GALFROMDOWNUNDER UPOVER

Dec 2014:  University of Hawaii Forestry Professor JB Friday helps me  nip an invasive albezia tree in the bud  UPDATE October 2024:  my Hawaii lot is for sale  for a  mele  (song). Read a  quick bio of the Big Island .  Contact  Lisa Roach  of Savio Realty, lisar@savio.com, Cell 808-494-8575, Office (808) 965-9500 Here's the listing .  This is a very decent buildable lot on the big Island of Hawaii - a mile and a half from the cute and cool hippie town of Pahoa and 20 miles up a highway to Hilo. After years at the sub-$3-4k mark, prices have gone up very slightly, but still incredibly cheap for a piece of land IN HAWAII. We are talking under $10K for most lots in subdivisions with roads, electricity and yes, some with town water and even a community center.  At 8429 sqft, my lot - a pizza-slice shaped near-corner lot, is slightly bigger than the average 8040 sqft rectangular rowhousy-sized lot. No brittle albezia trees to clear either.  Taxes on my lot are $200/pa and HOA

The latest addition to Wayne Takazono's 'Famous Paintings On Vacation' series. Buy a cool print of this original for $29 from the man himself, email wtakazono at hawaii dot rr dot com Ah, my Hawaii sojourn is drawing to a close. Before I jet off to Arizona for the annual Bike Friday Desert Camp I'm making a quick trip over to check on my postage-stamp-sized piece of Hawaii and dream about what I can do with it. I was thinking of investing in a condo of some sort (using coconuts and bike parts for currency) but this is one alternative to consider - build your own shack, rather than pay dearly for someone else's shack. Especially when the sun and rain are free and plentiful in Hawaii. No insulation needed, no heating or airconditioning if you build it right. Land has dropped down to around 10-15k a lot, but you don't buy there to make a killing. You buy because it's just one killer place to live. Take a look at my photos from '05-06. The lava is slow

- Cal-Earth UPDATE Jan 2009: It's being lived in! - thanks to Donna Stratman for keeping me in the loop. Email her: donna@island-trust.com +++ I nearly fell off my chair. In Hawaii, I was surfing, er, the internet that is, looking for ideas for my little piece of land on the Big Island. I stumbled upon this man planning to build a 'SuperAdobe' house designed by the famed Cal Earth architect Nader Khalili - in the Nanawale Estates subdivision, right where my land is! The only problem is, on closer investigation it appears the permits were rejected twice back in January 2007 - but the owner is going ahead anyway. I am feverishly hoping there's been an update. It makes sense, especially in Hawaii where the sun and rain are free, sustainability should be the default and yet, 92% of the state's energy consumption is fossil fuel based. If it was volcano-based it would be perfect, but Chevron et al don't seem to be sticking their long snakey hos

How does a bike lane warrior do on a Valentine's Day? Especially when fortuitously marooned in Hawaii?  Certainly keep a nice, safe distance from any chance of catching a communicable something! The closest I got to anything "coupley" was to watch people in furry animal costumes engage in foreplay ... As this year's day of "will you's?" and little square tables with a chair on either side, draws to a close at 11.45pm Blue Hawaii time, I offer a blow by blow account of how I spent it. So if you had an even less romantic day than me, read my itinerary and claim it as your own. Think of it as a companion volume to 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' or more likely, 'Independence Day'. 8am: I woke with eyes like two hyphens having spent the last two nights working til 3am on the Bike Friday quarterly newsletter. In the spirit of conquering oil addiction, I was directed to make it a new, 'low emissions' publication, with half the number

Yesterday, the Grand Wiki of bicycle bells, whistles and everything below the saddle passed away. My humble tribute to Sheldon Brown on the Bike Friday website. I never met the man, but we used his gear inch calculator every day ... Where am I? Currently staying in a 1-coconut town called Ka'a'awa, which means "where the mountains meet the sea" - they sure do. There is a very large and majestic, mossy lump of planet breathing down my neck ... See photos of my Hawaii loiterings with a laptop here

Picketing against illegal picket fences ... PHOTO GALLERY | MOVIE CLIP | GALFROMDOWNUNDER IN HAWAII I've just attended my first rally in a long time - the placard waving, chanting and foot-stomping kind. For bicycling? No, for beachcombing! Well actually, we're talking the full monty of ocean worshipping activities, like surfing, swimming, walking, sunbathing, beach-barbecuing, and kiddie favorites like jellyfish-poking and limpet harassing ... The rally was organized by Beach Access Hawaii , Surfrider Foundation and other citizen advocacy groups, collectively incensed at the increasing gall of "rich landowners" who've been surreptitiously gating and blocking off beach access paths for quite some time - and no one is stopping them. Often, the gates are torn down only to be put right back up again, with fake signs saying "Private Access" and "Trespassers will be stoned with coconuts" or words to that effect. Some even hire security guards to

Wow! Since leaving NYC I've been on the go and bleating on everyone else's blog ( Bike Friday's and FastCompany ) but my own! I've been in doing the Bike Friday shuffle in San Francisco, Sacramento, and now Hawaii. I'm off to the annual Bike Friday Arizona Desert Camp in March, then to Australia for the Australian Bike Friday Club gathering . Here's a motion blur update ... Riding with the Honolulu Tradewinds Bike Club out to Waimanalo and back - fast furious! Sorry I couldn't manage a more scenic backdrop than this "unremarkable lump of rock" ... Chance encouter in Kapiolani park with daughter of the Bragg's Liquid Aminos empire and author of 'The Triathlon Endurance Training Book', Patricia Bragg. Dressed in pink, she seemed enamored with my hot-rod pink Pocket Rocket Pro Petite ... Gazillion dollar view from this Lanakai beach shack, where I was invited to a birthday party. The Hawaii Bicycling League Annual Membership Dinner - la