Our Lyft driver arrived right on time this morning, and we were ready for him. I was pleased and surprised that he had the local classical radio station playing!

We had breakfast at “The Club at SJC”, then boarded our flight and were served second breakfast.

We arrived in Honolulu nearly an hour early (the captain said we had an unusually strong tailwind), which gave us more than enough time to wander around. There’s a replica of Senator Daniel Inouye’s office in the airport; we paid our respects.

A couple of hours later, it was finally time for the quick flight to Kona; I was surprised to find so much of the airport there outside!

We stopped at the Kekaha Kai State Beach to get our first good look at lava – cold lava, to be sure, but definitely a lot of it. This area only has a’a lava (the pointy kind).

According to the map, this area was hit by a big lava flow in 1801. It’s been re-colonized by plants, and even some cattle roam the area.

I guess we could have hiked down to the ocean, but we skipped it and drove to our hotel, Marriott’s Waikoloa Ocean Club. The view from our room is pretty good, though you can’t see much beach.

The lunch options at the Honolulu Airport were unappealing (and we had had two breakfasts!), so we were hungry by the time we’d unpacked. We walked down the beach to the Lava Lava Beach Club for an early dinner (the better to be seated without having to wait!). I had the Macadamia Nut Arare Crusted Fish of the Day (mahi-mahi) and Diane had Somen Ahi. Somehow, we had room left for dessert, so we split a Kona Coffee Cheesecake, too.

According to “Hawaii the Big Island Revealed“, the Lava Lava Beach Club rates an “Ono with qualifiers” because “it’s not the food you’ll remember, it’s the dreamy setting”. I agree; the food was good, but the setting was great. It was especially nice after they lit the tiki torches at the beachside tables.

We finished dinner and walked back to the hotel, enjoying the last few minutes of sunset.

We’re off to Hawaii tomorrow morning. We’ve booked a Lyft for a 5am pickup, so I want to finish up early tonight.

Yesterday, I claimed we’d done our packing; I spoke too soon.

We decided that we’d like to try to do a MaunaKea stargazing trip, which meant bringing warmer and bulkier clothing along. Which meant having to use a larger suitcase. Which meant repacking. Which gave us the opportunity to bring along a few more things. :-)

I’m going to quit before I have any more bright ideas.

The JCC is trying to encourage members to come in and exercise this month – if you workout there eight times during February, you get some merch. We usually work out there twice a week, which would make it easy to qualify – but next week, we’ll be in Hawaii.

So we got up early and worked out this morning before Torah Study; it wasn’t a bad way to start Shabbat.

After Torah Study, we took a walk to the nearby Amazon Locker and picked up the remote case I’d mentioned in Thursday’s blog entry. The case provides much-needed bulk, friction, and visibility for the Samsung remote, which I hope not to have to fish out of the couch again!

One advantage of going to Hawaii in February is that there’s very little overlap between the clothes we’ll be wearing there and what we’re wearing here, so we were able to pack almost everything this afternoon (we have a Lyft scheduled for 5am on Monday, another reason we got up early this morning). It feels very strange to be packed so far in advance!

There was a beautiful crescent moon when I went out this morning, so I ran back in to grab my camera (I knew my phone wouldn’t do it justice). I hadn’t used the camera since we got back from Hawaii in early December, so I wasn’t surprised to find it had a dead battery.

I was surprised, though, that it took considerable effort to pry the battery out of the camera body; I popped in a new battery and went back outside before the sky got too light.

I came back in and put the dead battery into the charger; it seemed like a tighter fit than usual. Suddenly, a light dawned. I turned off the charger, pulled the battery out, and put it down on the table.

It should have lain flat on the table, but it wiggled from side to side. I looked more closely and saw that it was only contacting the table at the center of the battery, not the entire surface, as you’d expect.

I compared it to the other batteries I had, and it was clear that it had started to swell, so it’s a good thing I didn’t finish charging it.

Diane and I checked our other camera batteries; all of mine were OK, but she had one which didn’t quite lie flat (and which she said didn’t hold its charge well). We took the two bad batteries to the local Ace Hardware where they’ll dispose of them.

On a brighter note, the installer we picked signed the paperwork for the solar system; the next step is for them to come out and verify the condition of the roof and ensure that they can mount the panels in the right place. Oh, and I guess we’ll have to send them a deposit, too. :-)

Shabbat Shalom!

We had a hybrid Silver Tongued Cats meeting this morning; I’d volunteered to handle the tech issues, and I was confident I’d have no problems after watching how the Los Gatos Toastmasters ran a hybrid meeting in the same room.

I got there a little early and hooked up all the cables and turned everything on. System Settings on the Mac showed the TV was connected and recognized, but I couldn’t get anything to show up on the screen. The TV was working fine – as a TV, but when I selected the “PC” input, nothing happened.

I disconnected and reconnected. I turned the TV off and on. I turned mirroring off and on. Nothing helped. After what felt like ten minutes, I decided to tell the TV to try the input labeled “Cable Box” – and that worked.

The rest of the meeting ran smoothly. After the meeting, one of the other Toastmasters mentioned that he’d brought his new Volkswagen ID.4 to the meeting and offered to show it to me; he even let me drive it for a few miles. I didn’t like it quite as much as the Ioniq 5, but I plan to go to the VW dealer and see what Diane thinks of the car; it’s a good bit less expensive and might qualify for the Federal tax credit.

This afternoon, we were watching last night’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, when suddenly the TV started showing “Live Now from FOX”, even though the audio from Colbert was still playing through the A/V receiver. I was confused. Eventually, I realized that something must have pushed a button on the TV remote, moving it to a random channel on “Samsung TV Plus” but not affecting the A/V receiver.

It took a long time to find the TV remote; it had slipped off the arm of the couch, under the cushions, and into the tiny opening between the upholstery and the seat body, pushing the “Samsung TV Plus” button at some point on its journey.

I’ve ordered a case for the remote to make it bigger and less slippery. If it works as well as the one I got for the Apple TV remote, I’ll be happy – that remote hasn’t gone couch-diving since I put it into a similar case.

And really, how could it not work? Look at the description:

Personalized your samsung tv remote,color coded samsung remote protectors make you indentify the remote quickly when your remotes do not follow social distancing rule mixed together with other remotes.Glow in the dark after inject energy for a long time via table lamp,flashlight,flash of cell phone,you can locate it easily even though at night

Perfect, right?