I was at my desk yesterday afternoon when when I noticed the vague smell of cigarette smoke. At first I thought a smoker had walked in and left the aroma behind. But the smell continued. I decided the source was the air vent above my desk. With a little prompting, others said they smelled something as well, although couldn’t place it as cigarette smoke. And it turned out other offices on either side reported smelling it as well. My eyes were dry and stinging and I was feeling a little queasy by the end of the day, but a search for the secret smoker failed to turn up anything.

But when Meda picked me up in the late afternoon and we started the drive home, I looked around at the world wrapped in a layer of gray and realized the problem. It was VOG, the rather dense layer of volcanic haze that blanketed Oahu  yesterday. The capitol’s air conditioning system just doesn’t filter this out and may actually concentrate it, if that’s possible. Hopefully today will be better.

Now that Hawaiian Airlines is flying direct to Manila, one reader suggests that this flight will be known as the “Awana Express”.

Death by blogging? Check out this New York Times story published earlier this month regarding the health risks generated by the stress of blogging.

Denny and Lynda Lou McPhee suggest another online time waster: Worldmapper, or “The world as you’ve never seen it before.”

They also added this update on the Amazon.com’s shipping policy:

Still won’t ship food,but they’ll ship a 48lb reconditioned pressure washer for free,with 5-day delivery. Huh?

The Trust for Public Lands is soliciting public support for the purchase of the Turtle Bay Resort and the surrounding area.

Keep the Country Country with a Once-In-A-Lifetime Chance to Conserve the Last Wild Coastline on O’ahu’s Famous North Shore

In her January 2008 State of the State address, Hawai’i Governor Linda Lingle announced a bold initiative to acquire the property for the public, stating: “(W)e can’t speculate or sell ourselves into prosperity, but I do believe we have an opportunity to purchase a piece of our future. I am proposing that we buy the 850-acre Turtle Bay property on O’ahu’s North Shore.”

The Trust for Public Land is part of a community, government, private working group formed by Governor Lingle to explore creative ways of financing such a purchase, and to form public-private partnerships to protect the property. More information on the Governor’s initiative including updates on the progress of her advisory working group is available.

The goal of the working group is to negotiate a voluntary conservation sale and acquisition, plan for the enhancement and long-term financial stability of the existing resort, seek innovative ways to create high-quality jobs with low environmental impact, and create a sustainable future for the North Shore. The Trust for Public Land is also part of the Ko’olauloa North Shore Alliance, a network of community and non-profit organizations supporting the initiative to protect this country “forever.”

You can help. Your donations and ideas are welcome. Please donate now to provide essential financial support to the acquisition initiative — and feel free to contact the Governor’s Advisory Working Group to contribute your ideas.

Click here for more information on the Trust for Public Land’s efforts to save Turtle Bay or to contribute to that effort.

It’s been another grim week in the newspaper industry. The Toronto Star, which owns about 20% of the Star-Bulletin’s parent company, Black Press, announced it will be cutting 160 jobs, while the New York Times also announced upcoming layoffs.

It isn’t that there isn’t a lot of money, but the U.S. is intent on burning it up in Iraq. Check out this web site, which lets you go on a virtual $3 trillion shopping spree, just to visualize how much wealth is being wasted on our current wars and what could be done to better the world if these funds were used in other ways.

I’m still not at all sure that our experimental diet is slimming down any of the cats. It has changed their behavior. All the cats are now waiting for food when we get home, and most are here bright and early for a morning feeding when I get up. Oh, yes, they do have a tag team approach to encouraging me to awake. Most mornings Ms. Kili starts it by abandoning her spot in the middle of the bed and casually stretching out on my chest. That 12 or 13 pounds is something I notice. It wouldn’t be bad if she just went to sleep, but she sort of cat naps, then jumps off the bed, is gone for a few minutes, then jumps back up, walks across me, curls up in the middle again. After a few minutes, the process repeats. If I still haven’t given up hope of getting back to sleep, she let’s Leo take over. He yawns, stretches, then walks over, finds one of my hands, and starts to lick. This wouldn’t bother me much except that I know that the finger gnawing starts soon after the licking, and that’s a definite awakening agent. So now I have a choice. I can pull the covers up and try to hide, although that’s rarely successful because I can’t help worrying about what Leo is going to do if left unattended. Or I can get up, herd the cats out of the bedroom, and then close the door with them on the outside. If I choose the latter, I can get back into bed and await the sounds of sharp claws on wooden door. That’s not a soothing sound at 4 a.m. In any case, the cats notice that their meal schedule has changed. We’re all still adapting. And I’m hoping that obese will slowly become simply plump. We’ll see.