Everytime Kelly and I watch Mark Kanemura perform on So You Think You Can Dance, she asks me the same question over and over: “Doesn’t Mark look like a combination of my cousins John and Bryan?” I’ve got to say she has a pretty strong case. What do you think?
Mark Kanemura
John and Bryan Watai.
Okay, so maybe it’s a stretch. But from some angles, we swear they could all be related.
With the big announcement today that Colt Brennan signed a $1.8 million contract with the Washington Redskins, I’m anxious to see how many Hawaii faithful will be sporting his new jersey around town. A quick check on the Redskins website has the replica jersey selling for $79.99. I’m not the jersey wearing type myself, but may have to make the exception to support the guy that brought so much excitement to UH football the last couple seasons. Are you planning to buy one?
My dad sent me the following golf joke today. God knows this has happened to every golfer at one point in their round. Thanks for the laugh pops!
It was a sunny morning, a little before 8.00am, on the first hole of a busy course, and I was beginning my pre-shot routine, visualizing my shot when a piercing voice came over the club house loud speaker, “Would the gentleman on the woman’s tee back up to the men’s tee please?”
I could feel every eye on the course looking at me. I was still deep in my routine, seemingly impervious to the interruption. Again the announcement, “Would the man on the woman’s tee kindly back up to the men’s tee.”
I simply ignored the guy and kept concentrating, when once more, the man yelled, “Would the man on the woman’s tee back up to the men’s tee, please?”
I finally stopped, turned, cupped my hands and shouted back, “Would the stupid jerk with the microphone kindly keep quiet and let me play my second shot!“
It was a great final match between Kim Welch (pictured above) and Sophie Sandoloin theGolf Channel’s Big Break Kaanapali. But in the end, Kim pulled of the victory and I was instantly made into a psychic with my prediction at the beginning of the new season that she would win it all. If you want to know what the future has in store for you, just give me a ring or Twitter me (@golfnutn8).
While it is true that I do have friends at The Golf Channel, I can tell you those folks are very tight lipped and I had no clue what the outcome would be.
Under normal circumstances, I would never (I repeat NEVER) spend $65 on a pair of boardshorts for me or anyone else. But last night’s trip to Pealridge Center ended up being no ordinary trip. Those who really know me and my heavy metal history know Metallica is my favorite metal band of all time! Here’s how things went down…
The first store we entered was Up & Riding, the awesome clothing store for kids, when my jaw almost hit the ground. “Are those Metallica surf shorts for toddlers?” I asked Kelly. After further inspection, my suspicions were true (see photo above) and 10 minutes later we were walking out with a new pair of boardshorts for Ensen. These things done come cheap. Toddler size (2T) as regularly priced at $48, but with a 20% off sale going on and a couple of store credits, we walked out paying a little more than $12. SCORE!
But Mission: Metallica was not over! I needed a pair for me and got my wish when we walked into Honolua Surf Co.Only problem was the shorts were $64.50. WHAT!!! But these were no ordinary short and Kelly completely understood. Thank goodness Honolua has an Ohana Card which gives you 10% off all purchases. So out we walked with $60 boardshorts.
Can’t wait to sport these shorts at the beach with Ensen. Oh, I should mention these Billabong limited edition boardshorts were designed with the Surfrider Foundation in mind. A portion of all proceeds will be donated to the foundation, so I’m considering this my charitable contribution this month.
The latest 337 haunting was seen by my sister Erin who attended a wedding at the Halekulani this past weekend. Who knew there was such a brand of wine? We do now! Yikes!
It’s time to come clean on something kind of funny and eerie! I’m not the superstitious type, but ever since my days in college the number 337 has followed me everywhere. No matter where I go, what I do, or whatever, the damn number haunts me to no end. I’m optimistic that it represents something positive (hopefully my future salary with three zeros at the end of it), but I can’t tell you how anxious I am to find out what it really means. BTW, I’ve since passed it on to Kelly (your welcome babe!).
It all started with my friend Leighton and the days of pagers (remembers those gizmos?). While attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, we all had pagers and had special codes to signify who was paging. My code was “178″ which looked like N8 or Nate. Well, Leighton’s pager happened code happened to be “337″ or Lee upside down. That was cool…
…until we moved into apartment C337 at Hale Noelani at UH for a year. That was a bit creepy but I passed it off as a random incident since it was really only my second run in with The Number. We had good times there, nothing crazy happened, and life went on. But then strange things started to happen.
Everytime I randomly looked at the clock on the wall at the library, at my job, in the car…the time just happened to be 3:37.
When going to the grocery store, I’d always pick up the ground beef or pork that happened to be $3.37.
Driving in my car, you can probably guess what I’m about to say. Yep, on several dozen occasions the car in front of me just happened to have a license place with the number 337. See photos below!
Random 337 sightings on the way to the office. Seriously, what’s going on?!
But the incident that put it over the top was when Kelly’s brother Jon moved into the Noelani apartment complex at UH years after I graduated and ended up in the same room I had when I was there…C337!! WTF?
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve since passed it on to Kelly, we continue to pick up ground beef, look at the clock, and follow cars that have 337 connected to it. Heck, I think I’ve even passed it along to my other family and friends (as evidenced in the photo above).
Is anyone else out there “cursed” by the number 337? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences…good and bad.
My theory on taking pictures with our Canon PowerShot SD750 digital camera is the more photos you take, the better the odds that one will come out good. Which properly explains why our iPhoto library has over 10,000 photos taken since the beginning of the year. If we could only remember to delete the bad shots…
For a $200 camera this compact piece of equipment takes some pretty awesome photos. I’ve learned how to tinker with some of the settings and try to wait for the right kind of natural lighting. I continue to be amazed at with how good the pictures turn out. Here’s some taken yesterday at Uncle Glen and Aunty Kim’s house. Could these pass as professional photos?
I confess I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out the whole Web 2.0/social media thing lately and I suspect Ensen may have been watching me. Between blogging here and fussing around on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and you name it (check out our Contact Us/Social Networking page for all the places you can find us online), I’m amazed at what the little guy is picking up. Ensen’s already obsessed with my laptop and banging on the keyboard. I guess it’s safe to say he’s daddy’s boy and what I’m calling the face of Web 8.0.
YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU! Okay, that was a joke Kelly told me the other day. Thought that was pretty darn funny so I thought I’d share it on the blog. And if you don’t get it, then check out his song “Crank Dat” and you’ll understand the punch line.
Speaking of Soulja Boy, I found this video of him surfing in Waikiki on YouTube. Probably the best place in the world to learn how to surf. Check it out!
There’s been a lot of noise in our neighborhood lately with construction of the new Country Club Village 6 condominium being erected at an amazing pace. Seems like only yesterday there was an empty lot across the street of our condo. With 269 units on the way, we’ll soon have hundreds of new neighbors joining us in Salt Lake and more traffic to deal with too. YAY! As long as we can make a left turn out of our driveway in the morning, it’s all good. And if there’s one bright side to all of this, at least two of those new neighbors will be our friends Karen and Preston who waited in line over night for the opportunity to buy a unit in CCV6 last year.
On my way back to Oahu after finishing the Pressure Cook filming on the Big Island, I stopped in the gift shop by the Hawaiian Airlines gate to kill some time. I stumbled upon this Aloha Airlines toy on the shelf and bought two of them as keepsakes or collector’s items if you will…one for Ensen to play with and one for me to keep in its original package as a future “talk story” piece.
The cashier behind the counter told me these were flying off the shelves and they were having a hard time ordering more. It could have just been a sales pitch, but I think it was the sad truth about people attempting to hold on to a piece of Hawaii history.
I’m holding on to my two planes for as long as I can, but I see people are turning around and selling them on eBay for a slightly higher price. Different strokes for different folks. It’s a really cool pull-back toy that makes a great take off and landing sound with flashing lights on the engines. Ensen certainly loves it!
The Kam family did its part this morning donating some canned good to the Hawaii Foodbank. A few collection baskets for the U.S. Postal Service National Association of Letter Carriers Annual Food Drive to “Help Stamp Out Hunger” were placed in our condo lobby and collection takes place today. Ensen took the liberty of personally placing a few items in the donation basket.
A typical West Maui sunset from the beach fronting The Westin Maui in Kaanapali. Spectacular!
Another great day of shooting with the Three Sheets crew on Maui in the books! I can’t believe there’s only one more day left. I’m keeping this one short as I’m about to head out the door for dinner with the crew. Simply put, the Hawaii show is going to be awesome!
Zane’s “hangover cure” was a lomi lomi massage in a cabana at The Westin Maui in Kaanapali.
Zane samples Pau Maui vodka distilled from Maui Gold pineapples. Another Three Sheets First!
More Magnum P.I. spoofing! All about recreating the opening scene as close as possible.
Eric the Sound Guy gives the whole Magnum P.I. thing a shot.
Another beautiful day at the Hanalei Bay Pier on Kauai.
News headlines these days have been pretty grim for Hawaii following the shutdown of Aloha Airlines and ATA. Most outlets are speculating airfare to the islands will rise due to a reduction in seats and jet fuel prices at all time record highs. I think it’s fair to say travelers will certainly see higher fares in the near future.
But despite all of the negative headlines, I was curious to find out just how expensive it is to fly to Hawaii this summer from some of this destination’s key markets (versus other competitive destinations like Orlando, Jamaica, Mexico, Bahamas, London, etc.).
So I did some very non-scientific research yesterday on Kayak.com. I picked travel dates (July 3-11), which I thought airfares were most likely to be at a premium. And here is what I found (rates based on one round trip ticket):
Los Angeles
LAX-HNL (Honolulu) - $538
LAX-MCO (Orlando) - $369
LAX-KIN (Jamaica) - $550
LAX-FPO (Bahama) - $476
LAX-MEX (Mexico) - $357
LAX-LHR (London) - $1,103
San Francisco
SFO-HNL (Honolulu) - $652
SFO-MCO (Orlando) - $399
SFO-KIN (Jamaica) - $700
SFO-FPO (Bahama) - $513
SFO-MEX (Mexico) - $545
SFO-LHR (London) - $1,123
Vancouver, B.C.
YVR-HNL (Honolulu) - $754
YVR-MCO (Orlando) - $648
YVR-KIN (Jamaica) - $1,004
YVR-FPO (Bahama) - $777
YVR-MEX (Mexico) - $723
YVR-LHR (London) - $1,215
New York
NYC-HNL (Honolulu) - $868
NYC-LAX (Los Angeles) - $366
NYC-KIN (Jamaica) - $445
NYC-FPO (Bahama) - $347
NYC-MEX (Mexico) - $342
NYC-LHR (London) - $912
To summarize:
No matter what destination you’re thinking of traveling to, airfares will generally be high across the board, particularly to Europe.
Airfare from the West Coast/Canada to Hawaii remains very competitive with other destinations. The current exchange rate for Canadians makes a trip/vacation to Hawaii very reasonable.
Airfare from the East Coast to Hawaii is higher versus travel to competitive destinations. No surprise here regardless of the current airline situation.
Looking at the bigger travel picture, if you’re determined to take a tropical overseas vacation this summer regardless of the cost, Hawaii is still a great value! What are you waiting for? Do your research, book early, put your tax refund to good use, and make that Hawaii vacation a reality.
To start planning your Hawaii vacation, visit GoHawaii.com.
