Ouch

Randy sent this great pic. I imagine words were exchanged after this little run in.

Upgrading the iMac

It is now two weeks since the iMac upgrade was completed - and I'm just now able to relive it. I just wanted to swap out the iMac hard drive for a mighty 1.5 TB replacement drive. These iMacs are amazing - So thin! So sleek! - how do they get all that stuff in there? As I found out, you can't fit all that stuff in there - or at least not BACK in there. It was very nearly a total disaster. How hard can it be to get a size 8 Torx long-neck screwdriver in Hawaii? Let's just say the workaround was extremely sub-optimal. I had a great set of youtube directions to follow - and everything was going like rusty clockwork until I moved past the point of no return - cracked open the case and tried to remove the flat panel monitor - when I realized the innards of my computer looked absolutely NOTHING like the well-organized model iMac on the step-by-step. But what the hell - how hard can it be? I started unplugging things and removing brackets when a wave of hopelessness came over me when I realized the drive was welded in. It was, in fact, just very cleverly attached - and I proceeded to very uncleverly strip every torx screw I could find until the drive plopped off it's mount and deposited a big dent on partially unhinged heat shield. Hmmm. And these confounded things have heat sensors on the drives now - and you are supposed to use contact cement to attach them. Really? The drive fits in a very snug little nook and the heat sensor kept getting rubbed off. Ahhhh. Superglue is a good thing (just hope I never have to upgrade this drive again). With the drive installed and the case back together (and only a few dozen screws laying on the table) we were good to go ... and then it wouldn't boot. Hmmm. Lots of cursing and a little RAM tweaking later it managed to blurt out the boot chime and we were back in business. Total time on the youtube guide: 14 min, total time for my efforts: 3 hours. But hey - 1.5 TB - totally worth it.

Time Lapse HNL Airport

First attempt at time lapse photography using the iPhone TimeLapse app. This is about 3 1/2 hours of the late afternoon at the HNL airport on Tuesday Aug 11 2009. We were supposed to have the remnants of hurricane Felicia rolling through - but as you can see - not much really happened. The app was set to take a pic every 30 seconds - replayed at 10 frames per second. Pretty cool stuff. Now thinking up other time lapse friendly filming opportunities...

Brian's 55th B-day

Wed would have been Brian's 55th birthday. It was raining hard last night - so we celebrated today. Coors Lights all around. Chris is keeping the yard looking magical. Aloha Brian.

Violet's Restaurant

Men's restroom - not solid.

Violet's Restaurant

Oriental breakfast... Solid

For kids about to ROCK

The timeless quality and precision of Chinese knock-off guitar
craftsmanship is about to be unleashed on the Lemonds children (once the wood glue dries). Rock on!!!

Owenspeak

Wittard = Lizard

Erdinger (insert angelic choir here)

Thanks Ron! This is as good as it gets.

Lava (Wava) the newest member of the Borton family

Pretty black cocker spaniel puppy - We had the honor of celebrating the "first poo" on the play room floor. Special stuff.

Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout

Thanks to Roy for the delicious hand-carried oatmeal stout and the excellent innaugural ping pong tourney.

we're back...

Surfed this am with roy - we caught some fun lefts at sleepy hollows before the wind came up. K and the kids went to Tricia's to help with the garage sale. They did pretty well - finally sold the old play table that I built for the kids (was actually a little sad to see that go) and some other stuff. We finally got the computer running again and now have enough hard drive space to store either the entire library of congress or a week's worth of pics and high def wide screen digital video from our vacation...

iBlog

This is pretty cool - With blogger you can register your iPhone and send txt messages that are posted on the blog. Dangerous.

Awesome surf link

this is awesome - I'm weeping as I post this.

Some surf video snips from this season

YOUTUBE

May Day 2009

Hydroponic Pak Choi

We had the pleasure of harvesting our first hydroponically-grown Pak Choi (Green Dwarf) over the weekend. We planted this one back in the beginning of March - so it was about 2 months from seed to harvest. It was grown in a 1.75g plastic container fitted with a forestry tube. The seed was planted in a combination of rockwool and peat moss. Here is a pic of our little growing table (as you can see, we're doing lots of "experiments" in easy, low-cost home hydroponics - it looks like you need at least a gallon container - though we are trying recycled 1/2 gallon milk containers too):



And here is Jack holding our first harvest - which we ate on Sunday night (yum)...



Looks like we'll be getting our first cucumbers in the next couple weeks - so that will be fun...

Brian Felix - Obituary, Sunday 26 April 2009

BRIAN KEITH FELIX Age 54, of Kailua, died April 17, 2009. Born in Honolulu and raised in Kailua. He was a Damien High School graduate, class of '72. He worked for Paradise Beverages for over 30 years, and was their Operations Manager. He attained the level of Black Belt and was a member of the Advanced Kempo Karate System in Aiea. He is survived by his wife, Criselda; daughters, Kirstin and Haley; father, Alexander; sister, Denise (Buck) Degener; brothers, Kevin (Nellie) of Kona, Jeffrey (Nancy) of Texas, and Troy Felix of Virginia. Brian lived life to its fullest. He was a loving and devoted husband, father, son, brother, nephew, uncle and cousin. He loved family and loved his friends like his very own. He will be remembered for his renditions of "Born to be Wild" and "Great Balls of Fire". Besides his family and friends, his passion was his weekly yard work along with a few Coors Lights. He will be deeply missed by the many lives and yards he touched. Visitation is at 9:30am on Saturday, May 2 at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Kailua; mass at 12:00N.Private burial. Please no flowers. Updated on 04/29/2009.

Honolulu Advertiser Obituary Link

Lost a friend

Sad day today - last night we lost a good friend and neighbor. Brian Felix passed away in his sleep last night. Looks like a heart attack but they aren't sure. He was too young. We are all in shock - and our hearts go out to his family and friends.

Weekend Pics

Jacks' first season playing Junior Pinto basketball was awesome - Doug and I were the coaches and we had a blast. Unfortunately neither the players nor the coaches ever quite mastered the Princeton offense and we lost in the first round of the KBA playoffs (16-18) - ending a very fun season - RAPTORS ON THREE... ONE... TWO... THREE!...


Liv had some girlfriends (MVBF, OMG) over and they got all dressed up - cute.


Here's the status of our hydro cukes after one week - so far so good


Multi-sport threat Owen in the fort.


A very pretty orchid that recently bloomed in the back yard...


And a pretty good shot of the usually elusive "wild" guinea pigs Opal and Cinnamon (how these things haven't become cat food is beyond me).


Jack of the jungle


Jack's buddy Nicholas came over for a play date... good fun.

We're all doing well - life is good! Very excited about Sam and Geoff's new addition to the LEMCLAN coming this Friday!