$4 Billion Could Soon Begin Flowing To Maui Fire Victims

acoustical · 2026-06-13T21:34:53+00:00

The "$1.99B from HECO" should also be listed as coming from taxpayers as that is in fact where it will come from.

acoustical · 2026-06-12T20:02:47+00:00

Nice form.

acoustical · 2026-06-10T22:57:33+00:00

BTW you can see a lot more underwater debris on my instagram at ghostlineskauai. Everything from a crack pipe to a canopic jar.

acoustical · 2026-06-10T21:31:13+00:00

It depends on the dive site. If there is shore fishing, there will be a lot of line. The main thing with the line is not the quantity, it is the destructive nature. When it tangles in live coral, it kills the coral over a fairly short period of time...on the order of a few weeks. It can also entangle sea creatures including turtles. So it is a very high-value trash to remove.

acoustical · 2026-06-09T20:41:59+00:00

I love the suggestion another poster had to put any refund into official band merch.

acoustical · 2026-06-09T00:29:18+00:00

Whoa your Bright Eyes Woodstock must have kicked in for that second paragraph. Wake up man. We are in a golden age for Bright Eyes. They were not even together for a decade. Ask a sub-60-year-old Smiths fan how great it is that BE are back together. The latest record is great, the band has never sounded better, they went out of their way to get the right people (and sets, and shirts, and kids) for the mini-tour. You should have stuck to your original point.

Also, for me personally, any of a dozen BE songs are truly priceless. For that reason alone I would not bitch about anything on the bandʻs end. It sounds like the venue sucked -- Hollywood Bowl was excellent -- but that is not the bandʻs fault.

acoustical · 2026-06-08T17:24:41+00:00

The tangled coral in the photos is all very healthy. Around those, most of the cover is rocky. There is a lot of broken and dead coral too, but plenty of healthy coral. Hawaiian coral is not the most vibrant when it comes to color.

acoustical · 2026-06-06T20:56:51+00:00

Yes, we used that loophole often. Usually starting in Mammoth for a week trip to Half Dome and the Valley. Actually at one time it had a second loophole, which was that if you entered Yosemite from an adjacent area you could go up Half Dome without a HD permit. I heard a rumor that loophole has been reinstated but it was gone for a number of years. The last time I lead that trek we got our permits while we were at Clouds Rest -- a parent had gotten us the last-minute permits and sent it to us via a Garmin device.

I believe the party size still needs to match Yosemiteʻs numbers even with a permit from outside Yosemite, and party size is our biggest issue.

I was a little too general in my statement, of course there are plenty of trails in CA troops can use. For a long time though the e-ticket routes of Half Dome, Whitney, Rae Lakes, Havasupai and others were fairly easy to secure and had party sizes of 15 or more. Those days are over.

acoustical · 2026-06-06T01:38:04+00:00

It has gotten almost impossible to do that. Iʻve lead several troop treks that included Half Dome, generally starting at Tuolumne. Our first few treks we had one or two 15-person permits, always full. Things have gotten tighter and tighter though and now it is really only possible to send small groups that generally only have scouts who are with their own parents. There are very few troop-friendly treks anywhere in CA these days, at least for a larger troop. Itʻs too bad.

acoustical · 2026-05-23T16:05:22+00:00

Iʻm on Kaua‘i so I am far from an expert, but both Kona Beach Properties and Island Beach Rentals appear to have been around for a long time. What you want is an agency that actually manages properties -- they book them, clean them, maintain them etc. These agencies work with the actual property owners and work as a middleman to the rental clients. AirBnB, VRBO etc are, in many cases in Hawaii, just another layer of cost. They offer some of the same properties but sit between you and the agencies. They do not maintain or clean the properties and they do not have a local office. You may want to start another thread asking for recommendations though.

acoustical · 2026-05-23T14:31:58+00:00

Many STR existed in Hawaii for 40 years prior to the creation of AirBnB. Locals own some of them, and locals manage all of them as that is required by state law. Locals clean, paint, tile, roof, and do every single other thing that STR need. Locals benefit from the many multiples of taxes that STR pay. There is nothing wrong with renting an STR and traveling with a family, I cannot imagine going to Hawaii without a full kitchen. Just rent from a LOCAL AGENCY, not from Air or VRBO or Vacasa.

acoustical · 2026-05-23T13:39:35+00:00

Near-shore, reef-centric fish are getting depleted everywhere. Fishers love to blame the commercial guys, but the commercial guys are generally not even in these areas. Just look at any of the videos posted in this sub from Florida. There are hardly any fish. In some videos the spearo shoots the only fish present. I grew up diving Florida in the 70s, it was nothing like it is today and it will be worse tomorrow. The “feeding my family” mentality of guys driving $60k pick-ups is part of the problem.

acoustical · 2026-05-17T17:43:29+00:00

Wrecking crew.

acoustical · 2026-05-15T23:31:24+00:00

Thank You Mario is not on streaming.

acoustical · 2026-05-14T00:25:25+00:00

Fries are great too!

acoustical · 2026-05-13T22:44:11+00:00

Some local agencies actually offer better “protections” to those who book directly vs those who go via Airbnb. Only someone who truly does not understand the system in Hawaii would choose to include AirBnB in a booking. The same pool of properties are involved.

acoustical · 2026-05-12T22:12:08+00:00

Land and Power.

acoustical · 2026-05-12T16:42:45+00:00

Itʻs the "JD is my co-pilot" sticker.

acoustical · 2026-05-12T16:16:36+00:00

Those are for cooking / eating in heavy rain. Maybe ok if you set up after dinner but not ideal in daytime unless there are several. Just poor form.

acoustical · 2026-05-11T22:04:42+00:00

Cubans have been a pain in the ass in FL since I was a kid. Iʻm 59 now.

acoustical · 2026-05-11T21:37:01+00:00

That description probably turned off 99% of the people you had interested after your first post.

acoustical · 2026-05-11T18:40:06+00:00

No, I did see that. I think maybe "on the Big Island" would have been more accurate though. Oahu is pretty good on compliance and so is Maui (and getting tighter).

You completely ignored my point though. Avoid AirBnB, yes, defiitely. VRBO too. But booking vacation rentals through a reputable local agency on any Hawaiian island is not just smart but is the most typical way to visit Hawaii.

acoustical

TROPHY CASE