No Power

... for downtown Honolulu; we are fine at the house. But last night power to the downtown core went out due to a flooded substation. Work places for both The Potential Most Favorite Roommate & The Roommate Who Likes to Was Dishes were without power; but they still went in to work. The Potential Most Favorite Roommate got a call from his boss saying he did not need to go in to work, but he did so he could help her out. The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes said his building has back-up generators so they would have power so the State can keep paying its bills; he was wondering if their Internet access was also affected. DT's work place never lost power or got flooded.

Because I can't eat or drink or even rinse my mouth out for 30 minutes after I use the mouth rinse, that is now the 2nd thing that I do when I get up in the morning. 

The 1st thing is to turn on the Roomba so it can go on its merry way cleaning while I do other things. This morning the Roomba would not respond; I noticed it was not quite exactly in the middle  of the docking station. The battery was very weak. I straightened it out & came back to check about a half hour later & it looked ready to work. It was not; the nice thing is that if the battery runs low while it is working it will go back to the docking station, get charged up, then return to where it left off in cleaning. 

The red light means its still charging.

When I initially went to turn the Roomba on, Luna followed me over to the sliding glass door; she wanted out. Or at least, she wanted to see if she wanted out. She spent a few minutes looking out the door but, even though it was not raining, eventually decided it was not quite dry enough to go out. I left the sliding door open. 

The Roomba was off cleaning in this photo.

It couple hours later it started raining again. Not as much as the worst of yesterday but enough that no cats would be going out. Then the wind started blowing so I closed the door. When the sun came out an hour or so later I opened it up again & left it that way for the rest of the day.

Today's proothie was another plain proothie. When I say plain I mean with no additional vegetable matter. I always use a chocolate flavored protein powder. Always. 

At about 8 a.m., The Potential Most Favorite Roommate texted. He was being sent to work in the Kaimukī branch this morning since they had no power at the downtown branch. Power was also out on the southern portion of Hawaiʻi Island.

 

And the wind is also starting to pick up for Hawaiʻi Island. Winds of 30 to 50 mph, with localized gusts of up to 60 mph are expected.

Because of the flooding & wind warnings the MRC may be helping staff other shelters. This is in addition to helping with the vaccine clinics for nā keiki at the schools. I find it quite annoying that information about the locations of the clinics at the schools must be kept secret so that protesters & harassing brhavior can be avoided. Do the people protesting have no shame? They should be allowing parents who wish to have their children vaccinated to do so without being harassed or their children being traumatized. 

I got a call from The Blood Bank of Hawaiʻi at about 8 this morning; they were calling to see if I would like to sign up to donate again since I would be eligible beginning tomorrow. Apparently it did not show in my donor file that I have an 11:30 a.m. appointment tomorrow to donate; I had changed it from 10 a.m.  back in November when I started volunteering for the Citizen Forester tree inventories. That has now been corrected. Or so I thought. At 8:25 I got a text reminding me about my appointment at 10 a.m.! Auē! As I was dialing their number to find out what was going on another text came in; it said I had another appointment at 11:30 a.m. & please confirm which one I wanted. Auē! I called back, was on hold for a minute or so, then the phone system sent me to some random voice mail; I left a message saying I had cancelled the 10 a.m. back in November & changed it to 11:30 a.m., which was made again about 15 minutes earlier. At 8:52 Derrick called back; he apologized for the confusion & confirmed my appointment for 11:30 a.m. tomorrow. I got an email confirmation a little later. We shall see.

My call log.

This is the one I cancelled in November.

This is the one I made in November.

Hulō!

Hulō nui!

A short while later I got a text from Mary Ellen, just checking in to see how we did with all the rain & flooding. I basically told her the same thing I told Charlie yesterday.

It was a pretty busy morning for texts & emails. I got 2 from Clarissa; she was forwarding electronic cards for 2 of my former co-workers who are retiring this month. Randy & I started working together in 1984 doing stream restoration! And although we had met each other several years earlier, Terri & I began working together in 2009; she has taught me a lot about bird identification including their calls & songs. The cards will be automatically sent to them when the countdown clock reaches zero.

Randy's last day is December 21st.

Terri's last day is December 29th.

As I was moving back & forth today while making more ice cubes, I noticed that The Potential Most Favorite Roommate had moved his little Jizo statue out to one of the plant shelves. The placement was perfect, it peeks in to the family room!

Keeping watch over us from the cat run.

For lunch I had some Shakshuka with cauliflower rice. I really need to find a good recipe. I'm sure it is easy to make. It's like hard-boiled eggs in marinara-style sauce.

Suzanne & Manu dropped by very briefly for a quick visit. Because they are here for a family memorial most of their time was spent with family & doing family activities. They were on their way between dinner at Rainbow Drive-In & a family event when they stopped in. 

Me with Suzanne. (Photo by Manu)

Suzanne took this photo of the orange tree for her mo'opuna Kaleo.

For dinner I had more Shakshuka with cauliflower rice plus some Sauteed Kale & Won Bok. I have been eating the sauteed kale with whatever other vegetable Japanese-style; cold with a little shoyu.

The cats all stayed indoors today, even though it is not raining as much as it did yesterday.

Keala.

Luna.

Wait! Where's Smores?

There she is! On DT's bed.

The thermal image at Kīlauea volcano is back to normal! And there is more activity than on Friday. The videos below describe what happened over the past few days when there was a question on whether the eruption was ending. The 2nd video also has several shots taken that show the affect of the fog on the thermal camera image.

At 7:31 a.m.

At 7:31 a.m.

The webcam still shows snow on Mauna Kea but I think there was no new snow. Comparing the last photo I took with today's 1st photo there is definitely less fog. But it does not look like there is any snow on top of the guardrail posts. Around lunch time some one plows a path to almost to the building. It stays that way for a while, but before the end of the day the parking lot & the access road to other areas has also been plowed.

At 7:02 a.m.

At 10:10 a.m.

At 12:06 p.m.

At 3:14 p.m.

At 5:46 p.m.

The Aix weather app forecast 0.3 in/hr of rain from the morning until after dark when it will begin to decrease to 0.2 in/hr; there will be thunderstorms through out the day. By 5 this morning the Pālolo Valley rain gage had recorded 6.37 inches of rain for the previous 24-hour period, which is about 0.26 in/hr; there were several places that had more rain than that. It rained on and off during the day but nothing like it showed on the Aix app. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast much less rain throughout the day; Big Island Now forecast showers & thunderstorms with a "near 100%" chance of rain. By around 6 this morning, the Honomū weather station had already recorded 0.01 inches of precipitation. For Marysville, Aix forecast some rain until after dark, when it forecast rain increasing to about

much

Kaimukī looking westerly at 2:29 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 6:30 a.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 6:31 a.m. HST.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 7:52 a.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 9:15 a.m.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 4:28 a.m.

Nā Koʻolau at 4:31 p.m.

The north facing shores once again had the best surf for the day.

Laniajea (N) at 6:32 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 6:33 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 6:55 a.m.

A shark attack was reported at Banyans on Saturday; Banyans is the surf spot included here for west facing shorelines. The surfer thought it was a Great White Shark, which are rarely seen here & when they are it is from January through April.  

There is an area on the Ring of Fire just off the coast of Oregon that was very active today. There were 5 earthquakes in that area between 11:30 a.m. and 3:21 p.m. The temblors were all about 7 miles deep and ranged from magnitude 5 to 5.7; none of them generated a tsunami.

For 3 days this month on Hawaiʻi Island you can get your COVID-19 vaccine with a Happy Meal! McDonald's is hosting pop-up vaccine clinics in Hilo, Puna, & Kona this month. Nā keiki will get a free Happy Meal & adults will get a free combo meal. Whatever works.

There were 55 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 88,440; these are from tests done on Sunday which are considerably fewer than on other days. There were no new deaths reported so the number of fatalities remains at 1033; currently there are 1241 cases considered active. As of today 2,374,295 doses of vaccine have been administered, providing 72.1% of the State with full vaccination & 77.7% with at least one dose. There are 36 cases that are currently hospitalized, with 8 in the ICU & 5 on ventilators. The 7-day new case average for the State is 90 with a positivity rate of 1.4%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 50 with a positivity rate of 1.3%.

Glad to see they are still keeping track of this.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Josey!