in other news ... iphoneography

On New Year's Eve, my LG G4 phone/camera died a sudden, horrible, badly-timed death. Badly timed as in right-immediately-after-I-compiled-my-2017-1SE-video-slideshow and *before* I uploaded to my computer.  Badly timed as in no other phones were remotely running a "sale" on Jan 1st, so it was an expensive time for my phone to die.

I ended up replacing my LG G4 with an iPhone 7+.  I have a like-Hate relationship with it (the camera firstly, the phone as a whole secondly).

I like ... that it takes pretty pictures.

I like ... that the video snippets work seamlessly and easily with 1SE app.

I LOVE ... the frame-by-frame viewing capability of videos.

I like ... having two camera focal lengths.

I like ... having airdrop to share pictures with other iPhoners in close proximity.

I dislike ... that it does weird things with skin tones.

I dislike ... that it doesn't really let me shoot macro (except by cropping afterwards or adding aftermarket lens).

I HATE ... the 4:3 aspect ratio.

I HATE ... that there's no easy way to file share with my family, who have not-iPhones.

I hate ... that the camera roll chronology scrolling is opposite all other phone camera rolls.

I HATE ... that iPhone forces me into its proprietary picture file folder structure (ie. ppl, places, portrait, etc.). 

I Hate ... that I have to scroll past iPhone's meaningless file folder categories to get to the file folders I actually create and use.
I HATE ... that iPhone picture file folders can't be deleted or moved.

I hate ... that I can't move pictures from (*and out of*) the camera roll into other files I create.

I HATE-ABHOR-DESPISE ... the very complicated and un-user-friendly process to upload pictures from my iPhone to my PC computer.

Conclusion:  I hope my iPhone lasts a good long time.  Because it was expensive. But when it does die, I will NOT be replacing it with another iPhone.

More Books.

"After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.” 
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

Little French Girl by Anne Douglas Sedgwick - (bookclub) This was my 3rd time reading LFG.  It remains one of my favorite books.  

Howards End by E.M. Forster (Close Reads bookclub) - I quite enjoyed portions of this novel and I quite snoozed through portions of this novel.  It is rumored that the Schlegel Sisters are based upon the true-life Stephen Sisters (Virginia Woolf...), though Forster claims, unconvincingly, that they're not.  Virginia Woolf has intriguing critique on Forster's works - she and he were contemporaries (both part of Bloomsbury Literary Group) and acquaintances/friends - and she co-opted Howards End into her own novel, To the Lighthouse.  So I think my biggest appreciation of Howards End is going to be as a door into Woolf's story.

The Austen Escape by Katherine Reay - (library) this book was filled with cardboard characters, simplistic verbiage and all kinds of necessary (for me) suspension-of-disbelief.  T'was “meh”.  But I finished it in 2 days.  So, take that as you will.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - The reluctant hero, the cantankerous neighbor, the man with a "heart too big."  Britt-Marie remains my favorite Backman book, but Ove is a close second.  

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - just delightful.  Gentleman, indeed.  Probably end up being my favorite from this year.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen – (bookclub)  I've now officially read the complete oeuvre of Jane Austen.  Mansfield Park is my last and latest.  Here's how I personally rank them:  Pride & Prejudice>Emma>Lady Susan=Sense & Sensibility>all the rest.  P&P is one of my top-5-forever-favorites.  I have a love-dislike relationship with Jane Austen.  Mansfield Park seemed to me to be a wordy version of Cinderella filled with characters that were all not-quite-likeable, and just glimpses here and there of Austen's fierce wit.  Reading it was just a slog.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle - I must have read this as a child, but I don't remember it at all.  It must not have resonated with me then, just as it didn't resonate with me now.  I know L'Engle is highly regarded, but it's hard for me to fathom that all that acclaim comes from this book.  Maybe the series ...?  I'll never know, because I don't intend to read more.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng - I read thru the first 77 pages before deciding I didn't really care about any of the characters. I skimmed/skipped til the end. This book just wasn't my cuppa. 

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (library) - similar to The Rosie Project and Britt-Marie Was Here, you the reader are in the head of an unreliable narrator whose account of events is filtered thru un-self-aware eyes. I liberally skimmed Eleanor, as it lacked the charm of Rosie and Britt-Marie. It was just an ok pageturner for me.

True Grit by Charles Portis - (Close Reads bookclub/podcast) a reread.  Just as good the second time through.

Bear Town by Fredrik Backman – (library)  Fredrik Backman wrings your heart.  That’s what he does in his writing.  That said, in Bear Town, he’s trying to wring my heart against the backdrop of the “needs” of a sports team (and by extension, the hoped-for revived economy of a town) vs the cries for justice from a raped 15yo.  He exposes the varying motivations of his 385 broken characters (I exaggerate. but not by much.) as they choose “sides”.  In a couple different places, one of the voices of reason claims that “This town doesn’t always know the difference between right and wrong … But we know the difference between good and evil.”  And see, as an Enneagram One-er, I personally don’t see shades of gray between wrong & evil and right & good; my heart could not be wrung effectively in this book.  Because a girl was raped.  And it doesn’t matter what one’s motivation is; in my humble opinion, it will never be ok to turn a blind eye to what you know is true of evil perpetrated.  So this book was just a huge exercise in frustration for me.  My ranking of Backman’s novels:  Britt-Marie>Ove>Grandma>Bear Town. 

A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - (bookclub)  Dorian is Wilde's homage to aestheticism; he even has an entire "introduction" dedicated to explaining to the reader "art for art's sake."  But goshdarnit, if I don't think he failed in his expressed goal.  I think it's quite impossible to read his story as anything BUT a moralistic warning against the excesses of unfettered hedonism.  Books reveal much about their authors, and Dorian, I think, reveals much of Wilde's self-loathing due to his own struggles with sin. Pair this story with Wilde's short story The Selfish Giant, and consider a fuller picture of the oft stereotyped Oscar Wilde.

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut - Big Dude loved this book.  So I read it, too.  It's Vonnegut, so of course, it's all kinds of weird and quirky and darkly witty and brilliantly written and just a wee bit confusing at times - it's a sort of modern Noah's Ark narrative written from a million years in the future, flashing back to the events and characters of the apocalypse.  I tend to miss the "big picture" in pursuit of the small puzzle pieces; so I got kinda hung up on not knowing who the narrator was for the first 220 pages.  Turns out it totally didn't matter to the story. (Ghost Leon Trout, son of Kilgore Trout, just in case you wondered).  Big Dude, on the other hand, *is* a "big picture" kind of guy, so he totally picked up on this being Vonnegut thumbing his nose at Darwin.  Now that I think about it, the way Big Dude and I differed in our approach to this book is much like how we approach life at large.  I'm glad I have him to supply me with the simple summaries of "big picture".  :-)

Huali Lani Komohana, March 2018

This trip's goals were to complete paint, to install more batten, and to complete pressure-washing the roof.  And, I think, we actually had 2 days of sun.  Or maybe just 2 half-days.  So, we got *some* painting done.  And not much batten.  But rain doesn't put the kabosh on weed-whacking, and since other projects were put on hold, we finally attacked a bigger section of a corner of our yard with beautiful rock walls that are completely obliterated by tall, out-of-control, buffalo grass.  

A couple weeks before we returned, one of our neighbors cleared out a bunch of guava trees from their property.  With the trees gone, now we see a waterfall stream from our kitchen window!

Look closely: a cardinal and his bevy of beauties ...

Little Dude's online Latin class starts at 4:30a hawaii time.  Yawn.

Love how the sunrise spills down the ridge ...

And now for oodles of weed-whacking images. 

I want to remember how it looked for just this one time.

Because it will have grown back by our next visit.

The joke is that when we leave CA, we wonder which plants will have died in our absence.

When we leave Kauai, we wonder what will be overgrown by the time we come back.

Nearly done.  SO MANY HOURS ON THE ROOF.

When Big Dude wasn't on the roof, or in the field, he was building this neato monkeypod table.

I'm blogging this months after the fact.

These are the pictures I took as we left.

All these pieces will be different next time we return.

The bridge will be torn apart and be in the midst of rebuilding.
(a project that has been months in the planning stages)

The neighbor's field will be covered in rocks, boulders, cement and asphalt debris.

Our driveway will be washed away and undrive-able.

The hillsides along the highway will be long-term altered by massive landslides.

"Da Big Flood" (50" rainfall in 24 hours) will have occurred.

Huali Lani Komohana, Jan/Feb 2018

This was the trip we planned to mostly get the painting of the exterior house done, along with the installing of some batten (as in board and batten), and the finishing of the porch cable railing.  Since we only had about 2.5 hours of sunshine the whole trip, our painting was mostly confined to the covered porch area.  My handy-dandy father-in-law finished the cabling and my green-thumb-gardener-extraordinaire mother-in-law tended our yard (she also brought a nifty cleaning cloth and made the house interior sparkle as it hasn't done since we've occupied it!!). We managed to fit some fun and sightseeing in between all the projects.

Note above:  we have exactly one windowsill that gets 1-2 bars of internet.  It's a popular hangout :-).  The other popular hangout (when there aren't mosquitos): the hammock.

Below, our porch is so pretty and clean and uncluttered when we arrive. 
And then it quickly becomes the holding zone for all the project and yard tools ...

Getting ready to make a bunch of sawdust...

Limahuli Gardens was our one must-do, and only-planned activity for this trip.
But it kept raining everyday.  And we kept waiting for a clear opportunity to head over for a couple hours.  It came down to the last possible day, which looked like it might or might not rain. 
We grabbed our umbrellas and headed over.  It's SO BEAUTIFUL. 

Below includes the basket of fruit we picked from our yard (minus the avocado -
we bought that from a neighbor avo-stand down the road). 
Also, we gathered fresh eggs. 
Big Dude started pressure washing the roof - you'll see the before-and-after images
are pretty dramatic!  That was one dirty roof!!

It's super slippery on the roof with all the algae build-up. 
Big Dude engineered a strap to help him not to fall to his death ...