Very smart marketing move Walmart. In this week’s Sunday ads, Walmart is showcasing Halloween items. They also display Halloween creations made with the on-sale items. You might be thinking, “Hey, that’s pretty cool. I wonder how’d they make it?” Looking on the ad page, Walmart has included directions for the creations…on Pinterest.
Also, each “recipe” names the Walmart mom who submitted it. Very smart, Walmart, very smart.
Head on over to pinterest.com/walmart.
File this under better late than never… Back in February 2015, Toyota unveiled their updated Camry line hashtagging it #BoldNewCamry. In Hawaii, Servco sponsored a social media tweetup where invited guests could check out the new Camry and even take a test drive around the Ward area. As a bonus, food was catered by Tango and games were hosted by familiar faces. The return favor for all of this was giving Toyota your impression of the bold, new Camry. Here’s just a sample of what was collected from the night. When you watch the video, listen to Gary N profusely lavish on about the bold new Camry, and you’ll see a tweet or two from me and @abaggy.
I must admit that the Camry does look great. It’s got style and high tech features like the integrated smartphone charger. Place your iPhone on the interior charging mat and it charges wirelessly during your commute. I rode in the four cylinder model that still had some decent pickup even with four passengers.
I like the aggressive look of the fascia and the styling of the front lights, atypical of a family sedan.
Truthfully, the Camry did impress, but at that time, I was looking for something roomier and with more swagger.
Here’s my favorite shot of the night.
And here are a few more pics from the #BoldNewCamryHI event.
Be sure to track the hashtags of #FlyHappy or #IslandAir on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. A bunch of the Hawaii social media cognoscenti are touring the Four Seasons Lanai, flying from Oahu on Island Air and doing an excellent job showcasing the resort.
What a room makeover!
I had the opportunity to stay at the Four Seasons Lanai in 2009 to attend a wedding, and ever since then, I’ve dreamed of going back.
Dwellable is giving away a pair of Google Glass for its summer contest featuring the anti-selfie. Instead of taking and sharing a picture of yourself, Dwellable wants you to #GetYourGlassOutside and share your experiences.
Read the Dwellable blog post for more details and how to win. I guess you can enter more than once, but to win, your #GetYourGlassOutside entry needs the most retweets on Twitter. Good luck!
Here’s my (first) entry of the Mokulua Islands seen while hiking the Lanikai Pillbox trail.
The Mokulua Islands while hiking Lanikai Pillboxes @Dwellable #GetYourGlassOutside pic.twitter.com/PIJbcPo0wl
— Gee Why (@geewhy) July 10, 2014
This reminds me, I should update my Dwellable links in Hawaii.
For real, I am with the Atlassian BitBand. Check out my swag for proof.
Yup, thanks to Atlassian’s sense of humor, I won this Git shirt along with a BitBand band as part of an April Fool’s giveaway. Back on April 1st, the software company announced a hardware product, the BitBand. If you followed the press announcement and attempted to fund their hardware project, you would have found the giveaway entry form. Luckily, I won some Git goodies. The front of the shirt says “Just Do Git.”
Thanks Atlassian (but stick with the software)!
I can’t believe it’s been nearly two years since I participated on an embark of the USS Nimitz during RIMPAC 2012. The sights, the sounds, the surprises, and the memories.
If I could, who would I nominate for an embark?
In the footsteps of the original Ambassadors of Aloha, Ed Sugimoto has to be a natural pick. So what if he wasn’t named Top40Under40 by the Pacific Business News, Ed’s an entrepreneur, cultivating and spreading his VH07V brand. I’m not saying Ed should be giving away free VH07V shirts during the embark (well, maybe stickers), just embody aloha while on this amazing tour. And no Ed, Oceanic Cable’s Oahu Wifi ain’t gonna work.
From past embarks, there have been countless pictures, movies, and words recounting experiences. But how about original artwork inspired by the magnitude of a Navy vessel? In short, I want to see what Valentino Valdez comes up with – illustrations, posters, shirts, sketches, or even toy mashups.
Matt Spencer knows his movies. It’s that simple. He watches, critiques, and promotes films all the time and then some. When Matt’s not watching movies, I think he’s reading about them or planning his upcoming viewing schedule. What does movies have to do with a Navy embark? The U.S. Navy in the movies? Surely, you’ve seen a flick or two. From Matt’s point of view, I want to know how realistic the scenes are, which movie has the most accurate portrayal of Naval operations, what actor or character does the ship’s captain remind Matt of? How can Matt relate his experience in terms of films – that’s his reel challenge.
On the surface, Gary Nacapuy looks like a casual Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter denizen. Now go beneath the surface, and you’ll see a growing world of software development. Coding, developing, engineering is where Gary thrives. Combine his passion with the inspiration instilled from a Navy embark, and I’m excited to see what follows.
Now why would a local celebrity, entertainer, and radio celebrity like Gregg Hammer go on a Navy embark? To broadcast his firsthand experiences with his audience. No, this isn’t a public relations ploy, as a car fix-it guy, Gregg will love visiting the engineering deck, listening to the crew talk in detail about hydraulic fluid, valves, radiators, and arresting cables that catch landing aircraft. Don’t you want to hear Gregg’s tales and adventures during your morning drive in traffic?
He asked to go after hearing my stories. 🙂
As far as Navy exercises go, the Rim of the Pacific aka RIMPAC is as international as it gets. Similar is the international makeup of the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team. Of course, this will never happen since I’m sure there’s some NCAA infraction or regulation standing in the way, but it’s fun to dream. Imagine seven-footer Davis Rozitis cramped for a COD launch. Can Isaac Fotu get his hair into a safety helmet? Heck, imagine any of the Rainbow Warriors walking the onboard passageways ducking through every hatch. Although it would be cool if the team had a shoot around with service members inside the hangar. Just make sure the ball stays inbounds, the Pacific Ocean is very unforgiving to errant passes.
And there’s my list of fictional nominees. Of course, this list has no significance, but as I’m grateful that my embark was the result of others’ nominations, I have a duty to pay it forward.
Surprisingly, Pinterest. Yes, Pinterest. That Pinterest, the visual bookmarking site that had its start with crafters. I joined in April of 2011 and not finding pins that strongly piqued my interests, I started pinning stuff that I was attracted to, namely kicks. Of my various Pinterest boards, my Kicks Pinboard is the most active with 573 pins and over 2600 followers.
That amount of followers easily eclipses any of my other social networks, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and even Plurk (my favorite social networking underdog). So whatever magic and mojo Pinterest possess, I can attest to it.
Although the Huffington Post Hawaii doesn’t officially go live until September 4, they’re ramping up their social media presence on Facebook and Twitter. Just for fun, I happened to be the first public @mention of @huffposthawaii.
Fellow Hawaii-focused bloggers, you offering up your services?
With a flit and a flutter (and an Instagramed tweet), I was entered in Pearlridge’s Flutter Flyaway contest.
Late this afternoon, I saw several tweets announcing that I had been randomly picked as the week 1 winner. How great is that?!
This week's winner of our Flutter & Flyaway contest is @Geewhy! He gets a trip for 2 on Mokulele air. You can… http://t.co/sNizfBgsFx
— Pearlridge Center (@Pearlridge) July 6, 2013
You know how it goes. If you don’t enter then you can’t win a contest, but even after entering, you typically don’t win. But once in awhile you get lucky, real lucky, as in a free trip via Mokulele Airlines along with gift certificates for several Pearlridge stores. So I repeat, how great is that?!
The live butterfly exhibit is fun for the family. You learn about the lifecycle of a butterfly, see them in their different stages, watch them eat, and sometimes, they’ll pay you a personal visit. You don’t experience this everyday in a shopping mall. I highly suggest a visit, and of course, participating in the Flutter Flyaway contest. 😉
There’s still time to turn your #PRflutter experience into something extra special. Read here for contest details and watch this video.
Be sure to follow Pearlridge on Twitter and Facebook, and thanks again!
Okay, not a ghost, but Ghost, the Kickstarter project for a new blogging platform. Check out the explanatory video.
This project has already surpassed its initial goal and is now 31% of its way to reaching its lofty stretch goals. So if you’re a blogger, understand the shortfalls of blogging tools, and see how Ghost addresses these problems then it’s not too late to back this project.
I’m still ecstatic that I actually won Dwellable’s contest of providing the most interesting review of their updated mobile app. While winning an iPad Mini is uber cool, the real winning story is Dwellable itself. It’s okay to be honest and say you’ve never heard of Dwellable before. Dwellable is a recent startup focusing on the rental market and strives to be the “world’s foremost online vacation rental search engine.” Seems like they’re a growing team fueled by fun, passion, and travel addiction – my kind of team. 😉
How’d it all begin? In June of 2012, I received a message from Jane from Dwellable asking permission to share some of my blog posts about Hawaii. Sure, as a blogger, having your content featured elsewhere is a great compliment, but what really intrigued me is Dwellable’s personal contact. Every interaction with the Dwellable team felt unique, not mass mailings or name-changed form letters. That rarity endeared me to their cause so I willing keep an eye out for content helpful to Dwellable. Along the way, Dwellable started its leaderboard to drive up the competitive spirit then Dwellable had its Travel Blogger Contest won by the well-traveled Ed Paff, Jr. All of this adds up to fun for you and me and also enriches Dwellable’s offerings. That makes Dwellable a special company in my book (and I’m not just saying this because I won an iPad Mini).
Thanks again Dwellable and hope you guys continued success (and fun)!
I finally got the option to download all my tweets as an archive and looked through the early days. Here is my third ever tweet.
eating char siu bao
— Gee Why (@geewhy) June 11, 2007
Yeah, that’s some riveting stuff there I tell you. For all of 2007, I posted 33 tweets, 23 of which were in my first month of use (June 2007).