one that I likely won't find the answer to until after Hawaii.
Nothing like surprise gardening!

7-24-09: Looking like watermelon, based on the WATERMELON I found growing on the vine, all distorted because it (the melon proper) was growing around the handle of the plastic compost can.

T-6: Thoughts

Getting ready for work this morning I was thinking about my impending trip, mostly the flight, whether I'd go contacts or glasses (contacts), and decided that I was probably going to be awake when the plane landed in Hawaii because I'm not going to miss that approach and landing (much like one of Aerosmith's worst songs, I don't want to miss a thing. Hey, wasn't Liv Tyler in Pearl Harbor? This feels like a bad road to follow...anyway...) when I realized that my awesome new 18-70mm 3.5-4.5 lens, with its 67mm diameter glass, doesn't have a polarizing filter. Crap, that means most of my attempts to shoot the shores of paradise from the air would end up with the ghosts of my fellow passengers' reflections in the shot. That might be fine for Pa Kettle's vacation snaps, but I'm practicing my art here, and you never know when luck, preparation, and timing (timing is similar to luck, but something that you can learn, unlike luck, which is probably tied up with quantum theory) will coalesce into a shot for the portfolio. Preparation and timing are the largest parts of the equation ... I wonder what that equation would be, maybe:


Pr = Preparation
T = Timing
l = Luck
Ph = A Good Photo

(Pr³) * (T³) + l = Ph

I'm opening the floor on this one if anyone else feels nerdy enough to help fine tune the formula. Again, I digress.

To the point, I've ordered a circular polarizer for my lens, which means I should be able to cancel the reflective effects and maybe, just maybe, get an awesome shot of the Hawaiian shore. I ordered my filter by first checking out what Ken Rockwell has to say about them. Ken's never steered me wrong, and he's put a lot of work into his site's content. He has links to vendors that get him paid when you click them (you know how it works), so I went through him to Adorama, a vendor I've had good dealings with, and blammo, $30 later I have a Tiffen 67mm circular polarizer on order, should ship today (from NYC), and by the grace of God and a good tailwind should make it to my door tomorrow, or at worst Monday. Definitely by Tuesday, because if it doesn't arrive by Wednesday I'll be sleeping as the plane descends into Kona.
Can you tell I'm ready to go?

Always Watch Your Six

I was going to call this "Highway to the Body Shop: My Wednesday Morning Commute", but that headline is blatantly sensationalist and my car is fine, and I am fine.
That said, I was riding up South Mountain this morning rolling with the flow (probably following a little too close for regulations -- but no closer than anyone else, commuters know) when suddenly the line of cars snaking its way up the left lane lit up with red.

RED Anger, frustration, Holy Shit everyone is stopping short BRAKE check the rear view - the guy behind isn't going to slow in time release the brake oh crap the angry red line is a lot slower and much closer time to brake nope he's gonna rear end me don't need that time to ditch but let's try to stay on the road swerve left don't hit the guy in front rumblerumblerumblerum - hey it's moving again.
Traffic spread out nicely after that, we all kept a safe distance, and I noticed behind me that the new friend I narrowly avoided making this morning (work through the syntax ... there, you got it) had moved into the middle lane, safely away from the rear of the vehicle he only avoided by the skill of the driver in front of him. Me. This is my web-log so I think a little braggadocio on my part is only warranted because half the point of keeping one of these is to remind people of how clever you are, right? I felt particularly clever, but mostly lucky, after that averted crisis.
To all the kids reading out there pay attention to your Driver's Ed instructors. Mr. Leasure's words rang in my ears today, "always leave yourself an out". If I'd had myself wedged between a few semis and a jersey wall with nowhere to go, I'd still be on the phone with the insurance company.
Oh, and just some generally good advice from me: always watch your six.
Also also: eat your broccoli. It's good for you.

Garden Ramble: I spoke too soon?

The peace lily I had given up for dead has sprouted a new bud!
There's an allegory buried in all this somewhere, which I will leave as an exercise for you, the reader. If you want to see the photo, I posted it to Twitter last night (I'm so current), so hit my just-added Twitter feed in the right hand column.
No, this was not posted just to pimp the Twitter, I really am thrilled that patience, faith, and Grace have brought this plant back from the brink of death. It was just a really good opportunity to mention the Twitter, and because I don't feel like re-posting the photo.