I love it.  I have two shows happening right now in two different parts of the property, so I just keep walking back and forth checking in with them.  Think I’ve walked a few miles by now and I’m only halfway through my night.  I love that I can post here to my blog and to my facebook as I walk to and fro!

Been hearing a lot about the North Koreans pointing a missile in our direction and getting ready to fire it on the 4th of July.  Everyone is really in disbelief around here and they can’t figure out why anyone would point a missile at Hawaii…

It’s simple people:

1)  If they shoot a missile at Hawaii and We don’t use the missile defense system to try to shoot it down we will look weak.  If we try to shoot it down we will look incompetent, because our missile defense system has never actually hit anything it has been aimed at.  I just love how they moved the missile defense system in here!  It’s totally a PR move!  Talk about a false sense of security!  The missile doesn’t have to make it to Hawaii at this point, it just has to be shot in our direction, and We Lose…

Some say that it has worked in testing.  Tell you what, go to your local trap shooting range and watch those guys.  They load their gun, point it, and when they are ready they yell “PULL!” – they know exactly where and when it is coming, and they have their guns loaded and pointing in that direction.  Now, wait till all the guys are sitting there eating lunch.  Their guns are unloaded and just within arms reach.  Now say “PULL!” and tell them all to hit the target before it hits the ground – TOTALLY DIFFERENT STORY PEOPLE!

2)  If, by some strange happening, this turns out to be “The Real Deal” – if they actually send a missile, with a payload, to Hawaii and it hits one of the islands – it would be very effective as a rope-a-dope.  First, they would take out a chunk of the Pacific Fleet.  Second, what would the rest of the Pac Fleet (that is not in the Middle East right now) be sent to do?  Would they be sent to N. Korea, or sent to Hawaii to help out?  This is another lose-lose situation.  If they send the fleet to N. Korea, everyone will rip them apart for not helping the civilian population here in Hawaii.  If they send the fleet to Hawaii, they will get ripped apart for being “cowards”…

3)  We are the perfect target.  The administration will have no choice but to go with the humanitarian effort and send the fleet here to the islands (which leaves the West Coast vulnerable to attack).  Not just because of the help needed over here – but because they can’t send the fleet to N. Korea.  Why?  One Word: China…

4)  China is N. Korea’s Big Brother.  We simply do not have the capability to take on an Army which is larger than our population.  Consider this, about 2-5% of all Americans have served in the Armed Forces (Yes, I know, incredibly sad, but true).  There’s only 300 Million Americans.  That’s 15 Million Veterans and Active Duty Military personnel in the entire United States (at best).  China has more soldiers than we do people!  For every one trained soldier/veteran we have, they have approximately 20-25…

Another thing to consider when talking about China, they are buying much of our national debt right now.  If things ever got serious with them, they could kill our economy in a heart beat.  We think times are tough now?  It’s nothing compared to what would happen if they pulled their money…

5)  We would not retaliate with our own missiles to protect such a small contained population (Hawaii) – if we ever launch, everyone else would launch theirs within minutes out of panic.  It simply would not happen – no one would end the world for such a small population in the middle of the Pacific Ocean…

Basically, having a small population of Americans out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean makes us a great target for the Bad Guys.  If N. Korea (or anyone else) were to send a missile to the mainland the possible casualty rate would be so high that it would demand an immediate response – before the Bad Guys missiles got halfway to the shoreline our missiles would be in the air.  Not so here…

Hawaii is contained, and we have a relatively small population.  Meaning, the fallout, in the case of nuclear attack, would be contained; and the chance of spread, in the case of biological weapons, would be contained as well.  Immediate response not required because all can be contained – no chance of spread in either case…

And finally, If someone were to shoot a missile to the mainland, it would be much easier for the government to respond to both the humanitarian effort and the military effort.  Hitting us would spread everything out – humanitarian and military efforts would be too spread out…

Hope that covers it…

I’ve had this thing for 5+ years and it’s really been a work horse for me- it has burned over 500 movies and 25 seasons of various TV shows from DVD to mp4 (I digitize everything so I can watch it on my iPhone/iTouch), so I have no room for complaint as far as overall performance (any other computer would have been dead after a year). It’s the last 17″ G4 Powerbook made before they went Intel. I’m really bummed that it’s on it’s last legs…

Ever try to start a car when the battery is about to die? That what it’s like starting this thing up now. Always takes a few times to get it going. And when I finally get it running, the processor runs above 70% constantly…

I love this thing! It is kinda big to tote around though – I had a 15″ before this one and totally loved the size. I got the 17″ so I could edit video on the fly (with the larger screen), but have found that I always use an external (large) monitor to do that anyway – so I kinda found out the hard way that smaller is better (I can use the external monitor with any size laptop)…

My first issue started with the OS (and Final Cut) upgrade about 2 years ago, suddenly I could not capture video from my old Hi-8 video camera because I have a PPC processor. I tried the same exact setup with the intel processor (a friends computer) and it works fine. So this really put a hamper on my life – I have a ton of footage that I can’t download to my laptop to edit – STUPID! I have tons of family stuff that I need to digitize!

Second issue was that I really want to start developing programs for the iPhone. I downloaded the SDK when it first came out and found that the iPhone SDK does not work with the PPC processor. So I need an intel processor to develop iPhone apps…

My third issue is that iCal hasn’t opened in 3 months – just sits there wanting to open – until I “Force Quit” it. I have to do all my updates to my Calendar on my iPhone or online – it’s more of a “put out” than you would think in my case…

My fourth issue just occured when I found that the new Safari update crashes constantly, and it won’t let me delete it and reinstall the old version. I should have stuck with the Beta version – it was solid, and I liked how the tab bar was on top…

So, basically, I can’t download video from my old camera to edit it, I can’t make iPhone apps, my iCal doesn’t open, Safari crashes constantly, and no amount of uninstalling and reinstalling anything has worked in any of the cases above…

Fifth Issue would be that there are a few other programs which I really want to be able to run that only work on the intel processor as well..

The sixth issue is the dual boot that you get with Intel – I would love to be able to do that on my Mac. When using programs such as LD Assistant (which only runs on Windows) doing things virtually just doesn’t cut it when your rendering – it totally doubles/triples the render times..

The new 13″ MacBook Pro really caught my eye – and I have a buddy who works at Apple who has nothing but good stuff to say about it, so…

We’ll see what comes up here – and if I do something (like buy a new Mac), I’ll definitely write about it so you can learn from my mistakes – AS ALWAYS…

Wow, what a week!  I’m gonna put it all down here and direct you all to it so I only have to say/write it once…

Thursday the 14th, my Dad went in for testing on his heart.  They didn’t like what they saw, so they held him over to retest him on Friday the 15th.  The Doc really didn’t like what he saw on the 15th, so he flew my Dad to Straub Clinic & Hospital, in Honolulu (we just happen to live a short plane ride away from the perfect place to go if you have something wrong with your heart).  He said that he could’ve tested Dad here on Maui, but if he found something he couldn’t do anything with the facilities here on the island (thanks Doc for the foresight)…

Saturday the 16th, Dad had an angioplasty done.  Turns out they couldn’t do a balloon or stent cause two of his arteries were 100% closed and one was 90% closed – so they scheduled him for a triple-bypass on Monday the 18th…

Strange thing is that he didn’t have a heart attack – that takes one strong heart to be able to push blood through a pin hole like that.  He did, of course, have high blood pressure…

So, now the fun begins.  My Mom and I got to the Hospital in time to spend a few hours with him before the operation.  The nurse said the Op would take 4-6 hours, so we went to the hotel to check in, ate, and came back…

The Op started at 14:00, we got back to the waiting room at 17:00.  At 21:00, the head nurse came in to talk to the other folks in the waiting room.  On his way out, I asked him if he could check on the status of Dad – he said he didn’t know anyone else was in the OR (great, no stress).  He came back 10 minutes later and said Dad was in ICU recovering from surgery – said he had been in there for an hour!

Could’ve done without the added stress of the head nurse not having a clue as to where he was, or what was going on…

So we get in the ICU, Dad is fully conscious and totally trying to get out of there.  The nurse said we could stay for 10 minutes, but she let us stay for as long as we wanted cause just having my Mom and I in the room calmed him down so much.  When we left for the night, the ICU nurse said to me “I’m gonna know where you are at all times” with a big smile on her face – it really calmed him down to have us in there…

The next morning, we get in there and find him ready to get out of there (ICU) saying the Doc is gonna let him upstairs (a regular room) that afternoon.  The nurses, again, let us stay as long as we wanted (really funny, they didn’t want us to leave); another few people came out of the OR to recover in there, so we went to the waiting room at about 14:00.  We went downstairs to eat lunch and waited around a bit more and finally went back.  They told us he had been moved upstairs – nice communication these guys have yeah?

The week went well, the nurses and doctors are really great there as far as “care” goes…

They actually gave him a pacemaker on Thursday, and it only took a few hours from the time he left the room to the time he got back in the room.  He had to get that because they need to give him medication to keep his heart rate down.  My Dad’s natural heart rate is slow (as is mine, which is why I can run forever without getting tired), which is normally a pretty cool thing to have, but too slow to take the medication.  There is a high probability that the medication would slow his heart down so much that it stops.  The pacemaker keeps his heart rate from getting too slow – so he can take the medication which will keep his heart from racing (total catch 22)…

Anyway, I stuck around till Friday the 22nd.  All I have to say about that day is “Hawaiian Airlines sucks!”  I had to wait 30 minutes in a line just for them to tell me that I was in the wrong line (they could’ve checked me in right then and there).  I waited in the other line for 20 minutes and it took me 20 minutes to get through security (the line got really long while I was waiting in the second line).  I got to the plane in just enough time to board…

Man, it was good to be home on Maui!  I never realized how much I learned to ignore in the city as a kid until being in Honolulu for a week.  My senses were working overtime, and I was getting it all at once – wasn’t able to turn any of it off.  Ambient sounds from everything!

So, Saturday the 23rd I’m in a show and get a phone call from the hospital telling me that they are trying to get a hold of my Mom cause they’re going to release my Dad on Sunday the 24th.  I do what I do to make sure my Mom knows they are looking for her…

They were actually going to just wheel him downstairs and release him!  They were also giving him all kinds of meds that he won’t be able to get until Tuesday because everything in Maui is closed over the weekend.  They had a hard time believing me when I told them that – they actually called around to confirm it…

I ended up flying over there, getting him, and flying back with him.  Tell you what, Mokulele is a great airline!  They really hooked us up all the way.  From the moment we got to the airport, they really did a great job with everything!

Anyway, Dad is home and doing well.  Now we just have to make sure he eats right.  That is going to be a real hard thing to happen – everyone in that house is a fast food maniac (my niece actually works at McDonald’s – and she lives in that house).

One meal from any fast food place has more salt in it than he is suppose to have in a month – I totally don’t know what to do about it…

Please, everyone gang up on them to make sure they do the right thing!

Friday, we went out (the whole fam) for my sons B-Day.  We came home just after sunset, and as we were turning from Piilani Hwy to N.Kihei Rd I started rolling my window up and told everyone else to do the same.  They did, looking at me strangely (I’m always hot, so they knew something funky was about to happen)…

I said, “Look into the headlights of the oncoming traffic.”  Everyone did, and all they could see was bugs.

Then I said, “Look to the sides of the road.  See those baby tornados?  Those are bugs too.”  Everyone looked and started grossing out – my wife, her sister, and our three kids…

At that time the bugs started hitting the windshield and everyone really started grossing out – my wife realized why the front of my truck now was full of bugs and I never bothered washing it.  I drive this route, at this time of day, at least 3 times a week…

Anyway, all of that to setup what happened to me the next day (Saturday).  Everyone in the fam had been sick throughout the last week, I finally woke up with a sore throat and minor “chills” on Saturday morning.  I went to work – we had a setup for a fairly good sized show that I was TD’ing and had to call Sunday morning (so I had to be there).  05:00-19:00, so long day while being sick – but we got it done.  Totally needing a bed, and feeling like crap, I headed home…

While at the light from Piilani Hwy to N. Kihei Rd, a convertible pulled up next to me (obviously a tourist couple going to Lahaina).  I stuck my head out and told them, “the sun is down, you may want to put that top up on this road.”  They totally gave me attitude, so I decided not to tell them why…

I didn’t want to be behind them, so I sped up to get in front of them…

Seriously, without a doubt, one of the funniest moments of my life!  In my rear view mirror I’m watching this guy swerve all over the place and his wife’s hands going nuts getting the bugs out of her hair…

At the end of the road, we were both waiting to turn (me right, and them left).  I looked over at them.  Never have I seen such a funny sight!  I can’t even explain it to you.  They both looked at me, tears in their eyes, they and their car covered in bugs, all I said was, “The only smart thing you did in the last 5 minutes was to not stop.  Have a nice night!”

Talk about cheering me up.  I was laughing all the way home!  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer couple – they really were rude when I tried to warn them…

Never has payback been so immediate, and so funny!

Just backed up my “iTunes”.  I actually have it on an external HD because it’s too big (850 GB).  

439 movies @ 390 GB

1,119 individual shows @ 432 GB (that’s 75+ Seasons of various TV Shows)

The rest is music…

Very glad to have a backup of it all – I was freaking out for a week or so.  That was a lot of work…

Just noticed that the numbers are below – sorry about the redundancy there people!  May have been bragging a bit…