Ingenious, But He May Not Have Thought It Through

The Florida police took a selfie with the passengers,
a U.K. couple about to be married, at the arrest. (WFLA)

Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to criminal ingenuity. In this case a Florida crook knew that car-rental companies could prevent a car from starting once it had been turned off. [bold added]

A Florida Uber driver is accused of using a stolen rental car to give rides and then leaving the car running for weeks to avoid it being disabled, deputies said.

The 27-year-old Uber driver was renting a Chevy Equinox from a company in Orange County when he stopped making payments, according to an Oct. 26 news release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office...

The company had installed devices in their rental vehicles that could be remotely activated to stop the car from restarting in the case that someone stopped paying for the vehicle, the sheriff’s office said.

But the driver knew about this feature, so instead of returning the Equinox or making the payments, he chose to leave the vehicle running for “three straight weeks” to prevent it being disabled, according to the release.

During that time, he was using the car to drive for Uber.

Sure, the guy "borrowed" the vehicle, but he did honest work for three weeks.

One has to wonder, though, what his exit strategy was since the car rental company had his information. It notified the police that the car was stolen, which led to the arrest.

Elon Musk is Gloomy

Elon Musk worries about asteroid strikes. Unlike you or
me he can do something about them (Harvard/NASA).

Elon Musk's big ideas to save it have made him the richest man in the world: [bold added]

Musk has framed his business endeavors as striving to prevent calamity, a motivating ideal that helps inspire employees, investors and fans while inducing eye rolls among critics and rivals.

For him, Tesla is about trying to save humanity from global warming while SpaceX is about making humanity a multiplanetary species in case things don’t work out on Earth.

A year ago, with the purchase of Twitter-turned-X, Musk couched the decision as keeping the social-media platform as a bastion for free speech in what he sees as a larger battle against cultural forces trying to squash diverse thought—or, as he calls it, the “woke mind virus.”

Despite his current wealth of $221.9 billion (Forbes) Elon Musk is far from content:

Musk sounds worried—about everything from cyclical business jitters to existential global concerns. He choked with emotion during a recent public conference call with Tesla analysts about the economy. This past week he warned during a forum on X about “civilizational risk” stemming from the Israel-Hamas war cascading into a wider conflict that would pit the U.S. against a united China, Russia and Iran.

“I think we are sleepwalking our way into World War III,” Musk said Monday.

Elon Musk worries that the human race won't survive. He has the wealth and knowledge to affect the future and feels the responsibility. Centi-billionaires are different from you and me.

Sandwiches on Sunday

Today is the quarterly Outreach activity where our church makes 80-90 brown-bag lunches for the community center.

Digression: it has recently come to my attention that the phrase "brown bag lunch" has racist origins in the minds of a few people. I'm sorry that some are offended, but we oldsters can't remember all the things that we're not supposed to say, especially since the list seems to change every week. Besides, we really do serve lunches in brown paper bags.

Speaking of lists, I blitzed (a German war maneuver, I'm sorry that some are offended etc) through Costco on Friday and bought the sandwich ingredients. The cart was less burdened than usual because I had bought two flats of water earlier.

On Saturday five people put together the lunches at the Parish Hall. The assembly took 2½ hours, an hour longer than usual, because two new volunteers insisted on preparing the sandwiches with loving care as opposed to slapping them together quickly, which is how I like to do things.

Warnings that they would be dismissed if they didn't speed up fell on deaf ears.

After we finished, everyone asked the date of the next Sandwiches on Sunday so they could help again. It must be my management style, because what else could explain their motivation?

Update - noon: The brown bags and bottles of water were all distributed in 15 minutes.

The three ladies in the picture said they all liked their sandwiches.

Revival, But Not in the Way Imagined

(CBC news photo)

There are very few indoor, relatively safe, public gathering places--with restroom facilities--that remain open to all. That's why Libraries Are the New Front Line in America’s Mental-Health Crisis

Librarians are helping more patrons in crisis, and many cities are hiring social workers to help them. About two-thirds of nearly 600 library workers surveyed by Urban Librarians Unite in 2022 said they had experienced violent or aggressive behavior from patrons.

One of the few indoor public spaces open to all comers, libraries are now the scene for all that ails a public scarred by the pandemic and an opioid epidemic. For staff, that means reversing overdoses in bathrooms; confronting patrons watching pornography; or defending against people brandishing guns, or a snake in a jar. Some people come to the library to sleep, get warm or use the bathroom. Others are looking for jobs, housing or just somewhere safe to read.

Libraries have been transformed from mere repositories of books to ad hoc community centers. They provide free internet access and a growing array of services, e.g. job placement, mental-health treatment, and housing assistance.

If a person is idle, reading in a comfortable setting is an edifying and even useful way of passing the time.

When we contributed to the construction of the town library in the mid-1990's, we had hoped that it would become a valuable resource in the community.

Little did we imagine the form that it would take.

Sheepishly Assenting

Today, after years of requesting me to switch to paperless banking (primarily to eliminate the cost of printing and mailing statements), Citibank stopped asking nicely.

If I didn't agree to go paperless, Citi would eliminate my online access rights, the ability to send payments to vendors electronically, and the ability to transfer funds online. I could go back to the old way, that is, writing and mailing checks to everyone and making transfers at the Automated Teller Machine.

Yes, I could make them pay! I could make them process dozens of checks every month, just like they used to!

But I didn't. The convenience of electronic banking is too great, so I sheepishly assented to paperless-ness. And yes, if I really wanted a physical bank statement I could download and print one every month.

But I still don't like being forced to do something and calling it a "choice."

Chickened Out

The Foodland at the Ala Moana Shopping Center has a large selection of chips, sandwiches, and snacks.

Foodland's target customers are tourists who want to downshift from fancy Waikiki restaurants, as well as snowbirds who want to cook occasionally.

There were boxes of fried chicken skins laid out on a table. I imagine they're similar to fried pork rinds, which have become popular for those who want a tasty, low-carb snack.

At $14.99 a pound the chicken skins weren't moving. It's not a good value for the locals, who know that they can buy an individual chicken dinner for that price. And I suspect that chicken skins are far down the list of Mainlanders' snack preferences.

When I return in February, if the product is still on display I'd be surprised if the price is still up there. At $7 or $8 I'd spring for a box.

It's a Good Thing That Calories Don't Count on Vacation

Loco moco: rice, beef patty, eggs, and brown gravy

Both my brother and I had body clocks that were still on Pacific Daylight Time, and we left the house at 5:30 to walk to Waikiki for an early morning coffee. We sat for a while and talked story.

Let's have breakfast, he said, and after hearing my glowing report about Liliha Bakery at the International Market Place , we waited for the doors to open at 7 a.m.

My brother had the pork belly, eggs, and rice, while I had the loco moco. (I had two loco moco's on the July trip; I'm trying to cut back.)

Adequately fortified, we headed home to pack for the trip back to California.

We Know It When We See It

The sign on Thursday, October 19th

The owners of Hawaiian Rent-All continue to display their wit at the intersection of McCully and Beretania.

(They rose to attention for their chiding of President Biden's response to the Lahaina fires.)

From the looks of it, they should quit while they're ahead.

Political humor is challenging: one has to be funny without crossing the line into nastiness.

For example, their latest attempt is hardly funny and a little nasty:

We are born ignorant
But taught stupidity.
Explains why politicians
Are so educated.

This joke on the same subject matter, which I just made up, would have been a little funnier:

Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who can't teach
Go into politics.

Humor is subjective, and, like I said, challenging.

Waiting for the Money

I double-paid the DMV license fees two months ago to prevent late-payment and license-expiration penalties.

On Saturday the refund check from the State of California came in.

On the one hand the elapsed time was really not that long if the State had to verify that the double-payment was not mistakenly made for another one of my vehicles or that I didn't have any other bills outstanding.

On the other hand the check was printed on the 11th and received on the 21st. Large organizations' payables departments often print their checks once or twice a week. Signing them mechanically, stuffing and stamping could take another week before they're actually delivered to the postal service.

Tediously slow, I know, but that's how most of accounting is--checks and signature plates must have physical safeguards--and why an easily bored generation avoids a career in accounting.

The rush to issue COVID relief payments is over (when $billions were stolen) and we're back to normal having to wait for the money.

Helping Without Taking a Side

The hospital's Cancer Diagnostic
Center before it was damaged.

Every year the now-retired rector of our church requested that we make a donation, always approved, to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. It was his way of acknowledging our debt to the fount of Christianity.

The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem runs the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital that was damaged in an explosion last week. Hamas and Israel are each claiming that the other was responsible.

Militant group Hamas immediately blamed Israeli airstrikes for the blast at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital and said 500 people had been killed. Israel, the U.S. and independent security experts on Wednesday cast doubt on Hamas’s claims, saying the preliminary evidence pointed to a Palestinian militant group. The amount of damage also appears inconsistent with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry’s assertion on Wednesday that 471 people were killed, experts said. U.S. officials said that the death toll so far is likely between 100 and 300.

Images of the site suggest that a rocket, or fragment of a rocket, landed in the hospital’s parking lot, according to the Israeli assessment of the damage left by the explosion. Those killed by the explosion were likely many Gazans who had been camped out in the parking lot, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

Many people have been wrestling with how to help the suffering people of Israel and Gaza without "taking a side," or worse, having their donations go to combat forces and advocacy groups. 501(c)3 organizations that assure us that 100% of the donations will be directed to humanitarian aid in the region are Episcopal Relief and Development and American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.

As individuals and as churches we will be making such donations in November.

Minimal Marketing

When I'm going for food at the mall, I don't want to waste time figuring out the menu. For example, I might be craving sushi or ramen, but a restaurant with a Japanese name often offers one but not the other. At the Lanai food court at Ala Moana Center Kamakura Ramen tells you exactly what it serves.

I like the specificity of the names: Ahi and Vegetable, Musubi Cafe, YYK Dim Sum, and Mahaloha Burger. Yes, just show the dishes in the display along with the prices and don't bother with the florid descriptions.

Minimal marketing is greatly appreciated by those who are pressed for time.

If You Snooze, You Get Frozen Out

Pro tip: don't try to send a copy of the deposit slip via text.

My brothers and I have a rainy-day account with combined checking and savings of $48,000. We haven't used it since 2021, but now we needed to tap those funds.

Yesterday I tried to move everything to the checking account, but, according to the online banking screen, the accounts were not "set up" for transfers.

A call to customer service revealed that the checking account was classified as dormant because there had been no activity for a year. (Posted interest doesn't count.) In dormant accounts funds couldn't be transferred in or out, nor would checks written on them be honored.

How could the checking account be re-activated? I would have to write a letter--email communications wouldn't do the trick--or we could make a deposit of any size. Obviously the latter was the easiest choice.

The last hitch came when I tried to text a copy of the deposit slip to my brothers. Repeated attempts failed. Apple, I'm guessing, blocks pictures of financial documents. I sent the information without an image, and it went through quickly. My brother made a cash deposit of $10 to the dormant account, and 12 hours later it's still "pending" (at least it's in process).

A word to the wise: there's no such thing as a "sleep well" investment. Even FDIC-insured bank accounts need to be monitored and used occasionally to see if they're functioning properly.

The Best Things in Life are (Almost) Free

Like chicken and pigs' feet and intestines, turkey tails suffer from a "do-you-know-where-it's-been" taint that many people can't get over.

My fathers' family was poor, and his mother mastered the preparation of animal parts that the butcher would throw away.

She had a recipe for turkey tails that I've given up trying to replicate. Her marinade suffused the tails with a delicate salty-and-sour flavor that didn't overpower. Tails have a lot of fat, but she roasted them long enough for much of the fat to drain away. The skin was crispy, and the flesh was tender.

I've never seen turkey tails in California supermarkets, but at the Times market on King Street 20-lb. boxes were on sale for $47.99 ($2 off!). At today's inflated food prices, $2.50 per pound is like they're being given away.

Somebody must have a terrific recipe for turkey tails, and there's still hope in the world.

Progress in Small Steps

The same price as Haleiwa and Kahuku but a lot closer.

After my kid brother (also visiting from California) and I picked up our morning coffee, we walked back home on Kalakaua Ave.

On the mauka (mountain) side of the street were parked a group of food trucks. One was open, and a couple of families were seated on the picnic tables having breakfast.

What was once an empty lot had been put to good use. Now, if I crave a garlic shrimp plate I no longer have to drive to the opposite side of the island. That's progress in small steps.

Safe for the Moment

At Kalakaua and King

The southern half of Kalakaua Avenue runs through the fancy part of Waikiki. The police regularly keep the homeless out of the area, where there's hardly a shopping cart to be seen.

Proceeding north, Kalakaua crosses over the Ala Wai Canal, and the tents start to appear. The cluster in the picture is two blocks from McKinley High and Washington Intermediate schools. Homes, apartments, retail stores, and restaurants are nearby. The main Honolulu police station is one mile west.

I shouldn't complain because my parents' house is one mile southeast and is safe for the moment. But the tents often set up on parks and sidewalks that are much closer.

When I return in February, if not sooner, I'll walk around to scope out the situation.