Waianae, Third City

The Waianae Coast still offers a beautiful panorama of sights along with its own share of troubles. Road construction is always in progress, temporary road repairs last for months, and the roadway is replaced with steel plates that damage car tires and suspension. And everyone understands that the Rail Catastrophe will make things worse. Our representatives have no clout in the sacred halls of Honolulu and the Big Money is on the Rail Crisis. Sam Slom seems to be one of few with enough guts.

"Difficult does not mean impossible, it just means that

you have to work a little harder."

Think of the good it would do for so many on the Waianae Coast to have

a few Business Parks like this one in Pearl City which does wonders

for the residents of Pearl City. How about for "our" citizens of

"our" community instead of the Fat Cats in Honolulu.

"I coulda been home in 20 minutes."

Since there is only one road in and one road out, cars have no option but to drive over the steel plates. And the resulting traffic jams are inevitable, because of the Rail expenses. And there are many old buses with bad suspension, but fortunately we have bus drivers with good attitudes and they know much more about Public Transportation than the wheels that are running the enchilada into the Big Bucks. It's the bread, Fred.

The beautiful #93 bus from Makaha to downtown Honolulu. Many had been thinking it would be better to take it to downtown instead of the car. You can get to town in 90 minutes. The Rail Disaster is not going to beat that in a million years or 20 Billion dollars. And "I coulda got the bus right around the corner." No feeder buses, rail stations and 21 stops to Honolulu and then another feeder to get where you are going. Three hours? The Fat Cats in Honolulu call it "Rapid Transit."

"Beautiful Kauai" by Don Ho

Driving down the Farrington Highway through Waianae’s small towns you can get a view of million dollar homes next to rundown shacks, overgrown weeds, rusted out broken down cars and trucks and on any given day discarded furniture or waste sitting on the side of the street that is disheartening. Along the beautiful stretches of beach scenery may be rows and rows of dilapidated tents with homeless families and their pets living on the beach and at the end of the road you pass the town of Makaha which was a full blown “tent city” with families of homeless living a day to day existence.

Similar to a mainland urban ghetto, the small Waianae towns are peppered with convenience stores, liquor stores and fast food establishments. They know that when the Fat Cats in Honolulu say "keep the country, country" it means no shoe stores and no sidewalks. That stuff is only for the first class deluxe citizens of Honolulu.

"Blue Champagne" by Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra

Drugs are closely interwoven into this landscape with methamphetamines (“ice”) being the preferred choice of self-destruction. “Waianae Chronics” is the moniker for the people trapped in this endless downward spiral. “It’s all about the high.” Meth addiction is a serious blight on the Waianae Coast. Fortunately, many of the young know they are ignorant but they can learn. The Fat Cats in Honolulu couldn't care less, Da Rail Mess is where the Big Bucks are. All we can do is emphasize the importance of shaping public policy and the perception of crystal methamphetamine.

Honolulu NIght Life

The entire enchilada looking good, even though my nine blogs are pretty close to the point of diminishing returns. Much too over diluted in the available readership. The Two Centers will determine the future for any one or all the blogs.

"When you look at the world in a narrow way, how narrow it all seems! - 

When you look at it in a mean way, how mean it is! -

When you look at it selfishly, how selfish it all is! -

But when you look at it in a broad, generous, friendly spirit -

What a wonderful world it is."

Big Mahalo to Gareth Au for making this available for our reader/dancers.

The latest stats:  No one can catch up to Town Dancer, with three guest authors, they are too far out in front but in a couple of months one of those in the second tier will emerge firmly in second place. The Two Centers will make the difference.

They are Blogging Hawaii, Platinum Horseshoe and Dancing Nights. They all fluctuate by several hits on our erratic hit counters. Dancing Nights has the best chance for it has two Guest Authors now. One more will do it. The rest are just getting out of the single digit average hits per day, where most dance Web sites are. Again, the Two Centers are what will make the difference.

We seem to be getting a larger percentage of computer nerds in the Night Club Circuit, possibly because they are younger than the regular social dancer. Many are beginning to recognize Linux whose biggest disadvantage has been it has many very good programmers and they denigrate the GUI like in Windows and the MacIntosh. Also the fact that there are too many different versions which is confusing to most newcomers.

And they are thinking of changing the name of Phnom Penh.

Phat Chance. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft's desktop network effect advantage is weakening due to cross platform software packages such as Firefox, Open Office, and, for programmers, gcc. And of course, Apple's leading the way in mobile computing. Even some game makers could conceivably abandon Windows by releasing custom Linux Live CD versions of their games. Granted, there might need to be some embedded graphics support, but this need not be an insurmountable problem since many games only support a limited number of graphics adapters anyway.

Have you heard about Windows 10, free?

Kokohead Area

The Kokohead Crater and the Stairway To The Stars:

Just ran into a nice review of the Kokohead area and I didn't know there were two Craters. In fact I have been here almost 40 years and I have never met anyone who has made that climb on the stairway to the stars.

 "Dance may be used as communication between body and soul,

to express music in what may be too deep to find for words."

Koko Head Crater is an old tuff cone measuring 642 feet (196 m) in height. It is quite a bit smaller than its neighboring tuff cone Koko Crater, which measures 1,208 feet (368 m). It is one of the most popular landmarks on Oahu's southeast shore. Even from a distance one can see the hiking trail that leads to the peak.

"I'll Remember You" by Don Ho

To get to the lookout point, one has to climb 1,048 stairs/railroad ties, which were originally built over 60 years ago to get supplies to the military bunkers at the top. The stairs are very steep. There is short, bridge-like area that some people find scary because the railroad tracks where one walks on are above the ground. The alternative route to the right of it is much easier. Within the crater are horse stables and the Koko Crater Botanical Garden, home to many cacti and succulents.

Everyone knows that dancers are not drunks. Dancing in Hawaii Night Clubs will change and these new clubs that will be for dancers will not find it necessary to sell hard liquor. They will sell wine and beer by the bottle, easy to keep track of. Outside catering for chopstick food, not necessary to touch with the fingers. And the best juice bar on the entire state of Hawaii. I have already applied for the job of shoveling the money into the "large" safe.

Well, so far, so good. We at least have Dance Hawaii to put into the news. But there must be more around somewhere. Just let us know and sharing the information with the reader/dancers is fun. There is Hawaii Kai and Waimanalo close by. Hopefully we can get some news from there to start the ball rolling.

Pub's Side Note: There have been two groups in town that have consistently produced the best International Style dancers on this island. By the same token there have been two groups that have consistently produce the worst International Style dancers on this Island. Who? Ha Ha! We are talking competition here are we not? That is the name of somebody else's game not ours.

Update

I finally got all of our "Dancing in Hawaii" blogosphere into double digit average hits per day. Easy to do with Guest Authors but hard to do by myself. Most music, night club and social dance web sites are in single digit hits per day and there are over one hundred of these in Hawaii.

"We have to close some doors, not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance,

but simply because they no longer lead somewhere."

On the mainland, all the dance blogs have one or two of these for their friends.

With a few good Two Centers and each blog with more than one Guest Author each one of the blogs will go into the 20s average hits per day. But then the data in the blogs is no longer SOS. And others will see the value of blogging for communication in our dance world.

"The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" by Les Paul and Mary Ford

I get a little help from four Twitter accounts, a Google Plus, Pinterest and Facebook. And I am restricting the follow and the following to the Hawaiian Islands only, I get about five or ten, every day, wanting to get in but if they have over 800 combination follow and followers, I do not accept.

A person’s measure of intelligence is their ability to adapt when necessary. We believe that through good intentions and mutual respect among the Dancers, the Professionals and the Dance Clubs, an understanding will evolve best suited for this Island. This will be achieved only through effort, study, openness and Time.

"You Are The Sun, Hawaii" by Loyal Garner

I find myself in the process of developing the West Oahu blogs as a tool for bringing together the small contributions of hundreds of dancers in this specific section. Making them matter at this time with the Rail Catastrophe at hand. It is about dancers helping one another regardless of their club membership and people will help if they think it matters. Many of us are learning about democracy and human rights. We are getting better all the time.

New Arrows

Seems to be going in the right direction, this section from the stadium to Chinatown. And I am not the one to say so, the reader/dancers will make the final decisions. But so far, so good. Now we need a good name for this blog as long as we know we are Dancing in Hawaii.

"We sometimes must remind ourselves that we are not perfect

and we must accept it."

We have a little action in Chinatown, and we have the fabulous Dream To Dance Studio in Palama. There is a dance club in Kalihi but we don't know much about it. The only conclusion for us is that there will be a new dance club in this area. Perhaps in the Salt Lake Area, but it must be well away from the Rail Disaster.

Most of the agenda has been set by me, namely to spread the credit around, no one is the star, least of all me. We must continually seek other views and opinions. We must get photos of more different people. The same ones month after month is counter productive for our aims.

Q: How do you get a tissue to dance?

A: Put a little boogie in it!

At the same time we are standardizing the dance that we dance, what are we going to call it, Social, Fusion, Cultural, Universal or Free Style dance? And the invitation to all outsiders is being very well understood by most of our readers. We are not going to get there overnight.

"Morning Dew" by Melveen Leed

Falls are the most common type of fatal unintentional injuries in Hawaii averaging over 108 each year. Falls are also the leading cause of nonfatal injuries in the state with nearly 21,000 emergency room visits and 2,700 hospitalizations each year.  More than three quarters of the victims are aged 65 or older and the risk of fatal falls increases dramatically as seniors move into higher age ranges.  The emotional and fiscal burden associated with fall injuries is significant.

New Arrows

Seems to be going in the right direction, this section from the stadium to Chinatown. And I am not the one to say so, the reader/dancers will make the final decisions. But so far, so good. Now we need a good name for this blog as long as we know we are Dancing in Hawaii.

"We sometimes must remind ourselves that we are not perfect

and we must accept it."

We have a little action in Chinatown, and we have the fabulous Dream To Dance Studio in Palama. There is a dance club in Kalihi but we don't know much about it. The only conclusion for us is that there will be a new dance club in this area. Perhaps in the Salt Lake Area, but it must be well away from the Rail Disaster.

Most of the agenda has been set by me, namely to spread the credit around, no one is the star, least of all me. We must continually seek other views and opinions. We must get photos of more different people. The same ones month after month is counter productive for our aims.

Q: How do you get a tissue to dance?

A: Put a little boogie in it!

At the same time we are standardizing the dance that we dance, what are we going to call it, Social, Fusion, Cultural, Universal or Free Style dance? And the invitation to all outsiders is being very well understood by most of our readers. We are not going to get there overnight.

"Morning Dew" by Melveen Leed

Falls are the most common type of fatal unintentional injuries in Hawaii averaging over 108 each year. Falls are also the leading cause of nonfatal injuries in the state with nearly 21,000 emergency room visits and 2,700 hospitalizations each year.  More than three quarters of the victims are aged 65 or older and the risk of fatal falls increases dramatically as seniors move into higher age ranges.  The emotional and fiscal burden associated with fall injuries is significant.

Moving Right Along.

The Club Dance Waltz,
Pre- pre Bronze.

1. Walking step, hand to hand, side by side, and just hear and feel the rhythm and the timing to the music. You can be a little early, right on time or a little late. The leader's prerogative, just try to stay in sync.
2. Box Step, to begin the basic for a partner movement so that the partners are in sync.
3. Left Turns, 1/4, 3/8 or whatever depending on the music, the space available and the mood of the leader.
4. Right Turns, the same, just to be able to turn right and alternate whenever the leader wants to.
5. Forward Walk for men, backward for women, in slightly parted position.
6. Backward Walk for men,forward for women, in slightly parted position.

"A person should stand on their principles even

if they must stand alone"

These are the real basics, the pre - pre Bronze. The Music is first, of course, but learn the lead and follow on these movements. With a few Waltzes the rest of the learning is all downhill for the club dancers. Just add the new moves as you wish.

Cartoon by Roy Chang in Midweek. One of the best in the Pacific.

Da Rail Disaster messing up all ovah da place.

Facebook has reported the photo uploads were running at 350 million per day. How many people saw your photo today? And we are not talking about yesterday's photos or tomorrow's photos. Auwe. Estimating the average number of photos taken is difficult given the broad user base - from photo fanatics snapping hundreds of photos daily on their SLRs to the vast mass of camera owners in developing nations with just a simple camera phone.

All we ask is for a few nice photos for your friends, relatives, neighbors and fellow dancers in our blogs. Just pick the blog you like and email them in. Easy as pie.

"Maui Waltz" by Loyal Garner

Pub's Side Note: Anybody in the West that has the lucky number (the last two of your Social Security number) can call and pick up the laptop. Details in the Sea Country blog.