Category Archives: Blogs

Our Prius adventure

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I won’t be doing a regular post this morning, as I’m dealing with our Prius adventure.

It started on Friday, when I was making an almost-final run from Kaaawa to remove some of the last things from our house there.

I stopped at the 7-11 for a drink and a managua before beginning the drive home, and when I got back in the car, it was dead. Or at least it seemed dead. No lights. No start. There were a few odd flashes of warnings, but nothing to explain what was going on.

But just minutes after calling for roadside assistance, the regular lights on the dashboard came back on, the car started, and I drove back to Honolulu.

But it repeated this routine on Saturday, and when it finally did start, we decided it was time to just drive to the dealer while the car was up and running, not having any idea what we were dealing with.

Well, a bit of online searching on route discovered that the Prius has a small battery to power its various computer parts when the engine isn’t running. I had never heard of this. And there are loads of complaints over the cost of replacing this little battery, which exceeds that of a standard car battery.

But cost isn’t the problem we face.

Our Toyota dealer has no appointments available to schedule the battery replacement, and apparently no system for prioritizing jobs that would handle emergencies like this. Well, it’s an emergency for a one-car family that can’t drive their car because it could refuse to start at any old awkward place.

For the time being, our car is waiting for service on a stand-by basis. If they have time, they’ll get to it. If not, we suck.

Meanwhile, we’re coping with bus passes and, as necessary, a rental car. Far from ideal.

Time to look for another dealer and service center, me thinks, although I think all are still owned by Servco.

Now daily from the east side

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That silly theme song from the old sitcom, The Jeffersons, keeps recycling in the back of my mind.

We’ve also moved to the east side, of the island, that is. Although we had been living in Kaaawa going on 30 years, this is the neighborhood I grew up in. It’s changed a lot, so perhaps I should say this is the successor to the neighborhood where I grew up.

The cats haven’t yet settled in, and neither have we. Last night, on a whim, we shared a glass of wine with good friends in Kaaawa via Skype. That was a nice experiment. With a few tweaks, it could become a regular event, long distance wine o’clock.

But we’re making strides in getting accustomed to the east side. And we’re seeing some advantages, even on our early morning walk.

This morning, for the second day in a row, we followed the beach past the Waialae Beach Park, past the Waialae Country Club, past the Kahala Beach Apartments, past the Kahala Hotel & Resort, and then along the beachfront until we reached Wailupe Circle, where it started to get rocky and our allotted time was running out.

It drizzled much of the way and we did get a little wet, but managed to avoid any downpours.

Here are two views.

I like the top photo, which shows some of the threatening clouds moving in from the south.

Dawn at Maunalua Bay

And in the bottom photo, we were approaching the shoreline at Wailupe Circle. Note the lone fisherman to the right.

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Today we filled a medium bag with trash picked up along the beach. We should have carried a second bag, because we were forced to leave a lot of trash behind.

And this weekend I’ll try out a couple of new header photos for this blog, reflecting our current location.

In news of our immediate neighborhood, former UH football coach, Dick Tomey, has put his home at 944 Kealaolu Avenue on the market. He’s asking $3,195,000. The listing realtor is former UH basketball great, Artie Wilson.

If you’re curious, there’s an open house scheduled tomorrow, Sunday, September 13, 2015, from 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM.

Comments on Zimmerman-Slom dispute veer off course

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I’ve had to take a more active role in moderating the comments on Monday’s post regarding Malia Zimmerman’s lawsuit against State Senator Sam Slom, her housemate for a decade.

I took a chance in posting details of the lawsuit’s allegations because it seems to me to raise issues related to journalism ethics, conflict of interest, and to some extent, political hypocrisy.

But after the initial round of responses, comments started veering into inappropriate, negative, and just mean personal references to the young woman reportedly caught up in this latest situation.

To be clear, I’ve exercised control and deleted these comments. I may have to close off further comments if this thread continues to require additional time and effort to moderate.

So please, for the sake of relatively open discussion, please stay civil.

Computer issues may delay posts for a few days

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I didn’t need to have a glitch with my main computer while much of our collective lives are still in boxes in the garage, including much of my troubleshooting software, backup drives, etc.

So resolving those issues will take a little longer than normal.

Luckily, I’ve got a backup computer mainly used when traveling, so I’ll be able to get the basics done.

But if I’m a bit slow in posting or moderating comments over the next few days, please be patient.

I can get to comments via my phone, so will try my best.

And did I mention internet access, or more correctly, its absence?t

We have decided to switch providers to Hawaiian Tel, after much review and discussion. I’ll have more to say about that later.

We were scheduled to have the whole Hawaiian Tel service package installed last Friday, but hit a snag. It seems our renovated house is now nicely wired for…Oceanic’s cable, and not ready for the Hawaiian Tel’s fiber.

To avoid drilling to run wires through the new walls, the Hawaiian Tel technician advised us on the alternative. This involves installing Hawaiian Tel’s equipment in an external, wall-mounted box sort of like the electrical meter, which then feeds into the already installed cable that runs through the house. The intermediate equipment translates from fiber to the coax cable, as near as I can figure it. So now we’re waiting for our electrician to get the box ready, and then reschedule our Hawaiian Tel installation.

In the meantime, I’ve burned through data using a mobile hotspot that normally gets minimal use when I need internet access and no wifi is available.

So that’s another factor in the delays of the next few days. I’ll try to post when I’ve got access to wifi, which will mean an irregular schedule.

Ah, moving!