Our trip to Atlanta started with a funny scene shortly after takeoff as United Flight 2 was climbing out of Honolulu. One of the flight attendants started on her spiel, “out of the left side of the aircraft you get a good view”…

We were on the left side so I looked out the window. We had passed Waikiki, turned somewhere around Diamond Head, and at that moment we were passing Hanauma Bay and the coast along Sandy Beach. Makapuu and the windward side were hidden in clouds.

But the flight attendant was somewhere else, apparently on the spaced out end of a five day working trip from Chicago to Hawaii, Japan, and back.

“…you get a good view of the North Shore of Oahu and Waimea Bay, famous for its large winter surf.”

I was laughing, trying to shout “Hanauma Bay, not Waimea Bay, you can’t see Waimea Bay from here,” but of course no one was paying attention. I finally realized there wasn’t anybody else on the plane who noticed the error, and perhaps no one would care anyway.

I wonder how much other incorrect information given to visitors also goes unchallenged?

Did you notice that San Francisco’s mayor took a political hit for his recent Hawaii vacation? His departure was interpreted by some as abandoning ship after the big oil spill in the bay.

How about that amazing Amazon? Today they’ve introduced a new class of gizmo, a portable wireless text delivery system that allows online purchasing and reading of books, newspapers, etc. The device, which they are calling Kindle, operates using Sprint’s wireless network but without the reader incurring any charges. The Sprint fees for downloading and shopping are built into the cost of electronic books or other items that you download and read. Amazon also maintains a personal library of items that you’ve purchased, so you can have everything you’ve purchased available without always filling up the Kindle’s memory.

Some of this doesn’t make much sense. Amazon is offering to charge you to view otherwise free blogs via their Kindle reader. That really doesn’t make sense, even if you assume the charge is for the wireless delivery. After all, Sprint only charge $15 for unlimited data use on handheld devices, so does Amazon believe a whole lot of people are going to want to pay for their daily blog fix? I wish it were true, since this blog could certainly use a cash infusion from regular readers, but…

It will certainly be interesting to see whether this concept flies with consumers.

But after that interesting news, Amazon returned to its former insulting treatment of Hawaii consumers.

This email showed up in my inbox over the weekend, offering a discount on Amazon grocery purchases. Unfortunately, all it really promises is more disappointment if you’re living here in Hawaii.

Despite the nice colorful offer, Amazon still refuses to sell any of its groceries, even non-perishable items, to anyone in Hawaii.

I tested it again by trying to order 12 boxes of pasta. Not too much, no oversized, no heavier than orders of books or other items Amazon manages to ship to us without problems. But my attempt to order pasta quickly hit an “error” message notifying me that they will not ship this item to our location. No excuses, no rationale. Just “No”.

I’ve got to believe there’s some hidden restraint of trade issue behind this “no ship to Hawaii” policy. Some day we’ll all figure it out.

We’ve learned a bit more about the seal that stop off for a rest in Kaaawa a couple of weeks ago.

She has been identified as an adult female from Kauai, known as RK28! She was seen in Hauula on Saturday, November 10.

I haven’t heard whether she is a new visitor to Oahu or has been hanging around here before. Hopefully we’ll see more of her.