My Summer Vacation: Mahalo e Delta!

Hulō, Delta! The CEO of Delta Airlines is asking the US Department of Justice to create a Federal no-fly list for unruly passengers. It's about time they do something more than just take them off the plane; individual airlines should not be the only ones needing to deal with the issue of flight safety. Hopefully, making it difficult for perpetrators to go about their business as usual will make the perps reconsider their actions. There should also be fines involved for activities that don't rise to the level of no-fly designation. I also like that currently the perps are removed from the ability to be on the TSA pre-screen list; although they might need to then create a list for people becoming unruly in long TSA lines! (Though I suppose being on a no-fly list would solve that issue as well.)

Today was a Fast Day so no proothie or lunch photos. Just dinner later.

I texted Sally this morning, wishing Zhara a Happy Birthday since I did not have Zhara's number. Besides photos of the family, she also sent me photos of the seeds she started yesterday for her garden. Perhaps if I get back to Washington in the summer to help Kai move I can see her garden!

I had another Hilary's Veggie Burger for dinner tonight. Although I ate it with a bun, I took the photo without a bun so you could see what the burger looks like.

The Hawaiʻi Forest Institute received a grant to aid in its initiative to encourage the growing of native & canoe plants in urban areas. I have some canoe plants such as niu, maiʻa, kalo, ʻohiʻa ʻai, & ʻolena but I would like to raise more canoe plants as well as native plants around the property. However, I'm not really urban.

On Tuesday the Gilbert Kahele Recreation Area will be closed for vector control. I wonder what they mean by that? Are they spraying for mosquitos? Or is it something else? This recreation area at the foot of Mauna Kea was renamed from the Mauna Kea Recreation Area to the Gilbert Kahele Recreation Area in honor of the late State senator. I will have to find out more about this recreation area. Up at the summit, Mauna Kea still had snow.

University of Hawaiʻi astronomers, along with others from the University of Maryland & the University of Paris-Saclay, have traced the movement of 10,000 galaxies & galaxy clusters. Since a lot of it was based on math, I don't really understand it but I just thought you might like to know.

Kīlauea volcano is still erupting.

At 9:47 a.m.

The Aix weather app forecast nothing except rain in the evening for Honolulu; we had partly cloudy skies with no precipitation even in the evening. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast rain all day; Big Island Now forecast partly sunny with scattered showers & a 50% chance of rain, The Honomū weather station recorded no precipitation for the day. For Marysville, Aix forecast partly cloudy skies for the entire day; the traffic cam showed relatively clear skies instead.

Waikīkī looking easterly at 9:41 a.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 9:43 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 9:43 a.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 9:46 a.m. HST.

The DLNR Aquatic Resources Division moved a bunch of coral out of the way of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers harbor channel dredging operation. The ACOE originally said they would move the corals but then said damage would be minimal so they were not going to move them. So the State stepped in; last year the ACOE caused significant damage to the coral with their dredging on another part of the channel. Auē ACOE!

Moana Jones Wong became the 1st winner of the women's division of the Billabong Pro Pipeline today. Up until this year women were excluded from this event.

The surf on the north facing & west facing shorelines are high but declining. The south facing shore was looking rather flat.

Laniākea (N) at 9:42 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 9:40 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 9:42 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 9:44 a.m.

The LG got high marks in the poll for the Governor's race which will take place in about 6 months. A lot of it is due to his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unless he really screws up between now & then, I think he is going to be hard to beat.

Some jurisdictions have been testing wastewater for COVID-19; it is just getting started here in Hawaiʻi. A downside not mentioned in the article, or by those interviewed, is that in areas that there is no public sewer system & residences are on individual septic or cesspool systems (like almost all houses in Kohala) COVID-19 from those sources will not be detected. So there is still a gap in knowing what the actual COVID-19 occurrence is in the population that is similar to that posed by the increase in self-testing.

There were 916 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases to 226,451; the case numbers are definitely trending down. There were 4 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 1226; currently there are 22,808 cases that are considered active. The 7-day new case average for the State is 1165 with a positivity rate of 9.1%.