Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Somewhere over…

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Rainbows are just prettier in Hawaii. Even in the city, in Honolulu…

…even over an industrial park.

In Rottweiler news, the lovely Freya turns six years old today. I still think of her as my “puppy” and always will. We are almost always in Hawaii on her birthday and Axel’s as well, a fact that makes me sad even though we enjoy spending Thanksgiving week with my human family. Party when we get back, though… promise!

In a technology failure (and eventual success) note, all of the posts that didn’t make it to light here over the last few days should now be visible.

(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 21 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 266 of 274)

Can you go home again?

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So is it “you can’t go home again” or “home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in”?

Inquiring minds are wondering.

(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 20 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 265 of 274)

We’re back

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Nothing much more to say than that. We’re happy to be back in Hawaii, even though getting here seemed to involve even more annoying people and situations than usual.

At least the FAA computer glitch announced on the news just as we were getting ready to leave the house didn’t affect us at all.

More after a night of rest!

(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 19 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 264 of 274)

A long-lost warbird is heading home

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I am not the history expert in our family. That would be my husband. Still, I was once a member of EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association, with an interest in military aircraft, particularly the Warbirds of the World War II era. So you know a story involving a long-lost warbird being recovered from the depths of Lake Michigan off Waukegan Harbor to eventually return to Hawaii would catch our interest.

SBD-2 Dauntless, February 1942
SBD-2 Dauntless, February 1942 (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons by William T. Barr, photographer’s mate, USN)

The Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber raised from Lake Michigan on Friday, much like the one in the photo, is the second one recovered this year. Three hundred planes are estimated to be at the bottom of the lake. These planes were used for aircraft carrier qualification training. They flew out of the now-closed Glenview Naval Air Station and the aircraft carriers were at Navy Pier. Some of the training planes had been used in combat. This one had been at Pearl Harbor, and will end up there once again at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island in about three years.

So many interesting facts about the plane’s history and the people and organizations involved in the recovery are detailed by reporters from Honolulu and Lake County. Very cool for me to be able to read coverage from newspapers in both of my hometowns:

Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Crew to recover bomber with local ties from lake

Lake County News-Sun (a Chicago Sun-Times News Group paper): ‘Hula blessing’ greets dive bomber pulled from lake

We have not yet visited the Pacific Aviation Museum, and perhaps we will wait until this plane gets there to do so.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 20 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 147 of 274)

My photo in Schmap Honolulu Guide!

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Ala Moana Center 2/3/09, originally uploaded by vomviersen.

I took this photo with my BlackBerry during my last trip to Honolulu.

I was at Ala Moana Shopping Center looking down at CenterStage from the mall level, and trying to get all three levels in the photo. When I was in high school, there was a fountain where we’d usually meet to go shopping. It would have been to the left of where I’m standing to take the photo, which was an open area back then. Neiman-Marcus is there now, I think. There was not a third level then, and certainly not a Louis Vuitton store.

I was kind of surprised to get the email asking to use the photo in the Schmap guide because it was almost a throwaway photo. The reason I took it was just to post to Twitter when @AlaMoanaCenter followed me!

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 29 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 125 of 274)