Alice's White Rabbit?

We saw something new this last trip to Fremont. A white rabbit was hopping around the neighborhood in the mornings, going from one manicured semi-dry yard to another.

It wasn't a scrawny, lean jackrabbit either. This was a pudgy, fluffy-white bunny with pink ears and eyes. It might have been an escaped pet from somewhere in the development.

And boy, could it move fast. I was upstairs watching it the first morning through the bedroom window and had difficulty zooming in to take a picture. It just never held a pose in one place long enough to take a photo. In the few seconds it took to locate it in the viewfinder and zoom in (it's hard to track and allow the lens to focus), it would hop away and I'd have to start all over again.

Only when it took a rabbit-pellet dump in our yard did it stop long enough for me to snap a pic.

And no, Alice never did show up.

Turkeys in the Straw

Because of the recent California drought, the grassy glen behind my son's East Bay house was as dry as a field of straw wanting to be harvested.

Ergo, the wild turkeys that regularly wander the little valley were looking a bit scrawny the last time we visited in August. That is not to say they were dying off; in fact, the flock has grown.

We saw at least 14 across the way one afternoon, eight crossed the street in front of us one morning (unfortunately, I was driving and my camera wasn't quite handy). Plus there was a car right behind us. We also saw three young turkeys taking a dust bath not far from the adults.

The turkeys were all over the place. We saw one almost every time we drove down the hill to get to the shopping centers. The one thing we didn't see was any tom gobblers displaying.

Maybe it was too hot to get hot and they were having a drink to cool off? Mmmmm, could be.

Hawaiian Airlines Comfort Class

A French Airbus A330 is pretty wide and when it's new, very comfortable (although I have gotten backaches in the new seats).

On our recent flight to Oakland on Hawaiian Airlines (HA), we sat in Comfort Class, what used to be called Business Class, I guess, for a little higher fare. We got early boarding, slightly better seats, and several inches more legroom.

Comfort Class on HA’s A330 is right behind First Class, with no separation between the sections – no wall, no curtain. First Class's seats are configured in three rows of 2-2-2. Comfort Class's seats are lined up 2-4-2 right behind it.

We could see First Class being pampered, as we are when we are fortunate enough to upgrade, and I was pretty envious. I heard the flight attendant reciting their dinner menu and overheard something like "Asparagus wrapped in roasted red peppers and eggplant," which made me very envious. My mouth watered.

Comfort Class Meal 1
(HNL-OAK) Turkey Sandwich

We had a hot turkey "salad" sandwich. It was okay. On the return trip we had pasta noodles. It was tasteless.

First Class was served a cheese and fruit appetizer, and I could smell Parmesan. Now, that gave my tummy hunger-rumbles.

Then, a guy across aisle from me ate a piece of dried octopus (a Hawaii favorite). He ended up with stinky fishy octopus on his breath and I could smell it when he talked to the flight attendant. Thank God for the cheese aroma from First Class.

Comfort Class Meal 2
(OAK-HNL) Tasteless Pasta

Comfort is comfort only when it's comfortable, and it's not comfortable when the dried-octopus-breath guy is also the father of a crying baby.

Actually, I feel sorry for parents of crying babies on an airplane because there's not a lot one can so to stop the crying when the baby is majorly uncomfortable ... except for using drugs, and that's just not acceptable.

I just wish they'd been 20 rows farther back away from me.

Actually, there’s an interesting side story connected with a crying baby on the return flight. I’ll tell you about it another time.

Phone Pix 29: First New iPhone5 Pix

All rightie then, I got a new phone - an iPhone5. So the first thing I did after getting out of the Verizon store was walk back to our car in Alii Place. It's a short walk, about two blocks in downtown Honolulu.

I just had to try out the camera, so I snapped a few along the way. Now, unlike my old phone, the iPhone seems to do some preliminary cropping on its own; maybe not, but I'm going to have to investigate.

So when I downloaded the pix, I saw that I had to do some cropping. Not all the pictures were reduceable to the 700 x 419 size that I used before. With the old phone, I just resized and didn't do any cropping or touching up. With the new phone, I did some cropping.

Here are the pix I practiced with, all dated Aug. 31, 2014:

Alii Place Foyer Floral Display

Alii Place Moon Painting

Alii Place Entry Mural

Alii Place Entrance Fountain

Bishop Square Concourse Pool

Bishop Square Concourse

Bishop Square Fred Kresser Memorial
Guiding Force in Building the Square

Honolulu District Court

The Hawaii State Art Museum

Explaining Wind

This sounds like something the wife might tell our grandson. And y'know what? She just might be right ... 'cept we don't have a dog.

Can I Fix That for You? 1

What can I say? Some of these are set up for fun, I'm sure. But still, they do illustrate how something out of place or not lined up correctly can get on our nerves.

So what do you think? Do you feel like reaching in and fixing the darned things?

I do ... oh, I DO!

Aaaargh!

I'm ...

Will return on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2014

... maybe a little later.

Its, It’s and ... Its’?

Recently, on Food TV’s Good Eats program starring one of my favorite nerd-chefs, Alton Brown, one of the facts that popped up on the screen during his “American Classics V: A Pound of Cake” show made me sit up and squirm.

There, for all to see, was a big boo-boo. Now, I’ve seen “its” confused with “it’s” many times, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen the word “its’” used in any context anywhere.

The show first aired on Oct. 26, 2009, by the way. That’s five years. Do you think nobody caught the error? “Its’” a possibility.

Weird Chinese Menu Items

It's fun to read Chinese menus. Once you get past the misspellings and have a few laughs, try checking out the strange offerings. I found these dish listings at Asian Pearl in Fremont the last time the wife and I visited.

First, have you had goose webs? I've had duck's feet and chicken's feet, which are essentially the same thing as goose webs. So next time, I should try them. I think.

Should I have them with sea cucumber in a clay pot?

Or maybe braised in abalone sauce?

And speaking of sea cucumber and abalone, should I get the braised combination? It's pretty expensive.

I could get some pork belly and frog, but I'm leaning toward the "grab." I think they misspelled "crab," but I could be mistaken.

Oh, and how could I forget the goose intestines ... stir-fried, no less.

If I try any of these, I'll report back.

Have You Heard the Buzz?

The buzzing of the bees, actually.

When the widelia ground cover flowers in our back yard bloom, the honey bees come buzzing around in droves. They give me comfort when they're around.

After all, the bee population in the Islands is in peril. They've been under attack by Varroa destructor parasitic mites since 2007, and their populations have drastically declined (e.g., from 419 to 145 colonies in 2008 on Oahu, a 65% wipeout). The Big Island of Hawaii's bee population underwent huge destruction in 2009.

So yeah, they're in trouble.

That's why I'm so glad to see them gathering food from our widelia.