Hawaiian word of the week

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Malihini-(ma-lee-hee-nee)- Newcomer, visitor

The alphabet contains 12 letters: 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and 7 consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w). To simplify pronunciation, sound consonants as in English and break up words so they are easy to say (ie- Humuhumunukunukuapua’a would be pronounced humu-humu-nuku-nuku-apu-a-a)

Pronounce vowels as follows:

a - a in above; e - e in set; i - ee in see; o - o in some; u - oo in moon.

Pronounce vowels marked by a glottal stop (`) quickly ie- o`o sounds like oh-oh! in English.

Stress rising dipthongs (ae, ai, ao, au, oi, ou, eu, ei) on the first letter and end with a short e, i, o or u. ie- oi sounds like oy in soy, ending with a short “i”.

Aloha Friday Recipe: Gon Lo Mein

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Ingredients:

3 pkgs (10 oz. size) ready to eat chow mein noodles
3/4 cup oyster sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
8 dried mushrooms (soaked)
6 green onions, chopped
1 pkg (12 oz) bean sprouts
4 stalks celery, slivered
1/2 cup Chinese peas, sliced
1 pkg (12 oz) green beans, sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon monosodium glutamate
3/4 lb char siu, thinly sliced

Procedure:
Place noodles in a 13 X 9 X 2 inch baking pan. Sprinkle noodles with 1/4 cup of the oyster sauce and 1 tablespoon of the sasame oil; heat in electric oven at 250 degrees F. for 10 minutes. Remove stems from mushrooms; slice caps. In a wok or skillet, heat remaining tablespoon oil. Add mushrooms and other vegetables; stir-fry for 2 minutes. Season with salt, monosodium glutamate and the remaining 1/2 cup oyster sauce. Mix char siu with the vegetables. Stir in noodles and toss gently. Makes 12 servings.

Submitted by: Residential Services Division
Orgainization: Hawaiian Electric Company

Lava hits the ocean/Jack Thompson update

Filed Under Kilauea Volcano | 7 Comments

Well, it finally made it, Pele’s liquid ooze hit the ocean. Prior to this, there were 5 people evacuated from the area. One of them included Royal Gardens subdivisions most famous hold out, Jack Thompson. The following is part of a story from the Honolulu Star Bulletin:

Hawaii County Civil Defense ordered five people to evacuate from the area Tuesday, just ahead of advancing flows. The tip of the Kilauea Volcano flow, which was above the gravel access road Tuesday, crossed the road yesterday, Kauahikaua [of HVO] said. The evacuees included two people in a trailer, which they simply drove away, and a man in a tent next to an illegal structure he was building at Pacific Paradise Oceanfront Estates, said Royal Gardens resident Jack Thompson.

But Thompson, counted as one of the evacuees, said he planned to go back tomorrow, since he has guests arriving by helicopter at his hillside bed-and-breakfast on Saturday. And fellow Royal Gardens resident Dean Schneider, also counted as a evacuee, is still in the subdivision, Thompson said. Thompson was not concerned about county security personnel posted to keep people out. “I just tell them I’m a resident, I know my way and I’m going home,” he said. The mere fact that a lava flow hundreds of feet wide now separates his house from the outside world did not bother him. “I just ride right across,” he said. Thompson has even ridden his motorcycle across red, flowing lava in the past. “It probably isn’t hotter than a road in Texas,” he said.

I’ve gotta say my hats off to Jack. He’s happy in his piece of paradise and he’s not leaving it unless the lava sets the house ablaze. If Jack, a self proclaimed hermit, gets past this brush with Madame Pele unscathed, he may just get a few more visitors than he’s used to since he’s quickly becoming a media darling. Enjoy your privacy while you can Jack!

County readies safe lava viewing area

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As fingers of lava now slowly creep past Royal Gardens subdivision, Mayor Harry Kim knows the county needs to set up a safe lava viewing area for people. The lava, now heading to cross old highway 130, always brings spectators and yesterday as many as 75 people were there to watch Pele in action. County workers began setting up parking areas, portable bathrooms, traffic controls and a trail that may be ready in a few days for lava junkies.

Lava already cut off the main motorcycle path used by the remaining Royal Gardens hold out, Jack Thompson who has been getting quite a bit of attention lately based off of Pele’s choosen liquid path. I saw he walked 3 miles to the house but haven’t seen anything else that confirms he left for good. We’re pullin’ for ya Jack. You’ve had the right idea all these years! Get out the gin and make your offering!

Hawaii IPTV review: Is it worth the money?

Filed Under Hawaii Resources, Hawaii TV | 16 Comments

There’s something about tv in Hawaii. It’s the warm aloha of local newscasts, cooking shows, various cable access shows and even the commercials. Whether you lived in Hawaii or visited on vacation, you find when you’re away, you yearn for the local flair. Enter Hawaii IPTV. I was so excited when I saw this because if there’s one thing I miss when I’m not in the islands, it’s watching Guy Hagi tell me the weather or Sam Choy tell me what local cuisine I can whip up. At Christmas time, I got $250 as a gift from my mother in law and saw this as a perfect opportunity to bite the bullet and put it toward subscribing to Hawaii IPTV for a year. (The start up cost including S&H is $344.99)

I was very glad to see they changed the set top box to a putty color rather than that hideous big bird yellow they had previously. We were so excited when it finally arrived. Immediately apparent is some of the broadband technology on which it runs on is outdated which the company needs to address. Now time to get to the good stuff, we tuned in to the “live” programming which is just the newscasts from KGMB, KHNL and KFVE. It’s implied you can watch the newscasts live from your time zone but we’ve yet to ever see one live. Over the past week, we are only able to see KGMB and none of the other two newscasts work for ANY of the days, only color bars and a delightful piercing audio. I emailed them a few days ago about it and have yet to hear back. I mean, KGMB is who we watch anyway but that’s not the point, we’re paying for all of the newscasts to be available.

Basically, in the course of a month you could watch every single program on there as nothing seems to be added since we’ve had it. We were especially excited to watch Sam Choy’s Kitchen cooking show and while there are probably 40+ shows, they’re all 11+ years old and the audio is bad to boot! The audio is bad on a lot of the shows. You have to do a lot of finagling with the audio on the remote that comes with it and your tv remote to get it to the point where its not completely grating. Some shows have a decent amounts of episodes like Sam Choy’s Kitchen and then you get Eh, U Da Kine, Ah? with Tony Solis and there are only 2 episodes and the audio is so bad you can barely hear what’s being said. I have to say that had the total cost been the bulk of my own money, I would be highly disappointed. Well, any amount, I’m still highly disappointed. The biggest reason I went ahead with it is the hint that they are negotiating to possibly get UH Sports for this year. If we could see Warrior Football, that would be a major plus but if that doesn’t happen, I have to wonder if this is worth keeping once the subscription is up.

Bottom line: Good idea, poor execution. I think the problems this system has are VERY fixable if the company wants to do so and build a good reputation. If the menu stays the same throughout the year with no new licensing agreements and added shows, people who are already subscribers are going to drop like flies. It’d be like deciding if you want to pay a monthly fee for newscasts which is nice but apparently not so much at this point in time for the KHNL and KFVE newscast viewers.