Mountains and Islands

Yay ! Radio found his person. As it turned out, the number on his collar was not a license number at all. Instead, it was a phone number. Are we boneheads or what. I called left a message, then headed to the shelter. While I was checking Radio in and being promised that they would do everything they could to find his owner or find him a home, his owner came to get him. He seemed like a pretty nice guy and said he'd been looking for him for days. Radio looked like he'd been out longer than that, but he was a big beat up. The guy does use him for hunting, but said he did not tangle with a pig. It was a pack of wild dogs! They roam the forest in the area. They also injured another of his dogs. Sheesh ! What a place. Anywho , he seemed OK and Radio (I think the guy said his real name was Tapi ) seemed glad to see him and comfortable getting right into his truck. Good luck, Radio. The truth is, I could never work at the Humane Society. I simply do not have the emotional fortitude ...

Meet Radio. He's an emaciated hunting dog we found wandering out of the woods yesterday on our walk with the poochies . We call him radio because he had a humongous collar on that had some sort of radio tracking device on it. The poor little guy looks like he's been on his own for awhile. He's pretty starved with quite a few cuts and abrasions and what seem to be very stiff and sore legs. It's not uncommon here for hunting dogs to get lost and disoriented, only to wander out of the forest weeks later. He's very sweet and trusting, so we've decided he probably wasn't abused. He's just been lost for a long time. So we'll contact the humane society tomorrow and take him in to see if he has a microchip. We've also been told that owners can be tracked by the number on the radio collar. He looks like he could have ringworm and who knows what else, so we've been advised not to allow him in to have too much contact with our brood. So we made up a com...

This morning I made my way to town to see the allergy doctor. I actually have never seen the doctor himself. Instead, I see a nurse practitioner who works for him. She's actually great. She checked me out and apparently, all is well. After that, I took my empty stomach to a place called Koji's Bento Korner . It's a downtown Hilo classic, serving traditional plate-lunch fare. Every day offers a different special. Today's was the beef short rib/chow funn for $4.95. It's a combo of beef short ribs, chow funn (Chinese flat noodles with veggies and sauce) all on top of a humongous mound of steamed rice and a side of mac salad. I never eat the mac salad here. With noodles and rice, another starch seems unnecessary. Not to mention the fact that, while I do enjoy mac or potato salad on rare occasion, I prefer a little more mac and a lot less mayo than is the norm for recipes here. Local style is to smother the poor, hopelessly overcooked macaroni in mayonnaise here, ...

Today, I had a great excuse to drive to Na'alehu. With my reporter hat on, pen and pad in hand, I went to interview the founders of the Naohulelua Garden. It's a collection of endangered endemic and indigenous plants, along with what are called canoe plants. The garden is less than two years old, but already displays a respectable sampling of now rare flora and fauna on this tiny plot of land. For those of you non-biology majors like me, indigenous plants are those native to a specific location. They may also be found elsewhere in the world. Endemic plants are those exclusive to one location. They are found nowhere else in the world. Here in Hawai'i, we not only have endemic plants found only in the islands, but some that are endemic to a particular island and some endemic to a particular patch of ground on a particular island. Anyway, these folks are doing their part to preserve endangered plant species. Canoe plants are those brought here by the first wave of Polynesian...

Here's a little ti plant landscaping project I did several weeks ago. So far, I'm ecstatic that none of the plants I stuck in the ground have died. I whacked these out of an overgrown jungle area on the property. That's what's both cool and frustrating about this place. You can just cut stuff, stick it in the ground and it will grow. That makes it difficult to really get rid of overgrowth if you really want to. If you leave it lying there after you cut it or pull it out, it will grow back. Another frustrating thing is that since I planted these three weeks ago, it's been raining nearly non-stop. I saw a hilarious bumper sticker today: "Fat people are hard to kidnap." Indeed. Today I had my first interview for a story I've been assigned by the Journal. Tomorrow is interview number two. This should be fun. One of the things I love most about being a journalist is meeting lots of interesting people who do interesting things. Today, I spoke with the woma...

Yay ! I got a job! OK so I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've resumed a new, lucrative career path and can now reap my fortune here in the Sandwich Isles. Still, it's a job none-the-less. In fact, I've got two jobs. One is a fun little gig at the Volcano Winery. I pour wine tastings and help people buy stuff in the retail store. It's easy and fun and pays what you would expect from something easy and fun. The co-workers are all very nice with an interesting array of backgrounds. The wine is unique. Some of the offerings are actually good. The Symphony Dry is excellent! I've also signed on as a freelancer for the Hawaii Island Journal , a local independent rag ala West Word or Willamette Week (without the Pulitzer - so far anyway). This one really does have great potential. I've been assigned a couple of stories already. I'm pretty excited to dive into that. Of course, the day I met with the editor was the same day I got the call from the winery and...

Am I the only one who thinks the college football bowl game scenario has become a bit of a laughing stock? Sure, we still have the classics - the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Gator Bowl - but over the years there have sprouted a number of corporate-sponsored games with silly, commercial names like the Tostitos Bowl, Fritos Bowl, Doritos Bowl, the Campbell's Soup Bowl.... OK most of those aren't really bowl games. But Tostitos Bowl is real and the others might as well be. After all, there really is a Chick-Fil-A Bowl, Alamo Bowl (and not, it's not named after that historic place in San Antonio where Davy Crockett and his brave band of Americans battled Santa Ana's army), the GMAC Bowl, the Meineke Car Care Bowl, the MCP Computers Bowl, the Papa John's Pizza Bowl, the Outback Steakhouse Bowl.... To steal from John Stossel, "Give me a break!" Yes, I ask you, what parent wouldn't be proud to see a son play in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl? This bowl game silliness goes r...

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone..... not! Psych! We've had it in every form over the past few days. At times, drizzle. Other times, it's a downpour. In between, it's just plain old, garden variety (or should I say garden drowning) rain. Of course, there's no such thing as garden variety rain in Hawaii. At least not as far as the Hawaiian language is concerned. The word for rain is ua, but that's just the simple translation. There are really many, many words and phrases used to describe rain here. They include not just the rain itself - like driving rain, chilly rain, slanting rain - but what time of day it's raining, where it's raining, in what district, in the mountains, the valley or the shore, in the city or the country. We've had some bad luck with some of our newly-made island acquaintances. To be truthful, they are the ones with the bad luck. One of our first contacts here, our real estate agent, told me to be sure to call her when we fin...