Duane saves the day...

I just wanted to post this link, an amazing story about my friend Duane who went fishing with his buddies when suddenly a rogue wave came and swept one of them out to sea... Duane, with his quick thinking emptied his Igloo Cooler and threw it to where his friend could swim to. Then he called 911 and a half hour later a rescue helicopter came...

Please read the whole story by clicking on the title (Duane saves the day) above and it should take to the link.

Opihikao is one of our favorite painting spots, but it's very rocky and the ocean is usually pretty rough there. Great for painting and fishing, bad for swimming.

Kona bound

Arthur got invited to be a part of a Kona coffee festival at the Four Seasons (to have a booth showing art) and he asked me to come along. So I did this piece last night so I'd have something that had a coffee reference and Hawaii combined. I have done lots of coffee images in the past but they are all so urban and totally inappropriate for here. I need a Kona Coffee Shack, not a limestone New York style building... or people wearing slippers, not heels (or a dog playing the ukelele, not an accordian)...

Healing Session

Puna is very new age. So I had one of those energy reaffirming sessions the other day. That's where you tap your body all over and tell your body what you might want to change but mostly that you still love yourself no matter what. Well, I do already, it sounds kind of obnoxious to say but also I have such a positive outlook on life, and it's because I try to do the things I want to do and that's how I run my life. So I thought about the female symbol and look, it has a plus sign for positive. Note that I made my plus sign plus sized. Okay, I'm not perfect. But I love my life.

Whirlwind trip to Oahu

My mom's 80 year old cousin and his daughter and grandson wanted to visit me in Hawaii, on their way from Japan to San Diego. But that meant I had to fly to Oahu for the day and drive them around an island I barely know. After some good suggestions from Arthur and my sister I drove them up and around the North Shore with stops in Haleiwa and the Dole Plantation. On the way back through the saddle to Honolulu I mentioned (thanks to my brother-in-law's tours) we were in the path of the kamikaze pilots that had flown during WWII. This 80 year old grandfather (who was too young to have fought in the war) suddenly got emotional and mentioned that he really wanted to see Pearl Harbor. Maybe next time he said. Not on my watch - why leave for next time what you can do today. I told him we could go now. They were concerned because they knew I had a plane of my own to catch back to the Big Island at 7. No problem I said. So we went to Pearl Harbor. Upon seeing the memorials my mom's cousin became so moved. He had been doing volunteer work in Japan with the survivors of the atom bomb, many older Japanese do this. He wanted to see this place and the connection to it's own senseless destruction. After driving by gorgeous beach after gorgeous beach, this was the highlight of the trip for him.





Notice how stylish those Japanese are (compared to me...).