I need a lawyer

Anybody wanna help me sue the Washington Post?

Dear Washington Post,

STOP LITTERING ON MY PROPERTY!!!!

- I didn't ORDER the newspaper.
- I don't WANT the newspaper.
- I'm tired of picking up YOUR TRASH ON MY DRIVEWAY.

STOP IT!!!!

Sincerely,
Blunoz

I've contacted the Washington Post FOUR times now and asked them to STOP delivering the newspaper to my house. Yet, every morning, there's a newspaper laying in my driveway. They go directly into the recycle bin.

Will somebody with legal smarts out there please tell me how many times I have to ask them to stop before I can sue them for littering on my property? Then maybe I can add myself to the list of frivolous lawsuits.

I was trying to think of some other way to get the attention of the IMBECILE who delivers the newspaper on our street and won't stop leaving them at my house. I wish I knew what TIME he drove through so I could more adequately develop a plan to get his attention. How about some of those little spike things in the road that the state troopers use to pop tires and stop high-speed chases?

Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem.

What the heck is BPA?

We've been fans of the Camelbak water bottles for quite a while now. The boys have the small versions to take with them to school in their lunch boxes. LW and I have the larger size for during or after exercise.

Recently when we had visitors from the mainland, we got in the car to do the touristy thing around the island. I put my Camelbak water bottle in the cupholder in the car, and E asked me if it was BPA Free. I said, "Is it what???" I had never even heard of Bisphenol A (BPA) until he told me about it. (Aside: Like I said before, I always end up learning cool stuff whenever we get to visit with P&E.)

The wikipedia artcile on BPA is pretty informative. It turns out, this BPA stuff can be toxic. Of more concern is that when it gets hot (like if you left your water bottle in the car), it leeches out the BPA 55 times faster than it normally does.

There's no legislation against using BPA in plastic products yet, but apparently a lot of companies that make reusable water bottles, baby bottles, sippy cups, etc are changing to use BPA-Free plastics. Walmart and Toys-R-Us have declared they will no longer sell products such as baby bottles with BPA plastics.

We were happy to find that as of April 2008, Camelbak is now making all BPA-Free water bottles, and LW just got us some new Camelbak bottles to replace our old ones.

How can you tell if your water bottle is BPA free or not?

Apparently the products that had BPA in them had the recycle symbol with a 3 or a 7.





The newer BPA-Free water bottles from Camelbak have a little symbol that say "BPA Free" with two little leaf silouettes.

Weekend Recap

An Unusual Experience at the Barber Shop

On Saturday, we had lunch at the NEX, then LW went to the Commissary while I took the boys to get haircuts. In case you haven't been there before, the NEX barber shop in Pearl Harbor is HUGE. There are probably twelve barber chairs in there, usually with about 9 or so barbers working during the day. The waiting room has enough seats for about 20 people to wait, and they're normally full in the middle of the day.

The parking lot was PACKED, so we were expecting the worst (both in the commissary and the barber shop). I opened the door to the barber shop and did a double-take. Not only was the waiting area half empty, but the people that were sitting in the seats were all wearing barber coats! They didn't have any customers! The waiting area had transformed from an area for customers to wait for barbers into an area for barbers to wait for customers. Very bizarre.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Worst Restaurant Experience on Oahu (so far)

After church on Sunday, we decided to forego our favorite Zia's and try one of a handful of places in Kailua that an acquaintance had recommended. First we tried going to Moke's, but there was a line of people waiting out on the curb. We were starving, so we skipped Moke's.

Instead, we tried going to the Mexican place next door to Boots & Kimo's. I think it was called Cisco's Cantina. We walked in, and it smelled pretty darn good in there. There were about twelve tables in the place, and only three of them were occupied.

Hindsight: I guess maybe that should have set off alarm bells in my head since Boots & Kimo's next door had the usual line of people waiting outside - why weren't people lining up to take the empty spots in THIS restaurant???

There were no employees anywhere in sight. We noticed that there were menus out on each of the tables, so after a minute or so of standing there we just decided to grab a table. Eventually a waiter came out of the kitchen and delivered something to one of the other tables. He made eye-contact with me and said, "I'll be right with you." Okay, cool.

Over the course of the next 20 minutes, it became apparent to me that he was the ONLY employee working in the front half of this restaurant. Heck, for all I know, he was the ONLY employee working there PERIOD. He could have been doing the cooking in the back for all I know. In that time, he visited our table once to take our drink orders and LW asked him if they had a kids menu. He said yes and that he'd "be right back."

Yyyyyeah, not so much.

After several minutes of watching him visit each of the other tables, he did bring back our soft drinks with some chips and salsa, but that was the last we saw of him for about another ten minutes. Maybe he was cooking in the back, who knows. We were starving, and LW had a hair appointment for 3 p.m. that she was NEVER going to make at the rate he was going.

We had consumed ALL of our soft drinks and very nearly ALL of the chips and salsa and he still had not come back with the kids menu much less taken our food orders. LW and I decided we had waited long enough and it was time to abort. We left a few dollars of cash on the table to cover the soft drinks, packed up the kids' coloring books and stuff and left.

We went back to Zia's. Their special today was a papaya seafood salad with shrimp and fresh ahi, and it was delicious. The speed of their service wasn't super fast, but I have no doubt we got out of there a heckuva lot quicker than we would have over at the Mexican place. As it was, we barely made it home in time for LW to hop in the car and leave for her hair appointment.

Anyway, the whole point of this was that I couldn't remember the last time (if ever) I went to a restaurant and actually got up and left like that because nobody was serving us.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Family Movie Nights

One day on vacation, the boys caught a few minutes of Around the World in 80 Days on TV and wanted to watch the rest of it. I picked it up at Blockbuster and we watched it for Family Movie Night on Friday. Little did I realize, this would be the boys' first Jackie Chan flick.



My first Jackie Chan flick was Rumble in the Bronx with Jud in NY. I had never heard of Jackie Chan before Jud took me to see that movie, and WOW what a lot of choreographed action!
Around the World in 80 Days was a pretty good movie. ES and I enjoyed it at least. YB wasn't able to follow the storyline so well and he ended up playing Webkinz on my computer while we watched the movie.

Saturday night we had another Family Movie Night and watched Back to the Future. ES really liked it a lot. I wasn't sure YB would understand it or like it, but he did sit through the whole movie.





* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hooray for Recycling!

We just got a notice that they are going to begin curb-side recycling pick-up in our housing area on April 22nd. Finally!!! Almost in time for Earth Day, eh? I'm so glad I won't have to feel guilty about tossing recyclables in the trash anymore.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Blast from the Past

I meant to include this in my post about scuba diving on Thursday. My guys got a good laugh out of seeing the photo on my scuba certification card.


Just now, as I was adding the photo to my blog, YB saw it and asked "Who's that?" I told him it was Daddy. He smiled. I asked him, "Doesn't it look like Daddy?" He smiled and vigorously shook his head NO. NO?!?! Common, I don't think I look THAT different, do I??? Okay, so that was almost 19 years ago...

I'm such a sucker

Anybody need a newspaper?

So there I was, working with the saw out in the front yard, cutting out the design on ES's pinewood derby car. [Aside: Yes, ES is participating in making his car, but I was doing the cutting with the saw.] I see this pretty middle-school-aged girl in a red and black dress start at the end of our street with a clipboard in her hand, going door to door.

When she walks up to my house, she's very perky and smiling and asks if I'd like a free copy of the Honolulu Advertiser. I said, "No, thanks!" She said, okay, thank you, and proceeded on to the next house.

Tangent: I haven't picked up a paper newspaper in I don't know how long. Am I the only one who thinks paper newspapers are totally useless? At least in a neighborhood where every house has at least one if not two or three computers with high-speed access to the internet and all the news they want - tailored to their interests no less. Why would I pick up a hard-copy newspaper? I do pick up the Navy Times in hard-copy, but that's mostly so I have something to read in the bathroom. For day-to-day current events and news, I read it all on the internet. Anyway, back to the story...

Fast forward ten minutes or so later. I see the once-perky, previously-smiling little girl slowly walking back up the street, hugging her clipboard to her chest, with a look of sadness on her face like she was about to cry. My heart sank. As she walked by on the other side of the street in front of my house, I stopped sawing and called across the street to her, "Any luck?" (already knowing the answer from her body language). She continued shuffling her feet walking on up the street, but slowly turned her head toward me and shook her head no. So, in spite of the fact that I have absolutely NO need for a free copy of the Honolulu Advertiser, I asked her what I had to give her in return for my "free" copy of the newspaper.

Her face lit up. "Really???" she said as her sad face spread into a smile from ear to ear. She proceeded to give me her schpeal about what a great deal she could offer me on the newspaper and that some percentage of what she sold went into her college fund. She asked if she could interest me in the $5 option for 4 weeks of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday papers.

I gave in and gave her the five bucks. I have no idea what I'll do with the newspapers other than toss them in the trash (sad, I know - they don't recycle here). It was worth it though from the expression of joy on her face. I think it really made her day.

I'm such a sucker. I've often wondered if I have the word "gullible" tatooed on my forehead because I have a tendency to be too trusting of human nature and allow strangers to take advantage of me.

LW is going to laugh at me when she gets home. (She's off getting that pedicure she's been wanting for weeks).

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Family Movie Night

Friday for family movie night, we went waaaaay back and watched Space Camp (1986!!). OMG! That was SO bizarre seeing Lea Thompson and Kelly Preston as teenagers (17 and 16 years old respectively). Man, I had such a crush on Lea Thompson back when Back to the Future came out (1985). There's another classic movie we need to add to our family movie night list - Back to the Future.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ford Island Bike Ride

Saturday morning, I took ES on a 10-mile bike ride around Ford Island and back. It was about 2 miles over to Ford Island, about 6 miles going around Ford Island (roughly following the path of the Ford Island 10K I ran last fall), then 2 miles back home. ES did great. It was a decent workout for me, and I think ES had fun, too. I got to point out several things that I saw and learned on the Remembrance Tour that ES couldn't go on (no kids under 8 allowed), like the spot where USS NEVADA ran aground to make sure they wouldn't block the channel for other ship's that were able to get underway.

Self-portrait on a stop during our bike ride around Ford Island.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Pinata Observations

We went to a friend's birthday party and they had a pinata for the kids. I cringed when I saw it because I had recently read the A Team's post about the dangers of pinatas and blindfolded, aluminum-bat-swinging, sugar-hyped small children.

I don't know if this is some sort of universal truth, but I made an interesting observation. Somehow when the kids got in line, all the little boys were first and all the little girls came second. When the boys swung the stick, they all swung it like it was a bat, and they kept hitting and hitting and hitting that pinata from the side, but didn't break it open. When the little girls swung the stick, they swung it over their head like an axe or sledge hammer. They kept beating DOWN onto it, and the rope holding it up couldn't take it. It wasn't long after the girls got up to bat that the pinata was ripped off the hoist rope - still structurally entact mind you, but not attached to the hoist anymore.

Why is it the boys swing it sideways like a bat and the girls swing it over their head like an axe? Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon?

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Discovery Channel

ES has figured out that the Discovery Channel is pretty darn cool. There are all sorts of shows about military equipment, nasty, muddy, yucky, disgusting jobs, and smashing stuff up. It's very fitting for that destructive little-boy obsession with things that go bang. It seems like the TV has been on in the background continuously on the Discovery Channel all day.

I'm glad though, because I just saw this really cool show on secure internet commerce, Amazon.com, eBay, and stuff. They showed a really cool, simple analogy that explained how Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) works, and it makes SO much more sense to me now! I understood the basic concepts of it before, but they did a much better job of explaining it in simpler terms that just about anybody could understand.

Monday Night Food and Fitness

FOOD

Layered Mexican Chicken casserole. LW did her usual excellent job of making dinner for us this week. My favorite meal of the week was this new one she tried from a WW recipe. LW said she used low-fat sour cream instead of fat-free, but she used less of it than the recipe called for. This meal put me in the flashback machine. One of my favorite meals that my mom made when I was growing up was a recipe of my Grandma's called "Tortillas and Sour Cream." This WW recipe tasted just like it, but it had chicken and black beans added to it. I took some in to work with me the next day, and it tasted great as leftovers, too. Two thumbs up! (Photo is from the WW website).

FITNESS

It wasn't a very good week for me fitness-wise. I had a nasty head-cold and felt like death-warmed-over most of the week. Each morning I would spend about 30 minutes to an hour coughing up all the gunk that had accumulated in my chest and sinuses over the night, so I didn't go to Command PT. Luckily, I maintained my weight. I suspect dehydration may have been a factor in that though.

This morning, I was still coughing a little bit, but doing much better than last week, and I really wanted to start running again. We didn't have our usual Monday Command PT because it's a holiday, so I decided to go for a run out on the bike path. I forced myself to jog at least the first 1.5 miles to get ready for the upcoming PRT, but I was coughing a lot and had to stop and walk the remainder of my usual 4-mile route after that. I coughed all the rest of the way home. Maybe it was too much too soon after being sick, but I really felt like I needed to get SOME form of exercise.

Warning: Tangent Ahead. This post soon departs the "fitness" topic at hand...

It's actually been a while since I ran on the bike path. I've normally just been going to Command PT and running on the base or on the treadmill at the gym. Running on the bike path made me think of another "pro" to add to the list for moving back to the east coast. I miss the nice, clean paths and the fresh air in the parks in Virginia and lots of other places on the mainland. You would think in a place with as much natural beauty as Hawaii that the residents would be more respectful of the environment and not just totally trash the place. I suppose if they've never traveled anyplace else, then maybe they don't appreciate the beauty of their home state. It just makes me sad to see so much trash along the sides of the bike path and elsewhere around the island, and the stench that comes from the trash makes me nauseous. I wonder if that's why the boys don't like to go running with me here like they did in Virginia?

It also surprised me that they don't have a recycling program here. I think everyplace we've been stationed before this had SOME form of a recycling program where the city picks up recycling right alongside your trash can. Not here. If you want to recycle here, you've gotta do it on your own and take the stuff in to a recycling center like at the NEX. At least you get some cash-back that way, but they still won't accept nearly as many types of recyclable products as they would in our previous duty stations.

Okay, sorry, I'll get off my environmentalist soap box for now.

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday weekend!