Category Archives: Business

Rolf at MacMouse Club gives new life to another old Mac

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I have to give a plug to Rolf Nordahl, the Head Cheese at MacMouse Club, who offers Mac-related services, upgrades, and repairs. I turned to him a couple of weeks ago in a last-ditch effort to breath new life into an older Mac laptop (a 13″ MacBook Pro 2013 vintage that was experiencing serious “issues”). And Rolf was so successful that I want to give him a shout out. If you have an Mac that isn’t operating properly, or is just dated and running slower than it should be, check in with Rolf and you just might be surprised. I certainly was both surprised and pleased by the results.

Here’s the long version of my story. At some point over the last year, I noticed that my well-used laptop no longer closed cleanly. Instead, when closed, there was a small visible gap where the upper and lower case no longer fit exactly right. At first, I didn’t worry about it, but I did start thinking about replacing it.

While considering a new computer, I checked and found the nearby Apple Store would give me a trade-in of several hundred dollars for this computer. Great, I thought. Then I saw the small print explaining that the trade-in offer did not apply if the computer showed any warping or swelling. The failure to close properly looked like evidence of warping, even if relatively minor.

But then I had to admit that there was a certain amount of swelling, which I only noticed because the laptop had started to wobble a bit when sitting on a flat surface because its the bottom of the case was starting to warp. I had seen this before. Back a decade or so, the battery of an older Mac laptop that was no longer being used started swelling and eventually broke through the cover of the battery compartment. Luckily, it didn’t burst info flames as others had reportedly done.

So now I worried that my MacBook Pro wasn’t just getting old, it was getting dangerous.

So I bought a new computer. I would have recycled the old one if the Apple Store had been open. But in the meantime, I wondered whether a battery replacement could make the old computer useable again. So I called Rolf.

Many moons ago, MacMouse Club was located on South Street somewhere between the state courts and the old newspaper building on Kapiolani. As a Mac enthusiast, I used to stop in from time to time to check out whether anything new and exciting was in the store. If Rolf or his partner at the time, Mike “Big Mike” Palcic, were around, I could get both a Mac fix and a bit of political gossip as well.

So I gave Rolf call. Yes, he said the battery on this model is replaceable. And he could get the job done in just a few days, at a reasonable price, even though he had to special order the battery for overnight delivery. So I dropped off the computer and hoped for the best.

Long story short. Rolf called a day early to say that he had replaced the battery and then run it through a complete charging cycle, just to make sure all was well. And when I picked up the computer, I found that replacing the battery eliminated virtually all of the warping and swelling. A little bit of cleaning and it looked almost as good as new.

So instead of giving it back to Apple as part of their recycling program, my little laptop has gone to a friend who can make good use of it.

In any case, you can reach Rolf at (808) 921-8294. Tell him Ian sent you.

Another bit of culinary history

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My dad, John M. Lind, arrived in Honolulu on May 1, 1939. He was 25 years old, and was sent to work in the local office of San Francisco-based Dohrmann Hotel Supply Company. His assignment was to drum up business with the rapidly expanding network of military food service operations, most around the island of Oahu.

In his first few months, he made the rounds. Fort DeRussy and Fort Ruger in town, Tripler Hospital, Pearl Harbor, Hickam, Schofield, Wheeler. The latter put Wahiawa on his regular route.

He also immediately got involved with the Junior Chamber of Commerce, as he had done previously in Long Beach, California. Those JCC contacts apparently served him quite well, as he didn’t retire from the business of supplying goods to Hawaii’s hotels and restaurants soon after his 85th birthday.

Here’s one of his photos, with his handwritten caption. The photo was taken in Michel Martin’s first restaurant, located in Wahiawa. In later years, his Michel’s at the Colony Surf became synonymous with fine dining.

Those in the photo were Ralph Olson, who owned and operated the Top Hat Bar in Wahiawa. Ralph was very active in the Wahiawa community, and in 1944 ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a seat on the Honolulu Board of Supervisors (the predecessor of today’s City Council). Next is my dad, John Lind. Then someone he identifies only as “Perry,” and I haven’t managed to discover more. To his right are Martin, and on the far right is Charley Crabb of Wahiawa, who married a good friend of my mother’s in that same year.

Fast forward 64 years. In 2003, Michel Martin became one of the first few inducted into the Hawaii Culinary Hall of Fame, and honored at a gala banquet at Leeward Community College.

Here’s a photo of Martin with my dad at the event.

Martin died in 2008 at age 100. My dad was just short of his 97th birthday when he died in late 2010.

Tracking where your next meal might come from

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Longtime blogger and all-around techie, Ryan Ozawa, left the following info as a comment. I’ve decided to give it more exposure by reprinting it here.

There’s a whole movement trying to encourage people to patronize restaurants for their delivery or take out services (or even buy gift cards) to help them survive.

I started an open crowdsourced directory:
https://www.hawaiigrinds.com/home

And the data was used by the Hawaii Agricultural Foundation to launch a more professionally curated list:

https://www.foodagogo.org

Okay. So now it’s hopefully easier for you to find and patronize a local restaurant offering to go or delivered meals! Chow down!

Covid-19 hits newspapers

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There are a lot of businesses, large and small, that probably won’t survive this unprecedented disruption.

A Facebook post by veteran journalist Bob Jones reminds us that the news media isn’t immune from the financial fallout.

Oh, you won’t have my pithy MidWeek columns any more to either please you or piss you off. Was laid off today, along with all other paid contributors. I’m wondering when the ax falls at the Star-Advertiser, especially in the sports department with no sports to cover.

There’s going to be some bleeding before this is over and it won’t be staunched by a $1200 per person handout from the government or low-interest loans from the state.

With the shutdown of bars, restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, concerts, and travel, and the resulting spike in unemployment, advertisers are going to be dealing with their own economic woes, and our daily newspapers are going to be taking a big hit alongside MidWeek.

And this is a tidal wave of bad news for newspapers.

The remaining alternative weeklies across the country are the first to get hit with what observers are calling “total annihilation.”

This has, without a doubt, been the single worst week in the history of America’s alternative press. They’re facing a double blow: Not only have their main advertising sources dried up, so have their main points of distribution. (Where do you pick up an alt-weekly? At a bar, at a restaurant, at a theater — all the places that have gone dark.)

A well-capitalized company with confidence in its long-term future may have the luxury of seeing the coronavirus response as a temporary obstacle. Yeah, it’ll be painful — but eventually things will go back to some version of normal and the old revenue engines can restart. But alt-weeklies have been in some version of crisis mode for the better part of a decade, as smartphones, online events listings, and social media have each moved against their core offerings. It’s entirely unclear whether “normal” is two weeks away, two months away, or two years away. And when cities do recover, will those institutions alts rely on — those arts venues, those theaters, those restaurants — be in any kind of shape to help?
[See “Total annihilation”: Coronavirus may just be the end for many alt-weeklies, NeimanLab.org, March 19, 2020.]

See also:

“COVID-19’s impact on media businesses has deepened quickly — but there could be a glimmer of hope,” Poynter.org, March 18, 2020.

“Madison’s Isthmus a COVID-19 casualty,” The Capital Times, March 19, 2020.

Meanwhile, Jones has set up a blog, The Bob Jones Report.

Welcome to the Bob Jones Report (www.bobjonesreport.com), the site for sometimes-unorthodox but always-thoughtful comment on politics, social issues and the most controversial happenings of our time.

I’m no journalistic neophyte. I’ve worked as a reporter at 5 newspapers, as a reporter and anchor at a Honolulu television station, and a foreign correspondent with NBC News in Africa and Southeast Asia.

My approach is neither Democrat nor Republican, neither left nor right. I try to apply common sense and let the facts speak for what seems to be sensible solutions.