Entries Tagged 'Places' ↓

Not only is Hawaii the t-shirt capital of the world, with more t-shirts per capita than any other place I know of, it’s possible we have more slippers per person, too. Hawaii is also the top place in the country for walking, right?

After all, we have our own marathon, the world’s best walking weather, great scenery, and sponsored walks which also contribute to our abundance of t-shirts.

Guess what? Cambridge, Massachusetts is ranked as the best walking city in the country. Massachusetts? Have you been to Massachusetts in January or February? Walking is outlawed. It’s indoors or else.

Prevention Magazine and the American Podiatric Medical Association have been ranking the top walking cities in the country for a few years. This year the “Best Walking City in America” goes to Cambridge. Honolulu came in at #7. Shocking, no? But that’s an improvement. We didn’t even crack the Top 10 in 2006, or 2005.

Seattle, WA came in at #3 just two years ago, but got dropped to #22 this year. Was there a sidewalk reclamation project the past two years in Starbucksland? Los Angeles was #43 this year which doesn’t make any sense at all. Isn’t it illegal to walk in LA?

Get this. Minneapolis was #71 while Miami was #79. I’ve been to both places and neither one should be ranked in the Top 100. Minneapolis has four seasons for walkers. Snow. More snow. Still snowing. And road construction. Miami has one season. Hot.

Prevention Magazine’s criteria for selection includes such walk-friendly attributes as crime rate, weather, recreational sports, pets and cultural attractions. Kelly Hu living in the neighborhood would do it for me.

Funny thing, though. There was no mention of t-shirts or pedestrian fatalities in the criteria list. Honolulu is tops on both counts.

It’s late Sunday afternoon and traffic heading into Waikiki on Kalakaua and Beretania Streets is packed. Again. Is there a big shindig at the Hawaii Convention Center? No. Is there another movie on the beach in Waikiki? No.

It’s just another row of orange plastic cones closing off a single lane of traffic along Kalakaua between Young and King Streets, backing up Kalakaua bound traffic onto Beretania Street. Again.

Why? Another public self storage building is nearing completion. This time it’s the Aloha Island Self Storage facility fronting King Street and Kalakaua. Nearing completion is probably not the correct phrase since Aloha Island Self Storage seems to have been nearing completion since John Waihee was governor.

Another self storage place? Oahu residents find themselves in a conundrum. We live on an island, so we have limited space to store what we own, whether it be home or work related, or whether it’s just stuff we like to collect. Hence, more places to store what’s taking up our space are under construction. Sometimes, as it has been in the case of the latest Aloha Island Self Storage, the under construction sign spans multiple terms of various elected officials (ostensibly because of building construction permit issues).

By my visual count, Honolulu alone has about 127 new public self storage facilities in just the past year or so. We’re in the unenviable position of taking up the very storage space to store what we have that takes up so much of the space we don’t have much of.

At the rate of 127 or so new public self storage facilities a year, the island may be overrun by the very items we’re buying and then storing instead of using. How long will it be before we go into Macy’s or Nordstrom’s or Sears and buy something and just leave it there?

Why bother to take it home? It’ll just end up in the self storage building anyway. We might as well just buy whatever we buy and leave it in the store.

Smart people make good investments. The rest of us either get lucky, wish we could get lucky, never get lucky, or sit around and call everyone who makes good investments lucky.

Sure thing investments are not difficult to figure out. Long ago, smart people in Hawaii figured out the obvious. There’s no new land, so buy up what you can, sit on it for awhile, sell it at great profit and retire to Las Vegas, or charge a lot of money for someone to use your land.

Smart business people figured out that things like sugar or caffeine is mildly addictive so they invested in products that are mildly addictive, cost little to make and sell, yet are very profitable.

Can you say, Starbucks?

I think  a sure thing for Hawaii investors would be water. Or orange street cones. Water is obvious. There’s not much fresh water around, what we have is being used at an alarming rate and will surely cost us more in the future. Meanwhile, we’re surrounded by water we can’t use. Figure out how to make the water we can’t use into water we can use.

Or, go for an investment in the company that produces and sells orange street cones, those 24-inch high seemingly self-multiplying pylons of plastic which dot Hawaii’s deteriorating streets and roads. We’re going to need plenty of them.

You would think it was Christmas Eve in Honolulu. Traffic is backed up, stores in Ala Moana Center are packed, restaurants are booked. Blame it on another holiday designed to part people from their money.

It’s not that there’s no pleasure in chocolate, or a card from an admirer, or dinner out. What are they tied to a particular holiday? Can it be that we’re so insensitive that we require a calendar to tell us when and how to be nice to loved ones?

Not that I have a problem with an extra day off here and there, but look at the majority of publicly celebrated holidays. Each of them cause money to leave the pocketbook, or, in the case that there’s no money to begin with, cause charges to be added to credit cards.

However you look at it, holidays mean that you have less money than before. Valentine’s Day, though not Christmas or Mother’s Day or Thanksgiving, is no exception.

Even President’s Day is so commercial that nobody except middle school kids discuss the presidents. Everyone else is heading for a sale at the mall. Labor Day? Memorial Day? July 4th? Sales and food and picnics and travel.

Discoverer’s Day seems rather lonely and nondescript, except for all the Discoverer’s Day or Columbus Day sales at the mall. Hardly anyone heads out to dinner to celebrate discovering anything.

Our population is aging rapidly, so maybe there needs to be a national Seniors Day, where you have to take someone older than you to dinner.

Until Whole Foods shows up in Honolulu, my wife has narrowed her food shopping to just the new Safeway super market on Kapahulu Avenue. And Longs. And an occasional run to Wal-Mart and Costco. And Times. But Star Market is off the list for sure. Oh, and Foodland beceause it’s just down the street, and Chinatown because it’s so close to work.

See the problem?

I say pick a store and live with it. My wife said that if she had to pick a store it would be the Safeway on Kapahulu. And maybe Whole Foods. Then she goes and repeats the above scenario.

Perhaps my perspective is a bit warped since I’m a guy and my real job in this shopping process is to drive and carry heavy stuff, but there isn’t much difference between any of those stores. Longs is a poor super market, but has some price leader sales items which attract local folks like sugar attracts ants.

Costco is good for bulk items but we’re still having trouble getting through the gallon container of black olives we bought in 1999. Wal-Mart is the worst because we never find what we want and always leave with something else. The savings really are that good on things we don’t need.

Foodland, Times, and Star are scruffy, scruffier, and scruffiest among the local stores. Maybe that’s the difference. Safeway Kapahulu is more like a huge, wide-aisled mainland food shopping experience. There’s those cute little shopping carts which are easier to maneuver and the wheels don’t rattle. Then there’s the deli, fresh fish, and wine section. They even have strawberry Rice Dream.

Times is two blocks away. Foodland is three blocks. Safeway Makiki is another two blocks away. Wal-Mart is six blocks. Safeway Kapahulu is on the other side of town and my wife wants me to drive her there tonight. Again.

Still, it’s a pleasant experience, even for a guy. I can walk through the aisles and lust over food I don’t need, can’t eat, couldn’t afford if I could eat it. I don’t even have to buy anything since my job is simply to drive and carry heavy stuff. A man has to know his place in life.

Add this to your list of little known and meaningless facts. Not all McDonald’s in Hawaii are created equal.

If you’ve ever wondered why some McDonald’s are clean and neat and service is quick and food is tasty, and other McDonald’s are not, wonder no more.

In Hawaii, some McDonald’s are owned and operated by McDonald’s. Some are local franchise operations. Can you tell which is which?

The McDonald’s restaurants (I really don’t think that word fully evokes the flavor of a McDonald’s) in Honolulu on King Street, Beretania Street, and Keeaumoku Street have been remodeled in recent years. They’re clean, well managed, and serve food that is freshly made, tasty.

That’s not always the case with other McDonald’s (See? I just couldn’t bring myself to call them ‘restaurants’).

I like the McDonald’s breakfast sausage burrito. All those I’ve purchased and enjoyed came from the McDonald’s on King, Beretania, and Keeaumoku streets, respectively. Last week I stopped at McDonald’s in Ala Moana Center.

Yes, the place was like an Emergency Room for senior citizens. No, it’s not as clean. There were three long lines. I stood in the longest line. Had I stood in the shortest line, a transformation occurs. The longest line immediately becomes the shortest line, while the shortest line, the one I would have been in, would have become the longest line.

I chose the longest line, figuring it wouldn’t make any difference. It did. When I was ready to step toward the counter, the counter girl closed her register and motioned me to go Line #2, which was the aforementioned, oft-cursed shorter line, which was now even longer. So, I waited and waited, and when it was finally my turn to step toward the counter to give my order, the counter girl closed her register and motioned me to go to Line #1, which was now larger than Line #3 and Line #2 were when put together.

I left and went back to the McDonald’s on Beretania Street.

Note to McDonald’s King Street Sausage Burrito cook. The Sausage Burritos at the Beretania Street McDonald’s are wrapped better and taste better.

Yes, I admit it. I read the obituaries in the Sunday newspaper. I figure that as long as my name isn’t listed, the day has a chance of being decent.

One thing I noticed this week was the alphabeticalization of the obituaries. If I didn’t know better, and I may not, it would seem to a newcomer that people in Hawaii are only allowed to die alphabetically. That’s how they’re listed in most newspapers.

There are plenty of questions we can ask about those who appear in the obituaries. The names don’t tell us much. Japanese seem to live longer than anyone else. Nobody old has a recent photograph.

Not only am I interested in the name and age, I’m also interested in the cause of death; information which doesn’t show up in most obituaries. It’s easy to guess why some 89-year old Japanese woman died, but what about the 32-year old man, the 14-year old girl, or the woman who died at my age.

Why a person died isn’t information that’s important to the deceased, but the family would do the rest of us a favor by letting us know what happened. I would like to know what’s coming and what’s possible and what to look out for.

It’s raining again today. That must mean it’s time for the Punahou carnival. This time the weather forecast wasn’t based on clouds or atmospheric conditions. It was based on the calendar.

Whatever date is selected for the annual Punahou carnival can pretty much be a date to observe local weather conditions as Manoa Valley rain makes for Punahou school mud. I’m sure there’s a legitimate reason that Punahou selects early February as the carnival date. From experience I can tell you that any date in March will be better. Or April. Or May. You get the idea.

Punahou carnival accomplishes a number of goals each year. It guarantees an accurate weather forecast for two days in February. It raises money for the state’s richest private school. It irritates alumni who are forced into slave labor to work in the rain and mud. It irritates neighbors who find their street side parking spaces disappear for two days.

Why is it that the richest school on the island needs to drum up funds by overcharging for drinks, snacks, and carnival games and rides?

Last year’s news seemed to be dominated by a few stories– the football Warriors of the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii SuperFerry.

Other stories littered the news each week but with lesser impact– Don Ho died, Lisa Matsumoto died, Hawaiian Air beat Mesa Air group in court, so low fares died. Honolulu’s City Council approved the desire to impose a new mass transit solution on Oahu but did so without details of the actual solution.

It’s a new year already and that means new news. What will be the top news stories of 2008?

By the end of the year will people still be scratching their heads over Governor Lingle’s idea to buy Turtle Bay? Will traffic be better or worse (my guess is much worse)? Will an unexpected natural disaster strike Hawaii? Weather? Earthquake? Economic?

2008 started with an uproar at UH and the departure of popular head football coach June Jones to browner pastures and a bigger pay raise. The Warriors he left behind were perfect in 2007 but won’t be in 2008.

It’s hard to imagine that real estate prices can continue to increase. If they drop will that be the big news story? Does Hawaii SuperFerry have enough money to make it through 2008 or will they be forced to seek an opportunity in less hostile waters? I will reserve judgment until I can afford to use the ferry.

Nordstrom’s and Target will open just in time to enjoy Hawaii’s first recession in a few years, but 2008 will see the usual list of news items, the murders, traffic jams, bad weather, political fighting, crime and crime fighting, and other usual suspects, including a few stories about racism an prejudice. We won’t see solutions to the state’s most pressing problems, either.

In other words, this year’s news will be much like last year’s news but with different headlines.

Hawaii’s governor wants the state to buy the 880-acre Turtle Bay Resort. Why? To preserve the north part of the North Shore from more development.

Governor Lingle’s plan surprised environmentalists, surprised the resort’s developers, and surprised those taxpayers and voters who expected to see the state’s financial surplus plowed back into highway construction, University of Hawaii building projects, education initiatives, and bureaucracy funding.

Such a bold move is not without precedent. Lingle pointed out the state’s involvement in preserving Waimea Valley, Pupukea-Paumalu, and Kukui Gardens. Which such notable successes, it’s probably good for Oahu that the state is turning attention away from unpopular mass transit and education issues,  toward the resort development business, which everyone loves.

After all, what’s good for the developers and owners of a desolate area of the island in an eager-to-sell real-estate-market-going-to-hell must be also good for Hawaii’s less-than-educated youth, broken but congested highways, unfunded University building projects, and the need to create yet another tax dollar-consuming bureaucratic project.

Is the state swapping potholes and traffic congestion for turtles, or education for a rural money drain? Or both?