I’ve been using this lens since it arrived at the end of February. About 1,200 photos later, I’ve gotten to like it.
It pairs well with the Panasonic S9, which is a relatively small full frame digital camera. The lens has proved capable of good, sharp photos, even in morning twilight, or inside our house with available light.
I haven’t seen it reviewed much, and so wanted to share my initial experience.
I love finding new data sources, and this one was new to me: The Federal Audit Clearinghouse.
“The Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC) is the place to…review federal grant audits.”
It’s maintained by the General Services Administration, a federal government agency.
FAC provides the ability to search using multiple levels of detailed search terms. You can begin with a simple search, such as audits of projects or organizations in Hawaii in any or all years from 2016 through 2025. More complex searches to drill down through different layers of programs and locations are possible.
A simple search for audits of Hawaii agencies and programs in 2024 produced a list of 44 audits, including 17 released in the first two months of 2025.
The site makes it simple to view or download any, or all, of the audits.
I don’t know whether or how I’ll use this site, but knowing it’s there would add a very useful tool when researching lots of issues.
Browse around and feel free to share any interesting finds!
The rapid, deep, and sweeping cuts to the federal workforce being carried out by the Trump Administration are hard to keep up with, and it’s even harder to understand their impacts on all of our lives and our environment.
Word of funding and job cuts are slow to be made public.
Here are two things I’ve heard in the past 12 hours.
1) A longstanding program in the State Judiciary to educate middle-and-high school students about the history, meaning, and importance of the U.S. Constitution and their constitutional rights has been unfunded. The curriculum used dates back to the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and thousands of Hawaii students have benefited over the years. Although Donald Trump took an oath to uphold the constitution, his administration is pulling the plug on this and other programs that educate students and the general public about that same constitution.
2) At least a dozen biologists working to protect Hawaii’s endangered species and habitats were fired this week from their jobs with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The number is likely higher, as the Fish and Wildlife Service works to protect endangered species throughout the Pacific area. So although Hawaii is considered the endangered species capitol of the world due to its high number of endangered and threatened species relative to the small land area, the Trump Administration and Elon Musk have now eliminated the programs and staff working in related programs. These aren’t federal bureaucrats sitting behind desks somewhere. These are biologists working in the field.
These programs were cut and jobs eliminated without prior review, opportunity for comment, or consideration of the impacts they will have.
These are just two out of what must be hundreds of programs being unfunded in Hawaii and people losing their jobs across the state.
We need to be telling their stories.
Please, when you hear of other cuts, please leave a comment here.
You can also contact me via encrypted Proton mail, ilind600@proton.me.
We bought part of a vintage rattan living room set years ago when we lived in Kaaawa. They were offered in an auction along with other items said to be from the estate of Spence Weaver, who with his brother, Cliff, operated several Hawaii restaurants under the Spendcliff brand beginning in 1939 until they sold their business in 1986. I don’t recall what our winning bid was at the time.
Several years ago, we discovered one of the chairs had broken at the joint where the back joins the base. We found a furniture repair business that thought they could repair it, but their attempt quickly failed.
Here are some photos of the damaged chair, with closeups of the damaged section.
The question: Can it be repaired?
I’m going to wander off here to say that there’s some family nostalgia attached to this and the other rattan pieces we purchased that day.
The Weaver brothers arrived in Honolulu in 1939, the same year my dad, then 25, moved from California to take a job with the Honolulu branch of Dohrmann Hotel Supply Company. He had been working for Dohrmann in Los Angeles for a couple of years when the position opened up in Honolulu. So he began selling restaurant supplies at around the same time that the Weavers were launching their first food venture in Hawaii, the Swanky Franky food cart, and being a small town, they soon met and became friends.
I believe these photos of my mom and dad with Spence and Cliff Weaver, with their Swanky Franky cart, were taken in 1939 or perhaps 1940.
My mother, Helen Lind, with the Swanky Franky, the hot dog stand that began the Spencecliff restaurant empire.
That’s my dad on the right, with Cliff and Spence Weaver, Spencecliff founders.
My dad was a good salesman, and I know he got more than his share of the Spencecliff business over the years, including after he left Dorhmann and opened his own small restaurant supply company in 1959, the year of Hawaii statehood. Growing up, I remember we often went out to dinner at one or another Spencecliff restaurant, all familiar names to anyone who lived through those years, including the Ranch House in Aina Haina, not far from my parents’ Kahala home.