The potatoes were about 5 minutes from mashing and the artichoke just shy of tender when the power went out around 6:45 last night. Luckily, we were planning on leftover ham, which could be eaten cold. So we sat down to dinner in the dark, relying on a small Costco electric camp light, and waited for the news. As of 4:45 a.m., Hawaiian Electric is saying that power may not be restored to parts of the island until this afternoon.
Congratulations to the Advertiser for getting its print edition online in a series of pdf files. So the blackout may have held the presses, but the newspaper is available for reading.
Due to the power outages on Oahu, The Honolulu Advertiser was unable to print the daily newspaper. We’ve provided electronic copies of the main sections of the paper for you to download and read. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required.
There are some gaps in the layout, but the news is all there. I’m presuming this was part of a plan for such an emergency. Good job.
The blackdown did bring one unexpected adventure. The sounds of cats growling somewhere in the house popped me out of bed just before 4:45. I headed down the hall with flashlight in hand and confronted a somewhat wild scene of cats running in circles, over and under furniture. Then I noticed that the lead cat was not one of ours. It’s a black cat, apparently a stray, that I’ve seen in the yard once and Meda saw coming up the stairs to our back deck another day. Between then and now, he (or she) learned about the cat door and, in the total darkness, decided to invite himself (or herself) in to breakfast.
In order to open the sliding door and create a larger escape route, I had to temporarily stand in the way of the cat door, which caused quite a commotion as Leo pursued Black Cat around the room. It was only a few seconds but seemed much longer before I unlocked the door and slid it open. Toby shot out the door first, followed quickly by Black Cat, who shot straight off the deck into the yard without bothering with the stairs.
No, I don’t have a photo. I should have gotten one of Leo sitting on the kitchen counter with wisps of black fur clinging to his whiskers. Apparently he was trying to be Mr. Macho instead of Mr. Neurotic. But, in fact, there really wasn’t much in the way of fighting, so perhaps Black Cat knows the proper group etiquette.
Silverman was the last stray to teach himself the cat door and move in uninvited. I don’t know how this episode is going to end.
For now, though, we’re in the dark and expect to be without hot coffee and the other pleasures of the senses for another 8 hours, perhaps longer.
Welcome to Third World Hawaii, where the telephone system is bankrupt and the power unreliable.
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The Advertiser makes PDF pages such as they posted today, as part of the production process. In the old days we had a pot of glue, galleys and scissors. Later, at the print shop, would be a chase, lines of type, and metal rules tapped in between. Oh, and type lice. To print breaking news you had to break the plate.
Now, one guy sits on the 2nd floor of the Kapolei plant (or so it was when I visited) and puts the paper together– print, photos, everything–on a large screen one could drool over. Essentially, the big German press outside the window is like a color printer, printing those pdfs and drinking in soy ink piped to it from large tanks elsewhere in the plant.
Maybe today is an experiment. If things continue on a steady downward spiral, perhaps this is how our “newspaper” will be delivered in the future.
The trouble for me is that my own screen, while large, isn’t comfortable to read a newspaper from. And I am NOT about to install a screen in the bathroom…
Who knows, though. Between the guy making the pdfs on the 2nd floor to the paper dropped somewhere in your driveway is a great deal of the expense, physical labor, consumption of resources, and ultimately, it goes into the landfill or has to be recycled. If the paper goes from that guy direct to us, the environment (and Gannett bottom line) may benefit immensely.
HA! I so love reading all the apologists for the Advertiser. Their plant in Kapolei was the last to lose power in the pm and the first to regain power in the am. They must have had serious press issues as well as power-related issues. Congratulations should go to the Star-Bulletin who actually got their print-edition onto newsprint and delivered.
Congratulations to the Advertiser for not publishing their product, while the Star-Bulletin managed to get something out working by candlelight? Interesting inversion of values.