Bill 147 Deferred

At the Leeward Planning Commission meeting today, the commissioners voted to defer the final vote on Bill 147 to next month's meeting. That will allow us more time to read through additional materials & more thoroughly digest all the information that was shared with us in the meeting today. If you are a glut for punishment, you can click here to view the 4 hour meeting. 

On my way to Kona for the LPC meeting, I generally stop at Juice 101 in the Maunalani Resort to get a Met Rx meal replacement smoothie. I do the chocolate whey powder with peanut butter & chocolate chips. Yes, I know, not really consistent with the diet plan. But it is not a boiled vegetable! So I can technically say it is part of the anything-but-boiled-vegetables plan! Besides, I generally only do it once a month so it should not really impact the overall weight loss journey. 

MetRx meal replacement smoothie on left. Haven't quite figured out how to do this kind of photo yet.

After the planning commission meetings, I run errands in Kona. After all, it is an hour away from home & there are things I can't get in Kohala that I can get in Kona or other parts of the island; since I am already in Kona, I should do it while I am there to reduce my transportation impacts on the environment. I stop at Petco to pick up Moʻo's frozen food. I go to Island Naturals for organic & other natural foods. I go to Office Max to get ink for the printer like I did today or other office supplies. I also go to Hawaiian Fresh Specialties to get fresh poi, poke, & dried aku; but they were closed today since it is Tuesday. (LPC meetings are usually on Thursday which is when they are open.) I also go to get the  car washed & waxed at the Kona Express Car Wash; today I had some free time so I also vacuumed the car.

Then, as I am driving back home, I call Kai & talk with him so the drive is not so boring. Over the past 2 years that I have been on the planning commission, we have discovered where the signal moves from 1 tower to the next & where the dead zones are along the hour long drive. I can usually get to within about 15 minutes of home before I lose him completely. We never call back since we have usually covered everything we need to for the month by that time. Today he enlightened me about my serendipitous decision to start learning Mandarin. He said the State Department rates Mandarin as the most difficult language to learn. But that wasn't quite true. Mandarin, along with Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, & Arabic, is in the Category V group of languages that the Foreign Services Institute of the State Department considers the most difficult for a native English speaker to learn. According to the FSI it takes about 2200 hours or 88 weeks of classes to reach the S-3/R-3 level of proficiency. (That's about 3&1/2 hours per day, 5 days a week, for 1 year & 9 months. I am doing about 30 minutes per day on Duolingo; which means it will take me at least 12 years to reach that level! I will be happy if I reach Level 25 in Mandarin in a year; that's the level I am at for ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi.)

This is about half of the Asian languages available.

I think this is more for embassy interpreters & translators.

Interestingly, to me, they have more than 1 type of Mandarin lessons. There is a section of courses under the Defense Language Institute; it seems to emphasize reading a lot. I'll let you guess what their main purpose might be. And then there is the Peace Corps course. It probably emphasizes more community-oriented words & phrases. I am thinking may be I should start with that last piece on verb usage patterns; I think I am noticing some as I listen to the shows but it would be nice to have that confirmed.

Under the Oceania section of courses, there is no ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. So I was surprised to see Pidgin listed! Turns out it is not the Hawaiʻi Creole English pidgin but the pidgin spoken in west & central Africa; which made me wonder, why did they lump it with the languages of Oceania? (My native language is Hawaiʻi Creole English, which is why sometimes my sentence structure in this blog might be a little strange. My 2nd language is Standard American English which I learned when I started grade school. I would say I am fluent in both of these. ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi is the 3rd language I am learning & Mandarin is the 4th; I would like to become fluent in these. I have also dabbled in Japanese, German, Spanish, & Arabic; in that order.)

Not Hawaiʻi Creole English.

Interestingly, I have already thought about moving on to Arabic once I finish Mandarin on Duolingo if they have not introduced more ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi lessons by then. So, Yay! Let's try to learn 2 of the 5 most difficult languages for native English speakers! Why Arabic? I had actually started to learn Arabic at a mosque in Washington because I was doing advocacy work with local Muslims who were fearful of the safety of themselves & their families. What is really cool is that the FSI has on-line courses which have both written & audio portions. And best of all it's FREE! Down side - there is no Hawaiian. Probably because the State Department is not needed here in Hawaiʻi & English is the 2nd official language of the state. Oh well, but it doesn't hurt to check if there might be something for ʻÕlelo Hawaiʻi; like finding out Wikipedia can be shown in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi!  

The fermentation of the sauerkraut & kim chee are coming along great! The red coloring from the Crunchy Garlic in Chili Oil that I added to the kim chee for Kai is turning everything red as the bubbling spreads the color around. The sauerkraut continues to leak a lot more brine. 

Not as much liquid spilled over; color is spreading nicely!

More liquid spilled over; color from red cabbage spreading to everything!

The window for the next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea has been narrowed. It is now anticipated that it will erupt some time between the 6th & the 10th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Cathy! 

Boring ...

Today I worked on finishing the readings for tomorrow's special session for the Leeward Planning Commission. This item was originally on our agenda for the June 18th meeting. It was moved to tomorrow since there were already 7 items on that agenda & this item already had 41 letters of written testimony that had been submitted by the 15th & more in person testimony was expected during the meeting. Now we have a total of 80 written testimonies; 39 more pages were submitted after the June 18th meeting. We will likely get a few more late arriving written testimonies that we will have to read before the meeting tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we will also find out how many in-person & Zoom testifiers there will be. It could be a long day. But that's our job, to provide an opportunity for the public to voice their support for or opposition to a code amendment (in this case) or certain projects. (We don't hold meetings for all projects, only the ones that require a public review.)

About 1/4 of testimony on this item.

 

The weather was kinda gray & wet at sunrise; it remained that way for most of the day. So it was a good day to stay indoors & finish all the readings & formulate the questions I had about the proposed amendments to the code on transient vacation rentals (TVRs). In a way, the weather helped me to focus more on what I needed to finalize for tomorrow's meeting. 

Sunrise.

It was raining really hard in the morning when I went to feed Moʻo. I decided to ignore the rain & check out how much was flowing in to the māla kalo; I had never gone out during a rain event to see how much rain was directed in to the māla. Its not easy to see in the photo below since I have not removed all the weeds but it was a good amount of water; I am pleased with how the māla is working!

It looked like entire māla was inundated.

The controlled rotting, aka fermentation, of the sauerkraut & kim chee is coming along well! More liquid has been pushed out of the jars by the fermentation process. And active bubbling can be seen in both jars.

About 1/4 inch liquid has leaked out.

Still foaming at vent.

A bubble escapes from brine. More are on the way.

Learning Mandarin is coming along slowly but surely. And apparently the words associated with sports are starting to stick better in my brain! I guess I just needed a little more repetition.  

Still doing well on these exercises.

And these, too!

I do well on these, too. But it is harder to show you what happens.

When you click on them & its correct, they go dark.

These are the flash card words! Got all correct this time!

 

In today's episode of Guardians of the Ancient Oath, a weapons rack can be seen to Baili Hongshuo's right. It's a lot bigger than the one I ordered & also a lot sturdier. It is meant to hold longer weapons (like spears) made of metal not of wood. The top tier is also a lot higher than mine will be, because, you know, some of us are vertically challenged!

The next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea is likely to be between the 6th & the 12th. More time & data is needed to figure out more accurately when Episode 51 will be. Hopefully, Kai will be able to see it this time; he has missed it the last 2 times he was here. He is arriving on the 9th.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Tony! I know some cool people; Tony is one of them. Some of his LinkedIn profile is below.

Controlled Rotting

The sauerkraut is doing a lot of fermenting! Today there was a lot more liquid in the bowl & a foamy mass surrounding the vent. And the kim chee has started to release a lot of gas & liquid, too! So I was wrong in thinking the capsaicin was inhibiting the fermentation. FYI Fermentation is just properly controlled rotting!

Today's breakfast special at Motek Bakery was shakshuka, my favorite! Since I had a larger early meal, I only had a protein smoothie for my later meal. 

When I let Moʻo out this morning, I heard several ʻIo calling. They sounded like they were quite low so I pulled my phone out & started scanning the sky in the direction of the calls. I saw an ʻIo skim low over the top of Jessie's roof; it then headed over in our direction & passed so low over our garage I could see the color of its eyes! Unfortunately, since it was that low, it also passed over us so quickly that even though I had my phone out I was unable to get a good photo of it. The photo below is similar to what I would frequently send to my friend & co-worker Terri who taught me about birding by ear & how to identify a lot of the Pacific Northwest birds. It became a running joke between us!

I sent this to Terri. She said, "Yep, still the great bird photographer. 😂"

Many of the earlier Chinese TV series that I watched had both English & simplified Chinese subtitles. The last few did not; I think Love of Nirvana, which I watched last month, was the last one that had both. I am on Episode 11 of  Guardians of the Ancient Oath, it only has English subtitles. I think I will add another category to my rabbit hole document that notes whether there are Chinese subtitles. It seems my Mandarin learning has slowed down since there are no Chinese subtitles.

Where's the Hanzi?

Here is the the Hanzi for swimming. In the blue highlighted character, the radical on the right is "water". I like to imagine the other 4  brush strokes mainly on the left are the splashing around of someone in the water, like they were "swimming" but doing a poor job & floundering around instead. Or perhaps a good job at attracting sharks! Maybe those 4 brush strokes represent a shark coming in for a taste?

 

The next episode of the eruption at Kīlauea will likely come between the 6th & the 12th.

Hey! I Ordered a Cheeseburger!

For some reason, I woke up this morning thinking about the Gary Larson cartoon on the 4 personality types. When it came out, I circulated a copy in our grading section asking people on our team to identify which personality type they were. Interestingly, all 4 of us grading inspectors chose the cheeseburger one! And even more interestingly, none of the other staff did. I guess that's why we became grading inspectors; we wanted results! (FYI He is now on the web!)

I was awakened last night by some really bad nocturnal cramps! It started in my left leg but then my right leg started to cramp as well. I think it was because I did not hydrate during class as well as I normally do. I even came home & drank some of my home-made Meyer lemonade & Pedialyte sports drink; but apparently not enough to make up for missing out on the electrolytes earlier in the day. It resolved itself after about 10 minutes, but it was a rather harsh 10 minutes! 😫

The sauerkraut spewed out some fermentation gases last night. And blew some of it far enough it did not land in the plastic tub it is sitting in! Fortunately the other plastic tray caught it. I have repositioned the jar so the vent now points towards the center of the tray & not towards an edge. The kim chee just showed a tiny dribble down the side; perhaps it is the capsaicin in the crunchy garlic with chili oil affecting the fermentation bacteria.

I am making progress in my pronunciation of the Mandarin words. Mainly because I am listening closely to the inflections & just repeating as closely as possible to what I hear. They give you 3 tries to get it right or close to right. I think I am using the bird call ID part of my brain for this. But it would still be helpful to work with a Mandarin speaker to really know what I am supposed to do & why rather than just trying to imitate a speech pattern. Especially when I can't figure out how to say it right. Although imitation is the main way children learn to speak whatever language it is that they speak; it would still be nice to have someone point out to me how to say it right.

Could use some help on this one.

Another part of the learning is to "complete the chat" or "complete the sentence," aka fill in the blank in the spoken conversation. I can understand some of the words being spoken & I can recognize some of the Hanzi. How I have been completing the sentences is figuring out what might be an appropriate response to the comment, then searching for the Hanzi or Pinyin in the 2 phrases that are presented that will give me a clue as to which might be the proper response. So it takes a long time; it would not be appropriate for a conversation.

I was able to identify the Hanzi for "basketball".

Other options were words I knew & did not fit the sentence.

For the "select the correct translation" exercise, an English word is shown; you must choose from the 3 Hanzi/Pinyin options offered. I can usually get this fairly easily; its like I see flash cards in my brain for the different words. I just need to be able to find them faster so that they become more automatic like about 400 or so of the 950 words that Duolingo says I "know" in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi; sometimes I am trying so hard to think of the word that I have to force myself to relax & when I do the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi word just pops into my brain! I also need to remember both the Hanzi & Pinyin; right now I am relying heavily on the Pinyin.

Recognizing radical for "water" made this easier.

For the "tap what you hear" exercises, a phrase is spoken, then you must choose from the 6 to 8 Hanzi/Pinyin options offered at the bottom. This is fairly easy since the Pinyin gives a clue as to what the correct ones are.

The "translate this sentence" exercises are like the "select the correct translation" exercises but includes making a sentence out of the word options given. Something that I have noticed is that I can fairly easily recognize the radical for "water" (shuǐ, 水) which I have now seen in "ice" (bīng, 冰) & "swimming" (yóu yǒng, 游泳). That has been helpful; now if I can only do that for more nouns!

I also learned that "hái shi" means "or".

And finally there are the ones that are flashcards in English, that you must say in Mandarin! This is the most difficult for me since I have not yet gotten to that same level as I am in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi where those 400 or so words just pop in to my brain. I would say there are perhaps 10 or so words that I can remember the Hanzi &/or Pinyin for & that I can correctly pronounce to pass this part of the lesson. I have never gotten more than 2 out of the 5 correct.

Because I start my day by doing Duolingo while I lie in bed after my alarm goes off, I frequently get an attaboy for extending my practice streak so early! Although I am a little curious, I am in the 2nd to the last time zone of the day. Are they only comparing me to people in my time zone? Or are they looking at the relative times that Duolingo users around the world are extending their streaks?

Episode 50 of the eruption of Kīlauea started this morning at 10:10 & ended at 5:10 p, after about 7 hours of activity.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Anne!