Kauai Options

This is Menehune Hale. It's a 5000 s.f. house with 4 bedrooms and 4 baths. It also has a hot tub. I think we'll end up taking this one. The location is great, if my memory serves: the public beach is to its right (as you look at the water), and just around the point to the left is the "lagoon" area, where the snorkeling is better. Notice how you walk off the lanai right onto the beach. Sweet. Here's a map showing Anini Beach Rd. This place sits just past Anini Beach Park (the public beach), i.e. to the left of the beach park on this map.


This is Kai Malie. This one has 4 bedrooms, all with queens, and 2 bathrooms. 1900 square feet of deck wrap around the place. I called on this place, but I'm not sold on its location. Also, it sits across the road from the beach, and its view of the ocean is obscured by two homes on the beach side of the road.


This is Ka Hale 'Olu. It has 3 bedrooms plus a pair of doubles in a loft, with 2 bathrooms. It has a nicely landscaped yard and a large rear lawn. THIS ONE IS NOT AVAILABLE DURING OUR TIME.


This is Hale Ohana Anini. 3 bedrooms plus a large loft, with 3 bathrooms - also an office. This house is right across a narrow street from the beach. It's just a couple of doors down from the house I stayed in a couple of years ago. Nothing wrong with this place but it just didn't motivate me that much.



This is Anini Mua Loa. There is a main house and a guest cottage. Three bedrooms (sleeping 6) plus a bunkroom are in the main house; one bedroom (with a queen) in the cottage. 4,000 square feet of living space. The grounds look beautiful, and I think it is near the beach park. This place is very high end and I didn't check its location. That was going to be my next call until I learned the details on Menehune Hale, the one at the top of this post. You can gather that I didn't get much further.

Landscaping That Needs Attention

The Deodora Cedar. (Click on any image to enlarge.)
This Mountain Hemlock was planted on 12/9/04; it was spindly then, it is spindly still.
Two of the Hinockis look great; the third is stunted and blackened.

Two of the Little Gems look OK; the one closest to the gate, while technically alive, is stunted and blackened.


Here are the five Little Gems; from lower image to upper: dead, weak, OK, OK, blackened and stunted.

Hip Pix

This picture is the last X-ray before the November 28, 2005 surgery on the left hip. There is no joint space, it is bone on bone. The right hip has been in for just under 22 months.


And here is the first x-ray following the surgery (9 days prior), taken on 12/7/05.

They resemble a pair of light bulbs glowing in the murk.

In Indonesia

Teresa has returned safely from her volunteer medical mission to Sumatra to provide tsunami relief. She was gone from about mid-March to mid-April. She wrote the following in an email to me, which I asked her permission to post here. Of course I suggested she start her own blog, so she can make installments to it on her future trips. For now we'll have to get these neat stories any way we can. (I have posted a few of her photos too. Here is an update we received from her by email while she was abroad.)

Indonesia was great. Their medical needs were minimal. The sickest person was the logistics guy on our team. [He] owes me big for putting in an IV after he puked his guts out all night long. We were there for the second big earthquake. It was 11pm, we all ran outside. It wasn't violent but lasted what seemed like a long time. Of course we had no idea how big it was or the new damaged it caused until the next day when we started getting phone calls from all over. Initially I was going to be sent to Nias, were most of the new damage occurred. But then plans changed as they did all most hourly. So I spent my whole month in a town called Lamno.

Lamno initially had a population of 8,000. 5,000 people were killed in the tsunami. But, many refugees from surrounding villages have moved there, so now the population is estimated to be 16,000. We ran a medical clinic for basic walk-in medical needs. I worked along side an MD from Klamath Falls, Oregon. We saw pt's [patients], assessed them, diagnosed and treated with the meds we had. As I said, nothing too serious, upper resp. infections, a few pneumonia and congestive heart failure, high blood pressure. I did diagnose and treat my first case of malaria, a 13 y/o girl that looked very pale, anemic from the disease. It was great to see her up and about and playful before I left.

We had a clinic that was open every morning, then would load up the med boxes and go to a few different locations. Babadua was near [the] beach. We did clinic under the remaining palm trees. Lots of clean up action there. Changed markedly in the one month. I saw only one body removal the whole trip. That was there. Our driver Muhadi, and Mona our Achenese translator, were from there. Both lost their homes but had dashed to a small hill with their families when they saw the wave come. They stayed there until evening, praying and then came down to what was left.

We also started going to a cute "suburb" called Desa Lhuet 2 afternoons a week. Our whole team really liked Lhuet. The people seemed to have been the last on the list for help. Their village was still pretty trashed. But the people were so warm and friendly. We did clinic in a woman's home and had a big crowd from day one. Now that I think about it, I was the one who started the clinic there and when I turned around and saw all the people lined up I was overwhelmed. I called for help and we worked until dark. It was great!

There was a continuous flow of people in and out of Lamno. We had a group of 4 Muslim students, young ladies from 19-20, who acted as translators. They were always happy giggly, and very cute. Very devoted to their religion. We adopted each other and now I have 4 girls in college and they have a Mother Teresa. I also worked with MD's from Seattle and Houston, and RN's from Seattle and Portland. Other Indonesian translators form Jakarta.

There was one day we had no Indonesian translators, so it was me and the phrase book. It was pretty funny and it worked as long as you kept a sense of humor. The pt.s seemed to know you were doing your best.

We didn't get to explore the area too much because there is a lot of rebel camps in the mountains. I never felt unsafe. But we were told not to cross the river or go into the mountains. We took a drive north to find a waterfall we had heard of. About an hour's ride north there was a nice waterfall that seemed to come right out of the mountains, so I felt safe swimming, of course with pants and a tee shirt on. The clothing restrictions were tough for me, it was so hot. You got used to your skin being constantly wet. We did get to see a fair amount of the coast line by van and helicopter. It was amazingly vacant. It was like each bit of flat shore line had been wiped by a hand.

We went on evening strolls to the river, watched the monkeys, drank coffee at our local "starbucks" each day, where either a goat, rooster or duck would be under your table, and of course I shopped at the Sunday market each week. But mostly it was great to take the walk to work every day and have your neighbors yell hello and get you to reply in Indonesian. They try to get you to stop and talk, sometimes I would. They give you food and lots of toothless grins.

We had a cook and a woman doing our wash. The food was pretty spicy and a lot of it was fried. There was a few dishes I liked but in general, they had it better in Bande Ache were they hired a caterer to cook for the team.

This was my first trip with NW medical. It wasn't very organized, but I would go again if the opportunity arises. I decided to continue to make these trips part of my life until I can't do it any more. You get so much more than you give. Hope you like the photos.

Teresa's Photos from Indonesia

Banda Aceh;

North of Lamno;

A pink purse and not much else;

The Lamno Starbucks!;

Teresa with friends in Lhuet.

What happened to my old field, with all the mice and moles?

News From Sumatra

I had mentioned in a recent post that Teresa has traveled with Northwest Medical to Banda Aceh, to work for a month providing medical treatment and relief to that tsnumai ravaged area. More updates have come from her via email, forwarded to me by her brother and sister. Here they are.

From 3/30 or 3/31:

I'm sitting outside our residence at Lamno, Sumatra, Indonesia. It's hot and muggy and I'm hoping for our afternoon rain.

Things are going well. I'm working in the 2 clinics NW Medical has created here. This morning I was at the beach called Babadua. 2/3 of the people there died in the tsunami. Lots of people are back there now cleaning up, living in tents. World Vision is building barrack type housing. It's actually moving along pretty fast.There's lots of Indo workers there that come to me for muscle strains and stuff. They've all been working really hard on housing and still carrying away bodies.

We all ran out of the house last night with the earth quake. It lasted quite a while, rolling type, not jerky. You probably know more about it then I do, but I guess it killed many people on an island SW of here called Neos. NW Medical is trying to send some people there but then NW medical management has problems being timely for UN helicopter take offs, missed the flight and now are talking about sending a team by boat, 2 day boat ride.

So I'm here until they decide I'm going somewhere else, it's very unorganized

Then from 3/31/ or 4/1:

I just found out I am leaving Lamno tomorrow, Friday. I will take a car back to Banda Aceh and meet others to go by ship to Simeleu, and island off the NW coast of Sumatra. They had big losses from the recent earthquake. I guess we will live on the ship and go around to villages that need help and dingy into shore. This news was just passed to us. I'm sad to leave this good group but this will be an awesome adventure. I don't know if I will have e-mail access before I come back to Bande on the 15-16.

The things people will do for a free cruise!!

Then on 4/1, or maybe 4/2 Indonesia time:

Hello from Lamno, Looks like I'm here for a while longer. Send e-mail to this address with my name in the subject line if you want to chat. Waiting for the politics and planning to settle out. Hotter than heck today until then evening rains. Took a walk to the river and caught a ride with a few boys on their becak with the side cart back to town. We worked the morning only today since Friday is the holy day for the people here.

Back on schedule (as it is) tomorrow.

Watch Your Language

Catherine Seipp makes some good observations about what is and is not acceptable language in public or on TV these days. It's really hard to argue that political correctness has not made a hash of what were once pretty straight-forward rules.

She cites many examples of TV show producers trying to steer a safe course through this maze. One such:

"I can't get away with it," responded Angel's Tim Minear, whose new show The Inside is a Silence of the Lambs-style gorefest that will premiere on Fox later this year. "Children are gutted on my show from stem to stern, but I couldn't have a serial killer say the word 'retard' because that would have been insensitive."

But the take-away is the last paragraph:

Anyway, last week I noticed a great anecdote about all this over at Reason's Hit & Run blog. A commenter wrote about a friend of his in Montana called Ray, who was pulled over by a policeman one day for having an insensitive vanity plate that read RAYTARD: "Ray offered to replace it with one that said DISRAYBLED. The officer was not amused. True story."