The Leeward Planning Commission meeting today ended a little bit later than lunch time. The most contentious project was a request for a time extension on an approved permit for an existing venue that is trying to come in to compliance; no approval for the extension means there is no path for the venue to come in to compliance & be safe. We also had 2 applicants who were coming in for special permits for bed & breakfasts in State Land Use Agriculture areas; this is a requirement of the newly passed codes regarding transient vacation rentals that is needed to be in compliance with the State regulations. The links to the 3 hour long video of the meeting are here & here. (Technical difficulties necessitated a recess between videos while the problem was being corrected.)
During lunch one of the other planners present noted that, should the tropical depression making its way into the Central Pacific basin become a tropical storm, it will be named Moke. The person on the left at the testifiers table seen in the screenshot from the video of the meeting, is a planner who goes by his Hawaiian name Moke when he is not on official business.
I ran my errands after lunch. I have a sequence that I do my errands, starting with the location that is farthest south & working my way closer to home. I usually buy Moʻo's frozen food last. Today I skipped a couple things, like Moʻo's frozen food since she had enough to last until the next planning commission meeting. Unfortunately, I forgot I also needed to find another cat door; looking for new cat doors is not part of my usual list of errands! (And I sure hope it does not become a regular occurrence! Nā pōpoki kolohe!)
I did stop at Sally Beauty to show May the color of my hair with the Blue Smoke dye; she was not working today so Zy took a video to share with her. Although there is enough Blue Smoke dye left for another application, I also picked up another, hopefully darker, color. I will be trying the permanent hair dye by Iroiro in Denim Blue in a couple of months.
My 2nd stop was to get the car washed. I try to do it once a month even if the car does not look dirty. Because of living on an island in the middle of the ocean, air laden with salt particles lands on your car even if you are not right by the shoreline. So I try to wash the car every month to minimize any corrosion that might be caused by the salt air.
I also made a quick stop at Target. The semi-permanent dyes I have been using slowly rub off on things so I currently have my pillow wrapped in a dark blue towel but that is cumbersome. I decided if I am going to continue with the blue hair, I would make it
easier on myself & get dark blue sheets & pillow cases.
I also stopped at Patricio's Mexican Taqueria; for the next few days they are donating all their tips to the recovery effort in Kaʻū. They were my favorite Mexican restaurant in Kona before, now even more so! I picked up a Chicken Molé plate to go. (E kala mai! No photos. But I think I will make picking up dinner from them part of my after-planning commission meeting routine so there will likely be photos in the future.)
The power to the grid at the house came on at 1:24 pm according to the Tesla app. By about 6 pm the Powerwall was back up to 50% of its storage capacity. Overall, since the grid went down on the 15th, I did not have power at the house for only about 4 hours due to the ability of the Powerwall to provide back up power for the rest of the time.
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| They just give you start date of outage & time it finally came back on. |
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| Around 6 pm. |
About an hour after the power was back on, Spectrum came back on line. Yay! But I am still considering switching to Hawaiian Telcom. Until, that is, I talked with Kai on the drive home; he suggested I look into Starlink for several reasons. The main one being that in an emergency or disaster situation, like we are currently experiencing, Starlink has the highest chance of still being able to function rather than the landline based systems. That is a strong argument in my book; Karl & Katherine's Starlink is what allowed me to complete all my readings for the planning commission meeting in a timely manner.
After the internet came back on, I checked the security camera feed. Here are security cam photos I collected of cats; mainly ʻŌhuna on the loose, but some of cats in the cat yard. These are thumbnails from the "Find Anything" screen that summarizes the detections made.
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| ʻĀlani (ʻŌhuna's cousin) in cat yard on 08/17. |
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| ʻŌhuna outside on 08/18 |
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| ʻŌhuna outside on 08/19. |
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| ʻŌhuna outside early this morning. |
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| ʻŌhuna in cat yard today. |
While talking to Kai, I also was in very slow traffic. Since I was driving, he looked it up on his traffic app & told me it seemed there might be an accident at the Waikoloa resorts roads because it was mainly red up to there, then green further north. I started the slow trek near the airport & it did continue northerly until the turn offs to the Waikoloa resorts. But there was no accident or remains of an accident visible there. Perhaps it was just that I was leaving a little later than usual & it was a Kona traffic jam? Whatever it was, I spent an extra half hour on the road getting home.
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| Traffic leaving from Waikoloa resorts area. |
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| Approaching the southerly intersection; no accident here. |
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| Approaching northerly intersection; nothing here either. |
I'm not sure what these streak freezes are in Lingopie (the little blue markers on the calendar), how you earn them, or how to use them. They just randomly show up on the calendar. And they don't seem to do anything to extend a streak. Whatever. Using a streak freeze adds nothing to your ability to learn a language. I think I will just listen to a short episode if I do not have time to do a lesson; listening is better than doing nothing at all.
In Duolingo, I'm still exploring Beijing.
The ceiling collapse at the Happy Days Seafood Restaurant is still in the news. From this photo it does not look like something that can be easily & quickly fixed. I guess we will have to look for another dim sum restaurant.
The National Hurricane Center shows 2 storm systems in the Central Pacific basin. The Hawaiʻi County Civil Defense issued an alert on 1 of them.
Tropical Depression Two-C formed early this morning after crossing in to the Central Pacific basin; it was 960 miles east-southeast of Hilo at 5 this morning & moving west-northwesterly at about 16 mph. Maximum sustained winds are about 35 mph; it is anticipated to continue on its current path for a few more days. It is anticipated that it could become a tropical storm later today & is expected to pass south of Hawaiʻi Island in a couple of days; k bringing heavy rainfall & flooding. At 5 pm, it was located about 810 miles from Hilo or about 150 miles closer. It is expected to become a tropical storm some time tonight.
At 5 pm this evening Hurricane Lālā was in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Sanctuary with maximum sustained winds of 95 mph & moving northerly at about 9 mph.
The next episode of the eruption of Kīlauea is anticipated to be between the 22nd & the 26th.
Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Judy & Mick! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki ʻumi kūmamāhā e Andreas & Amy!
