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On the north rim of Grand Canyon

My wife and I, along with several family members, recently drove from Las Vegas to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. For me, it was the first time in over 45 years I have been there, and in some ways it was a bit of a pilgrimage.

But first, please note the canyon itself quickly bankrupts any decent writer of adjectives: It is spectacular, awesome, inspiring . . . on and on. Those of you who have been there know what I’m talking about. The rest of you simply have to see it for yourself, then struggle to share its majesty with others.

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I’ve blogged before about my feelings and experiences on first- and second-hand tobacco smoke . . . but I have to admit I was kinda’ surprised this past week to learn there’s such a thing as third-hand smoke — tobacco smoke contamination that lingers in the environment after a cigarette has been extinguished.

A quick Google™ search reveals that many people, “particularly smokers, have no idea that third-hand smoke — the cocktail of toxins that linger in carpets, sofas, clothes and other materials hours or even days after a cigarette is put out — is a health hazard for infants and children.” In other words, long after the second-hand smoke has cleared.

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A friend emailed this message to me a couple of years ago and, in case you haven’t seen it, I thought I would pass it along:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Such a cdonition is arppoiately cllaed Typoglycemia

Anzamig huh? Yaeh, and yuo awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt. (more…)

After attending the Polynesian Cultural Center’s Te Manahua 2009 festival of kapa haka or traditional Maori songs and dances (as examplified by Jerusha Wallace Magalei, pictured at right) on August 8 in Laie, Hawaii, it got me thinking of New Zealand — a great place.

So, I started going through some of my old photos and journal entries, and thought you might enjoy a few of them…not in any order, just kind of as a picture-and-thought occurred to me: (more…)

[NOTE: I mentioned in an earlier posting that my China stories were published earlier, based on my participation in a 2006 BYU-Hawaii Study Abroad trip that spent four weeks in Shanghai and one in the Beijing area. In Shanghai our group of 11 students, accompanied by Drs. Chad Compton, David and Yi-Fen Beus and members of their families,  stayed at the six-story Fudan University Guesthouse [picturted at right], which is located next door to the international student language center. The guest house is essentially an old hotel (think of rooms like the Laie Inn, but perhaps not quite that nice), and I thought you might be interested in more about our lifestyle there]: (more…)

[Containing excerpts from my previously published China journal]:

When our BYU–Hawaii study group was there in July 2006, Shanghai — and I understand many of the other major urban areas of China — were (and presumably still are) undergoing a tremendous building boom. There were immense construction projects going on everywhere, some in time for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and others for the World Expo, which is scheduled to take place in Shanghai in 2010. All of this makes for some interesting contrasts. (more…)

Movie fans in Laie are happy again, what with the newly renovated Laie Palms Cinemas opening today (July 17, 2009) with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on the bill. The initial screenings in the newly renovated twin theaters — which promise to use “real butter” on their popcorn — comes about a year-and-a-half after Wallace Theaters closed down their operations in the Laie Shopping Center.

The new owners, Don and Alicen Nielsen (they recently moved to Laie Point and she’s a BYUH student), say they will usually show the latest movies about a week-or-so after they first come out on Oahu; and will keep the prices competitive: The opening day rates were $7.50 ($5.50 for matinees before 5 p.m.), and $5.50 for seniors (60-and-up) — yes! (Most Consolidated Theaters on Oahu are now charging $9.50 for adults.) (more…)

In July 2006 a small group of BYU–Hawaii students, professors and family, and I participated in the China Study Abroad program that took us to Shanghai for four weeks of intensive Mandarin and other coursework at Fudan University, followed by a week of touring around Beijing.

Though I have already forgotten most of the Mandarin we learned, the rest of the experience was unforgettable for me. I published quite a few of my impressions in the BYUH Alumni Blog at the time, but now three years later, those are well buried . . . and I thought I would reprise  some of them here.

[Photo (upper right): The central commercial district pictured is just a small part of Shanghai's skyline which, with a population of approximately 17 million when we were there, was said to be punctuated with over 2,000 high-rise buildings.] (more…)

I just got through deleting a bunch of “spam” from this blog. Like a lot of people in Hawaii, I actually like Spam®, the Hormel Foods Corporation canned pork product [note, with due respect, from this point forward I'm not referring to the canned meat]. . . and I’m not sure how the term “spamming” came to be associated with emails and blogging — but I definitely don’t like it.

For example, in the past few months that I’ve been doing my modest little Nani Laie Blog, I’ve received a little over 300 legitimate responses — but almost 5,000 “spam” submissions; and this quantity is nothing compared to the tidal wave of spam unscrupulous people send to some web sites. Fortunately, I have an excellent spam filter on this site that catches over 99 percent of those humbug submissions…which you never see, but I still have to go review and delete them.

For those of you who may not know what I’m talking about at this point, or realize what a nuisance this is for honest bloggers, let me explain a few things: (more…)

A number of times during this morning’s Easter program in church the music so moved me that I felt a thrill fill my body as tears welled in my eyes . . . which leads me to some thoughts on those familiar feelings. (more…)