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Happy Birthday America

The United States turned 234 years old this week. Hawaii celebrated America's Independence Day in the usual way: shopping, picnics, beach, playgrounds, music, gatherings and of course fireworks. Here is video from Ala Moana Center's fireworks finale and pictures from the same show. Hope you all had a great holiday to help celebrate America's freedom.

Photos and video content Copyright 2010 by Melvin Ah Ching Productions

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Last Month on the Big Island of Hawaii
Sunrise in Honokaa on June 26, 2010.

I spent nearly half the month of June on the Big Island of Hawaii mainly in the town of Honokaa visiting and staying over with my parents and sister. Each trip back to my favorite neighbor island is special these days as my Dad is in declining health. It is a special time I take to visit him and Mom. I spent several days taking Dad around to places he wanted to see near Honokaa.

While they are not in most of the photos, they were indeed there during trips to Kalopa State Park, Waipio Valley lookout, Paauilo Mauka, Ookala and Laupahoehoe.

Some of the significant items of note during my stay on the Big Island:

The Kealakaha Stream Bridge: Newly opened, with construction finished on May 12. This new bridge (photo above) had been under construction along Route 19 near Ookala for at least 3 years. It seemed longer. The new 650 foot span replaces the narrow, old bridge that had been in service since about 1935. That bridge still stands to the right of this new bridge.

I like the new bridge. Most motorists will travel over the span in less than 60 seconds. It is nice, wide and feels very safe. The main reason for the bridge replacement was to have a new facility that is able to withstand the shock of a major earthquake. The Big Island is volcanic and residents there are subjected to numerous earthquakes, most of them small.

T. Kaneshiro Store (TKS) Sold: It was with some sadness when I found out that T. Kaneshiro Store (TKS), a long time grocer in Honokaa town will be sold to new owners. The store's last day of operation will be on August 31. Store owners Roland and Gary Kaneshiro are retiring after being in the family business as the town's main grocers for many years.

I worked at Kaneshiro Store for one summer in the 1970s as a stock clerk. Learned some valuable lessons from the retail trade and have applied them to my life as a good consumer. My brother worked there for about 2 years in the mid 1980s.

Kaneshiro Store started off in a small wooden building that still stands at the corner of Mamane and Plumeria streets in Honokaa. In 1976 the store was moved to the bigger, present location just across Plumeria street.

On September 1, the grocers Malama Market will take over T. Kaneshiro Store. It will certainly be the end of an era for Honokaa and Hamakua.

Honokaa's longtime grocery store, TKS will become Malama Market on Sept. 1.

The Honokaa sewer line project took to the side streets in June.

Sewer Line Project: Since my last trip to Honokaa in March, the sewer line project that snaked through most of the town is probably half over with most of the major construction nearly complete along Mamane Street. Crews were still digging on Plumeria Street next to TKS and up at the top of Pikake Street near Tex Drive-In. Motorists have had to put up with detours and metal plates through much of the construction. The traffic pattern on Mamane Street was disrupted for a while, but has since gone back to normal with two way traffic and parallel parking on both sides of the road.

Ookala is a small, former plantation village on the Big Island.

It was nice to take my Dad to visit Ookala last month. He was a bit taken back by some of the changes to the place. The home where he grew up and lived as a boy in the Chinese section of the plantation camp, are long gone. Also gone are the old general store, old post office, old theater, tennis courts and the sugar mill. There is a new post office and some small businesses located in a cluster of new plantation era-like structures. The old Ookala School is overgrown with weeds 8 feet high and the old plantation gymnasium sits abandoned, condemned and in disrepair.

Ookala is one of many former sugar plantation communities along the Hamakua Coast that are passed by motorists traveling along Highway 19. Once in a while it is good to take a detour for a drive back into a quaint, quiet, green past.

The following is a slide show of all of the photos published from my June 2010 Big Island trip. When the set is completed, the slide show will consist of photos from Honokaa, Waipio Valley lookout, Paauilo Mauka, Kalopa Park, Ookala, and Laupahoehoe in addition to shots of my sister's cat Poof, Hilo, flowers, critters and maybe Waimea.

Photos and text are copyright 2010 to Melvin Ah Ching Productions.

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Apple iPhone Bars Inaccurate
I find it rather funny that Apple iPhone users have been duped since 2007 that their hi-tech phones have been giving them strong signal strength when for many, it just was not true.
The company released a statement saying that it discovered (to its surprise) that its algorithm for calculating signal strength for display as one to five bars has been incorrect since 2007. - Tidbits, July 2, 2010
Users of the new iPhone 4 have reported significant loss of signal strength when the devices were held in a certain way. Too funny. You spend all of that money for an expensive, fancy phone and suddenly it does not perform as expected.

I am happy I never bought into the iPhone or any other cellular devices in all the years that cellular have been available to consumers. (Generally I don't like the monthly pricing of all cellular phone plans nor do I like to be bothered by ringing phones when I am away from home or the office.)

This latest technological setback for Apple comes on the heals of recent data bandwidth rollbacks imposed on the iPhone and Apple's iPad by their only cellular vendor, AT & T.
- Apple admits iPhone bars Inaccurate
2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Your Own Images on Google .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Google on Chrome Full Screen, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.
Google now allows its registered users to upload their own photos for use as background images on their popular search engine page. Don't have your own photo? They also have a set of images from their own collection that you can also use.

This screenshot was captured using Google's new Chrome browser in Mac OSX. Shown in full screen mode.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Honolulu's All British Car Day

Dozens of cars from the Great Britain were on display over the Memorial Day weekend at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki. These photos capture some of the splendor in these classic old cars as well as the newer ones. Enjoy!

Honolulu's All British Car Day Flickr Set

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Hot Hawaiian Surf

I made this video short over the weekend. It's a bodyboarding surf video taken from the top of the Kapahulu Groin in Waikiki.

This project began innocently enough over the weekend after I attended a car show (photos coming soon) at nearby Kapiolani Park. After taking numerous photos at the show I walked over to the beach, shot a few pictures and shot a dozen or so video clips of the kids body surfing.

Next thing I know I was at home, on my Apple MacBook Pro looking at the clips on iMovie and starting the assembly process. I was expecting to make like a clip of about 40 seconds to a minute long. After cutting the clips and assembling them, I decided I need music. So I hunted on the internet for some good instrumental tracks which I found on GarageBand.com.

Got this song called "Action Theme" by Matthew Shell. Great guitar piece of about 2:50 in length. After merging the music with the clips, I decided I needed more clips. So back to the beach I went on the next day to take more video.

Last night I was at home, and assembled the rest of the pieces together with iMovie. Cleaned up the video, tweaked the audio, trimmed a little more here and there, added titles and finally had iMovie export the clip as an m4v file and played it in Quicktime. It looked great at full screen mode on my Mac.

Shortly after the clip was uploaded to YouTube.

This whole process was a learning experience for me as I got myself more familiarized with iMovie 09. I still consider myself a novice to iMovie even though I've been using it since Augustr 2009. So far this clip has turned out to be my most polished of edited works since I started using the app. I've mostly made one shot, political oriented clips for Senator Sam Slom, the Hawaii Tea Party and a couple of campaigns. I've dabbled with other clip subjects such as recording airplane landings and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.

This time I learned how to mix music with the native audio source, manipulate the transitional elements and even how to do a voice-over, which I abandoned during the final cut.

iMovie is a great little program that Apple bundles for free with all of their currently shipping Macintosh computers. It's a great little program if your video production needs are not too ambitious. It's great for cutting clips that will go to YouTube or possibly over to your local cable access channel. Depending on the camera you use, your video can either be output as a standard definition or high definition show.

Overall the process took me some time: About 4 hours for the two days at the beach actually filming the clips (I also took a lot of still pictures). Another 2 or 3 hours searching Garageband.com looking for music, downloading and auditioning a number of instrumental tracks for the clip. Finally assembly of the clip in iMove took another 4 hours or more at least. There were 26 separate clips to go through, many segments with only churning water and hardly any action (all cut), a tiny fragments of good stuff that had to be clipped and edited together.

Hardware used: Canon S5 iS Digital still camera. This is one of two low end video cameras that I own. The Canon is primarily a still camera but has a decent, standard definition video capability. Most of the videos I posted to YouTube in the last few years were made with this camera.

Apple MacBook Pro 15 inch laptop computer running Snow Leopard 10.6.3. Bought this last year and have been enjoying it since.

Software: Apple iMovie, Apple iTunes, Apple iPhoto, and Mozilla Firefox.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Panos Will Run For Mayor Now that Mufi Hannemann has officially announced his intention to run for Governor of Hawaii, he has to resign from his seat as Honolulu Mayor by July 20, 2010. That will allow many people to pull papers and run for the office of mayor during a special election that will be held this fall.

This will allow Dr. Panos Prevedouros to once again run for mayor of Honolulu. Like I did in 2008, I will support Dr. Prevdouros's run for Honolulu Mayor. Let the campaigns begin!

-->

FixOahuNow.com | About Panos | On the Issues | Volunteer | Contribute | Contact
-->
Aloha,

We are pleased that Mufi Hannemann has finally decided to run for Governor but we are disappointed that he did not resign from his current position as Mayor of Honolulu.

For several months now he has been campaigning for Governor and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for his run for Governor while at the same time receiving full salary from Honolulu taxpayers. This is clearly not in the best interest of Oahu.

Hannemann needs to do the right thing and resign immediately or at least commit to resign by June 30, 2010 so that the Council has adequate time to declare a Honolulu Mayor race that can take place at no extra cost during the September Primary Elections.

We look forward to the race for Honolulu mayor. We're ready to stop the rail, and ready to fix Oahu with Smart Sensible Solutions.

Mahalo,

-->Panos D. Prevedouros PhD

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Contact Us:
Panos For Progress
PO Box 2504
Ewa Beach, HI 96706-0504
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63-Panos (637-2667)
panos.prevedouros@gmail.com

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Simply Ono Lunchwagon .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Simply Ono Lunchwagon, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.
Now located near the State Capitol and the State Library building on Punchbowl Street. Simply Ono has one of the best lunchwagon menus around. Gotta try their herbal roasted chicken, furakake fish dishes, Hawaiian plate, and chicken taco salad. Their menu is up at:

www.simplyono.com

This is the first post where selected photos from my Flickr site will just be entered here because I thought the photo and/or the subject are interesting enough to stand as a blog entry without a very long commentary. Some of these photos are also crossposted to my Flickr photo blog. Many of the photos accompanying my previous posts over the years are already pulled from my Flickr site.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Charles Djou Wins Special Congressional Election

Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou won the First District Special Congressional Election last night (May 22). In the 3-way winner-take-all election, Republican Djou beat 2 prominent Democrats, former Congressman Ed Case and State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa.

The election results are posted below (from the Hawaii Elections office):

Congressman-elect Djou has his work cut out for him. He has to not only represent Hawaii in Congress for the next few months, but will also have to stage an even larger election campaign for the fall. The combined total of the two losing Democrats in this election stand at 100,193. Djou got 67,610. He still needs more than 33,000 votes to win this fall.

All numbers aside, Djou can relish in his victory tonight and possibly for the week. The work ahead will be immense if Djou is to win this fall.

Video and images by Melvin Ah Ching Productions © 2010 All rights reserved.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
SBH Foundation Holds Sucessful Awards Banquet

The Small Business Hawaii Entrepreneurial Education Foundation held its 3rd Annual Small Business Awards Banquet on Friday night, May 21 at the Waialae Country Club in Honolulu.

Awarded were Veronica Kaneko of McDonalds Restaurants of Hawaii as the SBH Business Person of the Year; Robin Campaniano of AIG Hawaii/Farmers Insurance Hawaii for the SBH Jean Fukuda Civic Leadership Award; Stephan Edwards of 1 Hot Garage and The Systemcenter, Inc. as the SBH Young Entrepreneur; and Brook Gramann & Glora Garvey of The Brand Strategy Group as SBH Small Business Booster.

The banquet also featured entertainment by jazz vocalist Ginai, accompanied by her partner Pierre Grill. The emcee was Joe Teipel of Auction Action.

There was a silent auction that featured a variety of merchandise and services.

The Small Business Hawaii Entrepreneurial Education Foundation is a Hawaii 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation, whose mission is "to educate, support and encourage entrepreneurs in our community and the world."

More information at the SBH Foundation website.

www.sbhfoundation.org

Photos copyright 2010 Melvin Ah Ching Productions. All rights reserved.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Hawaii Five-0 Coming Back to CBS
"Hawaii Five-0" is coming back to CBS network TV in a new form. The network announced this past week that a complete reboot of "Hawaii Five-0" will air during the Fall 2010 season on Monday nights at 10 pm (9 pm Hawaii time).

The new "Hawaii Five-0" will have an all new cast, and according to many news sources, is not a sequel to the original but a total re-boot or re-imagining if you will. The young cast includes:
- Alex O'Loughlin as Detective Steve McGarrett
- Scott Caan as Detective Danny "Danno" Williams
- Daniel Dae Kim as Detective Chin Ho Kelly
- Grace Park as Detective Kona "Kono" Kalakaua
- Jean Smart as Governor Patricia "Pat" Jameson
- Taryn Manning as Mary Ann McGarrett
The new show is being produced by Peter Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci who did a reboot of the Star Trek series with a new movie in 2009. The show is supposed to be shot in Hawaii. The pilot was done on Oahu this past spring.

The new "Hawaii Five-0" comes just in time after the long running ABC TV series "Lost" ended its run this year. That show shot mostly on Oahu and brought in more than $400 million into the state's economy over the last 6 years. Cast member Daniel Dae Kim is already a familiar face in Hawaii as he played the character Jin on "Lost" since the program's start in 2004.

I am cautiously optimistic that the new "Hawaii Five-0" can become a hit, if they keep most of the elements of the original show intact. A good start is the theme song which has already been released to the public and can be viewed and listened to by selecting the video at the very top.

The one thing that I am concerned about is that one of the producers said that comedy will be included as part of the new show. As I recall after watching the original "Five-0" for many years, that the program was just hard hitting and contained almost no comedic parts at all. I am afraid that comedy in the rebooted "Hawaii Five-0" may not work for the old time fans of the original.

Hawaii Five-0: Behind the Scenes

CBS News Online: Hawaii Five-0 interview

Additional Links
- Hawaii Five-0 (2010) - Wikipedia entry
- Hawaii Five-0 - Original series (1968-1980)
- Discussion topic @ HawaiiThreads.com
- CBS TV 2010 - Hawaii Five-0
3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog

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