Weekly Schedule Announcement

Aloha,

Thanks to the amazing support of my wife, and all the positive comments received in the past couple of weeks, I’m spreading my wings to add two weekly features.



Is *that* where Lucky Charms come from?



"Writer’s Wednesday," will be a Lucky Charms-free zone, and a place where I’ll try to be serious.

Today will be a recap/ photo essay of how it felt travelling around Pearl Harbor and Ford Island on the 70^th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941 attacks.





I'll also post updates on my WIP, (Donald Braswell’s memoir) offer tips and advice; host interviews with other writer bloggers and share the awesomeness of Hawaii with y’all.

(If anyone is interested in guest posting or being interviewed, please drop me a line.)

(I *do* have big island plans for next week, Dec. 21, which is Winter Solstice…)

Beginning Dec. 19, “Mood-altering Mondays,” will be a happy place where most everyone* will receive a free chuckle**.

(*We are not responsible for lost or stolen senses of humor. Please check under the seat before you leave.)

We wish ours was as nice as this:)

(**If we don’t offer you a receipt for a FREE! smile, please let management know as your next guffaw will be FREE!)

Coming Monday: The Doppelganger Gingerbread House J

My “You Know You’re A Parent When…” series will continue to "air" every Friday as scheduled.

A Growing Christmas

Dedicated to my wife, Gen, this is my entry to the Wrap It Up Blogfest. For details, see the button here>>> 

Aloha Sweethie,

Four score and seven years ago, we married amid love, life and laughter.

Actually, it was only seven years ago, but that “four score” thing has a nice ring...

Wait Until Double Rainbow Guy Sees This :)

We’ve celebrated Christmas in California, Florida, Texas, Rhode Island and now in Hawaii.

Ending Florida, we wondered if we’d ever have kids. But that December, April prayed, God blessed and No. 1 Son arrived at the beginning of Texas.

For several years, Christmas trees excitedly bought in December were sadly bagged in January, but how we celebrated every milestone of our little miracle.

Our blessings continued with the news you were expecting.

Again!

My first words….You’re pregnant? Oh my gosh? Really? WHaggghhhh…

I’d been cutting onions, you see.

“No. 1 Son” was for your mom and dad, but Baby?

A name! We need a name! My kingdom for a name!

Would dilemma follow delivery?

Ahh, Christmas with family and friends…

Names flew everywhere. Swept under rugs; squished over sinks, until “No. 2 Son” rose on breaking waves of “Ohhh, that’s a good one. I like that.”

Back home to Texas – where he was born.

Sweethie, do you remember, later…

No. 1 Son walking – not talking

Moving to Rhode Island

No. 2 Son walking – No. 1 Son talking

My new executive position: Stay-at-home Dad!

Christmas comes and goes. It’s spring again. You eat several jars of spicy cabbage, don’t like meat of any kind, and are a little

Oh…

picky.

Oh oh.

Joking, I buy a 99 cent pregnancy test, but it’s you who comes out of the bathroom laughing.

Oh. My.

Christmas 2011 is here. You rest. We wait.

"There's Another One Coming"

Tobey waits for “Baby Brother.” No. 2 Son waits for Frosty Returns.

And, No. 3 Son? Will he be a Christmas baby, or one for the New Year?

Who knows? We pray for ten fingers and ten toes.

(#2) You Know You're a Parent When...

Aloha,

Source: http://davidpowersking.blogspot.com/

I’ve the honor of guest posting at the blog of David Powers King today!

David is an experienced blogger and aspiring author of MG/YA Science Fiction and Fantasy with a soft spot for zombies and the paranormal. Married with kids, David lives, plots, writes, and evolves in the great state of Utah.

I consider David a mentor, so after you’re finished here, please click the above link to his blog.

Mahalo in advance :) 

                                                                       ###

Here now is my second, weekly installment of You Know You’re A Parent When… (The first one's here.)

So, You know You’re A Parent When…

Young Writer of America

·          You go to Burger King where the kid's toy is some sort of ink pen... your son tells you this... but you are driving and don't want to be too distracted. "Yes, son..." is the answer before the squeal that happened after opening the side door - and not looking in the rear view mirror.

·         You're attending a freestyle music class, but can only cringe when your oldest asks the age of the teacher and wonders (aloud) why are her nails broken and her legs hairy  – during class.

·         After watching a now-empty Ziploc sandwich bag float to the ground, (special guest star) Uncle Jerry glances toward the living room (where someone carpet-bombed the floor with weird-looking Cheerios,) and suggests buying a Pez to dispense individual Lucky Charms marshmallows.
      I guffaw, but later, when a bag of Fruit Loops decorates the floor, sides and passengers of the red van, another Lucky Charms disaster comes to mind, and Pez dispensers start to sound like they’re Gr-r-reat.

Wow, they spread easy using this thing!

·         But, then again, you can cut out the middle man by chucking the other Ziploc bags of Lucky Charms on the ground, thus cutting out the short delay – and the desperate, but dashed hope that this time things will be different – and then thee youngest one upturns the bag anyway. (Ye olde sighe.)

·         You are so afraid to lose two, teenage Japanese exchange students entrusted to your care that you and the wife follow them at a safe distance, tagging off in the busy mall like you’re in the middle of some important, undercover stroller sting.)

·         Wandering bored around Target, (the exchange students continue to wander the outer aisles) you spot a large tray of travel-size, refill spray bottles. Instantly cheered, you buy a couple, happy now you’ve got new tools for the upcoming back yard water fight.

·         Your 21-month-old wanders over with a cushion held in front of his face. Heading for the nearest wall, he makes some monster-sounding noises and proceeds without any further adieu to bounce off the wall, then the couch and the ottoman, before shuffling and muttering into another room… You continue the ongoing conversation about Albert the Angel as if the extra-special guest appearance by “Bouncing Monster Boy” is a normal occurrence, (which sadly it is!)

· Your super-friendly, never, ever shy four-year-old has a chance to meet (and get an offered hug) from a Pearl Harbor Survivor – but all he wants to do is hide behind a bench, my legs, or in a small heap.) Not even reverse physiology works… “Tobey, you don’t have to shake his hand or say hi.” (The response is: “OK, Papa…”)

Sorry I'm shy, but mahalo for your service.

·         Meanwhile, done in with having to always clean all the non-Lucky Charm marshmallows, a plan is hatched! Standing in front of the sink; you take a colander and sift through a large box of Lucky Charms. Arranging the treasure trove of shooting stars and other “charms” that you know will impress the afore mentioned four-year-old and his brother, you happily watch as No.1 Son looks at the bag... then at you... picks up the bag as if it contained something yucky… looks back at you and demands to know where all the "brown bits" have gone?
    
     (Good grief, Charlie Brown :)

70 Years Later, Pearl Harbor Never Forgets; is Never Forgotten

Aloha,

Today is the 70^th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii.

Source: U.S. Naval Historical Archives

I live about ten minutes from historic Ford Island’s “Battleship Row,” and the final resting place of the USS Arizona, where 1,177 men died in attacks that killed more than 2,400 people.

Several commemorative events are planned throughout the island, and I hope to post more later.

For now, here are some pictures, and a few lesser-known details about “the day that will live on in infamy.”

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Radio bulletin from Honolulu heard over WCAE (Pittsburgh, PA) at 4:15 p.m.  (Dec.7, 1941)

“We have witnessed this morning the attack of Pearl Harbor and a severe bombing of Pearl Harbor by army planes, undoubtedly Japanese. The city of Honolulu has also been attacked and considerable damage done. This battle has been going on for nearly three hours. One of the bombers dropped within 50 feet of (...???taunty-tower...?). Its no joke. It’s a real war.”

Source: 2008-2009 UMKC University Libraries

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Resting Place - Japan did not limit its offensive to Pearl Harbor; on the same December day in 1941, they also attacked American forces in the Philippines. (Despite being notified of the assault on Pearl Harbor hours before Japanese forces attacked in the Philippines, Gen. Douglas MacArthur inexplicably failed to prepare his troops to respond.)

Photo by Bob Landry/TIME & LIFE Pictures

A closer look at the wreckage of the USS Arizona. The Navy, which was able to salvage an astonishing number of ships damaged or sunk by the Japanese, could not fully salvage the Arizona.

Today, the USS Arizona Memorial straddles the ship's sunken hull and commemorates the events of that long-ago Sunday. Of the 1,177 Arizona sailors killed that day, 1,102 have the ship as their final resting place.

Source: Yahoo.com
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The USS Arizona Memorial today

Source: Mark Koopmans

Source: U.S. Naval Historical Archives

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One of several USS Arizona memorial plaques on Nob Hill, a U.S. Navy historical residential community on Ford Island.

Source: Mark Koopmans

Source: Mark Koopmans

A second bronze plaque erected to commemorate the loss of life on the USS Arizona seventy years ago today.

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Pearl Harbor veteran Robert Templet, who was a Radioman 1st Class at Ford Island during the attack, is pictured outside his home in Metairie, Louisiana Dec. 4, 2011.

Source: REUTERS/Lee Celano

Templet was walking to breakfast on Dec. 7, 1941, when he heard a plane motor surging at his back. He turned and saw the pilot, his goggles atop his head, smiling down at him before a torpedo fell from the plane's belly.

Stories like Templet's are documented in "Infamy: December 1941," opening today at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

Source: Yahoo.com

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In this artist’s interpretation of a photograph, Sailors stand beneath the American flag on the 12-foot rangefinder platform of the USS Arizona’s mainmast at some point after the Pearl Harbor attacks. The rangefinder has been removed from the platform, as have the searchlights from the 36-inch searchlight platform above it.

Artwork by Jim Caiella

The mainmast was removed from the Arizona’s wreckage on 23 August 1942 and scrapped. At the height of the war, little thought was given to artifacts or the Arizona’s significance as a national shrine. Featured on the "From Our Archive" page of the December 2009 issue of Proceedings.)

Source: U.S. Naval Institute

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Mary Ann Ramsey, a recent high school graduate and then-resident of Ford Island described what happened in the immediate aftermath of the attacks in an article originally published by the U.S. Naval Institute (Winter 1991.)

“...The entire island seemed to be blowing up. It was then that a fluster of activity outside telegraphed the arrival of our wounded. Passenger cars, Navy vehicles – any transport at hand – began to pull up, discharging men from the Arizona and the ships around her.

“A young man, filthy black oil covering his burned, shredded flesh, walked in unaided. The skin hung from his arms like scarlet ribbons, as he staggered toward my mother for help. Looking at me, he gestured to his throat, trying to speak; he must have swallowed some of the burning oil as he swam through the inferno.

The Corridor of Henry Adair Bunker (12.04.11)

“His light blue eyes against the whites, made more so by the oil clinging to his face, were luminous in visible shock at what they had seen and experienced  that awful morning. We directed him to the mattresses now lining the corridor of the shelter, as the Marines herded us into a side room in order to keep the passageway clear for the arrival of more wounded.”

Source: COMSUBPAC Public Affairs Office.