Happy Veterans Day!

The Maunalani Nursing & Rehabilitation Center was on the news again with their annual Veterans Day celebration. Sadly, they now have only 4 World War II veterans living there; the rest have passed away. Happily, one of them is Mr. Ikuma, who is now 102 years old! 

The Maunalani Nursing & Rehabilitation Center Veterans Day celebration as seen on TV.

Before I even got up this morning there was an email from Dr. Ron about his podcast on, Fat Metabolism: How We Store, Move, and Burn Body Fat. I found this 34-minute podcast interesting & germane to my fat loss journey. While I am more concerned about my visceral fat, he does point out that generally 85% of fat is subcutaneous fat. Either way, I would like to get rid of at least 16 pounds of fat of any type; ideally I am aiming for losing 26 pounds of it.

Another very early morning email I received was from Google AdSense. Apparently my estimated earnings last month increased by 155%! Amazing! NOT, when you are talking $3.73. Somewhere along the line in the over 6 years that I have been writing this blog, my cumulative earnings finally got over $100 & they sent me some money. I think it was a year ago; I'm not sure because it is automatically deposited. So if I average $3/month, my next $100 check will be in about 3 years. I definitely do this because of my commitment to your curiosity regarding what I am doing!

When I went up to Maunalani to walk this morning I saw that all the spaces at the upper end of the MNRC parking lot were coned off; I did not remember what day this was at the time. I had to park on the side of the road for my walk. 

Sixteen minutes after sunrise on Waiʻalae.

Twenty-six minutes after sunrise on Maunalani.

Not sure what the story is behind these 2; may be just seasonal ornaments?

This strange route is explained below.

As I rounded the 1st curve on the circle, I was getting ready to take a photo of the jocote tree that I noticed had fallen over yesterday. Then I saw Wolf coming out to retrieve his green waste bin so I stopped to talk to him about the jocote. About 2&1/2 years ago when I 1st met Wolf & his jocote tree, he told me that the tree was having problems. Now it has broken & most of it has fallen over. But the remaining portions are bearing fruit! He also started another tree from one of the broken branches. I asked & he generously gave me a branch to take to start another tree; I am hoping to take a piece of it to Kohala to add to the fruit trees in Grandma's yard.

The jocote in front of Wolf's house.

The chunk of jocote gifted to me.

I was telling Wolf about all the trees that Grandma had planted & how I wanted to add the jocote to the orchard of food bearing trees. Wolf then told me about the fig tree he grew in the back yard & took me around to see the side of the house; the tree is loaded with figs! He invited me to come back & take some cuttings. I talked with The Potential Most Favorite Roommate to see if we can find a common time to visit with Wolf & his fig tree.

I had run out of time to complete my walk around the circle because of stopping to talk to Wolf. But I did not mind. I went directly back to the car & headed for Feather & Fur. The weather on the way there was dry & sunny. Since I was about an hour later I did not see the sunrise today. I only picked up 3 Wedge-tailed Shearwaters today. 

Because I was an hour later, I arrived at the Agriculture Inspection office during normal business hours.  At Hawaiian Air Cargo, once again the parking (for non-disabled vehicle owners) was full so I waited. Though this time it was only about 5 minutes before someone left. Once inside it was relatively fast to get the birds processed since there were only 3 of them. I did notice that they had a Hawai'i Wildlife Center sticker at the animal intake desk!

Throughout the morning, my eyes had been burning. I had used a more liquid chemical sunscreen & it was getting in to my eyes & it was not pleasant. Once I got home I got in the shower, washed the sunscreen off my face, & then stood under the water & blinked my eyes to wash the sunscreen out of them. I tried to keep my eyes open but that wasn't working, so I resorted to blinking; it helped a lot! I then took a nap to rest my eyes; they were really red & irritated. I also kept putting eye drops in whenever I woke up. 

After lunch I got an email from Morgan, it was a confirmation for next week's Citizen Forester training on potential tree planting sites. I am looking forward to learning what Smart Trees Pacific looks at for their planting sites; I'm sure its very different than what we looked for in mitigation sites.

Marjorie sent out the map for the HFD testing site on the weekend.

Gerald from Terminix came by just before dinner; he is now the tech checking the ground termite bait stations. Since this was his 1st time here, he wasn't quite sure he found us. He sent me a text with this photo, wondering if he had the right place. He did.

(Photo by Gerald)

I ate the leftover half of the Hayes avocado from yesterday for lunch today. Then for dinner I tried some Organic Chicken Strips; it's organic chicken bits pressed together to form a strip shaped pattie. I was surprised, they were kinda salty! But still tasty. I think I would eat them with other things, maybe a chicken sandwich to cut the salty taste.

Clockwise from L: chicken strips, chipotle sauerkraut, & kimchee.

 

The 6-minute video below is from yesterday & provides a lot of statistics regarding Kīlauea volcano. Today's Big Island Now "Volcano Watch" blog was also really interesting. They talked about tracking the movement of magma through the presence of olivine crystals in what is ejected during an eruption. Through tracking of the olivine crystals, scientists can tell, "how hot the magma was, how long it sat inside the volcano prior to erupting at the surface, and how different magmas might have mixed (older and cooler versus fresher and hotter magma)."

The Aix weather app forecast partly cloudy skies all day for Honolulu & was accurate. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast pretty much the same except with drizzles in the evening; Big Island Now forecast mostly sunny becoming partly sunny with a 20% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station recorded no precipitation today. For Marysville, Aix forecast a lot of rain but since I still have not been able to figure out the new website for the WSDOT traffic cams, I was not able to verify or refute Aix.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 6:51 a.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 1:15 p.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 5:25 p.m.

The surf was kinda small on all the different shorelines. The south shoreline seemed to have the most surfers out there, but that was probably only because I am looking at the camera at Waikīkī.

Laniakea (N) at 5:20 p.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 4:55 p.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 4:56 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 4:56 p.m.

There was a magnitude 4.1 earthquake about 60 miles east of Iliamna, Alaska, & about 75 miles deep. It did not generate a tsunami.

There were 130 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 85,490. There were also 3 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 971; currently there are 1455 cases considered active. As of today 2,263,784 doses of vaccine have been administered providing 72% of the State population with full vaccination and 83.2% with at least one dose. There are currently 59 cases that are hospitalized with 15 in the ICU & 14 on ventilators. The State 7-day new case average is 101 with a positivity rate of 1.7%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 48 with a positivity rate of 1.3%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Swil Kanim & Chavie!