Entries from May 2008 ↓

Best Life is a men’s magazine that knows something about Honolulu that many of us suspect, but didn’t know it was official.

Of the Top 100 Best Places to Raise a Family, Honolulu comes in at #1. 

#1? That’s not a typo. It’s not #111 out of the Top 100. Best LIfe looked for good schools, above-average test scores, respectable budgets. Honolulu came in #1 anyway.

They also looked at cities with plenty of museums, parks, pediatricians, and a short commute. OK, so Honolulu has lots of parks. 

Here’s what I figure: the representatives from Best Life magazine came to Honolulu on a fact finding tour, stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village instead of the Pagoda, had their credit cards lifted while cruising Waikiki, couldn’t pay their hotel and room service bills, and were forced by hotel executives to write something good about Honolulu or go to jail.

Hey, a #1 is still #1.

Somehow they obviously didn’t bother to check out the young kids cruising the streets in pickups and mopeds, sporting 17 tattoos and 15 kinds of perforating decorative metal ornaments, still smart enough to know he or she will never afford a $600,000 home unless someone related dies. Soon.

Look around. Hawaii is beautiful, thanks to mother nature. What’s not beautiful about Hawaii isn’t all the fault of her temporary inhabitants. Mother nature can unleash the nasty, too.

Over the past year we’ve had more ‘vog’ days than ever, even here on Oahu. Vog is here again. It’s highly reminiscent of fog, more closely resembles smoke from a forrest fire, but in a more noxious way.

Remember the trade winds? Through all of Hawaii’s recorded history the trade winds have made life bearable on these rocks. Without the trade winds we’re just another hot rock in the middle of nowhere. The vog and kona winds are a reminder of that.

Today, the flags in front of the Hawaii State Capitol Building were limp. A subtle reminder of what seems to reflect what takes place inside.

The city may waste billions on a rail transportation system that few people will use. The state may waste billions on employees who don’t do much. But in one day mother nature can clean out the vog and restore Hawaii’s beauty.

She’d better hurry.

We have a few earthquakes in Hawaii; many more on the Big Island, of course. Our quakes are tame compared to some regions. We shake, we rattle, we roll a little, but whatever damage there is in the islands appears to be minor (unless your home was the one knocked off the foundation by the rolling) when we consider the aftereffects of quakes in China, Iran, and elsewhere.

Generally speaking, Hawaii’s building codes provide for sturdier structures able to withstand larger quakes. Not so for China, which still hasn’t learned what the Japanese learned about earthquakes.

Europeans build structures to last for centuries. Or, they once did. Asians built structures to last until the next big storm or earthquake. That building philosophy won’t do in the 21st century. People expect safety in buildings.

If you’ve never been in an earthquake, consider yourself fortunate. It’s a mind numbing experience, made all the more so depending on where you live, as in, how high up in the air your condominium or hotel room is.

I don’t fear so much the quakes in Hawaii as I do those in California, Japan, South America, even Alaska. A couple of big quakes in those areas, especially along their coasts, could result in a tsunami wave of seismic proportions.

It’ll make for awesome surf.