And the winner is....

Aloha and thanks to all who posted a caption for the photo of the week. Every single one was brilliant! And there is no clear winner, however, JH88's caption is presented here as the most poignant and definitely the most clever. So everyone wins a bag of Maui Coffee this time around!
I am sending beans, un-ground, as it is the best!
Now, let's try another contest to challenge your wit and wisdom.
The prize will be different too!
This time we are offering up a copy of this weeks's MAUI TIME magazine, which features Obama on the cover. As you can imagine, the keepsake is important because it is from President-Elect Obama's birthplace, Hawaii. It is fun to read and is sure to be worth more in years to come. We are in no way affiliated with Maui Time nor do we necessarily agree with the content.

Here then, is the new challenge:

First one to respond with the correct answer to this question wins it all.

What country lies directly beneath Detroit, Michigan?

Good luck! And be a good sport and do not google it.

C O N T E S T of the W E E K

In keeping with my word, here is the contest of the week. It is real simple, just post a caption for the ABOVE photo. The top three winners will get their caption posted. Then, your comments will pick the winner. The winner will receive a bag of the finest coffee ever grown in the world, that's right, Maui Kaanapali Estate coffee. Be sure to give us a mailing address so we can mail you the goods.
Best of Luck!

History Revision 101

How interesting that the long, laborious and never ending Presidential campaign ended before I had to go to bed? I was sure that the projection that Barack Obama had made the grade would have come a day later. I was fearful in the back of my mind of another Florida 2000, but was happily surprised when CNN announced the win a second after California polls closed. I think I was in mid bite over dinner, glued to the TV, just before 7pm here in the islands, when Wolf Blitzer spilled the beans. it came out of Mr. Blitzer's mouth so fast I nearly choked on that forkful of homemade spaghetti. He went on to say that "everyone will remember exactly where they were on November 4th, 2008", which conjured up memories of when I have heard that before. I remember a few things in my life that are worthy of that, some everyone knows, some only I and a few others do. Somethings you remember because, even though you were in diapers, stories told by your parents turn into a black and white still frame in your brain. Like when JFK lost his life or when you performed some sort of incredible stunt as a young-ling that became a landmark to older witnesses who were capable of marking it down on your life chart. Other events are etched into the memory vault in living color, some good, some bad, like when I first heard that John Lennon had been killed and when Ronald Reagan had been shot. I was living with my Mom in Virginia when I awoke to the Today show playing Imagine by Lennon. A younger Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley were in tears describing the scene. Brokaw was the first to ponder why a man who waged peace could die this way. Not too long after that, I was a block away from the DC Hilton when Reagan was shot by John Hinkley Jr. It was a cold rainy morning and my girlfriend Beth and I were picnicking in the living room of my Mom's place on Kalorama. We were supposed to drive out to skyline drive for that picnic, but because of the statewide rain, we never left the apartment. We heard gunshots or the crack-pops of something, but didn't think too much about it. I remember that Beth had some sosp opera on the tube when the SPECIAL REPORT slide popped onto the screen. We quickly connected the shots to the scene and ran out to see the ambulances racing down the street only to hear their sirens abruptly cut. I can still remember a t-shirt that said "I wish that the guy who shot Lennon had shot Reagan and the guy who shot Reagan had shot Lennon. I can live without Reagan but not without John Lennon".
I remember when Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers caught the Immaculate Reception--Dad and I were watching the game together on NBC. I think we were both upset how the Raiders were winning that AFC Championship and I can still hear Dad commenting that Curt Gowdy, the guy calling the game, seemed so certain that Oakland would win. Gowdy sounded like he had a big bet on the game and had written the Steelers off when it happened. Replay after replay confirmed the catch and run for the touchdown. That stadium was rumbling and mayhem erupted as fans jumped the barriers onto the field.
I guess, if you think back in your life, you have memories like this too. Do you notice that most of them are when somebody got shot or something went horribly wrong? If that is true for you, then last night in Chicago is great because for a change, it was something good. So I am starting new memories now--good ones. And they are all going to be good. I am going to begin recognizing and storing the good things that happen from now on. And I am going to research in my memory with the intention of locating those memories that were good and attempt to tear way the cobwebs from them and expose them to the forefront of my brain. Then I am going to reorganize my "where were you when" file to contain hundreds of these newly discovered or uncovered goodtimes. I think I will start with November 4th, 2008 as the first entry. It will be called "The night I almost choked on Spaghetti".

Bad Elected Ofiicials Are Created by Good Citizens Who Choose Not to Vote

Enough said. If you are one of those who likes to criticize the government, yet do not vote, your word is just not worth anything anywhere.

People before you have died protecting your freedom to vote.

So get out and vote today and make a difference!

Come back here tomorrow for some post election stuff including a contest. You have to vote to enter.

The winner will receive a bag of fresh organic coffee grown just up the hill from my home on Maui. If you haven't had Maui grown coffee, then you are missing out. There are only a few hundred acres of cultivation here, so it is very rare to find. I guarantee it will be worth the effort to win tomorrow's contest. Until then...

Bodysurfing and the Presidency

This picture really hit home. A surfing potential Commander in Chief. How cool is that? When Obama was here last month, he went out to Sandy's to log a little tube time on a small day. I know this spot intimately. I should remember it, I nearly lost my life there one night. It is a place on Oahu called Sandy Beach. It is a beautiful beach on the Halona Blow Hole coast out near Hawaii Kai. From this beach on a clear day, you can catch a glimpse of Molokai on the horizon some 40 miles away. I was there at night on one adventure, to bodysurf to a full moon rising with other die hard surfers. The East shore of Oahu has no mercy for the inexperienced. It is enter at your own risk any day of the week and the skull shattering shorebreak claims a life or two every year despite the warning signs erected there. Most people who foolishly wade out into the shallows usually get sucked out and swept under in a horrible neck twisting torrent. The lucky ones don't get the full body slam right away. They have a little delay before they get pummeled by the next wave, violently throwing them to a sucked dry floor only to then go through "the cycle". If your collarbone hasn't popped out yet, don't worry, the cycle will finish you off. This is when you get lifted back up, now as a part of the atomic structure of the wave, and thrust back to the gates of hell again. It's called the cycle because it goes around a few times before it lets you out, shorts around your ankles and clumps of hair in your fists from when you grabbed your head, free-fell 10 feet and said "HOLY SHIT!". But I'll let you in on a little secret...absolutely every great waterman who has ever surfed the place will admit that at one time or another they caught the cycle. You have to "pay the price of admission" to surf such a fine and noble wave like this and every once in a while, when you least expect it, even if you have the spot dialed in, you slip up and eat it. It is one of the most humbling moments in any surfers life. It is very real and it is very sobering when you go over the falls at Sandy's. Even though the whole experience lasts only a brief few seconds, it is an absolute eternity to endure mentally. There is a sort of leap of faith that you take when you make the decision to drop in. The anxiety of "Did I pick the right one" is generally rewarded with a moment of total horror when you realize that there is nothing between you and a dry ocean floor 10 or so feet below. It doesn't help any that you have been there before because you know exactly how it is going to end and it isn't pretty. You do learn a few tuck and roll type maneuvers after a while that do help a bit, but they do nothing to soothe the mind. It's kind of weird to find yourself in that predicament, especially when you put yourself there knowing fool well that it could happen. It's like touching the hot iron twice, why would you do that? You do it because when you pull it off, it is pure adrenalin pumping piping hot ecstasy and there is no other way in the world I know to get all of that in one concentrated dose. And it is a rite of passage here in the islands of Hawaii to show your mettle at Sandy's. Every island has a similar beach with a neck breaker and a stack of young men addressing their fears. I wasn't one of those as I moved here as a 22 year old, but after that first cycle blunder, I just had to come back and figure out how to survive the onslaught of the beast. It took a couple of years to sort of figure it out to where I could do that. You just can't imagine what it is like to make the drop, pull into a house sized barrel and knowingly take gas, just for a glimpse into the unknown. The sounds that gurgle out of the throat of one of these is absolutely horrendous and deafening. But you do it anyway because somehow it is fun. Can you think of anything that you do on a regular basis that hurts or freaks you out, yet is fun so you keep on doing it? When I think back, going there at night was probably stupid, but when the Hawaiian moon is full, it is like daylight out there. Everything is brightly lined and in blue tones and you can see the bottom of the water while you are surfing. And yes, I went through the cycle that night. And as I slipped ever so slowly over the falls of a set wave, it did occur to me that this was even scarier at night. Going over the falls in the dark only adds to the lunacy to be there in the first place. I probably went through three runs of the cycle and couldn't free myself from it's grasp. And then it was over and I popped up. I came up with sinuses full of sand and ocean water, battered, but unscathed, I pulled up my trunks from my ankles and scratched for the shore. I cozied up to the campfire, popped a green bottled beer and smiled in victory. "How is it out there?" a girl asked. I said it was fun.

You know, in the twenty years since, I have never surfed out there at night again.

But whenever I do go to Oahu, if I have the time, I will pack my fins and try to get a little tube time in at Sandy's. And if a decent South or South East swell is hitting, I pick off a few and go for gusto. But it never lets me out of the water without paying the price of admission. I expect that and I gladly fork out for it.

Barack Obama - Ambassador of Aloha

Well, here we are, just a short day or two away from choosing our next US President and that Commander in Chief could be a boy from Hawaii. By now, everyone knows that Barack Obama is from Honolulu, Hawaii and that he grew up here and finished High School here. He was just a kid with a single Mom and loving Grand Parents, like so many here are, however, he chose a path that somehow lead all of the way to the White House. How did he do that? Did it just happen or did he carefully plan that journey?

I wonder how many keiki (Hawaiian for "kids") in America were told by an elder at one point that if they were to study hard, "One day you might be the President of the USA"?
I guess every President was a boy somewhere, growing up like most kids, playing sports or learning music, arts, reading, writing, math, etc.,. But what separates them from the rest? Was there a system of self belief and self worth layered in along the way that gave our Presidents the overwhelming and strong desire to lead a nation? In Mr. Obama's case, he reminds me of the determination of many of our keiki here in Hawaii. Take our Grandson Jaden. He's only 6 years old and is full aware that one day he too, could be the President, if he wants to be. He knows who Mr. Obama is, they drill that into him in school, but interestingly enough, he has no idea who "that old man is" referring to John McCain. Like Obama, Jaden is also from a mixed ethnic background. His Dad, an African American from Texas, His Mom, (our Daughter Brandy) Hawaiian Filipino German Irish. Handsome and adorable, he is the pride and joy of his Mom and is a Tiger Woods looking sort of child with an amazing talent for information recall. Future President? Maybe. Does he want to be? No, he says. He'd rather be a software designer / computer programmer for a game company, or a Chef. He loves to learn everything he can about what goes on in the kitchen and often falls asleep to the sights and sounds of the Food Channel, which is second only to his beloved Xbox and Sponge Bob.

Obama wanted to be a basketball star.

As for the Ambassador of Aloha title I gave Obama in the blog headline, it's true, like it or not. He is a true product of the Hawaiian Islands and has values that were instilled upon him as a youth that any man or woman takes with them throughout life wherever they may go. These are core values, perhaps the very same core values Mr. Obama often refers to when he is out stumping. Obama has been called a Socialist and it may be partially true, but the form of Socialism that Obama practices is good and safe for all of America and the World. Incidentally, if you did not know, every child is insured here until he is 16 for free by the Quest system if his parents cannot afford to purchase healthcare. If an adult can keep a part time job of 20 hours or more per week, that adult will receive free health care, dental too. This is a State of Hawaii law.

However, regarding this socialism thing circulating around...many of you on the mainland may not be not aware of the core values that are taught to younglings in Hawaii. It is a bit different here. Kids grow up here with a sense that the family consists of more than just the typical Mom & Dad thing or "blood" relations. They have strong and unshakable ties to Brothers and Sisters, Aunties and Uncles and with Cousins. There are so many Cousins that usually everyone they meet is at least a Cousin. And let's not forget Grand Ma and Grand Pa--they are literally a second set of parents in Hawaii that play huge roles in their development. The bond between all of this family is very strong, stronger than I have witnessed in my years on the mainland. I mean, my immediate family is very close, but here in Hawaii, it is common that a kid has upwards of 100 family members to relate to, some with the same DNA, many just close long time friends, but they are all core family members. The kids are loved and asked to share this love and in a word, "Aloha", is what they practice and believe in. And they assume that the entire globe around them is also living this way. So, this Ambassadorship that I bestowed upon Mr. Obama is only natural and it suits him well. The children of Hawaii look up to him because in so many ways he is spreading Aloha around this world, just as they would do if they were in his shoes. Our shared view of the world is that it can be a happy place where every nation cooperates with each other to make it a safe and fun place to be. Are our kids Socialists? Is Obama? Only in the good sense. Do our keiki want to be the President of the United States like Mr. Obama? Did he want to be when he was a kid? Perhaps not. Maybe. like our keiki, he thought that one day it could happen, but first they want to be kids--the true ambassadors of aloha. And besides, above all, there's a basketball game to play or a wave to catch.