Tag: machete

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I spotted workers trimming the palm trees at lunch today. In Irvine, that involves a bucket crane and a chainsaw, with a couple of guys on the ground to pick up the fallen fronds and pile them off to the side.

Trimming the palm fronds, mainland style

This contrasted heavily in my mind with the tree trimmers I saw in Hawaii, where a guy would shimmy up a palm tree with a rope and a machete, then hack away.

Trimming the palm fronds, Hawaii style.

I saw them rotating the crane to move the guy to a new tree, so I’m sure the mainland style trimming gets done faster than the island style… but then, we’re always in such a hurry here. Too bad we can’t do our landscaping on island time.

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When we arrived in Hawaii, I posted this photo taken from our hotel room balcony:

View from hotel

What I didn’t mention was that that shot was carefully cropped. The view really looked like this:

Less artfully cropped view

Well, hey, we got the cheap rooms, so you kind of expect that. Still, there was a lot to see right on the hotel grounds. First of all, we stayed at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort south of Kailua-Kona. Outrigger had recently taken over the hotel, and they were in the midst of remodeling. They had to block off part of the parking lot for a couple of days in order to bring in a crane and replace the air conditioner. So I expect any review of the facilities themselves is going to be outdated within a couple of months.

The hotel grounds include a couple of heiau ruins, some tide pools, and a small garden area. Continue reading →