Formidable Footprint

Back in November 2016 I got on to the Hawai'i Island Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) e-mail list to find out about training opportunities. I was never able to take the training before due to a combination of volunteer & work commitments that conflicted with at least one of the training days. But I figured now that I am retired there would be more opportunities. And one came up! Sort of. It is the Formidable Footprint tabletop exercise on Hurricane preparedness. I registered; it was this morning. Because they are out of the east coast I had to be logged in by 7:30 am to make sure I had enough time to get through the entire 3-hour exercise.


It turns out this is supposed to be a group exercise. You are supposed to be sitting with your fellow first responders and going through the exercise. That was not the way it came across in the e-mail I got, so I was the only one from Hawai'i Island (as well as the state of Hawai'i) who was registered for this exercise! Because it was only me and I had no idea how some (many) of the events would be handled, I breezed through it in a little under 2 hours. At the end you do a Hotwash (debrief) about 3 areas your team did well and 3 areas that need improvement. I need a lot of improvement! But next time I should be able to be "Most Improved"! One of the things I really liked is that I now have access to the Just in Time Disaster Training video library.

Needless to say, I needed a nap after the training. So I skipped going to the farmers market, besides, it had started drizzling again.

When I got up it had stopped drizzling and looked like it was going to clear up. But I didn't want to lose the momentum from yesterday's clean up work I decided to stay indoors. I also figured I could add the covering of the stumps to my monthly landscape maintenance work that I want Aikane Nursery to do for me. I decided to start with the little table that was on top of the closet. I used Murphy Oil Soap to clean it up; it looks better but I think I still need to get another product to help rejuvenate the wood.

Before.

After.

Top before.

Top after, I don't see any difference at all but I know its cleaner because the cloth got dirty!

Shelf before.

Shelf after; the white spots that are gone were apparently gecko droppings.

After the table was done, I switched over to working on the chest of drawers in my bedroom. The concept will be the same for the 2 other bedrooms; they all have the same type of dresser. The top 2 drawers will be for the use of visitors, the next drawer down will have towels, beach towels, and sheets & pillow cases for the bed in that room so that the visitors have everything they need & don't need to ask me. The bottom 2 drawers will be my stuff.

Before.

I pulled all the drawers out, vacuumed the rails, then wiped everything down.

I found some moth damage on some clothes so I put moth balls in the space below the drawers; hope it will work this way.

After; all the dressers will be labelled like this.

I found some moth damage on some clothes. I found Grandma's old naphthalene moth balls; yes I know how toxic they are, but they were the only things available on short notice. I will be looking for camphor blocks tomorrow if I have time, otherwise I will pick some up in Honolulu. In the meanwhile I put the moth balls in the space below the bottom drawer; hopefully the gap at the back of the dresser will allow enough fumes to permeate all the drawers & keep the moths away. I also put some mothballs in cans and put them in the closets.

The other task I wanted to complete today was labeling the light switches. Huh? There are several areas that have more than 1 switch at the box so I want to make it easy for visitors to know which switch operates the light they want. Besides, my old method was kinda tacky looking.

Before.

What does that bottom one say?

That's a lot better!

As I was getting ready for Lem & Jessie to arrive for dessert I looked out the window. This is one of the reasons I want to live in Kohala.

Peaceful evening view.

I invited Lem & Jessie over for dessert; I usually do that once during my visit. And its usually Holy's Bakery apple pie with ice cream; this time was no different. Lem brought a bag of dragon fruit from his garden.

That's a dime on the dragonfruit for scale.

I showed Lem the funeral photo, he thinks it might by Hilo Uncle's funeral because he thinks it is at a Hilo church. It is definitely not the church in Kapa'au so it would not be Grandpa's funeral, besides I was there at Grandpa's funeral & I am not in the photo. I will have to check the genealogy on Grandpa's side and see if the death dates for the others that we found in the photo support this idea.

Happy Birthday to Jim & Jennifer!