Kids Nowadays…
What’s wrong with kids nowadays. I can’t believe some called him an astronaut.
Life
New at Footlocker
The past weekend must have been a kicks-buying kind of weekend with the crowds at Footlocker Ala Moana. Sure, sure, this is the only Footlocker House of Hoops in Hawaii, but the crowds were throughout the entire store, not just in the elite hoops area.
Maybe the crowds came for the new Nike Flyknit Lunar 1+. These shoes are woven but feel sturdy yet very light weight.
But what the kicks fiends must have been there for had to be the Martian-like Reebok ATV 19+. I thought pictures of these all terrain shoes looked wack but in real life, they are really, really weird.
Seen at Costco
Just some of the items that caught my eye while shopping at Costco Iwilei. Oh and even though this location opens at 9am on Sundays, they must open a bit earlier. How else can shoppers be leaving with purchased items at 9:05?
I didn’t know glue dots were mainstream enough for Costco to stock.
Costco is up with modern tech too, selling these new 802.11ac Wifi access points.
I found some humor in the placement of the Windows 8 books next to books about Jesus. Not sure what the subliminal message is.
The clothing section was well stocked with piles of clothes that I couldn’t see the top of. Kinda backfires when you can’t easily browse.
I’d guess you’d find these kids books only in Hawaii.
Today I Learned…
that the temperature in the private event room of Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room in Macy’s Ala Moana is not adjustable. Supposedly, it is controlled by a facility in New Jersey. Yes, that’s what was explained to our party when asking if we cool off the room a little. Yes, that New Jersey – not in Ala Moana, not in Honolulu, not in Hawaii, not in the Pacific Ocean, not on the West Coast, but the New Jersey that is five time zones away.
Or is this just made up? I’m thinking the policy of the temperature setting is set forth by New Jersey, but actually controlling the temperature? Sounds like a cover story to me…
Spotted at Marukai
I’m not a regular at Marukai, but that’ll change since I just signed up for membership. What did I spy while perusing this little slice of Japan?
See the cool Gundam Pepsi cans? Love the artwork but abhor the $4 price tag. That’s $4 per can, a regular 12-oz can. The Darth Vader Pepsi Energy Cola looks more intriguing since it’s not your everyday Pepsi, and I believe it’s cheaper at less than $3 per can.
If soda ain’t your thing, how about Kit Kat varieties. Raspberry sounds good, but you know you have to try Vanilla Ice (Ice Baby) first. Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it! The other icon that transcends cultures is Oreos. I’m not sure how chocolate pie Oreos look like strawberries, but hey, coming from Japan, I can believe it.
Lastly, this one leaves me scratching my head – Coconut Long Boys Juniors. Say what? Subliminal message you think? The words, “boys,” “nuts,” and “long” with pictures of coconut balls and the long cylindrical candies? This one frightened me.
Help Represent Hawaii in the Startup Movement!
So there’s this contest called The StartupBus where small teams develop and launch their own startup business while on a bus ride to Texas. Hawaii has two representatives in this contest, working on different teams. Cheer on Ryan Kanno and Austen Ito as they build out Readin.gs and Jobber.io.
Of course, marketing and social media plays a sizable part for businesses, and you can help both Ryan and Austen’s teams by leaving a comment here and spreading the word about @readingsFTW and @jobberio.
And if you want, you too can jump for joy helping Hawaii represent our tech talent!
Spotted at Safeway
A little old by now, but some items of interest spotted at Safeway.
You know you want to sample the Flamin’ Hot Funyuns no matter the burnage that’ll ensue. Pucker up!
Who doesn’t love the sophisticated cookies? After you outgrow Oreos, Pepperidge Farms will be waiting.
Remember the days of seeing Hickory Farms “pop up” locations during the Holidays? These small stores would temporarily open for business, pushing these meat sticks to customers. Be honest, you’ve sampled the beef stick, right? No shame in that.
Hidden Radio Flashing LED?
After weird disconnects while using my Hidden Radio, one of the troubleshooting tips is to fully charge the Hidden Radio. So I tried that, and after a few hours (~5) of charging, the LED light started blinking in this repetitive pattern.
I tried a different charger, but the LED continued to blink in the same pattern. Is this normal? Looking through the manual, I didn’t see anything describing this sequence of blinking. I hope it’s nothing…
Today, I Caved
Maybe I’m tired, maybe I’m dispassionate, maybe I’m just run down, but today, I caved. I shoved my entire insulated lunch bag into an already crowded refrigerator at work. No matter that the refrigerator is packed with other insulated lunch bags (a pet peeve of mine), I usually empty out my insulated bag and only store the items needing refrigeration. But not today. Today I’m guilty of the same.
It felt good.
Cat on a Roof
I’m not sure how this cat did it, but he managed to get on the roof of this house. You don’t see a cat running around up there every day… or at all.
A Taste of Robotics at Pearlridge Center
I’ve never watched a robotics competition for any duration before, but Pearlridge Center gave me the opportunity this past weekend. On Sunday, February 17, 2013, Pearlridge hosted a VEX Robotics Competition as part of Engineers Week in Hawaii.
Middle and elementary schools from around the island showcased their custom designed and built robots in a competition of skills and strategy. The rules of the competition is complex with scoring, high goal scoring, de-scoring, autonomous mode bonus, parking bonus, alliances, and more. Regardless, watching the robots and the kids actively engaged was fun. I gotta say, using robots to block other robots was an exciting twist, and the defensive strategy was very effective, allowing the underdogs to take down higher ranked opponents.
Here’s a small taste of one round of the competition.
And here are a few pictures.
Congratulations to all teams and their schools for a great show!
Migrating from Posterous to WordPress.com
Since Posterous announced that it will be shutting down on April 30, I followed their steps to backup my existing Posterous content.
For the requested backup to be available took some time and downloading ~140 MB of stuff took some time as well. Using my existing (but unused) pulpconnection.wordpress.com blog, I used the Import tool. I located the XML file in the unzipped download and let the import tool go to work. After another wait, I was notified everything completed successfully.
So at least my 459 Posterous items now live on within WordPress.com. Who knows, I may even configure this extra blog to be Posterous like.
Oh and apologies if this massive import blows up your WordPress.com Reader if you follow along. I’m not sure if all these entries are reported as “new” and therefore overwhelm your reader feed.