Ocean Jets

The trade winds are back. At dawn this morning, I walked down to the beach for some exercise. The wind was pushing up waves and the air was full of spray. I actually got chilled! While walking home, it occurred to me that the waves must be much bigger on the Eastern shore outside the bay, so I hopped in the car and drove to Makapuu Point where the blowholes called "Dragon's Nostrils are located".

I set up the camera and narrated. Think of it as my tribute to Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter... Don't forget to scroll down for my last blog entry called "My Day Job"!

My Day Job

Almost all of these BLOG postings are dedicated to my after-work activities. During the day, I live a different life. I am a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) coach.

Lean Six Sigma is a structured method for solving business problems. Using statistics, decision-making and team facilitation skills; trained leaders dig into problems and permanently solve them - often saving hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Once trained, these leaders are called "Black Belts" (similar to the karate hierarchy).

I am here to help these Black Belts learn how to apply their training and enable them to eventually lead the program by themselves. As a consultant, my job is to work myself out of a job. I took on this job as a temporary 6-month assignment, but it may go longer, depending on how well we do in the next couple of months. Perhaps as long as a year.

Each week that I stay, I become more familiar with the situation and as such, more valuable as a coach and adviser. Each week that I stay, I move closer to the end of our contract. The trick is to mentor the skills in others to accomplish things and not in doing the things myself.

The people I coach are civilian and Military Army leaders. We work on everything from active military war problems to office management processes. We measure our progress as "readiness" (our ability to go to war) and as financial savings. After my first 3 months, we have finally started to see results on projects. So far, we have saved the Pacific Army Command around $50 million and improved numerous processes. I can't talk about the specific stuff we're working on, but I can mention the people.

There are no $5,000 toilet seats here. We work in buildings that were built before the attack on Pearl Harbor. People are crammed into ancient offices with no elevators and often no air conditioning. The picture shows where my office is located (the taller building). Termites are eating away at the 70 year old building. I once commented on the new paint that covers the walls... the paint is 20 years newer than the wood it covers.

Many people live with their families on base in housing that can be best described as "low rent". The work long hours because their units are spread all over the Pacific. The Officers and professionals here do mighty things with very little. On top of all that, they prepare and deploy to war. They all care deeply about their work, the United States and each soldier in green.

What we do is important. The scope of our work is tremendous. The cost of failure is high. I am proud to work side by side with each of them.

Storms & Blizzards

I've been reading about the single-digit temperatures in Minnesota. I've been reading about ice storms in Oklahoma and I've been reading about blizzards in the Midwest. You'd think I'm laughing because I'm here in sunny Hawaii... well, you'd be right about that, but it doesn't mean we aren't having weather!

Over the past two weeks, we've had blizzard warnings on Mauna Kea. Astronomers were stranded while the roads down the mountains were snowed-over. The next day, continuing storms blew ice over the roads and closed the observatory roads. Astronomers were stuck at the bottom and the top!

However, the big story was the most intense storms in over 25 years! Here is a picture of the storm front that blew through December 5th. It's almost worthy of Gary England in Oklahoma... There were flash flood warnings, wind advisories and traffic emergencies. This huge storm system (also responsible for bad weather in Washington State and the midwest US) moved through the Pacific across Hawaii. There was lots of rain and wind, but this last Wednesday it got really intense. Almost the entire island experienced power outages. We lost power most of Wednesday and Thursday. There have been flash floods and downed trees, sheets of rain, washed out roads, landslides and school closings!

The night that this storm came through, there were power outages all over the island. When our power went out, we opened the windows to let the breeze through. When I woke up the next morning, I found that a picture frame had been blown off the wall and shattered the glass. But all of this was not as devastating as the silted water along the beaches. After all, cloudy water really inhibits snorkeling and body surfing (although kite boarding, wind surfing and above water activities are OK.). Nor was the pain of power outages as intense as the pain of Internet outages - which lasted longer. The weather even delayed the Super Ferry, but that didn't seem to bother too many people..

We've decorated for Christmas. DeAnna brought our stained-glass tree. I bought a string of lights from Wal-Mart. The association doesn't seem to permit outdoor decorations, so we decorated lfurniture... I keep looking, but there are no presents under the tree yet.

The newest addition to our holiday display is a tiny LED tree (made for a snow village) and a Peanuts ornament with Linus reciting Luke saying "and that's the reason for Christmas, Charlie Brown." These things are on top of the TV in the bedroom. When the LEDs twinkle, they throw light on the walls. It's more entertaining than the TV!

Lastly, I'm including one more picture and a little story. The other weekend, I went back to hike the Ka'iwa ridge by myself (note the change in graffiti - the bunker is now painted yellow)! It was just before the big rains of the week. I wanted to get a picture of myself hiking the ridge, so I set the timer on the camera. The trail was a little muddy and as I was running down the ridge to get positioned for the picture, I slipped. To my right is a cliff that drops off about 200 feet. I decided not to worry about how the picture came out, but it came out interesting (if you know the story).

My little digital camera is having trouble these days - possibly due to salt water, sand and heat - so we may be getting a new camera for Christmas. I'm always good for upgrading technology! Watch for more stunning pictures in future BLOG posts!

Late Thanksgiving Entry

Whew! It's been a very busy week following Thanksgiving. Sorry I haven't posted more. I'll try to get back on track. This week, we went to my bosses house for Thanksgiving dinner (on Sunday night) I've coached 12 people, attended 4 separate non-project meetings, updated 16 projects and helped complete 4 of them. I've also run the cable and mounted the speakers for a new sound system at church.

But before all this, We did several interesting things last weekend. While driving along the shore to the North Shore, we stopped several places to see if we could do some snorkeling. One location was La'ie point. On April Fools Day, 1946 a tsunami punched a hole into a nearby island and the waves blow through it with spectacular force. You can see it from the car, but naturally, we had to get out and climb along the rock to get as close as possible. Unlike Waimea, we could not get near the water, but the views of the island were fabulous!




Our home is located between the ocean and the eastern side of the Ko'olau mountains. Just down the road, there are several nearby trails that climb the ridges, cliffs and peaks (as well as valleys). Since the ocean was so active, we hiked two of these trails.

The first trail was a short, but steep hike to a couple of WW2 bunkers that overlook the beaches of Kailua and Lanikai. Starting near a golf course, we trekked through think underbrush until we popped out along a ridge and soon ascended over 500 feet above the cliffs to stunning views of the ocean and the town below.


For our last adventure of the long weekend, we hiked the trail to Maunawili falls. It's about 1.5 miles back towards the mountains from the trail head. Though it starts off nicely, the trail quickly turns muddy and slippery. We crossed the stream several times. Fortunately, we were wearing our water sandals. and the mud easily washed off as we waded through the water. After climbing up and down several hundred feet, we paced up the stream until we found the falls.

It was pretty, but we weren't alone (see the lower right corner of the water fall image). While we rested, three native teenagers swam over to the falls and I snapped a picture of one of them making a dive into the waters. Shortly after that, a crazy college student came sailing down through the trees from an unseen cliff ledge above and slammed into the water. He was quickly followed by his girlfriend. Her landing was far less elegant and everyone thought she'd hit a rock because she was crying and gasping for air. It turned ut that sh'ed had the wind knocked out of her.

It was a long, active and 'restful' weekend. As Minnesota prepares for it's first major snowfall of the year, we're looking for more adventures in the mountains and surf. Pretty amazing...