We were supposed to have our High speed
internet installed today. I called and scheduled it several weeks ago.
Everything was SUPPOSED to be all set!

So Betsy gets a call at work from the
tech who is scheduled to come out to our house and do the install, and he's
wondering where in Waimea our street is located! (Waimea is about 100 miles from
where we are located!) He doesn't know how they got this install so screwed up,
but now it's up to US to try and straighten it out!

    Well, first off, it's
apparently "lunchtime" because no one is answering the phone at the
office...I waited 20 minutes "for the next available representative"
before I got fed up and hung up because I had an incoming call...It was Betsy
wondering how it was going...she decided to walk across the street from where
she works to their office and talk to a HUMAN BEING to try and see about this.

She calls back, they had not one piece
of information correct for our install...the wrong address, the wrong
city...about the only thing that was correct was the date...and in fact, the
Kona office doesn't even handle our area down south...the office that handles our area is
out in Hilo, so now we have to talk to the Hilo office to re-schedule...meaning
perhaps a wait of several weeks without any internet! (We have no "land
line" to even dial out...) This is just about the worst thing that can
happen for me, because much of my business depends upon the ability to have
internet access, as well as my plan to keep in touch with family via the
internet!

We're waiting for a call back from the
Hilo office...but it's Friday, and it's 3:30PM, and we're in Hawaii...I just
don't expect a call back (ever!) So we'll have to  call them to see what's
happening...I'm "waiting for the next available specialist!"...

    So, while I'm
waiting, let me tell you about our electrical wiring fiasco...We had been
waiting for the electrician to finish up wiring the house, he was very busy, but
finally got here on Monday...but meanwhile there were two assistants actually
installing the wall sockets and switches and ceiling fans and such...one guy was
his regular electrician assistant, another was a kind of 
"handyman" (or should I say, NOT so handy man...I'm pretty sure he
didn't know what he was doing because I watched him pulling the excess
"mud" from around the switch boxes...PULLING it, not cutting it nice
and square, but PULLING IT, which meant he would pull and get more than he
should have or break off pieces of the sheet rock, leaving large irregular HOLES
around each socket or switch box that he touched...holes which *I* would now
have to fix because he didn't have the sense to use a knife or saw blade to cut
in nice and square...MORON!

Anyway, I then went ahead of him and cut
all the boxes clean so he only ruined two or three of them, but that was MORE
THAN enough to piss Betsy off! 

However, he wired up much of the
stuff...the fans, outlets and switches...some boxes had 2 or 3 switches in them
and they needed to be wired correctly...I'm pretty sure he had no idea what he
was doing, and I should have taken over because I thought at the time he didn't
know what he was doing...but I didn't...(I should always trust that inner
voice...)

Upstairs we have 5  recessed
lighting cans, 2 cans are over the stairs controlled by switches at the top and
bottom of the stairs (They work JUST fine!), 2 more over the living room area (also controlled by
switches at the each end of the room) and one more controlled by a single
switch. 3 of the lights do not seem to work as predicted...in fact I was sure
that one can didn't work at all until I happened upon the correct combination of
4 switches!

And the lights in the upstairs bathroom
do not work at all. they did (at least one of them did...) once! Just like the
track lighting over the table...it worked once...now I'm not sure if some
combination of switches has caused it to fail or what...

I was not to happy about this either...I
mean, this is science, but it isn't rocket science!

I took some time to make a "Truth
Table" of the 4 switches to try and figure out what is going on...That is
when I discovered the magic combination of switches which turned on the one can
I thought wasn't working...

So today I spent time making a list of
some of the things that should be working that are not (like the refrigerator's
ice maker, the fan/light in the other  downstairs bedroom or switches which
should be swapped to make "more logical sense" because it just makes
"more logical sense" to have the switch that controls a light to be
mentally and physically associated to the light it controls)

And we just got a call from Lowe's
(where we purchased our appliances) 

It seems the good news is that they've
located our clothes Dryer...it's "IN"... IN ALASKA! Yep, the bad news is it is on a ship bound for Alaska...amazing!
It will be here in about 3 more weeks...

Gawd! Another really busy day. I have
Two appointments in Kona today, and have to take the Motorcycle out to Kona.
I'll meet Betsy at her work and take the car from there in case I have to carry
a PC home. The ride is nice on the way out, and though it is long, it is
enjoyable! People told me they thought that the commute would get old really
fast...but it's NOT like sitting in Boston's "Big Dig" traffic, stuck
in some tunnel somewhere...even where it does bottleneck, I have pretty things
to look at, like the ocean, or the landscape or the people...not breathing fumes
in some tunnel in Boston, or stuck on Route 2 in the middle of the woods doing
the rumba line instead of doing the speed limit.

Yes, traffic in Kona is
"horrible"...Betsy finds it especially bad coming home at certain
times of the day, BUT, she's adjusted her schedule so that she gets up "An
hour before God" (I love that) and leaves here (and work) early enough to
not have to deal with most of that traffic that jams up in Kona, South Kona and
thru Captain Cook. It's about 6 miles that can take 25-35 minutes because people
here just don't know how to drive...and there are too many people commuting from
south of Kona for this type of road! I hope that may change...as more people
move south, perhaps more business will move there as well, and less people will
think of Kona as "the center of the Universe"...but as long as there
is only one Costco on the island, there will be traffic out to Kona for the
cheap gas and goods.

But rarely do things go as planned on
"The Road To Hawaii"...

We're going to a bar-b-que out at Pu'u  Honua O Honaunau. It
is supposed to be a day of relaxation, food, friends and perhaps going into the water!
But first, we make one more trip down south to bring a load and see where we
stand... The electricity STILL hasn't been connected...

We find that some more work has been
done on the lights and electrical boxes...

The Dining room lights are up, and the
kitchen lights are up...

but STILL no electricity!

NOW we're worried!

But we put it out of our minds for just
a few hours, here in Honaunau!

Addendum: making one last trip today!

Just taking one last moment to send out email before I
tear down the computer and we're offline for the
remainder of the week (Until we get our broadband installed at the ol'
homestead!) 

The LAST STUFF!

It's been crazy around here for the past two weeks, and leading up
to today the stress level has been very high for Betsy and me...*we* have a
deadline...*we* must be out of the Apt...*we* have no place else to go but into
our new house, however, those deadlines don't really exist for anyone else,
right?

Up until 8PM tonight, we STILL didn't have electricity to the house other
than the Construction site utility box (supplying one 15 amp breaker !) We had a
call from the electrician tonight and he said we have a live house now, but
because we don't have a final inspection (and won't for quite some time) we have
to go very easy on the electric use...no running the washer and microwave while
using all the lights and etc...

We have no stove yet because "It hasn't come in", but we cook in a
microwave or grill most of the time anyway! We have a refrigerator, and so it
won't quite be like camping for a while, because at least we now have running
hot water , refrigeration and toilets!

Now they're only 50 miles away, and it's
"Good road" all the way there...so it's a fast 50 miles!

BUT...We're still cleaning out the Apt...

We'll have to try some time in the next
two days to see my daughter and
Grandson before they leave for the mainland. I hope we get to see them again
before they go, but we're so busy moving, and they're so busy getting ready to
move too that it may just be impossible.

I'm sad because we won't get to see the
day to day changes once they've left...that's the best part of watching the baby
grow up, those little day to day changes.

    And our cat, PK, is
having some real problems with all of our stuff disappearing again...the last
time this happened it involved him getting put into a cat carrier and flying 20
hrs to Honolulu, getting put onto another plane, and then going in the car from
the airport...by the time he was finished he'd been in that cat carrier almost
24 hrs and he meowed the whole time! (He HATES that thing!) So I kept the
carrier well out of sight while we loaded up stuff into boxes and tubs so he
wouldn't suspect anything. When it came time for these tubs to get loaded
though, I think he was just ready to move! "Go ahead, load me up, put me on
a plane! I just can't take the suspense anymore!"

Things never go the way one plans...we
had my brother in law's truck to use, but it picked up a screw in the tire
(Which badly needs to be replaced anyway, but there are no tools in the truck
and I can't figure out how to get the spare tire off!) and though it isn't flat we're taking the chance to drive it
back to Naalehu, so, we get a can of flat fix, and stopping once on the way for a brief appointment I have to
return a repaired laptop for a client we'll make our way down south.

The brief appointment turns into a 2 hr
ordeal, as configuring her mail client proves to be "problematic" for
a number of reasons...but all is well and we are finally on our way with another
load!. 

Well, this is the last day we're
here full time! The big items all have to be moved from off the carpets so the
carpet cleaners can do their thing, which means we got to sleep on the blow up
mattress again! It wasn't too bad this time around, because we knew the end was
in sight and that we'd finally be going into our own home!

But this is the last time after a long
series of moves and transitions in the past year that I will have to sleep on a
blow up mattress! We realize today that this whole process has taken nearly a
year, since we actually started moving stuff out of the house in Ashburnham, MA
and having to sleep on a blow up bed repeatedly...almost a year! WHEW! No WONDER
we're TIRED!

Thursday
May 26, 2005

Delivering flyers, uphill,
both ways!!

Well, I was up VERY early (out the door
at 6AM) to deliver flyers for my consulting business (Again!) I
got quite a workout because it was already about 80 degrees and sunny...and I
had to walk about 2 miles in an area that has streets that basically go straight
uphill...and once the sparkly things in front of my eyes stopped, I was ready
for a nap!

But there'll be time enough to sleep
when I'm dead (apparently...because I'm not able to rest now!) Oh no, I have a
truck to load up and drive 50 miles and unload...we've got one Mattress & Box
spring to move today, and I get to do it by myself because Betsy has to work!

Well, all went well except for the point
in the drive where the TWO come-alongs I had used to strap the mattress down with
came loose and the mattress flew off the back of the truck...If it wasn't so unbelievably
stupid it would have been funny! (Actually, it WAS funny...I swear it flopped in
the bed of the truck for about 2 seconds, then just raised up and took off like
some kinda well designed aircraft which didn't have much of a glide path after
all...because it flopped into the road like a dying beast of some
kind...freaking out everyone on the road (including myself as I saw it in my
rear view mirror)

    Of course, I stopped
to return and retrieve it from the road...but in the time it took for me to turn
around (literally "seconds") I had 3 cars stopped and two drivers out
of the car and fighting over who was rightfully going to take possession of this
newly found item...like cockroaches they were! 

(You have to understand, this happened
in "Ocean View"...a place well known for the fringes of society to
escape from the rest of the world...the area is nothing but lava field, and in
the 80's a Japanese conglomerate decided to buy up this area for $300 million
dollars for a development called Hawaiian Ocean View Estates (H.O.V.E.) They
cleared "roads" (most are still unpaved), put in some
electricity (most roads further than the main road have no connection to the
electric grid either) and no one has county water or sewage so they are all on
catchment water systems!) The investors lost all their money when the bubble of
the late 80's burst and it was sold unfinished, for $30 million...but the land
was so cheap for a while it was joked that you'd get a free acre with a tank of
gas...well, it was cheap, but now with rising prices on the island some
folks have found it to be one of the last affordable places on the Big
Island! 

But, because of it's remoteness,
desolation, (The barren lava fields are quite a sight!) and history of
attracting people who didn't want to be found (It has been reported that the
area has the largest population of Witness Relocation people than anywhere else
in the country!) giving it a reputation for an outlaw mentality (many
"houses" are little more than a conglomeration of "found"
building materials, the area is 2nd only to Puna for the district with the most
"unpermitted buildings") It is no wonder that one seizes the
opportunity for a found mattress in the middle of the road!

It wasn't until I showed up that the
dispute was solved, "No folks, the mattress is MINE...see the truck with
the matching box spring...yeah...it's mine...

Another load, another LONG day!

I was up VERY early to deliver flyers
for my consulting business (Again! This working for yourself is harder than
working for someone else, I'll tell you!), then I spent some time at home gathering things for
the next load, but had a sudden appointment (gotta strike while the irons hot!) and...wasn't ready at all when Betsy
arrived! ("Well oiled machine", my ass! You'd THINK after almost two
years and 4 moves, we'd have this down to a science by now!)

Well, we DON'T, but we also DON'T have
all that much stuff for furniture, etc

That was "by design"...we
didn't want to have to move a lot of stuff twice...AND we didn't want to clutter
up the new house with a bunch of stuff! Most of our stuff was still in the
original boxes
we shipped from MA, but that was what went on yesterday's load...Today, we're
down to large furniture and small stuff we'd previously unpacked to make life in
the apartment tolerable!

But we  make a load of the loveseat
and some other stuff and we head on down!

"I never have been as pleased to
see, someplace to sit; someplace to pee!" (My apologies to all poets
EVERYWHERE for that one!)

I never thought I'd be so excited to see
working toilets as I am this day!

Betsy was so excited about it, she
snapped this photo of the first flush!

Yay! There is hope!

Now for electricity...