19 November 2011...The 7th Annual "Walk the Talk".....

28 Nov...Wow...2 days in a row with some output...22 of the original 47 pix AND the almost 2 minute video have been coalesced into 12 more graphical images...AND the video is still mostly intact...and ALL those are posted with some textural content...ALMOST HALF DONE!

27 Nov...Ok....it's started....8 days later...as of last night, 8 days later(27th), I have the first pix up for this years now "1-day" event...held in a meager 2-3 hours, starting and ending at the mauka side of "Kaka`ako Water-Front Park"...BUT AROUND 200...or so...showed up!...

...and Tiny Tadani was a GAS!

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Well...it looks like we've found the starting line!

The sign isn't new....but a nice memory to see as a 'welcome' today.

There we all are...on the Ewa side of the park section that is located on the mauka side of the parking lot. That's the UH Med School with the construction cranes hovering around just behind our awnings...

...'n all the orange 2011 WtT "T" shirts this year.

I'll bet you can still get some of these...for a small fee...
...if you talk to Utu...or...for that small fee...
...I'll pass the fee on...
... and get it for you!!!
(...and to you!)

It was good to see one of those 'evening angels' "Evans Project" buses again here today...I need an update on how this 'idea' has evolved within and beyond H5.

Some of us hadn't seen each other since last year's 'Walk...'
Notice the 'Japanese tourist' taking a shot of me...
...taking a shot of her.

On the far right of this panorama...
...Utu has our attention momentarily to introduce us to.....?

Zumba...!

Those 3 in the lime colored tops posing for other camera's...

...are gonna lead this orange brigade...

...while this 'little guy' gets the evidence...that I hope to be able to tell u here in a day or two...(Tiny TV(?))...with an editorial udpate...the schedule of the date/time of the broadcast(s) on OC-16(?)...AND...the url(z) of the online archive so that we/you can grab it to show the great-grandkids some day what we did in another time zone....?

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Bu-u-uh-ut...if you miss the broadcast(s) and/or the archive...

...okole imua!

To me...it's not exercising...OR...dancing...
...but the okole imua was entertaining.

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...lest we forget the reason for our 'walking and talking'...

...these residents...a head turn away from my embedded-intellectual-combat-reporting 'post'... some, perhaps, were with us today...

...guaranteed, they spent at least last night here in Kaka`ako.

The Kaka`ako homeless are some of the most harassed by the C&C and/or state government agencies.

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Perhaps....half done.
Hope to have time every day to go through the remaining 45 pix...

...'n get this thing finished!




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In response to my first commenter below...a 'momma mouse' named Nancy...who does not live in Hawai`i...but who is a dear, sweet, 'old', friend(?)...who uses confusing punctuation markingz...is unfamiliar with my abbreviation, "WtT"(Walk the Talk).

She hasn't figure out, yet, how to use the archive access that is in the column IMMEDIATELY to the right of this much larger column showing the currently selected post and following comment(s)...and clicking on the bottom link in the November 2010 listing...."History of H5"...

But....because she is such an endearing kind of person... she can click on the following url/link...

http://talkinnwalkin.blogspot.com/2010/11/feeding-hungry-solicited-as-content-for.html

...and read the un-edited, un-finished article written in 2004...without having to wander aimlessly through...an archive.

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18 November 2011...Ka`ena Point rounding revisited!...

...Wow!....What-a-day!...sorta...my old Canon batteries let me down after only 42 shots 'n 44 seconds of video...but as of today, 24Nov2011, this is what I have...

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My plan was to catch the #52 to Hale`iwa @ it's first departure Friday morning....scheduled to leave the AMSC @ 6:30am.

What is it about sleep that when you need it the most to have a good productive day to follow... ...distractions make it all seem so unnecessary...?

So...here I am @ about quarter after 8:00am...awaiting the scheduled 8:38am #52 arrival...




(...18-02...)

...and here it is within 5 minutes of scheduled arrival...AMAZING!

So...I'm only 2 hours behind schedule!

(...18-05...)

Pretty soon we're passing the capitol...








(...18-06...)

...and then Eki Cyclery as we reach the Ewa end of Dillingham Blvd...

(...18-08...)

...we now by-pass Middle Street turn-off...'n up the ramp to the H1 via-duct to dodge all the surface streets till Mililani/Wahiawa...


(...18-09...)

...still a long way to go....but the Waianae Ridge is in visual range right now.






(...18-13...)

...above Wahiawa, we make the turn onto Kamehameha Hwy just before this iron trestled bridge...









(...18-16...)

Now....the first views of the "North Shore"....

You see that there are 2 bikes on the bus bike rack at the bottom of all these bus window shots. He got on the same time I did at the AMSC. He's got a grounds maintenance job up here somewhere a day or 2 a week...'n claims he's seen me up here before....? (...18-17...)

...and then the #52 driver pulls off Kam Hwy...slides around the mauka side of the traffic circle and me and the other biker get off at this first stop by that 711. I acknowledge the "Welcome to Historic Hale`iwa Town" sign right there across the street from that 711.

(...18-19...)

Gotta do the 'tourist thing'.....1st stop...if only for the pix...Matsumoto's

Where's Utu...?





(...18-21...)

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(...18-22_joes.jpg...)
Had to make the stop at Haleiwa Joe's...the former Chart House up here...a corporation I worked for 30+ years ago for over a decade at 2 different locations on Maui....Reminicing my bartending/waiting/fish/meat/cutting daize...I asked if they needed an experienced ex-Chart House waiter to help bus tables tonight but...they appeared uninterested..

...that's the Hale'iwa boat harbor and the famous bridge as seen from their ocean-side table sittings on the back lanai.

(...18-23 'n 18-24...)

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(...18-26 'n 18-25...)
Camp Mokuleia....where we would spend our night at the end of the 6th Day's walk in the former 10-day extravaganza the "Walk the Talk" used to be.

I stopped into the office to ask the gals if they were gonna miss us this year...they said there was some "room at the inn" but they were busy and I moved on...




(...18-27...)


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Bob here is from Wahiawa side...but was apparently very at home here. He had 3 poles at his side and I saw 3 strikes in the 10-15 minutes I was there...I saw him pull in a couple-a...."Hinamakua's(?)" that brightened his day...NOT for the barely mouth full of sashimi either one would represent...NO SIR!....they immediately became "bait" for the larger Papio he hoped to land.(...18-36...)

He's been living in the islands about as long as I have but....I'll NEVER experience the appearance of tranquility he represents in this shot I took just before moving on...




(...18-40...)


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I can't believe I got this almost 2-minute video...edited down to just over 20 seconds...of a fixed-wing glider landing at Dillingham Air Field. One had just landed like this one.....RIGHT OVER MY HEAD....but closer than this one did and I never saw it coming as I wasn't watching the sky for something to shoot when it buzzed me....AND THEN....I saw this one in the landing approach pattern they all take when coming in after cruising the ridge for an hour or so on a typical on-shore surface updraft the ridge creates just for being there....'n shot this...

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Still got some pavement to cover till the 'fun' begins...












(...18-41...)

(...18-42...)

...but here it ends...within 10 minutes, I was having to turn today's "Day 7, Walk the Talk" into "Walk the bike" for most of the next 3 hours till the pavement began to appear again at the north end of Yokohama Bay Beach....AND....





...and the photography for today has to end here as my Canon SD450 batteries are very old and they and the Camera quit working at this point. I have a propensity to wear things out because of the challenging demands I put on technology.

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Technology...
...can't live without it....
...it can't survive my challenges!

Whatz a technologist to do...?

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It was an exciting day to be out in a remote area and not having to dodge street traffic for several hours. An hour and a half on the #52 going out, 2 hours on the C coming back. 2 hours on pavement on the Hale`iwa side with all the visiting; but only about an hour on the Makaha side as I rode straight down to the first bus stop past Makua Valley.

That left about 3.5 hours on dirt and both loose and jagged lava rock...

...including about a half hour on an off-the-trail loose rock scramble having to carry the bike but sometimes having to lay the bike down, scramble around it, and pick it up on the other side of a dangerous passage...

...a GREAT physical challenge for an 'old' man...I get so few of these kinds any more.

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btw...you can get a good sense for what the rest of the passage would be like by going to "Day 7" of the 2009 WtT on this blog...

http://talkinnwalkin.blogspot.com/2009/11/day-717-november-2009.html

...when my batteries were working and we had a crew of support staff...and not too much rain over the 11 days.

Skip to the pix labeled "[Day_07.16]" to see the almost 50+ remaining pix I published 2 years ago to see what follows from this point on to our evening's encampment on the south end of Yokohama Bay Beach that night.

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...but Ka`ena Point will always be the greatest WtT memory.....so....

...day after tomorrow...Friday, the day before the 2011 WtT Kaka`ako Wake...at the 'crack-of-dawn'...I plan to be getting off of a #52 circle-island Honolulu city bus somewhere in Hale`iwa...and begin to make my way to the end of the pavement just past Mokuleia...and do the "Ka`ena Point Shuffle" as I ride/walk/carry my Quasar Raptor around the point and down to Yokohama Bay on the north end of the Waianae coast...and then on to the last bus stop in north Makaha...by Makua Valley... for probably a "C" Express to take me back to civilization.

I invite any and all to join me...and then show up the next morning at Kaka`ako Park to join whoever show's up there to tell them what they missed.

The "Day 7" of the walk would be about 9 miles from the Presbyterian camp we would stay at at the end of "Day 6"...to the south end of the Yokohama Bay Beach where we'd camp that night after rounding the point. Connecting from the two closest bus stops between Mokule`ia and Makaha will take about 17 miles....a bit of a walk for many...but a very tolerable bike ride for the rest of us....if not for what I call "Dead Man's Gulch", the crevace we have to bridge on the Makaha side of the point as we approach Yokohama Bay Beach...but I've already done this by bike 3 times in the past 2 years...and will be able to lead you past this threat...but you will need to shoulder your steed for a few yards to cross the gulch where the trail disappears for about 20 yards.

Utu tells me that there has been some fencing added to that area but the fencing won't obstruct the bypass I'll be able to lead you by.

This is not an adventure for the meek...but if you can keep up with a 60-year-old man.....I'll get you back on pavement and to a bus stop to take you home...

To prepare yourself for what you will encounter....go to "DAY 7" in the November 2009 archive at the top of the column on the right...and look at all the pix I took in 2009.

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Anyone who wants to join me, we need to exchange cell phone numbers to keep track of each other as we approach the beginning of the ride/walk so.....leave you comments....grab your sun screen and about 4-6 liters of water...and let's conquer the point!

"the walk..."...is now......."a 'morning' walk in the park..."

...Kaka`ako Park, that is.

The 10-11 day, circle-island sojourn is reduced to history.  This Saturday morning, 19 November 2011, a very confused presence for some of us will occur as the 7+ year futile effort to raise money to support the precedent setting efforts of Utu Langi and...thanks to former governor Lingle, the only person in government in the last decade who has demonstrated a reasonable government response to the crisis of homelessness in this state...that has allowed Mr. Langi to create "The Next Step" shelter and it's follow-up shelters on the island...through his non-profit creation, H5, Hawai`i Helping the Hungry Have Hope, that now enters an enhanced survival mode.

My effort here, once again, will probably also be futile, as I will attempt to re-birth <-=this=-> dormant effort.  But if any of my attempt to bring to your awareness, the homeless culture and their plight that has been so profoundly magnified...beyond the boundaries of this country....and you have the means to financially 'lend a hand'.....then I hope this link...

http://www.hawaiiwalkthetalk.org

...will tell you about the walk from their words...and/or to choose a walker to sponsor...(me?)...

http://www.hawaiiwalkthetalk.org/walkers.asp

...o-o-or...what 'they' are passing as if it were my words asking you to donate to the agency acknowledging me as the reason why you give to them...

https://ssl11.secureddomain.net/hawaiiwalkthetalk-org/SponsorMe.asp?intWalkerID=18

...where you will see the 2009 pix of me at the beginning of Day 8 just before leaving Yokohama Bay Beach with my technology on my back as the 'embedded combat reporter' then...

...please, personally comment to me(...ask for 'that' to not be published here, I will do as you request...) if you do give...so that I may know from other sources if any of my effort is producing a desired result.

Any/All comments tendered that are civil in nature...with or without the ability to provide or evidence of providing a donation to H5...comments which can/may be constructively critical to my publishing effort...will be allowed to disagree with me...and will definitely be approved to be shown here.

The eleven November 2009 posts in the archive listing at the top of the column on the right show(500+ pix) and tell(it's 'story time') what happened in 11 days as the group of us circumnavigated the island during the 5th annual "Walk the Talk"...and besides this post, are the ONLY postings on this blog that are approaching a complete presence...all the rest are just like me....a 'work' in progress...(?)...