Oh, Danny Boy...

Earlier in the week there was much bru-ha-ha about Hurricane Daniel. At that point, speculation was that the hurricane would convert to a tropical storm and hit south of Hilo on the Big Island on Friday.
"Local"** news was warning us to take cover, stock our emergency preparedness kit and basically get ready to sh*t in our pants. The last time the radar/satellite pictures looked like this was right before Iniki hit Kauai in 1992.

Lucky for us, Danny Boy slowed to a crawl and broke up on Wednesday.
The forecast calls for rain and clouds today with clearing for the weekend. There is a flash flood warning for the Big Island and Maui today. My sense is that this applies mostly to lower Puna and Hilo areas. Our rain tends to just sink into the porous lava rock. Mud isn't really a problem since we don't have much dirt. [Not so good for fence building, but nice when it rains.]

My one concession to the news emergency hype was to buy some soy milk. That way even if we have a really bad storm and our power goes out we can eat cereal for days until HELCO (electric company) makes there way up the hill.


**Local in the Hawaii news world means Oahu. Rarely do they even refer to the Big Island so it's a bit of a misnomer, but the closest we have.

Continuing Education

Things I'm learning through the construction process:

Wet wood is heavy
Pounding nails is more skill than strength...but strength helps too
Warped wood is a pain in the butt
Screws get hot
When things fall off ladders, get out of the way...they hurt if they hit you
Miter saws rock!
Measure early, measure often
If you mess up, stop and take it apart
"8-foot" lumber is never 8-feet long

Da Wall is Da Bomb

The main wall is up.

We finished it on Sunday, including the 62-inch door rough in. Now if only we had a door...

It went fairly well. At one point we did have to disassemble a piece when we realized it was going off in a new direction. There was some cursing...at the wall, not at each other. A few bruises and scrapes to report and one splinter, but no trips to the hospital were required. [A good thing too, since I don't know where it is and it's probably over 30 miles away. ]

No pics yet. I'll work on that later. With this exceptionally fabulous wall, the internet connection moved. My crack tech support has been re-resourced into electrical master and so has not re-connected my desktop computer (the one with the card reader).

Yesterday I went to town (Hilo) and picked up more wood in my kick-ass truck. I even got to drive home with the little red flag attached to the wood hanging off the back. How legit is that. I feel like a real do-it-yourself-er now.

Now I will digress...
The little red flag is for safety, right? So people don't run into your wood or whatever.
I think this safety aspect might be overshadowed by the dangers caused by the distraction of the little red flag. When it was in my light of sight (through the rear view mirror, of course) I kept looking at it. How can you not? It's a red flag bouncing around behind you.
Then when it ducked out of sight behind the wood I was still distracted. Where had my little red flag gone? I got worried it had fallen off and was riveted to my rear view mirror until it came back into view...which was distracting...
See my point? Maybe not. Should be a musing worth a few chuckles though.
For the record...I stopped at all traffic signals, went the speed limit, didn't hit anything, and arrived home safety.

Tired...

...but victorious!

We made major headway into our studio partition wall today.

Here's before we started hammering. Our collection of lumber just waiting for that miter saw to bite into them.










Next shows where we got to when we stopped for lunch.










Here is where we are at quitting time. It's about 16 of the 24 feet needing framing. We got the way to the start of the door frame. If you look closely you can even see our little jack stud just waiting for the door header that will be attached tomorrow.










Now its time for clean up, food and the hot tub. :)

The Great Wall

Okay...so it's not really the The Great Wall of China, but some days it feels like it could be.

I rationalize to myself that taking on any project that is new to someone, that a person has questionable skills to complete, that sends a person running to books and the internet every couple of hours will naturally seem daunting. It's normal. This rationalization is fine until it's me that I have to apply it to.

I am referring to our project to build a partition wall in the studio. Nothing fancy. A wall to separate a guest bedroom and the office. Seemed simple when we starting talking about it. As with so many "simple" things, as we starting getting down to actually planning the specifics "simple" translated to "oh my gosh, what have we gotten ourselves into".

First there was the design. My lovely Mark is a master of aesthetics. I gravitate towards simplicity, ease and function. Turns out, the designs in each of our minds were not the same. Surprise!

However...we've moved beyond that. We're sticking with a simple wall, right down the middle.

Then there was the transportation issue.
How would we get supplies and materials from Hilo to Volcano? Since the truck was on hold, the Subaru was put to the task. Unfortunately, little Subi just wasn't up to the task and, basically, crapped itself.
So...the truck moved up in schedule.
However, since we are on an island and apparently people going to the Hilo dealership only want double cabs we needed to order from Oahu. So, more delay.
[On a side note, though, the Oahu Toyota office was great!]
Subi got a pricey stay at the Hilo Subaru spa, and now seems to have all its vital signs looking good.
The truck arrived on July 3. Yay!!! I LOVE the truck. What a fine vehicle. This answer to my dreams is a silver Toyota Tacoma 4WD V6 TRD Off Road... of course. :)

Planning can continue.

Then there was the question of the bathroom.
This is another item I put into the "country living" category. There are some things I just hadn't thought about before.
We needed to assess the slope between the bathroom location (more specifically, toilet location) and the cesspool. Basic concept: Poo needs to run down hill. More to the point, we need to have a plumber assess this since we are wise enough to know that this is way beyond our current location on the learning curve.

Ah, to find a plumber...** Asking around (the only way to do anything here) I got the name of two plumbers. Amazingly, one called me back! After some delay (a term I prefer to affectionately call island speed) the plumber, Randy, came and deemed our toilet location acceptable.

Moving on to lumber.
This was remarkably easy. A lumber list created by yours truly (hope it's accurate). A call to Home Depot with some faxing of forms saying I won't sue if the lumber gets dropped on my toe. Tuesday morning a friendly guy shows up with a stack of wood and even takes it all the way up the driveway to the studio.

We've ordered a fabulous French-style door from Depot. It may be here before we are collecting social security.

The pounding should begin Saturday morning.
The target is to get some sort of vertical structure up before Mom arrives in August. It may even have insulation and electricity. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. We've only started to investigate these things.

I see more learning in my future...



**Note: Building is in a major boom here and skilled trades people are in short supply. This makes finding plumbers, electricians, etc rather difficult.

Live....In Volcano Village

Check out the new web cam link in the Links section on the right side of the page.
It is the same camera we had in Oakland, but now has a new view.
Keep an eye out for Oscar, the cat, napping under the table.

The weater information is for Hilo. This is more than 3,000 feet in elevation lower and usually about 10 degress hotter than Volcano.

A Walk to the Post Office (Finale)

Now that we have our mail our trek home begins.
We don't go back the way we came. We go down Haunani, partially for the scenery but mostly because I like loops. Out-and-back walks/runs annoy me. (Just another quirk, I suppose.)

Mark calls Huanani "the gauntlet" because of the number of dogs that live along the street and who enjoy barking at us. There are no less than seven houses on this road with dogs that think Bandit and I should be vaporize off the planet. Oh, and when I mention seven houses that by no means implies seven dogs. More like fifteen.

So off we go.

Before we come to the first lurking canine, we pass the old school house. All the public schools in Volcano were shut down a number of years ago. The only thing I've seen the old school used for is as a recreation area. It has an incredibly well manicured playing field.
In 2000 the community started up a charter school called Volcano School of Arts and Sciences. It has about 100 students and centers education around (you guessed it!) art and science.

But I digress. We do not pass the charter school on our Post Office walk.

We continue up Haunani. Dog #1 is taking a nap. We sneak quietly by.
Dog #2 is a big, old black lab. Occasionally he has a small terrier accomplice. Not today, though. This geriatric dog manages to muster a most amazing amount of energy in his vehement verbal assault. I didn't get a good picture because this is one of the few dogs that Bandit feels compelled to talk back to. The picture taking was definitely compromised. Clicking while pulling along a barking, 60 lb. dog is hard. I think I see a glimpse of Dog #2's foot behind the hapu'u fern. In the end, we pass.


The next doggie house is just up the way. In fact, it's two doggie houses across from one another. Dog #3 is another big, old black lab. He looks so much like Dog #2 I'm convinced they're related. (Yes...I clearly have time on my hands.)

Across the street is a three-dog household that really turns up the volume when we walk by. Very cute pups though. Like Bandit, they wag their tails while barking furiously. Takes away a bit of the effect, but I go along.

Up the road a bit we get barked at by two small dogs. This day they do not escape to chase us down the road as in past passings.

Next is the four-dog yard.
Lots o' noise.


The yard next door has some serious-looking dogs. I think they are a pointer and a Belgian Malinous. The pointer seems harmless, but I don't think I would want to meet the Malinous when he was in a bad mood.
No pics of these two because they were off leash with the gate open and I was just happy that their owner told them to "stay".

We then continue our journey with a turn on to Laukapu (forbidden leaf is the loose translation).



On the corner is a group of pups that are so consistently barky that their people have tried to silence them by making the fence solid, so they can't see through it. It works....a bit. Definitely an improvement from our visits in the past pre-solid fencing. A cute pack that usually has three and occasionally four.

The two huge, old labs at the corner of Wright and Laukapu aren't out on their lawn this day. They are sweet. Very large. Quite slow. When we don't want to deal with greeting them nose-to-nose (always chance of tempers flaring) we just keep walking and pass their patch of lawn before they mosey over and reach us.

A few blocks later we are back to our road.
A helicopter buzzes overhead taking visitors to view the volcano from above.
I'm happier on the ground.

Then we are home sweet home.
Another great day in Hawaii.

A Walk to the Post Office (Part II)

Continuing down Old Volcano Road we get to what would be down town if Volcano were that big....but it's not.

First we get to the "lower store."
This has Kiluea General store, supplying some food and supplies, beer & wine, the only movie rental in town, and a gas station.
Attached, is the Lava Rock Cafe. They have good home-style meals. They may not knock your socks off, but when you've been on vacation and want a real, unpretentious meal, they do the job.
Last I checked, there is also a take out pizza place.

Moving down the road is the "Village Center."
The hardware store has saved me from many trips to Kea'au (18 mi.) or Hilo (30 mi.).
They can be out of things you expect them to have (a spray bottle) but really come through with something you hope, but don't expect, to find (exceptional screw selection).
A gift shop upstairs provides t-shirts and other odds and ends visitors might want to bring home.
The laundry mat in the back is the only one in town and has saved Mark and I from many smelly day on past trips.

The key stone for us, however, is Thai Thai. Our absolute favorite Thai restaurant.
It's awesome. We are working on building up our reputation so they believe us when we say we want it "hot." We have had dishes there that had us weeping from the heat. Yum.
Thai Thai isn't open for lunch, so Bandit and I continue towards the Post Office.

The "upper store" is The Volcano Store. A good place to stop by when you run out of milk or beer.
Next to them is Kiawe Kitchen. It is the newest restaurant in town. We have not been yet.
According to its sign, it has wood fired pizza and other Italian dishes.

Just past this is our destination: The U.S. Post Office.
I make these frequent trips to the Post Office because there is no mail delivery in our area. We are on the long list of folks vying for a PO Box. Various accounts have the waiting period being anywhere from four months to over a year. We have heard from one unlucky fellow that if Patrick, the post master, doesn't see you for a while you can be removed from the list. My frequent trips will prevent that. I go so often they may give me a PO Box just to stop having to get my mail for me.

Oh, so the mail thing. Stuff gets sent "General Delivery." This is a totally foreign concept to almost everyone, so much so that sometimes people are unwilling to send stuff to us. I think its the simplicity of the system that throws people. Our mail shows up at the Post Office. They sort it by last name. I show up and ask for our mail. They go to the "C" and "S" cubbies and hand it over. It seems to work quite well.

Bandit waits patiently outside. I know some of you will be skeptical of this comment, but he's been quite good. I tie him to this tree and he just stands there until I come back out and take him on the rest of his walk.




Today's bounty includes the semi-monthly newsletter from Volcano Art Center, a junk mail loan offer forwarded from our Oakland address, and our latest Netflix movie.

Now that I have the mail, I head home...