A conversation between Jackson and I today:

ben: have you ever wanted to chase tornadoes?
jackson: shit yeah.
ben: as have i
ben: but for the time being, here is your vicarious link.
ben: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33345

This would serve as a good point to remind my faithful readers of my “themes” options you can find at the bottom of any page. One of which is the “tornado” theme — in honor of the season.

Today, after the batteries on my Nomad drained themselves playing early (read: good) U2, I decided to tune into WOXY up in Cincinnati via their internet audio stream — but it appeared to be down. Checking out their site, I learned that they A) stopped broadcasting on the web May 13th and B) had been sold back in January!!

Ever since I first tuned in to them back in early 2003, I had been smitten. I kept up-to-date with shows in Cinci, as well as good music in general. While it wasn’t perfect, it was still very independent and played good music. 97X was owned by Linda and Doug Balogh, who had solely owned and operated the station since the early 80′s. Being in their mid-to-late thirties at that time, they are now pushing 60, and would like to find time to enjoy the spoils of their labor. As mentioned on Sledge’s (a WOXY DJ) blog, they very well could have sold the radio station in ’96 or ’97 for triple what they received in the sale this year, but they decided to fight the good fight against behemoth corporations. (Don’t get me started on the 1996 Telecommunications Act which allowed corporations even greater ownership percentages in radio markets, please. It also started the broadband internet revolution, so it’s not ENTIRELY bad.) So alas, one of the very few family-owned/independent radio stations has gone off the air.

There were initially some indications of attempts to salvage 97X as an internet-only stream, but after some calculations it would seem that was made impossible by the RIAA‘s insistance on royalties for web broadcasts. Yay, way to stifle independence in radio. I hope thee choke on your foie gras.

For futher reading, check out Sledge’s blog, and his comments on the sale of 97X. Also, oh-so-apropo, PBS’s Frontline will be airing a broadcast entitled “The Way The Music Died” tonight at 9 PM. I’ll be watching, as should you. Oh, and it should be noted that the image used in this article is in fact, not related to WOXY or radio, but the cover image from Matt Fraction‘s great comic with the same title as this post.

Charlie and I attended the Greater Louisville Bonsai Society‘s “Beginner Bonsai” Course at the Bon Air library. For $40, you got a very nice little bonsai tree, expert instruction, potting and basic trimming and forming. Pretty cool stuff, and an excellent introduction to any sort of gardening, as you can do it indoors. Humble is the name of the game here, folks. Bonsai is fascinating to me because of the humble grace and artistic qualities of the crafting of the tree. It’s one thing to plant some pansies in your front yard — but to craft yourself a beautiful miniature tree! Well, perhaps that is a little too obtuse for some readers, but I dig it and you don’t have to, and I guess therein lies the beauty of bonsai. In any case, I would suggest viewing the Bonsai gallery.

I’ve always had a thing for strange things — ghosts and UFO’s and all sorts of odd things. Early memories of Halley’s Comet and space shuttles and stuff soon gave way to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, V, and the paperback cover of Whitley Strieber‘s Communion
that used to freak me out. Recently, it’s been more “realistic” interests such as cryptography, ciphers, The DaVinci Code or The Rule of Four. All of this stuff has always just been there — like some subcurrent.

Recently, Charlie at work piqued my interests in such things again, as he is also an observer of these mysterious, wonderful and fun conspiratorial ramblings and skeptical science. It would seem that all of our conversations, whether they involve Neal Stephenson‘s Cryptonomicon, or perhaps the Masons (which bring into light Alan Moore‘s From Hell and Gary Spencer Millidge’s Strangehaven), or perhaps the edges of science itself in the form of Nikola Tesla, are connected in one manner or another with some facet of our lives in very odd and conspiratorial subcurrenty sort of ways. Jack White, of The White Stripes (a favoured band of us both) has a bit of a thing for Nikola Tesla and his brand of high-voltage fruitcake science. We both in one manner or another have family or friend connections to the Masons or the Ordo Templi Orientis — both of which are real, actual, secretive organizations filled with tantalizing mythology and years of history. I could go on and on – and if I was a conspiratorial theorist worth my salt, I certainly would! But, alas, I am not — I’m just making a point that this stuff is terribly interesting.

So, just recently, on This American Life specifically Episode 265 titled “Fake Science”, they did a piece on Art Bell, the proprietor and host of Coast to Coast AM. I played a bit of it for Charlie and my surrounding office-mates (specifically the part where a man claiming to be “the Anti-Christ” calls into Art), and this morning, Charlie introduces me to Mel’s Hole. Mel is a man who discovered a hole in Ellensburg, Washington that he claims is at least 80,000 feet deep and might be a portal to another dimension. I cannot and will not attempt to explain further here, but suffice it to say you can listen to the saga by checking out the Mel’s Hole Audio site which has a number of Art Bell broadcasts with our man Mel Waters.

Art Bell and Mel’s Hole is just terribly entertaining to me, and I don’t claim to believe much of any of it. But, some unexplained mysteries of this world, some odd correlations or connections are just too interesting not to explore! I love it, and I can’t get enough of it. I’d suggest if you’ve got a little time, just poke around, you’ll find something.

In the last week, since we had been on vacation (and though we had ample Internet access) I had not kept up with Achewood, one of my favorite web comics of all time — even outpacing Penny Arcade by a far sight. Well, in the last week the author/artist/artiste of Achewood, Chris Onstad has really hit close to home with ol’ Ben.

“It’s like someone sold the mineral rights to my childhood to this man,” I tell Geoff, “and he’s dosing them out to me in the form of a cartoon strip each weekday.”

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, Pinewood Derby cars (and how those damned pre-cut models were all so fab, but then our Troop outlawed them because it took away the spirit of the whole father-son Pinewood Derby car team thing — yeah! That’ll show you, you rich bastards with your fancy cars.), “your momma” jokes — wow. I’m stunned at the creativity of this man, but at the same time I fear when this time in my life will be over. When the artists of my generation have mined the Transformers and He-Man for all their comic worth. Think of the (old) children, Onstad! Conserve thy funny lode.

This morning, we met Gary and Mayumi in the lobby of our hotel and headed out to Perry’s Smorgy to get some breakfast. As this is our last day, we will certainly miss Smorgy and all that it gave us for the low low price of $5.95 for an all-you-can eat buffet. After breakfast, we headed down to Kuhio Beach to be taught the ancient are of surfing ($25 a head — not terrible). The statue of Duke Kahanamoku greeted us with open arms, and after a brief introduction to our surfboards (this is my surfboard, there are many like it, but this one is mine), we headed into the ocean. Much to our surprise(s), none of us was completely horrible — the surfing is the easy part! The swimming through the waves is what is tough! Wow! Even Kelly, the practicing swimmer was getting tired. Nonetheless, we all had an absolute ball, and we were tired and happy at the end of the hour. There was a photographer in the water snapping our photos, and your could get them on the CD for a bit of cash at the end of your “ride”. Mine and Kelly’s photos were uninspired, but Gary and Mayumi had some good shots taken and so they had a CD made. Hopefully they’ll get on the web here soon. Gary and I sat around chewing the fat about our respective home country baseball leagues while Mayumi and Kelly slept and baked (respectively) on the beach. Gary, Kelly and I took one last sojourn into the sea before bidding it adieu. I faced south, took a handful of sand with one wave washing ashore, scrubbed my hands together, and with the next wave rinsed them clean. My way of a handshake with the sea, to show respect. We bid our fond farewells with Gary and Mayumi, made a stop at an ABC store for some last-minute gifts and a sea kelp musubi (rice ball), and headed back to the hotel. That’s where I am right now — in about an hour, we check out. In 4 hours, we board a flight home to Louisville. I’m sad to have to go.

P.S. Photos from Polynesian Center will be up tomorrow, and we didn’t have a chance to take photos at the beach today.

Today, Chuck, Danna, Tom, Kelly and I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center — a sprawling cultural “theme” park, sorta like that place at Walt Disney World where all the countries are represented in their own little villages, except that the villages here represent different countries in “Polynesia”. Fiji, Hawaii, French Polynesia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga and the Marqueses all have their individual villages with great, lively demonstrations, games and handicrafts. It is pretty much an all-day affair starting at noon, demostrations, IMAX movies and pagaents filling out the day until at 5 PM, you have a luau buffett with a song and dance show going on at the same time. Then, at 7 PM the big hoopla happens — the “Horizons” show. This is a great big orchestrated show involving a cast of 100, colorful costumes, an erupting volcano and plenty of fire. It was quite a fantastic show, and a great way to cap off a fun, interesting, and educational day.

First off, the Hawaii – Day Six gallery is up.

Today we slept in a little bit and headed down to our favorite breakfast buffet — Perry’s Smorgy Restaurant. However, as soon as Kelly saw how beautiful and sunny it was outside, we decided to change into our beach gear before going. We only had about 45 minutes on the beach before heading back to our room to get dressed for the wedding.

It should be noted that mid-western / Southern-style “church clothes” are not conducive to comfort in the island climate. My black slacks, shoes and blazer were woefully thick and hot, not to mention completely out of character with the rest of the the whole city. The walk down to Chuck and Danna’s hotel wasn’t terrible, but oh, just wait — it gets better.

As I walk up the steps of the Queen Kapiolani Hotel, I notice that there seems to be quite a draft. In my pants. I remembered quickly why I had not worn these pants in such a long time — they were the ones that split on me during Chuck and Danna’s wedding some 3 years ago! Luckily, Tom came through with an extra pair of black slacks, and I quickly changed and thanked Tom quite a bit! We headed out to the Gloria Diamond Chapel…

Kelly and I had assumed we were driving to the chapel — but we really didn’t know how far away it was from their hotel, and we didn’t have a map. The party instead started out on foot. The map we had was woefully small and only the most crucial streets were labelled. We left the hotel at 11:37 with the wedding at noon, and after over-shooting the chapel followed by head-scratching and reorienting, we were finally back on track. Oh, yes, I must mention — IT WAS HOT. Kelly had some dress heels on, and I had the aforementioned slacks on. Everyone was sweating by the time we got to the chapel (a mere 5 minutes late).

We were greeted by the bilingual (more Japanese than English) greeter / wedding commandant woman from the “wedding company”. She instructed us in short, clipped sentences and suggestive hand-motions and eventually we all fell in place. I didn’t care for standing out in the sun for five minutes lined up waiting to go into the chapel — but really, after that walk standing still was A-OK number one fine with me.

The service was short and sweet and done in both English and Japanese. The opening song was Ave Maria, and the closing song was something in Japanese. The service reminded me a bit of Methodist or Lutheran or something lightly Catholic. The following act in this tightly orchestrated play (Aren’t all weddings like this? Ceremony, photo-op, photo-op, dress rearrangement, photo-op, confusion, photo-op, speech, food, food, Electric Slide) was a “shower of rose petals” followed in quick sucession by the champagne toast and cutting of the cake, and a brief photo op by a large curtain-style fountain. We were then herded into and locked inside of the main dining room.

I should say that I have never eaten anywhere were there were more forks than fingers on your hand. We had four forks (five including the dessert fork), and frankly I didn’t know what to expect, but assumed that we work our way from the outside in. I knew we were in for some culinary treat for sure!

Before all that, though, there was an opportunity for the party involved to give some speeches. Gary went first (in English) and thanked everyone who travelled all this way to come, Roger and Jane Koybayashi (the man who lei’d me the night before), and both his and Mayumi’s parents. Mayumi said her speech in Japanese, so I can’t really tell you what she said, but by the reactions of the Japanese speakers at the table, it was a true tearjerker.

Ryoichi Taki, the father of the bride spoke next — first in Japanese and secondly in English. He noted (loudly) that he does not speak English, and had been up all night practicing his speech. He said that Gary was a bit quiet and shy and that he felt that because of this, Gary was already a little bit Japanese. He also thanked all those in the wedding party, and then sang the opening lines to Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” in English. It was quite endearing! As he sat and comically wiped his brow, we gave him a round of applause.

And then, oh my brothers, there was a meal like no other I had seen before! A seven-course meal with foie gras, salmon and tuna poke (poh-kay), scallop soup, mahi mahi filets, pork chops, cake, coconut sherbet (frozen coconut pudding, I’m told), and Hawaiian coffee. I should say that while I’ve never had foie gras (duck liver pate’) before — I wasn’t about to turn down the chance to try it. Surprisingly it was quite good, but not necessarily the sort of thing that I’d eat on a regular basis. The entire meal was very good, and very well presented. I enjoyed the mixing of French, Hawaiian and Japanese cuisines quite a bit.

After the dinner, we “vacated the premises” as Gary put it, and while Gary and family went to take photos on Hale Koa beach, Kelly and I retired to our rooms for a while. We intend to hit the Ala Moana Center again today with Chuck, Danna, Mayumi and Gary and then eat at the all-you-can eat Japanese seafood restaurant, Todai. Tomorrow is the Polynesian Cultural Center tour/luau, and Thursday we plan on getting a little surfing in before we head home later in the day!

Update: Greetings from the Ala Moana Mac Store! Honk honk!

First off, it should be noted that the Hawaii: Day Five gallery is now ready for business. We met Gary, Mayumi, Chuck, Danna, Tom, Sue and Jim at Duke’s Waikiki for a breakfast buffet, and then split for the beach as Chuck, Danna and Tom headed for the Waikiki Zoo, and Gary and Mayumi had a meeting with the “wedding company”.

Later on we met up with Gary, Mayumi, Chuck, Danna and Tom at the Hale Koa hotel and hit the beach again! We rented some sea-going kayaks, and later built a great sandcastle on the beach.

Later tonight, we eat at San Sei — a reputably great steak and sushi house for the pre-wedding meal! I shall eat my weight in raw fish! More later!!

Update: Well, the dinner at San Sei was quite nice, with some of the best sushi I’ve ever had. Highlights included the Japanese members of our party (Shin, Etsuko, and the Taki’s) ordered green and oolong tea, and the restaurant brought out *canned* green and oolong tea. Gary said this was the equivalent of the Bristol (or any decent restaurant) bringing out canned Minute Maid orange juice when you asked for a glass of OJ.

Further update: Oh yeah — I forgot to mention that during our outing with the kayaks, Gary and I got tangled up riding a wave back and we both flipped over into the sea! Normally not such a bad thing, but the area where we were was a very shallow reef-like area, with some spots having rocks poking out of the surf! Yeesh. Well, we both managed to get back on board, and paddled back into shore to exchange with Kelly and Mayumi. Kelly had a great time on the kayak, and we even spotted some giant sea turtles! Chuck followed a manta ray around out near the breakers, too.

The sandcastle was great fun — four grown men (and eventually Kelly) digging in the sand, offering up their own sand engineering tips. Eventually we had a large compound built around our central tower. I taught everyone how to make drip castles, and we festooned our creation with shells and drip-towers. I said to Gary — “In honor of your wedding, we present thee with this magnamous affront to God!” — and then it was swept into the sea.

This morning we got up and met Chuck and Danna at Smorgy’s for breakfast around 8 AM. All of this getting up early nonsense is going to kill be back home. Whew. I can’t not wait. Despite the constant threat of birds stealing your tater tots, Smorgy’s once again delivered tasty food and great coffee.

Chuck and Danna had rented a car, so they drove us down to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet — the place to get knock-off goods and screen-printed t-shirts in bulk. Circling the stadium (which itself is kind of hideous), it was not terribly crowded, and the goods were plentiful, and the admission price of $.50 a piece was just right. You could even get a coconut postcard, if you wife would only let you indulge yourself in a silly game of postcard one-upsmanship. Ah well. We found gifts for most of the folks on our trip. A must do if you visit the place. All of the ridiculous curios you might expect to find everywhere else but for half the cost (or less).

Aloha Stadium is right close to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, but we were hungry, so we went in search of food. Good lord. It took us an HOUR. An HOUR, all of which could have been avoided by us looking on the north side of the stadium first. Ah well. We eventually found our way to the Arizona Memorial.

The Arizona Memorial was quite nice, and well respected by all who we saw there. There is a nice movie that is shown before you board the boats to get to the Memorial (voiced by Stockard Channing, I do believe). The Memorial is quite nice and is a very somber affair, especially considering there are more than a thousand men entombed within her sunken shell. Their final resting place no more than 10 feet below the calm surface of Pearl Harbor. I think the photos do that justice.

After the Memorial, we briefly checked out the WWII Navy submarine memorial (with the USS Bowfin on display) for all of the submarines and submariners who lost their lives. Kelly and Danna didn’t really want to go into a submarine, so YAWN, we headed back into Honolulu.

Heading back into Honolulu, Danna suggested we go and check out Diamond Head crater. We arrive shortly after 4 PM, not really knowing what to expect. Turns out, you pay $5 to park, and then there is a 0.8 mile hike to the top of the crater. 0.8 miles! HAH! “WARNING: PLEASE BE ADEQUATELY PREPARED BEFORE HIKING”. Oh what-ever! Young, strapping dudes and dudettes like ourselves, we could handle it. We started up.

The first bit is a windy section up the inside of the crater, and with some mildly steep paths. A couple of stops up the way offered nice look-outs and minor rests. Then you get to the staircases (and a mining tunnel). The first staircase is 79 steep steps, the second staircase 99 steps (yet steeper), and the third a spiral staircase! Wow! Halfway up the 99 step staircase (attempting to keep up with and maintain appearances with Kelly), my brain had shut down to the point of basic survival instincts — one foot in front of the other. The only sentient thought I could think of was “lean forward, lest you faint and fall backwards, surely killing a number of also tired Japanese and German tourists, causing a minor international flap”. Finally, I reached the top and the medium-grade abandoned tunnel (dimly lit). Holy-moley. Lots and LOTS of altitude in that last run. Finally, the TOP! A quick glance at the watch marked the 0.8 miles and 700 feet were hiked/scaled in 20 minutes! Woo-hoo. 20 minutes that surely took twice that off my life. But – BUT – I kept face with Kelly. She told me I didn’t have to do that, but I know good and well, my failure to keep pace would have registered a black mark in some book of hers.

The hike, though tough was COMPLETELY worth it. Wow! Amazing view, with a rainbow to boot! Many photos taken. Much rejoicing had upon the return back down to the base.

We returned back to Chuck and Danna’s hotel to attempt contact with Gary, and it seemed that he had left a voice message. A couple of calls later, and apparently Gary and Mayumi where out and about as well. We headed back to our hotel and had a quick dip in the pool and then headed to dinner a Keoni’s — a Thai/American joint across the street. The service was abyssmal, but my “Evil Jungle Prince” curry was FAN-tastic, as was Chuck’s mahi-mahi with ginger-soy sauce. Nummy!

Tommorrow, we eat breakfast as Duke’s on Waikiki Beach, and then plan on spending most of the day on the beach until we go to San Sei for the big pre-game meal!