Where’s My Water?Jack Johnson Has It
Went to two different Starbucks during the week and picked up these goodies.
Where’s My Water? is a fun problem solving game, and there’s Jack Johnson singing Better Together with Paula Fuga.
BOGO Starbucks Hawaii Cold Cups
If you always wanted to get yourself a Hawaii-themed Starbucks Cold Cup, now is the time. At some locations, you can find a BOGO offer on these tumblers. This Buy One Get One deal is good until June 25.
Happy Father’s Day!
Late, but only now did I get these pictures off my iPhone. On Father’s Day, we visited Tiki Island that features new Blaster Boats. These boats are a wee bit zippier, but its water “cannon” can lay the busters down. Can’t you feel that water squirting in your ear?
Besides the festivities, this daddy scored an addition to his wardrobe, a new Apple AirPort Express, and a place to rest his lazy butt.
Hope you had a fun Father’s Day!
New Drobos Designed For Speed
I am a pleased Drobo customer since 2009. I have a basic, straightforward setup that has worked flawlessly for years. But… I do admit that despite its endurance, I wish my Drobo would be faster.
So what’s Drobo to do? Redesign their products emphasizing speed and performance and release the new Drobo 5D and unexpected Drobo Mini. Both of these new devices are equipped with Thunderbolt ports (two of them) and USB 3.0. Gone is Firewire. To further increase caching performance, you can add a mini-format SSD drive to ease the overhead of redundancy. While you should have your data drives on a UPS in case of power outages, both devices feature power protection with an internal battery that ensures your Drobo completes all of its saves and writes before shutdown. Yes, your data deserves that.
The Drobo 5D has space for five 3.5-in drives. From what I understand, DroboShare is not supported on this new platform (5D and Mini). But what about that Mini product? The Mini shares the same blazing architecture as the 5D but instead of using 3.5-in drives, the Mini supports up to four 2.5-in drives typically found in laptops. Can you imagine the speeds if you were to exclusively use SSDs in the Mini? But please, even though the USB 3.0 port is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, don’t connect the new speedy Drobos to this slower interface. Your sanity does not deserve that.
So if you’re in the market for a data storage refresh come this summer, consider the Drobo 5D or Mini, estimated at $850 and $650 respectively. You and your data deserve this.
Google Making the World a Smaller Place
Have you noticed that Google is making the world a smaller place? Of course, there’s Google the search engine which brings the knowledge of the world to your fingertips. There’s the Google Earth app that lets you virtually travel the world at the touch of your finger. On a more local level, who doesn’t rely on Google Maps to find your way? I don’t know about you, but knowing directions and being able to see locations and their surroundings makes me a more comfortable traveler. With Google Maps with Street View, the global scale minimizes to real views of locations. The world is definitely a smaller place due to Google’s innovations.
Today, Google, along with the City and County of Honolulu, held an event announcing Google’s commitment of making the world more accessible with a focus on Hawaii. With Google Maps cars and Street View trikes, much of Oahu, the Big Island, Kauai, Lanai, Maui, and Molokai have been mapped so viewers can go on virtual tours of the Islands. The event highlighted the addition of many of Hawaii’s top attractions to Street View. Now (or soon enough), you’ll be able to go from your part of the world to Hawaii and check out attractions such as the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the Honolulu Zoo, Kualoa Ranch, Sea Life Park, and Waikiki Aquarium. Beyond these popular sites, you can tour resorts, universities, and many, many of our state parks. How’s that for making the world a smaller place?
Mayor Peter Carlisle talked about his vision for a high tech Hawaii and how working with Google is a great partnership. The Mayor was followed by Evan Rapoport, Product Manager for Google Maps Street View who expressed his sentimental joys of returning to Hawaii for this latest Street View initiative.
In Hawaii, residents definitely know what it’s like to live in a “small world,” and it goes something like this… I haven’t been to Hanauma Bay in decades, decades! Not since the 1990’s while in high school. Evan Rapoport is a former Hawaii resident and still owns a home on the Windward side. Before leaving Hawaii to join Google, Evan befriended Phil who happens to be my high school classmate. I hadn’t seen Phil in decades, and guess who’s there at the event? Yep, Phil! So I have Google to thank for this unexpected reunion in this world that’s definitely getting smaller.
Here are more pictures of the Google Street View event at Hanauma Bay.
Be sure to check out other coverage of today’s event.
- Hawaii Gets Big Google Street View Update
- #HIview with Google
- Google Street View expands with more Hawaii locations. Watch for a surprise visitor at the 0:50 mark.
- More Google Street View Maps
- Google Street View Announcement
- Hawaii’s new Google street view update
Update (6/21): Here’s a short video of Evan talking about the expanded features of Google Street View.
Toy Aside: Tonka Dump Truck
Just a quick aside looking for toy dump trucks. This guy is not quite like the original Tonka toys that were indestructible, but according to the reviews, it’s as close as you can get.
Tiki Island Deal
Buy Kids Meals at the Sam Adams Grill and get free passes for mini golf at Tiki Island.
Disney Store Going Abercrombie & Fitch?
When I walked into the newly renovated Disney Store, I saw this display that reminded me of Abercrombie & Fitch. Gotta put a shirt on that mannequin!
And no, I did not see any Disney cast members doing push ups or squats.
Have You Tried Stage Cafe?
Okay, I admit that if looking for furniture, I don’t mind going to the Honolulu Design Center. Inspiration Furniture is there along with HDC’s secret weapon, Stage Cafe. Have you tried their goodies?
Their desserts are great, made at the Stage Restaurant. And of course, they serve coffee and espresso drinks. So while you’re not suposed to, you can shop around while sipping on a Triple Mocha. Good food and good drink makes shopping so much better!
In fact, shopping is so much better, you might even buy an unanticipated Stressless recliner since it includes a stand and a $300 discount on the Sunrise model.
To keep up with their daily specials, follow Stage Cafe on Twitter at @StageCafeHI. As an extra bonus, while sitting in the cafe area, you can people watch these older guys outside. They sit in the unused outside tables under the large umbrellas. They’re playing cards, smoking cigars but do patronize the Cafe by purchasing food and drinks.
Alaskan Scavenger Hunt
We posed the challenge once before, and it’s again time to set @abaggy off on a pictorial scavenger hunt. Can he find and snap pictures from the following list:
Alaskan Scavenger Hunt
- Dessert
- A scenic view
- Shipboard entertainment
- A towel sculpture
- Two different ethnicities of food
- A workout room
- “Wildlife” (could be interpreted many ways)
- Cold
- Gluttony
Bonus
- Crepuscular rays (aka God’s rays). See example on right.
- Mankini (could be his own)
I’ll make it easier by giving him an open interpretation of the items on the list. Can he complete his mission?
Seals Love Starbucks?
Who knew Hawaiian monk seals enjoy their Starbucks just as much as we do?
Actually, an overexcited (and unsupervised) youngster was trying to climb up to get a better view of the seal. In the process, his drink went over the railing. Fortunately, the aged seal didn’t really show an interest in the (empty) cup, and the staff workers were able to retrieve the cup without incident.