Winter Mornings


7:15am today

I pulled the camera out for a quick snap of the bad weather pounding Honolulu today. Usually you can see a view like this out our window for sunrise:


>7am sunny sunrise morning

The tourism board of Hawaii would love to let you believe it never rains on the Islands and surely it will never rain on your vacation. Nothing could be further from the truth. It rains all the time and depending on what part of the island you live on, it ALWAYS rains. We get lots of rain as we live right below the mountain range and misty rain seems to always fall from the sky. Its nothing to make you pull out the umbrella but its enough to make you pull off your sunglasses for a quick wipe.

Today happen to be one of the worst days in a while.

The rain and winds rattled the windows and woke us up in the middle of the night. The traffic is at a complete stop on the highways this morning and the rain is causing flooding in some parts on Oahu. Its not a great day.

Winter season, roughly November through Jan/Feb, will bring bad weather and rain to Hawaii. Several years ago, it happen to rain more than 40 days STRAIGHT! You can’t help to feel bad for all those tourist who arrive from their snowy homes hoping to have a perfect tropical vacation. I’ve seen rain fall for days and sadly see jets ferrying tourist off the Islands as the sunny skies break open.

Its a sad fact, rain falls in the winter on Hawaii. To me it happens to be the most depressing time. You get so used to having sunny bright days and cool weather. Donning a rain coat or perhaps socks and sneakers (as opposed to flip flops) is tough. Hey–I lived in New York along time and remember freezing ears, frozen toes, and red noses. My first experience with snow was “wow, its snow!” but once you have to cross the icy cold streams at the intersections, you quickly come to hate that lovely winter wonderland.

Either way, most tourist who come to Honolulu during the winter season can’t all be doing that bad. A quick look at the weather across the US and the globe today:

Thursday, Dec. 10, 2008

New York: 41 F, overcast
Los Angeles: 65 F, cloudy
Chicago: 34 F, PC
Dallas: 49 F, clear

The Globe:

London: 37 F, hazy
Sydney: 64 F, rain
Tokyo: 57 F, clear
Riyadh: 59 F, PC
Berlin: 36 F, drizzle
Paris: 37 F, clear
Buenos Aires: 75 F, clear
Mexico City: 57, clouds

So I guess where ever you are, the weather today isn’t all that bad. A bad day in Hawaii is always a good day anywhere else. Heavens—its Hawaii!

$1,000,000 and change

I found a bunch of money in my closet today. Sad to say its kinda worthless to me in Hawaii as all the value is only in memory.

I don’t know where or who gave me a million Turkish bucks as I’ve never been. I wished they’d given me a bunch of Euros or dollars. I think it was Adrian in Switzerland.

The only real value is probably the Singapore $2 dollars. The rest is well, I shouldn’t say as the dollar isn’t too high and mighty right now. Yet I sure could use more of them.

mexicanos locos!

My amigo Omar in Mexico City sent me two pictures from La Avenida Reforma in Mexico and it seems my work is on display in a foreign country. I met a group of crazy Mexicans in Banda Aceh after the tsunami and these god sent angels were helping recover victims…more on this story in the future. As I followed them around for days we took amazing photos which lead to so much in my life. These guys changed my life is reallly what happen.

Anyway I gave them a disc with images and they used them like crazy. I guess they took them to someone and they used them for a gallery of images for something. No explanation…do I need one?

I got images around the world!