Season Ending in Tahoe

Sadly true, this and next weekend are going to be the last ones for a nice run in Tahoe. Heavenly is about to board up the lodges, and so are all the other resort, concluding a short season that started poorly, as it ended on a bang.

Next year? I’ll probably do without Heavenly, probably switch to the multi-pass for Kirkwood and Northstar. Heavenly finally got to me, I know every single run by heart, and I am sick of the tired snow an hour after the mountain opens.

What does Ninole mean?

From “Place Names of Hawaii”:

Nīnole. Land section and village, Honomū qd.; land section, homesteads, village, cove, and gulch, Honu-ʻapo qd., Hawaiʻi. There are freshwater springs at the Nīnole in Honu-ʻapo; see Pū-hau. A cannibalistic moʻo, Kaikapū (hag), lived at the Honu-ʻapo Nīnole; her pretty granddaughter led travelers to her cave, where she ate them raw (HM 264). Lit., bending.

Coming Back to San Francisco

{moszoomimglink:Brad}Latest update, mid-April. A tough month, already over a month into the extension. Here is the latest list of things to do (green: HAPPENING; grey: DONE):

• Wall to the master bedroom and MBR closet
• All swinging doors (14, plus closets)
• Fixed doors to the kitchen
• Drywalls and mud
• Painting
• Electrical (rough-in)
• Electrical (finish)
• Plumbing (finish)
• Bathroom and kitchen tiles
• Honoka`a bedroom
• Garage
• Upstairs bathroom tile

Brad says he’ll be done by the 16th (his birthday). I sure hope so, otherwise I just might run out of money…

DIY Mudding

Given that the timing is tight and I need to do something useful, I started helping with the mudding of the walls. Do you know what that is? I didn’t, hence I’ll explain it to everyone that doesn’t know either.

The process of putting together a wall used to entail, in the old days:

• bricks
• mortar
• plaster

You’d take the bricks, put them together with mortar, and then add plaster on top.

Canon Digital Rebel XT

I compared the Digital Rebel with a bunch of other Digital SLRs in a different article. Here now, after a couple of months, my first impressions with the Canon.

Overall Impression

I am very impressed with the Digital Rebel XT. It is a very responsive camera that delivers clear shots in most lighting conditions. The autofocus is very precise, battery life outstanding, and the availability of accessories excellent. The only drawback (which is shared by all digital SLRs) is sheer size. You have to be in a photo shoot mode to carry it around with you.

UPDATED: CanoScan N 1220 U

Guess what? Now it all works. Regardless of whether you use OpenSuSE or Fedora, it’s all good. You just fire up the scanner tool and scan the images the way you want. I have tested it over and over again, and I am thankful to all those that made it work for me. Go, Linux!

State in Emergency

Amazing and hard to believe, but global warming has the strangest effects in the islands. The papers are full of stories about the storms that have been hitting Oahu in the past week, all mentioning how nobody has ever seen this kind of weather. More and more blame it on the ability of winter storms to reach farther down to the tropics, and consequently to the islands.

Fortunately things are calming down, and we are enjoying a gorgeous Hamakua day around here. The wind is blustery, but who cares considering it could be raining? The sun is out, even here in Ninole, and being inside the house is amazing. Let’s hope the weather stays this way until tomorrow, when I’ll be able to go to the beach for the first time.

April Visit

{moszoomimglink:Brad}Latest update, end of March. A tough month, already over a month into the extension. Here is the latest list of things to do (green: HAPPENING; grey: DONE):

• Wall to the master bedroom and MBR closet
• All swinging doors (14, plus closets)
• Fixed doors to the kitchen
• Drywalls and mud
• Painting
• Electrical (rough-in)
• Electrical (finish)
• Plumbing (finish)
• Bathroom and kitchen tiles
• Honoka`a bedroom
• Garage
• Upstairs bathroom tile

Brad says he’ll be done by the 16th. I sure hope so, otherwise I just might run out of money…

Rain, Rain, Rain

Back in Ninole, where life is good. I finally have Internet connectivity (thanks to a Verizon card), which helps a lot. Still no kitchen, though, or potable water, so I still drive to Hilo in the morning.

Work on the house is slower even than feared. There are a few drywalls in, the staircase down is closer to final, and the inspector had only three things to complain about:

1. The bannisters of the main lanai were spaced too far apart (but he’s essentially complaining that the building code is too lax in the matter)
2. The master bathroom has no ventilation (which then turned into not enough ventilation)
3. The windows of the master bedroom are too low and it’s too easy to fall out. He requires screens to be mounted and screwed in place to prevent a fall

That’s all good. The mountain is still white in snow, the weather is dreadful (cool and cloudy) and the storms that have been hitting California lately are not going to leave this place alone. There was even a dam break in Kaua`i that killed a few people.

2006-03-29 Visit