Of course the weekend rolls around and the rain does too! Drove past the Hawaii Kai carnival thing, think they got it worse than Punahoe!
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Oblivious drivers, just saw a silver compact SUV drive down S King street the wrong way, for three blocks. They didn’t figure all the honking from the oncoming cars meant anything?
(0)So this is what the mailman brought today.
 Yes, it came USPS Priority Mail. Not exactly cheap, but it was fast, it shipped from the UK on Wednesday. UK? Yes I had to call out to over the other side of the globe to find this rally stuff. It just isn’t very big here in the USA so selection is limited. I was taking abit of a leap of faith on these parts, I didn’t really know where they were made. I was pretty sure the rims were made somewhere in the EU. Turns out they are made in Italy. Not sure how to feel about that, but the brand has been around for a long time. They came with a set of aluminum hub centric spacers of the correct size for the FX that get retained by a spring clip into the wheel, nice! Also full set of extended shank lug nuts, but cap ends so I can’t use them with my extra long ARP studs. Oh well. Continue reading ‘Going Euro’
Woo hoo, it’s like I won the lottery! Got TSA pre check for the first time ever. Was so fast didn’t have time to take off belt until I was at the X-ray bins, and I took off my shoes by habit.
Just got back from Ward theater where they are screening Studio Ghibli’s Kaze Tachinu, The Wind Rises. I am so happy to report that it was in original language, which you won’t know until a good five minutes into it. I take exception to some of the subtitle translations, but for the most it was good.
This is supposedly Hayao Miyazaki’s swan song, he’s announced he’s retiring after this. There’s even a line of dialogue in the film stating that engineers and artists have 10 good years in them. Everyone says, yeah right, Miyazaki Sensei! But if he does stay true to that, this is a good note to go out on. The story is about the Japanese engineer who created the Zero, so Miyazaki has free reign with the airplanes he obviously loves. And while this is a Japanese story set in Japan, he also gets to put in the European and Italian flavor which he also has an affinity to. Continue reading ‘Kaze tachinu’
Over a week of calm days with temperature inversion has made Salt Lake City a soup of smog to rival anything I’ve seen elsewhere. At least going up the mountain gets out of the murk. But also means clear warm weather up top. Considering it hasn’t snowed for over a week, the riding was not bad, we’ve been in much worse. We’ve only gone riding every other day though.
We had rumors of Salt Lake City, UT having good sushi. So far in the years we’ve been visiting, it has not been so. Today we found some, you have to go downtown. Takashi I can report was excellent. Yes there was a fairly long wait, but this was a good sign. Our waiter was good, friendly, knowledgable in the menu and specials. The sushi and nigiri was excellent, included a number of selections ive not usually seen. Honestly it rivaled some of the best I’ve had. Only criticism I’d have was the rice was a little too mushy. Not the perfect balance where the grains were individual yet sticked together.
Aside from that I’d say it was worth the $60 per head bill we racked up.
4 out 4 finally sushi satisfied monkeys.
We’ve arrived uneventfully. Security at hnl was fast, everything on time. Hispanic IHOP breakfast. Checked out a few shopping targets. Lunch at In N Out. Checked into hotel which looks pretty decent, although its right next to the train tracks.
Back in August I blogged about doing a job on Maui, what I neglected to write about was the wonder that is Stillwell’s cream horns. This past Thursday I found myself back in Kahului for work. I had enough time before my flight to take a quick drive toward Wailuku to Stillwell’s and pick up a dozen of their signature mini cream horns. 
These pastries are different from the cream horns I’d been used to from the Japanese style bakeries I’ve had before. Instead of a bready pan, it is a flaky pastry shell coiled into a horn shape. Then filled with a great custard filling, the ends sealed with chocolate, and finished with a generous dusting of powdered sugar. Continue reading ‘Horn of Wonder’
Pound beer, dang it notice too late they get Hoegarten, go to gate, no need wait, timed just right as end of line going in. See u at hnl.