Hawaii

Ten bartenders compete with whiskey cocktails for master distiller Fred Noe's first Hawaii visit.

The federal government expects to issue a request for proposals in two weeks for a project to build a concrete parking apron and more infrastructure for F-22 Raptor fighter planes in Hawaii at a cost of up to $10 million. The work will be done at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and is in addition to other work being done on parking and other facilities for the jets, said Lt. Col. Charles Anthony, a spokesman for the Hawaii National Guard. This includes work on a facility for maintenance and testing…

This summer, my plan is to walk 2,400 miles from the Texas Gulf Coast to Seattle, exploring transit development at the local level and producing a 50-minute video at journey’s end. I'm calling the project Walk the West. In May 2011, I was in the midst of a 4,000-mile walk from Turkey to Scotland. On the evening I crossed the border from Serbia into Croatia, I met an elderly Serbian villager who was walking home along the roadside and had lived most of her life in Chicago. There was no longer a local bus service after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the only nearby bridge across the Danube was in Croatia. By the time I had passed the border checkpoint and reached the nearest town, night had fallen and I was desperately searching for a guesthouse. Suddenly a car swerved to a stop across the street, and the driver jumped out waving his wallet. It was the border police. He called in backup, and when his colleagues confirmed that my newly-stamped passport was genuine, he apologized for detaining me. Seeing my backpack in the dark, he’d thought I was an illegal immigrant from Afghanistan or Tunisia. The next morning, I got to talking with a local woman whose family had lived in the area for six hundred years. I told her I was from Hawaii, and she looked at me with pity in her eyes. “In America,” she told me, “you play cards—freedom, democracy—but you are not free. You are always moving.” Walking across a continent, you learn surprising things about the ways people get around and think about home. The world is supposedly getting smaller, but the changes brought on by accelerating transportation and communication are often disorienting. They affect our sense of place, from our sense of the world to our sense of the neighborhoods where we live; and because transit technology is constantly evolving, it can be hard for individuals and communities to keep up. The very ease and ubiquity of transit between distant places makes it easier to overlook the people and places in between, as well as the enormous amount of work it actually takes to keep modern transportation and communication systems running. This summer, I want to explore these issues in the American West, where long-distance transit is the stuff of legend and an essential part of daily life. For more than 100 days, I'll be walking more than two thousand miles to film a video combining my own traveling experiences with tales from Western transit history and conversations with Westerners who help to move people, goods, and ideas across the region—from airport staff to radio technicians, and from car mechanics to horse packers. Along the way, I’ll face fundamental challenges of terrain and weather that continue to influence transit across the West. I’ll use a handcart to carry water, and contend with scorching mid-day temperatures. Every day will end with a race to find a place to sleep. I want to measure the work it takes to keep the West moving against the raw, basic experience of traveling on foot, and it’s going to be tough. If the project sounds interesting, I’ve put up a preliminary site with more information here. If you’d like to help set my journey in motion, please consider checking out the project on Kickstarter. I look forward to being in touch with you down the road. This project will be featured in GOOD's Saturday series Push For Good—our guide to crowdfunding creative progress.

Photo courtesy of Lightsleepers (Picture from left to right: Welwing, Sentric and Mr. Carmack from BEATROOT 2012) With summer around the corner (meaning more free time!), producers, DJ’s, and music projects are emerging from the underground scene, going harder than ever. On June 8th at Nextdoor, the homies at Lightsleepers bring you BEATROOT Grand Championships 2013 showcasing six producers that have been competing in the preliminary rounds throughout the year for the big title. I had the pleasure of attending last year’s BEATROOT and witnessing the winner JerzEric capture the title. It also introduced the audience to upcoming producers like Jim Hurdle, Mr. Carmack, and Welwing to name a few and reintroduced past BEATROOT Grand Champion Sentric. This year’s BEATROOT we have returning veterans Mr. Carmack and Jim Hurdle as well as new talent Nate. L, Magic Atlas, Wish, and TSRK. All competitors are given sample packs of beats provided by Kavet and must compete with original tracks to move onto the next round. The talent within this event is amazing and a definite must-see for everyone (especially you emcees out there looking for new beats!) Visit here for the event page An upcoming music project that you should keep an eye out for is The Green Leaf Check started up by DJ Cozy of Workhouse and Astronauts By Night. Inspired by The Low End Theory and Boiler Room, this podcast will be showcasing not only different music genres from hip-hop to electronica, but also showcasing local producers and DJ’s in Hawaii. The name of the podcast was started up by the game, The Green Leaf Check. Urbandictionary.com describes it, “used by adolescents in mid/late 90s. A term shouted by any one person while walking with a group of friends while holding a green leaf, anyone who does not have a green leaf in their possession would get punched/hit until they found/picked up a green leaf.” The first episode of The Green Leaf Check by DJ Cozy features local producers Murder Mainstream, CTLGD (Graves) and Mr. Carmack. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Did I mention it’s a free download?

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Whether you need a break from the sun, the relatives or the traffic this Memorial Day weekend, your trusty TV has the escape you crave, with a number of marathons and specials and premieres to fill your time off. We've rounded up some of the highlights from the next three days if you feel like riding the couch, including everything from "Arrested Development" to "Veronica Mars." (Note: All times ET/PT. Listed marathon start and end times include first airings of each episode, not episodes that are repeated over the course of the marathon -- we figured you don't want to watch the same thing twice!)SATURDAY, MAY 25The Elvis Collection (5 a.m. to 5:05 a.m. Sunday, Encore) Revisit 14 of The King's cinematic hits from "Blue Hawaii" through to "This is Elvis," with classics like "Jailhouse Rock" and "Viva Las Vegas" thrown in for good measure."Arrested Development" (6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Sunday, IFC) Prepare for the triumphant Netflix return of the Bluths with a marathon of the show's first three seasons. Sadly, Season 1 doesn't start airing until 12 a.m. on Sunday morning, so if you're a first timer, you may be a little confused if you start at 6 a.m. on Saturday with "Justice is Blind," the 18th episode of Season 1 -- but for longtime fans who just want to hang with America's most dysfunctional family, it should be a fun trip down memory lane."Bridezillas" (10 a.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday, WeTV) If you're a fan of trainwreck TV, settle in for the best of these brides having complete meltdowns before the big day, including three "where are they now" specials. "Law & Order: SVU" (10 a.m. to 12 a.m. Sunday, USA) Spend the day with Stabler and Benson, featuring a selection of Season 12 episodes, starting with "Locum" and ending with "Flight." "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" (11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Bravo) The marathon kicks off with a director's cut of Season 1 finale "The Last Supper" before taking you back over the final few episodes of Season 4, for all the booze, backstabbing and bitchiness your stomach can handle."Longmire" (2 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday, A&E) Catch up with all 10 episodes of the first season before Season 2 premieres on Monday at 10 p.m. ET."Sex and the City" (3 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday, Style) Starting with "One," where Carrie first meets Aleksandr Petrovsky, and culminating in the first "Sex and the City" movie, relive the story that brings our heroine back together (then apart, then back together again) with true love Mr. Big. "Defiance" (4 p.m. to 11 p.m., Syfy) Now that the show has been renewed for Season 2, catch up with the series so far, starting with the ambitious pilot. "Da Vinci's Demons" (9 p.m. to 12:05 a.m. Sunday, Starz Edge) The first three episodes of David Goyer's lavish series detailing the untold story of Leonardo da Vinci. The next three episodes air at the same time on Sunday evening. SUNDAY, MAY 26"Face Off" (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., G4) Watch the entirety of Season 3 as makeup artists compete to create amazing effects, including creatures based on NBC's "Grimm," zombie versions of characters from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and designs inspired by the video game "Dishonored." "Hot in Cleveland" (10 a.m. to 5 p.m., TV Land) Settle in for a marathon of Betty White goodness, and if you still can't get enough of our national treasure, "HiC" is followed by a "Golden Girls" marathon from 5 p.m. until 11:30."NCIS" (10 a.m. to 11 p.m., USA) This all-day marathon kicks off with the Season 7 premiere, "Truth or Consequences," ending with Season 9's "Housekeeping.""Doctor Who" (12 p.m. to 11 p.m., BBC America) A marathon of the cult British hit's recent Christmas specials, starting with "The Runaway Bride" and culminating with "The Snowmen" before plunging Whovians into a series of retrospectives on Doctors one through five. "Mad Men" (1:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., AMC) Catch up with Season 6 so far before a new episode airs at 10 p.m., so you too can ponder the surreal nature of "The Crash.""CSI: Miami" (4 p.m. to 11 p

This spot on the counter in our laundry room downstairs has become the spot where I have Silverman’s various medical supplies laid out for use. There are the diabetes supplies. Glucose test strips in the small vial over on the right. The box of the sharp things used to draw little drops of blood for testing, usually by sticking the cats near the edge of the ear. And the syringes in the bag for his insulin shots. The bigger green vial has needles to use when administering his (for now) daily dose of subcutaneous fluid. The big bottle is a generic copy of Miralax stool softener, which I have to mix with Silverman’s food at every meal. Speaking of food, there’s the w/d food, okay for diabetic cats and also with more fiber than the alternative he’s been on recently. Oh, and the Cisapride capsules. I had never given a cat a capsule before. Pills are bad enough, even little tiny ones. But I’ve now managed to get a capsule down him three meals in a row, followed by a splash of water to wash it down (using the larger syringe on the counter). I know none of this is comfortable for him. And I also know it is pretty miserable for me. The other cats are also clambering for attention, so meal time is a crazy, nearly two hour ordeal, twice a day, with food, needle sticking, glucose testing, capsule giving, and so on and on. Anyway, there are also some photos for this Feline Friday, so please proceed…. –> See all of today’s Friday Felines!

Boo, I learned first hand that Walmart (at least in Hawaii) does not price match their own prices advertised online. I discovered that LEGO had discounted select sets on Amazon and at Target, and I confirmed the lower prices on the respective company sites. I also checked Walmart.com for the reduced prices, and the recent discounts were reflected. I also checked in-store stock, and the sets I was interested in were available (the A-Wing and the AT RT walker) so I figured I’d stop by and pick these up, saving on shipping and time. When I got to a nearby Walmart location, I didn’t see the price reductions so I asked. Both the cashier and customer service representative confirmed that they do not price match their own online prices. Even though I was in store with the products in hand and money ready to spend, they would not give me the sale price. So I left empty handed. The Walmart.com shipping is supposedly 97-cents for the items I requested but didn’t verify shipping costs to Hawaii. But still, that’s lame and a waste of time. I was right there ready to give the store money, and they refused. I recall Target had price matched previous purchases. Unfortunately, the location is out of stock of the A-Wing, so Amazon got my business. I just came across this useful article talking about companies that price match and those that don’t (and yes, Walmart is in the latter category). I didn’t think of trying the in-store pickup option, but it seems like this isn’t active in Hawaii. Similar Posts: Best Buy Price Matches Their Own Prices? Targeting Amazon Prices Circuit City Hawaii Spared

Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site, as seen from the ocean. Photo courtesy the National Park Service. by David Corrigan PU’UKOHOLA HEIAU, Hawaii – A normally parched area along the dry Kohala Coast got a relative deluge of rain last night. Rangers with the Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site report that 4.58 inches of rain fell Thursday night. They say that’s more than all of 2012 and most of 2011 combined. “Apparently a little after midnight there was a heavy rain event that hit the Kawaihae area,” said Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site park ranger Greg Cunningham. “We also had about an 1.5 inches one day last week and lighter rain as well, so this year looks pretty good for rain so far.” It is possible that this is the most one-day rainfall the park has seen in many years, although park officials say they will have to look at the data to know in how long. It was probably the most in 20 years or so, they think. This area of Hawaii Island has been under severe drought for months, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Its not unusual for this leeward portion of the Big Island to see little rain. 4.58 inches, however, is extraordinary. UPDATE – So far this year the park has received 8.16 inches of rain, and over the past year – May 23, 2012 to today – the park has received 9.93 inches of rain, according to Cunningham. That compares to last year’s 2.90 inches of rain, or 4.08 inches in 2011, or 6.19 in 2010. Cunningham notes that in the past, there have been some years that have been even “wetter” than this year. For example, in 2004 and 2005, the park got 13.41 inches and 13.91 inches, respectively. Back in 1996, 19.07 inches fell on the park. The only year with complete data since 1990 to have less rain than 2012 (2.90 inches) was 1998 (2.27 inches) Cunningham tells us the park is part of the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program. The park records weather data every day for the National Weather Service. Local Tweets Wow! Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site had 4.58 inches of rain last night…more rain than all of 2012 & most of 2011 combined! — Pacific Islands NPS (@PacificNPS) May 24, 2013

As of Friday, May 24, 2013, the listed individuals are wanted by the Hawaii Police Department because of outstanding warrants. Persons who know a warrant is out for their arrest are advised to report to the nearest police station to avoid having an officer go to their home or workplace to arrest them. - visit Hawaii 24/7 to read the full story -