If It's Not One Thing ...

... it's another. I heard a sound of some paper object falling early this morning, so early the Saffron Finch was not awake yet! When I went to the kitchen to check & flipped the switch the main light flashed & went out. Aue! Fortunately the light over the sink was fine. Whatever fell did not happen in the kitchen. (It appears to have been flattened boxes in the living room that slid.)

I woke up thirty minutes before sunrise and also before the Saffron Finch!

I replaced the burnt out kitchen light, which was a 60W incandescent by the way, with a 20W CFL that puts out lumens equivalent to a 75W incandescent. I could have replaced it with a 10W LED which is equivalent to a 60W incandescent and has an estimated energy cost half that of the CFL ($1.20/yr v $2.41/yr) and would last more than twice as long (22.8 yrs v 9.1 yrs) but I wanted more light in this larger room. Both are 2700K which provides a warm light which I prefer. Now that I have a 6-foot step ladder which can reach the 9-foot ceilings easily, I also decided I could live with the shorter lifespan of the bulb. FYI I put the date on the bulbs so I can figure out how long they really last for real life usage. The above figures are based on a testing standard of 3 hrs/day.

The burnt out bulb.

The cover was full of bugs; I washed it before I put it back up.

Comparison between the CFL (L) and LED (R).

I write the installation date on the bulb so I know how long it was in use.

Since I had to move the table in order to set up the step ladder, I decided to move as much out of the kitchen as I could and do another deep cleaning of the floors. It's amazing what you can find to do when you want to avoid some chore!

I moved the TV cart & butcher block cart out to get to those parts of the floor.

It's a 6-foot tall ladder in a room with 9-foot high ceilings.

The chore I was avoiding? Taking more measurements for the site plan; this time trying to figure out where the house is located in relation to the property lines. The longest tape I have is 30 feet. Getting the measurement on the south side (towards Jessie's) will be no more difficult than the north side where the remodel will be and the west side (towards the road) will be a little more difficult but still doable with a small degree of error. But the east side will be difficult; the property is 1/3 acre with about half the property to the east of the house on a parcel that is not square or with all 90 degree angles at the corners. Aue! I will have to ask how accurate the overall site plan needs to be; maybe they will let me scale it from a Google map.

The view from the top of the ladder shows the proximity to the property line on the remodel side.

This morning cousin Leilani called to say she will be at Uncle Kazu's service on June 2nd. We had a great chat, catching up on what we have been doing while staying home. We'll finish our talk after the service.

Last night Kamaka texted me, he said, "... I have to be home for my little brother's online graduation so is it possible to reschedule until next week?" Since he's missed a bunch of other family milestones while in the Peace Corps I wanted him to be there for this one. We talked shortly after that to find out what his availability was over the next week or so. Today I called around and was able to reschedule everything to the following week. So no problem.

Today was the last day of my quarantine even though the state doesn't think so. I never got a single call and I could never get the website to take me seriously that I wanted to respond to the questions for the quarantine.


I also got an email from Alamo, telling me if I was subject to the 14-day quarantine they could not rent to me. I called in to find out what I needed to bring to show I was out of the quarantine. Sounds like I've got everything they need to see.

The LG was on a live interview with Yunji & Ryan this morning. He expects early June for the lifting of the inter-island quarantine while July 15th might be the earliest to lift the quarantine for people from the continent. But he would like to see testing 72 hours prior to boarding a flight to the state. Internationally they are looking at 'travel bubbles' to selected countries with low virus load and good testing & screening like Japan, New Zealand, & Australia. He explained that we can't test all incoming visitors; the state can do 5000 tests per day & normally there are 30,000 people arriving per day. He also said testing all people was not a good use of resources or necessary; people with symptoms such as a fever & cough would automatically be screened for testing. Of the rest only about 30 would be asymptomatic carriers.

L to R: Ryan, Yungi, & Lt. Governor Green.

Later in the afternoon I also watched the Governor's Zoom press conference with the mayors from each of the 4 counties; it's the 1st time they have done it this way. They all stressed that the thing that is driving each of them in the decisions they make is the safety of the community first. Because of the difference in number of known cases of COVID-19 on the different islands, each is opening up at a different rate. But all anticipate things will not return to "normal" for a long time, if ever. There was consensus that the inter-island quarantine should be able to be lifted soon; then later the trans-pacific quarantine. But they also said a robust testing and tracing program is a big part of the safety net needed to minimize risks to the community.


There were 3 new cases of COVID-19 reported today (all on O'ahu & all apparently travel-related), bringing the total of known cases up to 647. There were no new deaths or hospitalizations.

Cases in the last 28 days;

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Dr. Lake!