Images from New Year’s Eve
Just a few pictures from New Year’s Eve.
A small fireworks show.
JoJo reloads with more fireworks.
Extra Spicy was the winner of the night.
Setting the menu for the New Year’s Day party.
Life
New Year’s Eve with Barack Obama…Sorta
On Barack Obama’s last full day in Hawaii, the family spent the day of New Year’s Eve driving through the Windward side to see if we could spot the President Elect or his motorcade. No such luck. Instead we only came across his security.
If we did get to meet Barack in person, it might look something like this…
Thanks to pulpy readers for submitting the above photo meeting Barack.
My Chronology of Hawaii’s Power Outage
How’d your night with the recent Oahu-wide power outage go? Here’s my story, first in pictures then in words.
http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf
6:10pm. Driving to dinner at In-Laws in Kaneohe. Lightning brightens the drive over.
6:15pm. The sky goes bright for a second then followed by a lot of darkness. The street lights have all gone off but come back on after a minute or two.
6:30pm. About to eat dinner when the power goes off – now in complete darkness. Start to hunt for flashlights, candles, and even a gas lantern. Hey, is the gas lantern supposed to burn like that?
6:45pm. Can’t stop dinner which was fortunately already prepared. Warm club soda and Chicken in a Bisket supplemented dinner.
7:00pm. Finished eating dinner. Now what? You play with the kids’ battery powered toys! Autobots, roll out! Bumblebee was here to protect us in the darkness.
7:07pm. Remembered my 3G-powered (and charged) iPhone. Twittered about the power outage in Kaneohe. Start following the #hipower tweets to see what’s going on. Power outage is wide spread.
7:25pm. Start thinking about Barack Obama’s security and how all of this might be a far fetched test.
8:15pm. KSSK’s Perry and Price say outage will be at least 12 hours and is island-wide. But kinda already knew that from Twitter (and some Facebook).
8:26pm. Since we’ll be without power for some time, might as well eat the perishable items now. Anyone for ice cream?
8:40pm. More kids toys. Wow, just noticed that some candles we’re using were bought from Pay ‘n Save! That’s seriously old school. But they still work!
10:30pm-ish. Head back home in the darkness. Police stationed at major intersections to direct traffic.
11:30pm. Excited kids finally go to sleep.
5:16am. Power is back at home with a bunch of lights waking me up. Bummer, Oceanic Internet still offline.
12:12pm. Power is restored for most of the island. We go hiking.
Stephanie Lum Is the Face of HD in Hawaii
I saw that the KHNL news is now broadcasting in HD but didn’t know when the changeover occurred. Who better to showcase this move to High Definition than KHNL’s own Stephanie Lum?
From EngadgetHD.com.
And let me remind you that Stephanie Lum was the clear winner of the Listmania Hottest Local Newscasters back in 2005!
Oahu Blackout Conspiracy Theories
What caused the Oahu-wide electrical blackout on December 26, 2008? HECO isn’t sure if the outage was caused by lightning damage, but here are some simple (minded) conspiracy theories:
President Elect Barack Obama’s Secret Service detail needed a test. What better way to test the President-to-be’s security than protecting him and his family during a complete blackout away from the confines of a well-known, protected location?
HECO wanted to make a point. Hawaii residents have been complaining about the reliability of our electrical grid every time something happens to our power. Now that homegrown Barack is back in town for the Holidays, why not get HECO’s ailing electrical grid some Presidential attention and maybe, aid.
The Iolani/Punahou rivalry runs deep. During the blackout, Iolani alum and now Hawaii Mayor, Mufi Hannemann continually called Barack Obama who graduated from Punahou to offer assistance to his family. The subtext behind these calls? “Hey Buff and Blue, you’re going to be our next President, but you’re in my house now, the home of the Raiders. Just watch what I can do with my friends (and fellow alumi) over at HECO!” There is no confirmation that Mufi pulled some strings to punk’d Barack with this outage.
Anyone else got their own conspiracy theories to share?
Killer Home Security
While at a party, the hosts showed us their own version of home security. Â These screws line the railing of the upstairs balcony. Â Killer! (and this is for real).
Merry Christmas!
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!
A little old but still fun as ever to watch the punk’d-ing go down.
Things To Do After the Move
Still have a lot of things to do after moving Pulpconnection from Blogger to WordPress.
- Get previous Blogger authors accounts on WordPress
- Figure out blogging tools and workflow
- Update ads and widgets
- Dump Technorati?
- Recategorize and retag posts
- List WP plug-ins used
- Figure out RSS feed for comments
- Figure out why search isn’t working (12/25)
and a lot more…
Completed:
- Updated RSS feed for Feedburner. Pulpconnection feed should still be http://feeds.feedburner.com/pulpconnection
- Updated pulpconnection.net domain to new nameservers
- Fix domain names of pulpconnection.com and .net, used 301 redirect from .com to .net (12/24)
- Redirect Blogger posts to WordPress using 301 redirects (12/24)
- Update DNS records, went from GoDaddy to Dreamhost (12/23)
- Added TLA ads (12/25)
- Got Google Friend Connect working (12/24) but I have no friends 🙁
VUDU Christmas Special
The online video service VUDU has drastically lowered the prices of their set top movie player box. Normally, a VUDU box goes for $299, but as a Holiday special, the price is now $99. You have to read the fine print though since you also have to purchase $50 in movie credit to get the $99 deal. But in order to watch movies on the VUDU box, you’d have to buy credit anyways so no biggie.
For some background info, read my previous posts about VUDU.
Technorati Tags: vudu
Holiday Lights Trolley Ride
Earlier in the week we went on a trolley ride to look at the various Holiday lights in Waikiki and Downtown. A caravan of trolleys departed from Kakaako and went through Waikiki and stopped off to see the Honolulu City Lights at the Honolulu Hale.
Was a fun ride (though a little long) and for whatever reason, Darth Maul and some Stormtroppers were at Honolulu Hale.
Think I’ll tell our workplace we should arrange this trolley ride for employees and their families for next year.
Technorati Tags: Hawaii
No One Wants Free Music?
Wow, not one request for free music from Amazon. Not sure what that’s saying? Everyone’s too busy to find a tune? No one wants freebies? These freebies suck?
Oh well, offer still stands.