Solo Recon, Moanalua Valley March 27, 2010

Published on April 18, 2010 in bike by taro. Closed

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Having dropped off the AE86 Corolla for alignment at Pacific Automotive in Mapunapuna, I found myself with time to kill with my bike. Dave had suggested an interesting idea, I should go check out the Moanalua Valley trail that had within the past couple years turned into an open public DLNR trail. What the heck, just as good a place as any to go riding! I did end up taking a bit of a road detour by going to Toyota parts in Mapunapuna for a part for the Corolla, and ending up riding to Sand Island to go get it. I’ll call it a warm up. On my little side trip, I ride past a white civic stranded jammed up on high sidewalk by the veteran park entrance, and later an unaturaly gleeful shoping cart pushing lady. Ah the adventures of riding on Nimitz.

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Inaba Honolulu Restaurant

Published on April 17, 2010 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

Now open for a few years in Honolulu, the claim to fame for this small Japaneses restaurant is that they serve fresh housemade soba noodles. Location is on S. King Street on the left just past Punahou St. For the oldtimers, it’s where Dairyu used to be, go past where Cinerama used to be, in the small group of stores that includes the Obama Baskin Robbins. It’s a small space with about six tables and a counter, cozy, you won’t have any problems flagging down service. P1010887P1010964Visited twice, first time had the tenzaru soba, a standard that should be good to judge by. Noodles correctly “al dente”, tempura crisp and light, side dishes nice, tokyo negi for your noodles, the wasabi looks to be high percentage of real wasabi. Not the usual mystery mostly mustard/horseradish green paste. I don’t think it’s fresh grated, but it might be the 100% real from tube wasabi. Second visit I had the Battera Gozen with the upgrade to standard size noodle portion of the hot soba. The battera is wonderful, just the right amount of vinegaring.

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Beer is Good – SA Variety pack, Scotch Ale

Published on April 14, 2010 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

P1010962Pours with moderate head, a dark amber. An interesting ale. Distinctive aroma that I have a hard time describing. Smoky flavor coming from the featured peat smoked hops. Bitterness that tapers, an almost astringent middle, then lingers. A pretty robust brew, but not thick like a porter or stout. I’d give it close to 3 of 4 peat smoking monkeys.

Beer is Good – SA Variety Pack, Boston Ale

Published on April 11, 2010 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

P1010961Pours with a medium head, medium amber with a red tint. Aroma of hops detectable, but not strong. Likewise a fairly strong bitter element that does linger for a bit. Also a touch of sweet feel, but not to the point that I find objectionable. Perhaps not my favorite of the pack, but still pretty smooth and drinkable, although I prefer it with some food rather than drinking it alone. 2.5 out of 4 monkeys.

Beer Variety is Good – Samuel Adams Variety Pack, Noble Pils

Published on April 5, 2010 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

P1010956Sam Adams has become so ubiqitous that it now often gets passed over in the search for more “exotic” brews that I haven’t had. However this variety pack perked my interest as it had many varieties, almost all I haven’t had, in one convenient case. And I’m happy to say, it was a good thing! 5 of the 6 varieties I have now sampled and all get my thumbs up, and the final one is the Boston Lager which is a known good quantity.

P1010957I’ll start with the last and most recent that I just had. A seasonal, the Noble Pils. Pours light yellow with at most a moderate head that quickly dissapates. Pretty strong floral notes, as expected since it’s a Pils and the whole tagline is that it is made with all 5 Noble hops. It also gives it a good citrus note, without really having any citrus adjuncts. I’m not a huge fan of Pils and strong hops, but it works quite well here. Could it be that my love of Wernesgruner has given me a taste for hops now? Regardless, the SA Nobel Pils is nicely balanced, crisp, and clean. The hops emphasis give it a fairly high bitterness, but it does not linger. Mouth feel is light and clean. I have to give it a 3 of 4 tipsy monkeys.

BMX Fever

Published on March 14, 2010 in bike by taro. Closed

This past wednesday I scooted out of work as soon as I could, but the drive to Sand Island took almost 40 minutes. I decided not enough time to make pulling the bike out and getting all my gear on worth it. Instead I spectated and snapped off a few shots. There were frequent passing showers, some heavy enough to get the track muddy, but soon after would be perfect. I can’t exactly say I’m reliving youth since I never was in the BMX scene “back in the day”, but I’ve signed up since I had fun last week busting a lung playing on the track. Just a few other pics here.

Scavenging

Published on March 7, 2010 in car by taro. Closed

What a long day. My weekend scavenging plans were thrown for a loop when I drove out to ABC used auto parts out Pearl City way on Saturday, to see a dumpster truck and HFD ladder truck in the road. Looks like the dumpster had snagged the lowest cables on the overhead powerlines and pulled it down. I think those are typically telephone and cable TV, no tazer sparks flying, but they weren’t taking chances. I wasn’t going to be hitting that SR5 AE86 I had spotted earlier in the week when I spun by on a lark. So now what ended up happening is I woke up early on Sunday, headed out to Aloha Stadium, and signed in for the SCCA Solo II autocross. Once that was taken care of, I then headed of to ABC. Continue reading ‘Scavenging’

March Powder Fest

Published on March 7, 2010 in Snow and Travel by risu. Closed

Just got back into Sapporo from three days of boarding in Niseko following three days of bus-tripping out to Sapporo Kokusai.  Pretty much every day was going off at Kokusai, with between 4 and 8cm of new stuff to ride every day.  On the first day there was a pretty hard melt crust under the fresh, but this made it easier to hike back in-bounds (don’t ask).  Each aditional day’s snow added to the soft layer.  On Friday when I headed out to Niseko, the snow was crazy dumping in Sapporo, probably around 6 to 8cm of new snow in town.  The sound of the front-end loader scraping the street in the dark of the morning gave it away.  The further out from town the bus went, the less and less significant the signs of recent snowfall became.  After seeing a reasonably good layer of wind-redistributed snow at Nakayama-touge, I figured it had snowed out that way, but the wind had just moved it around.  Arriving at Niseko, I discovered that it had in fact snowed there too, but the bluebird weather made the new snow adhesively sticky down at the lower elevations.  Root will remember the glue-like grip of the snow down at the Hanazono base. Continue reading ‘March Powder Fest’

Dirt Dirt

Published on March 2, 2010 in car by snm. Closed Tags: .

IMG_1470Last week Saturday was something of a historic event for the local auto racing scene. After years of abscence of a track and much infighting and what not, they finally managed to open a parcel of land in Kalaeloa for a racewat park. Currently it’s still dirt surface, which was just fine for this event, the first ever Hawaii SCCA Rally Cross! It was being kept low key, intentionally, since this was a first for everyone, and the field turnout was thirty soon to be dusty, grinning, laughing, and giggling racers. I have to say I had an outrageous good time. Sliding around your car in the dirt amd not get in trouble? Yeehaw! Don’t tell me you never skidded your tricycle, BigWheel, BMX, banana seat bike when you were a kid? Same thing, except with big people sized toys now. Yes, dirt everywhere, I’m still cleaning it out. Anyway, I’m happy to report that it went of without a hitch. No major problems, a few hicups to iron out, but that was expected. And everyone is looking forward to the next one! More pics here.

Beer Is Good-Hitachino XH

Published on February 27, 2010 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

P1010810What? More beer? This time another Hitachino variety I haven’t had yet, the XH. Labeled as matured in sake casks. Pours cloudy dark brown with extremely strong head. Sorry, I passed out before I could write a review so my thoughts are a bit cloudy on it. I blame the high 8%ABV. I didn’t really detect the cask flavors. I recall the sweet then sourness. It reminded me again of drunk juice malt liquors that I do not like. I can’t say I’m having a very good track record with the Hitachino’s, 2.5 out of 4 booze sleeping monkeys.