Mountains and Islands

Ah Cinco de Mayo.  Viva la Mexico!  Thinking of that yesterday reminded me of the U2 song Vertigo, which was featured in the planetarium show I saw Friday night with my neighbor, Kathy.  I haven't heard that song in awhile.  There was Bono , shouting, " Uno , dos, tres , catorce !"   Hmmmm ... All I can say is, let that be a lesson to you kids out there.  Stay in school!  If you drop out, you two (U2?) could become a bajillionaire rock star who cannot count to four in Spanish.  One, two, three fourteen?  Hello, hello....  Really, could nobody tell the guy?  Is he that cool? Speaking of the planetarium show, I'm proud to say I didn't get dizzy or queasy 'til the third to last song.  Maybe it was Vertigo .  I don't remember.  I just know it took about an hour after I got home for the fuzziness in my head to clear.   Anyway, back to Cinco de Mayo.  It will be a memorable day for me.  I was laid off.  Got an official letter telling me how great I am and ...

Sometimes, after doing so many tastings and answering so many good, bad and stupid questions from tourists, I blurt.  Stuff just comes out, like a burst of hot steam from Old Faithful.  Yesterday, a man was looking at our cigars.  We sell Kauai Cigars.  It was a wet, gloomy day, as has been the case most of the last three months, with emphasis on the wet.  So he asked, "How do you keep them humid?" I couldn't help myself.  I replied, "You're kidding, right? It's like 80-100 percent humidity here all the time." It sounded glib and maybe even a little condescending. I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it.  His wife laughed.  He did not. Instead, he looked at me like I'd just stepped on his toe.  He cleared his throat. "How do you keep them the proper 70 percent humidity?" he rephrased.  Now he was the one condescending.  I mumbled something about selling them so fast we don't have to worry about that, they're fresh and probab...

This afternoon, a group of agriculture students from UH Hilo came in to tour the winery, after which those who were over 21 lined up to taste the wine.  These were fun kids, interested, funny, charming.  The tall one at the end asked me if I'd seen the movie Sideways .  "Sure," I said. "And I've eaten at The Hitching Post several times." "No way!" he said, laughing. "Really?" "And," I added, "sometimes I even drink Merlot." "Ah hahahahahahahahhahahaha ...."  He thought that was hilarious.  It's nice to know I'm still hip enough to relate to the early 20s set.  This group was the most attentive I'd had in weeks.  They asked lots of questions, and laughed at all my jokes.  College students are a blast. Our 2007 Pinot Noir is brewing.  OK, it's aging, out of the oak already and into the bottle. My humble opinion is that it should go back into the barrel for several months more.  Today, I ...

There's big controversy over Hawaii this week, and the focus of these verbal fisticuffs is, of all places, New York City. Saturday Night Live aired a hilarious skit last weekend that hit a little too close to home for our oh-so politically correct lieutenant governor, Duke Aiona . He found it insulting to the Hawaiian people and culture and plans to spend his time writing a letter to Lauren Michaels telling him so. Guess there's not really much for a lieutenant governor to do around here. Sounds like my kind of job. Most people here thought it was funny. As Bruddah Brad pointed out on KHBC Radio yesterday morning, it was no different than much of the sarcastic, self-deprecating humor of local comedians making fun of locals and tourists alike. Sure, it was over-the-top, but there were several grains of truth there, about the struggles and frustrations of working in the tourist industry in a place where the cost of living is through the roof. Duke's planning to run...

OLYMPICS!   Yay !  I love the Olympics.  The opening ceremonies were spectacular and I have high hopes for a peaceful, competitive and entertaining games.   Closer to home, Crawford got a hair cut the other day.  We trimmed her cute ears and snipped away her shaggy butt fur so as to avoid too many cling- ons .  This photo's a little blurry, but isn't she the cutest?   The winery was slow and quiet until the last hour of the day today, when the whole world came in.  Many tasted, some purchased, but few tipped.  What's going on, people?  I teach visitors cool local phrases like okole maluna (bottoms up) and pau hana (happy hour 0r work is finished).  I make jokes about there being no macadamia nuts in the Macadamia Nut Honey Wine because the nuts make the wine too crunchy.  I share the knowledge that our Guava Wine makes the perfect accompaniment to Spam.  People laugh.  They think it's great.  I'm entertaining. I'm funny.  I'm informative.  I tell them t...

I went to the doctor on Monday. Not because I'm really sick or anything. I just finally found one to take me, so went in for an initial checkup and to schedule a physical down the road. Ironically, I did come down with my second cold in as many months last Friday and am still fighting the clog. But I had made the appointment several weeks ago, so I went anyway, even though I was taking a risk that my new doctor would think I had actually come in for a cold. Who goes to the doctor with a cold? What do I look like, a total weenie? Anyway, so what did I learn? (Channel you inner Michael Jackson now....) I learned I'm fat, I'm fat, I'm really really fat, you know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it..... Ah but my blood pressure is a screemin ' amazin ' 110 over 70. Alrighty then. I'll take that any day. I'm going for a blood test, maybe tomorrow morning, to check my thyroid and a few other things. Seems that's something women of a certain ...

The common cold has transformed itself into acute bronchitis. I don't need a doctor's diagnosis to know this. It happens every time I get a cold. It has been happening to me for as long as I can remember. It's how I know I'm a genius. I missed several weeks of school every year when I was young with bouts of bronchitis and occasionally pneumonia and still got pretty good grades. See? Genius. Just sailed on through. I was less sickly in high school and didn't miss so much class then. I rarely miss work as an adult. So taking two days off this week was a big deal for me. I plan to hack my way back to the wine factory today. I'm sure the tourists will love that. Speaking of the winery, even in my isolation here in the rain forest hovel, I've learned that yet another of my comrades has given notice. I do like the job, but it's frustrating when all these people I so enjoy working with leave. Months ago, one colleague left to return to school full t...

It's high drama at the winery these days. Business is down, so hours are being cut and pennies pinched. It's partly because of the recession and the fact that we've lost two air carriers to Hawaii in the past week. It's also because of Halema'uma'u . That's the crater in Volcanoes National Park that's been billowing volcanic gases. While Pu'u O'o vent sends lava to the ocean, Halema'uma'u is belching big time, rumbling like a freight train and generally acting like a volcano about to blow. It's unlikely to explode ala Mt. Saint Helens . It has, however, been spewing ash that resembles glass shavings into the air with such force as to travel through the air to Pahala , 20 miles away. People are leaving more offerings to Pele than she's seen in decades. I may head up there tomorrow and leave a head of cabbage and a Corona. Hey, those are two of my favorites.... (By the way, I stole this photo from images provided on the...

The other day, a man walked into the winery. I had never met him, yet I felt I somehow knew him. He wore a white stetson and a shirt with snaps instead of buttons. The man looked to be in his sixties, with a slightly weathered face, a warm smile and sparkly blue eyes. When he approached the bar with his party, I made some sort of joke to which he responded, "Yer kind of a smart alec , aren't ya?" "Yep," I smiled. He winked and grinned back at me. We'd never met before and yet, I knew him. He was a rancher from Montana, but he might just as well have been from Wyoming or Utah or Nevada or Colorado. This man was an honest to goodness cowboy. Not the George Bush variety, mind you, but the real deal. Here was an honorable, chivalrous, hardworking cattleman. The Code of the West is real. These guys live it. It was nice to hang with the fellow and his family for while. It was a little like being home. I also enjoyed a couple that came in yesterday. ...

I love the smell of sulfur dioxide in the morning. Shoots, cuz . Da kine vog get plenny pilau . Stinky! Actually, it doesn't smell so bad as it tastes. Once you get it in your mouth, it seems to last all day even after the vog lifts. The gift that keeps on giving! The vog was so bad today that the Park Service closed the crater rim drive inside the park due to volumes of sulfur four times the amount deemed "safe" to breath. Today, I became a brochure photographer. By mid afternoon, the vog lifted and the sunshine was beautiful. So I shot some photos of wine bottles provocatively posed (OK they were really just propped up) on a giant piece of drift wood on the winery grounds. They were complimented by flowers at their bases. The images came out pretty good (or is that pretty well?) if I don't say so myself. I still wouldn't go so far as to characterize myself as a real photographer . I'm just someone who sometimes gets lucky with a shot. And...

Yes, I know I've been a slacker. That's what happens to people in the tropics. The rainforest sucks the ambition right out of you. It's looking sunny outside this morning. The tradewinds have died, however, so we may be in for some heavy vog this weekend. Apparently, Pele is in need of some industrial strength breath mints these days. Maybe those folks at Altoids could dump a 747 load of some seriously strong cinnamons onto the latest eruption point to squelch her sulfur dioxide-induced halitosis. No wonder her advances were always rebuffed and she was forced to turn men into stone or trees or whatevahs. That girl has some worrisome anger management issues, not to mention her brutally bad breath. (Now watch. She'll get pissy and take out my house. Some goddesses just can't take a joke.) Business at the winery has picked up a bit. Thank goodness for those crazy Canooks! They're spending loonies and toonies like their going outa style. (Loonies and too...

Today was a great day to be a bird watcher in Volcano. On my way to work, I spotted this i'o , or Hawaiian hawk, sitting on a wire less than a block from the winery. I got out of my truck and walked right under him. He looked at me, then refocused his attention on the grass at the road's edge. I hoped he was looking for a mongoose, although he seems a little small to tackle such feisty prey. The i'o looks a little smaller than a kestrel, a smidge larger than a magpie. It's a very small hawk, but impressive and beautiful none-the-less. The i'o is designated as an endangered species. So is the nene , or Hawaiian goose. I got an even better shot of this happy couple today. Nene mate for life. The pair has been hanging out around the vineyard lately . Today, they spent the afternoon right out front. I was able to walk right up to them. I think they even posed for me. Say cheeeeeese. Aren't they cool? Yesterday was Minnesota day. Today was Canada day. In fact, eve...

The weather's been less than optimal lately, unless you happen to be a duck or a toad or a fungus. Last Thursday night, I attended my first Hawaii Island Tea Society meeting. The Tea Society is a non-profit organization recently formed to promote the cultivation and processing of tea as a crop on the Big Island. Tea grows well here and artisan tea masters are now beginning to understand how best to process theirs for high quality green, oolong or black teas. At this meeting, a grower in the Volcano area demonstrated his method for processing and drying oolong . We all tasted his finished product and, I must say, this was not my grandma's Lipton. This tea, completely unadorned, was flowery fragrant, smooth and mellow. It tasted naturally sweet. The difference between green, oolong and black teas are not the plants but the length of time the tea is oxidized and fermented before drying. For oolong , only the top three leaves of a new shoot are picked. For green, only the top two...