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Invest in the Premier Club

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A quick suggestion here if you find yourself flying to the Big Island via Hawaiian Airlines: you're already spending plenty enough on the tickets, so a few bucks more spent joining the Premier Club wouldn't be out of line.

For $199, you receive a number of exclusive benefits that make it worthwhile.

These include:

- an exclusive reservation phone line
- seat selection privileges
- Eepress check-in line at designated airport ticket counters
- priority boarding privileges

The bonus from this perspective is access to Premier Club Lounges operated by Hawaiian.

While that may not seem like such a big deal at a big airport like Honolulu, it can come in handy if you're hanging around the gates outside at Kona -- air conditioning, more comfortable seating and a respite from the roaring jet engines makes it well worth the expense.

And finally, if you run into any problems or have complaints, they generally find a more receptive ear if they're from a Premier Club member (or of course, a First Cabin type) than if coming from a coach customer (they insist this isn't true and that all animals in the Animal Farm are created equal. But you and I both know that's just not the case).
 

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Top five reasons to visit Kona in the summer

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Our simian co-inhabitants of the Earth above may be monkeying around, but we are not in presenting your our top five reasons to visit Kona.
1) The ocean water temperature is wonderful, making for many luxurious, languid days tanning on the many magnificent ocean access points in Kailua-Kona.
2) See No. 1.  The warm water means the diving is most comfortable and event-filled.
3) Plan to come in September, and you can participate in the annual Slack Key Festival.
4) The coffee in Kona is world-class. (Please do NOT give the chimps or any other monkeys you may know any caffinated beverages. Clearly, it's unnecessary.)
5) It's always "Beer:30" at the Kona Brewing Company.
 

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Music of Hawaii

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Browsing in a second hand store, we came upon a well decorated sleeve covering some ancient vinyl touting the Music of Hawaii.

The Halo-produced volume 5022 was performed by the National Hawaiian Orchestra by Record Corporation of America, copyright 1957 and made in the U.S.A. (remember when that meant it was being produced by private enterprise in the United States of America, not the federal government, and it was a guarantee of quality?)

You don't?

Obviously, you're not old enough.  Okay, let's put it in terms you can understand -- it was the 50s equivalent of today's "Made in China."

We confess to not knowing much more about the music on this album, except that, in the process of "digitizing", we learned that they weren't using much ukulele or slack key  back then, and only a hint of pedal steel.  And, for some reason, every song back then had to start out with a xylophone.

That's about all we know, as a search of the title on the WWW didn't turn up any information about the disc that we didn't already know by reading the cover.

The back of the cover is a listing of some other HALO HI-FI 12-inch long-playing records ranging from such popular music as THREE GREAT JAZZ GROUPS - Art Van Damme, Slam Stewart, Herman Chittison Trio to CONCERTOS TSCHAIKOWSKY'S VIOLINE CONCERTO and that the cover was printed in U.S.A. and is copyright '57 Union CIty, New Jersey.

Did come across this neat informational site about Hawaiian music by a somewhat knowledgeable collector. 

The cover contains the above interesting, yet unsigned, half a painting of the fair maiden enjoying a tall cool one on the beach to go with her something sandwich.  So, if anyone can shed any light about the production, that would be great.

Otherwise, a visit to OurKonaCondo.com might be in order, as there is a healthy collection of DVDs and VHS tapes containing some music from these lovely isles.