Recent events have reminded me of the circle of life.

Lyrics of the Burt Bacharach song used in Lost Horizon:

The world is a circle without a beginning
And nobody knows where it really ends
Everything depends on where you
Are in the circle that never begins
Nobody knows where the circle ends

I recently visited the mainland and reunited with friends. One had a daughter who was born while I was there decades ago and now is about to have her own child.

At my high school reunion I was reminded of Veterans who gave their lives for our freedom. I also saw some educators who were there in the 60’s but now retired.

I also found that a classmate of mine from those times, just passed away suddenly this week, well before his time.

As all this was happening, my island was undergoing its own circle of life. Kilauea Volcano was active, rumbling like thunder and seeping lava from cracks in the earth. At least 30 buildings were destroyed and about 2,000 people are currently displaced  as lava flowed near their houses.

Some may wonder why live near an active volcano? We wonder why people live in tornado alley or on an eroding cliff-side at the beach?

In the case of Madam Pele the volcano Goddess, she does what she will. It is not her fault that there are homes and people in the way. This particular island is comprised of 5 volcanoes and this is the currently active one. Had it not been for all of the lava, our island would not exist. It is 4,000 square miles and extends from the sea floor, 20,000 feet up just to sea level and then another 14,000 feet to the top.

I used to work for a large computer company in the I.T. department. Our computer room was very large (like a football field).

We once had a combined meeting of programmers, support persons and so on, both male and female. I was in the back with fellow workers.

Before the meeting started, I had been talking about a maid service I had read about.

During the meeting, my bosses’ boss mentioned that we needed to keep the computer room clean and I made a snide comment to a co-worker. My bosses’ boss saw that I was being inattentive and cracking a joke and called me out. “Mark, do you have something you would like to share?” to which I said “No, I’m sorry”.

Apparently irritated and wanting to make a point, he asked again and I apologized. “No, come on, share with the group”. I replied that the comment was not appropriate and he again said “We are waiting” to which I finally thought, well he really wants to know…

“I just joked that we should hire the topless maid service that was on the news today.”

I still remember the burning look from him when he realized that pushing me to share this with the group, was not his best decision.

I was never asked to share with the group again.

Sorry that I have not been posting as much lately.

The big news is that my neighbor is coming back to the Big Island and I have been trying to mage it and my farm at the same time. Well, I negotiated a deal for him with his farm and it should help quite a bit. His farm is about 5 acres and has a lot of old coffee trees on it (old it  good thing). Unlike corn or wheat, coffee is planted and if cared for, will last decades before the trees need to be replanted.

As we have gotten older, we find it is more difficult to do manual labor. Due to the lease we hold, we must farm on our land and coffee can be labor intensive.

So the deal I set up is that for the next 4 years, a guy and his team will weed whack, prune, spray, fertilize and pick all of the coffee on the neighbors farm, in trade for all the coffee. If he wants to sell his own coffee, he can buy it back and market price and would make a profit on that after the sale. However, what that means is that he has no out-of-pocket expenses for 4 years, his property will look great and he has no worries. All of the coffee cherry his farm produces will be listed as his (for the lessors documentation) even though he won’t keep it. So essentially, the team does all the work and he pays them with the coffee cherry.

The team may include woofers, which are people who work on organic farms in swap for a place to stay (http://wwoof.net/). He may host some of these workers on his farm or perhaps I will. The rest of the team are local workers.

Besides managing his farm, I have been working with another neighbor to replace his back door and check brakes and transmission on a truck.

I am still working a temporary I.T. position for a large farm and managing websites for about a dozen sites.

Lately, I am streaming some series I missed over the years like Andromeda, Episodes and a few others. Recent series and shows include Green Wing, The I.T. Crowd, The Good Doctor, Shameless, Beyond, Heartland, Workaholics and The Ranch.

The dogs want out so I have another task at the moment.

I had been through the 1971 scare that all radio and TV stations broadcast, so I knew it *might* be a mistake. Back then it was a Saturday morning when we expected a test to come down the wires, instead, it was a warning.

In this case, it might be a mistake, however we have already been testing air raid sirens because of North Korea. I really don’t think N. Korea would be crazy enough to attack because I feel they would be wiped off the map.

Still… So I tried to gather the dogs but they knew something was up. The more I tried to sternly tell them to come to me, they wouldn’t. I had to open the gate to get them out of the pen and into the basement room but they thought it was time to run up the property for their morning run. Finally I got them into the enclosed room and tried checking news outlets via cellphone.

The local station was talking about trash collecting, but I could not tell if there was a text scroll on the screen or not. I tried CNN and Reuters but was having troubles with the dogs jumping around and trying to see the tiny screen.

I called a neighbor who didn’t answer the phone and texted him. I called a friend on the mainland and got no answer. I left a message that we *might* be under attack but that it also could be a mistake. I called my younger sister, could not get her and sent a text. About this time I thought that if we were under attack, I might still have time to get dog food and my medicine, but opted to stay put.

The wind blows from my island towards Honolulu and thus generally if a bomb goes off pretty much anywhere in the islands, fallout would be headed away from me. I would be able to make a run upstairs later. I comforted the dogs and waited. It had been more than 15 minutes which is the amount of warning they think we would have. Certainly we would have fired rockets to intercept and we have a missile base in the islands and we have been expecting a possible strike, so we would have been ready.

When the all clear message came out, I let the dogs loose in their run and went inside to watch the news on the big screen. I will set up some supplies downstairs soon, although I still don’t think they will be needed, however we also get hurricanes in the islands and so on, so I still will be better prepared.

Even though I was reasonably sure it was a mistake, I was still nervous for hours. I had been loaded up on caffeine and my blood pressure meds had not kicked in yet to slow me down a bit (they make me tired), so the adrenaline was going full steam for quite some time.

Over the past few years I have had two major operations (one being a quadruple bypass) and flipped a truck over. I think they all rated about the same for excitement.

OK, WHAT A WAY TO SCARE US!

My Verizon phone is set to receive emergency alerts. Less than 1/2 hour ago it gave its warning tone and a screen pops up:

INBOUND MISSILE HEADED TO HAWAII THIS IS NOT A DRILL. TAKE COVER NOW!

There are times you hear of a product and think it may be hype. Here is a case where it isn’t.

My truck headlight covers are plastic and use halogen lamps that plug into the back. This is in stark contrast to old style headlamps which were one self-contained unit with a glass face.

Because the front is plastic, it is effected by the elements including sunlight and grit hitting the thing. This makes the front milky and stops much of the light from getting through. You might even fail a vehicle inspection.

You first thought might be to replace the cover, which can be very expensive. Instead, consider just cleaning the plastic. I watched multiple video on Youtube, each showing how simple it was to use Meguiar’s PlastX Clear Plastic Cleaner & Polish. It retails for about $8 a container and that container can do quite a few cars. I don’t think I used more than a couple teaspoons on my truck lights.

You should clean the light with water or in my case, I just wiped off any dirt and grime. Then I put a small squeeze of the stuff on a terry towel and rubbed it on and in, using circular and back and forth motions. Before it totally dried, I wiped it off and looked. The difference was dramatic. Even if this only lasts a couple months, it was so simple and quick that it was well worth the time.

Life is a roller coaster.

You stand in line all excited and when you get to the front of the line and about to get on for the ride. It is then that you discover that you are bald and crapped in your pants.