Living a few hours without my smartphone

On Thanksgiving, I went to my parent's house. After leaving and coming back to my apartment, I realized that I left my cell phone at their house.

My apartment doesn't have a landline. I do have an extra cell (a flip-phone) but the SIM Card that connects the phone to the network was in my smartphone at my parent's house.

Lucky for me, I had a desktop computer where I could 

• log-in to my Google account to "Find My Device" (this is for Android phones)
• email my mom after noting the "Find My Device" located my phone is my parent's neighborhood.

The following day, I got my phone returned! 

If this happened 15 years ago, I would be out of luck. Back then, I didn't have a desktop computer at home (I had to use the libraries to do internet things) and I didn't have a landline or an extra phone. 

There are fewer pay-phones in the public now, and most of the ones that remain are vandalized. Plus, I don't feel comfortable speaking into a public device that attracts a lot of germs from users with poor hygiene. 

I'm also grateful my phone was with someone I trust.

Some people have to deal with the nightmare situation of losing their phones in public places and never seeing it again.

One piece of advice: Put a label with your name on the back of your cell phones.

I remember hearing that advice at a school office when I heard 2 staff members saying "we tell the kids to put their names on their items, but we don't even put our names on our cell phones"

Being that smartphones are expensive, it's definitely a good idea to place a label with your name on it, so in case you lose it and someone finds it, they'll have an idea of who to return it to. 

Riding the Rail that I Opposed

 Earlier this year, they finally opened part of Oahu's rail system. After decades of delays.

While it's officially called SkyLine, everyone here just calls it TheRail! 

On Thanksgiving morning, I finally got the chance to ride TheRail. 

I felt like a tourist. Even though I lived on this island my entire life!

While I initially opposed the building of TheRail, I ended up riding it. Yeah, I know, it sounds hypocritical.  I know I'm not the only one. 

Here's a blog post from 2004 opposing the building of TheRail 

(https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2004/03/my-1st-hawaii-reporter-editorial-you.html)

Part of why I opposed the building of the rail was the use of eminent domain to confiscate property to make way for the rail.

I posed a question about it to the local papers back in 2006

Who will be forced to move for rail?

With all the talk about light rail, there is one question that needs to be answered: Who's going to be forced out of the way to make room for light rail infrastructure?

Pablo Wegesend
Honolulu

 

I also addressed such concerns in 2008

https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2008/06/light-rail-and-property-confiscation.html

Property issue should have been addressed


Last Sunday's article on the possibility of people's property being confiscated to make room for the rail project addressed an issue that should have been addressed long before the City Council voted to approve rail.

I have previously written letters, as have others, warning about the possibility of people being forced off their land to make room for the light rail. I also wrote letters to the mayor and my City Council representative on this issue.

However, we have been ignored by nearly everyone.

I'm not against the idea of a rail system. I am against the idea of people's property being confiscated to make way for light rail (or any other project), and it's a shame very few have addressed this issue.

Pablo Wegesend

Honolulu

Guess what?

The issue came up again earlier this year and the city & county government is expanding the rail system into Kalihi, and now the government is threatening to confiscate land without consent to make way for the rail

from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser 11/17/2023 article (at https://archive.is/LcF8p )

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s board of directors Thursday approved filing an eminent domain against one family’s industrially zoned property in Kalihi.

The rail agency’s planned condemnation of property at 1829 Dillingham Blvd. also will force a nearly 60-year-old business to relocate.

and

In that year, HART said it presented an acquisition offer to the property’s named owner — Jennine Hatsue Takara — for the parcel’s full acquisition.

That offer, however, was rejected.

Over the years, the agency said it attempted several times to negotiate terms with the owner toward the property’s acquisition but to no avail.

By May, HART sent a notice to the City Council regarding its intentions to formally condemn the Takara family’s Dillingham Boulevard property, despite its owners’ objections.

In other words "take my offer or else" 

It's the Suge Knight way of doing business. No it's worse than that, because the government has more enforcers with more weapons than Suge Knight! 

My Friend Stuart Hayashi wrote a letter to the newspaper earlier this month 

HART’s Eminent Domain Is Brutal Use of Authority

The front-page story, “HART Board Approves Eminent Domain Filing for Kalihi Property” (Star-Advertiser, Nov. 17), shows HART has no heart.

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) invoked eminent domain to dispossess the Takara family of land on which their family business has stood for 59 years. Rationalizations for eminent domain always mention payment to the victims. That downplays the real issue: freedom and consent versus coercion. Eminent domain is ultimately backed by armed force. Enforcing it in Los Angeles in 1959 had armed officers literally drag a widow, Aurora Arechiga, from her home.

People assume cities need eminent domain. In January, I emailed development officials of Carson City, Nev., about this. They informed me that although the city can enact it, at the time they knew of no instance of Carson City actually exercising eminent domain in its history.

During these holidays, ponder whether slogans about “the greater good” are justification enough, and if passively condoning eminent domain’s brutality is what we truly want.

Stuart K. Hayashi

Stuart Hayashi expands on this more in his blog post "Eminent Domain is Inhumane" at                                                             

https://stu-topia.blogspot.com/2023/11/eminent-domain-is-inhumane.html 

A brief reflection on old blog posts

It seems like an eternity since I posted the blog post commemorating the 2-decade anniversary of this blog!

https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2023/10/2-decades-of-blogging-1-decade-on.html

Being that it's been a month since I last posted, it kinda give a vibe that the anniversary post was going to be my last one. Luckily, it's not! 

Recently, I did look over some of the old blog posts. 

Some of them I read now and I ask myself "did I really need to express those thoughts so aggressively?"

Some of them mentioned public figures that were well-known then, but have since been forgotten by the general public (ie John Kerry, Howard Dean, Mike Huckabee,  Bill O'Reilly, Jeremiah Wright, etc)

While some issues mentioned back then are now in the rear-view mirror for most Americans (ie the US-Iraq war), some of the issues are still major topics of the day (ie Israel-Palestine conflict)

The great thing about being in the blogging world for 2 decades is seeing the evolution of my thoughts. Some of my perspectives and priorities changed over the years. 

Anyways, I'll be blogging until I can't do it anymore!