Pupule Paul

Von's at Palama Market (Makaloa) Fried chicken wings 3.7 stars (out of 4). $23 > Juicy, crispy. Just needs some side sauce. Fried rice 3.0 (out of 4) $5 > This is from the market. Kim chi fried rice is better. Also has spam cubes. Olina Cafe Azuki smoothie 2.7 (out of 4). $6 Not as good as the one from Coffee & Tea in McCully. This one has a strong sesame seed flavor. Can't really taste the azuki beans. Still pretty good. #palamamarket #chickenwings

Lavender is tough. Pretty, but tough. They can go days without water, so resilient. One of the most peaceful places I've enjoyed is Alii Lavender Farm in Kula. My little lavender on the lanai is just enough to sit down and enjoy for a few moments.

Yup a good popcorn flick. The Hitman's Bodyguard 3.3 stars (out of 4) I'm all for a sequel. With more Salma Hayek.

This is not about a place, really. It's not even about a story from Hawaii. It's about a man who happened to be deaf, became a pioneer and an educator in an era when most folks didn't know much about the hearing impaired. I got my Robert Panara stamp during a trip to California in the summer. No clue when I would really use it since it's not a regular stamp. It's a 2-ounce, and until today I didn't know precisely how much that really is.  Well, I came across a " Celebrating Robert Panara " postmark being  done in Rochester, NY, where Mr. Panera was an instructor for decades. So, on deadline, I sent off for the postmark, using envelopes and a paper with Panera stamps. Hopefully, it goes smoothly. I'm going to learn about his life, and what little I know is fascinating. USPS knows how to to pick icons. Quiet people who have made major impact on our country. Why does this seem important to me? My mom was deaf. A proud deaf woman whose fr...

Hate checking the mail? I'm with you. Piles of mostly useless junk mail. Stuff that I don't need. But I enjoy opening the malbox now. This is a confession and a post of gratitude, actually. One, I apologize to my daily mail carrier. I'm the resident who checked the mailbox two or three times a month. The mailbox that was stuffed so badly that the mail carrier had to leave official slips notifying me that my mail was now at the post office. What kind of a resident does this to a decent, hard-working postal employee? But that's the truth. That all changed in the past month. Why? My "hobby". The return of my fixation on postmarks. It began (again) with a trip to the Big Island, where my assignment was to cover the state track and field championships with a co-worker, Stanley Lee. But I got it in my head to arrive early in the day and drive up the beautiful Hamakua Coast, if only to reel in the big reward. Big Reward: Ninole Post Office. When I first coll...

Vote: Which art do you like better? Please note if you are a Waianae alum. Mahalo.

Pupule-O-Meter 3.3 (out of 4 stars) I had the benefit, it would seem, of viewing this from a somewhat fresh perspective because I didn't see the original, An Inconvenient Truth. Still, even if I had, this was a somber, yet invigorating film that I had to remind myself is reality, not fiction. Satisfying enough. Now how do we stop the madness?

Note: I jotted this down roughly a month ago, but with Kalaheo forfeiting its (OIA D-II) game against Waipahu last weekend and Kaiser forfeiting its third game in a row this week, this seems a bit pertinent. ** What we know now: reconfiguration episode ** In a world of vegetarian dragons and winged, saber-toothed unicorns who dive into molten lava lakes and fluffy cotton-candy clouds with equal ease, here’s a pupule look at what an “ideal” three-tiered format — rather than two — would look like in OIA football. Reminder: The OIA had Red, White and Blue Conferences in the early 1990s.  OIA Based on record, enrollment, incoming/returning football talent. > What we know the Open Division should be: Farrington Kahuku Kapolei Mililani Waianae ** Double round-robin regular season (eight games). First-round winner vs. Second-round winner is champion. No automatic third state berth due to ratio format. If the MIL and/or BIIF declare for Open Division, they will playof...

I'd heard about the $7 stamp used for big packages, the only current one I know if that has any Hawaii connection. Finally, yesterday, I asked more about it at the Makiki Post Office, and the clerk obliged. The art is of Liliuokalani Gardens, to my surprise. That isn't just a Hawaii stamp. It's Hilo. Classic Hilo. So, of course, I immediately realized that this isn't a stamp to be used for just anything. I'll save it for the next trip to the Big Island. But using it on an envelope seems preposterous. And normally, I use two envelopes for my collection. Buy another $7 stamp? Or maybe it belongs in the postmark book. That gets complicated, too, because when I returned to postmark collecting in May after a 21-year break, I wasn't organized. I was in Hilo. I got the bug to finally get a Ninole Post Office postmark. And then I went and got 10 or so more up and down the Hamakua Coast over a period of two mornings. But because I wasn't prepared, I got the postmar...

There's been plenty said and scribed about the tragedy in Charlottesville, Va. At my age, I thought I'd already learned everything I needed about hate crimes, hate activity, hate cults. I was wrong. Hate rallies based on ethnicity, race, origin — that's as close to a crime without it being a crime. Maybe it should be. There is no point in arguing with extremists. I do agree on this: I refuse to hate. We don't witness everything seen and unseen. Life goes full circle and we are all accountable eventually. Love will win. Just watch your backs if you're hovering in a place tormented by evil. The apostle Paul was the worst kind of human being, a man who led persecution and executions of innocent people. Even he got a second chance. Confessed his heinous sins. Surrendered. Preached the gospel until he, too, was executed. Unfathomable, yet sanctified. photo by BrightVibes

Over the years, I added one blog after another. A History of Migration . Pickled Mango Hawaii . Urban Bucket Garden . Ala Wai Soul . Nothing ambitious, just outlets for my thoughts (and yours) about a few things that I find interesting. (Prior to that, there was Rainbow Sports Network and Hawaii Sports Network, both labors of love that are now buried under the cyber dust of time. Honda Report had a big goal at the start, but that de-evolved over time, and eventually I went to work at my dream destination.) But time is scarce and the blogs I started have gone without a new post for 2. 3, even 10 years. As in BEFORE @BARACKOBAMA BECAME PRESIDENT. Now is a good time to bunch everything together, as longtime friend Mr. Hornet once suggested, rather than split them up. So there will be food. Pictures of food. That's one thing we do well in the islands. And various other stuff, including sports-related wordage that fits better here than in a publication. Or stuff that didn't make...