After When Time Ran Out…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Time_Ran_Out
Came out in 1980 and dazzled us with visions of a tower cantilevered over Halemaumau from which scientists could do fantastical research, and ultimately incur the wrath of god, or some such (and got the island, and more specifically the Kona Surf destroyed), having what was at the time the ‘new’ observatory come with an observation tower was like another mythical dream come true. I had been working at HVO for four or five years already when that tower was built. Until then HVO was in a much smaller building, which afterwords was remodeled into what was later named the Jaggar Museum. When we moved into the new building that tower was an attraction to everyone. And when we got it it was just an empty room. The internet had yet to come up the mountain, and everyone’s offices were an isolated work station of sorts, without all the interactivity we have today. Sheesh, when ethernet was first adopted it was installed with wires running along the outside of walls.. there was no provision to wire the offices together.
So, that tower had our attention, but what to do with it? It was decided to make it a map room of sorts, big tables with maps under plexiglass so an observer could look out over the landscape and have topo maps readily available to further quantify what we looked at. It was a cool plan, and I was contracted to do the construction. Other instrumentation was all wire up there. I think Bob K put a multi channel develocorder up there for a while. And it was cool when we’d have an eruption down at Puu Oo, which we could see from there and watch the seismic data steaming in in 'real time.'
But that tower got way too much sun. And anything left up there for a while faded.. was bleached out, regardless. We tried different shade films over the glass, but it was impractical to think we could do anything with that space, other than run up there to look for any new changes in the volcano. Although it was a great place to have small parties. When George Ulrich retired we had a great beer tasting party up there. That was before we had boutique/designer beers all over the place. Then I went down to Safeway (it was on Kilauea Ave - where Ben Franklin is now - back then) and just bought a six pack of every kind of beer they had. We had a blind tasting, and I think Samual Adams won.. lol!
Anyways, yeah, the tower, the whole building, which was dedicated to the memory of Reggie Okamura, was a good part of my life. And although being crammed into the older observatory, where the library was the gathering place, and only a few had defined enclosed offices, was as if to have been a part of history, a part of that earlier real physical geologic pursuit of knowledge, the newer observatory, which herald in the digital age, was cool too. I’ll miss it, and all that happened there..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Time_Ran_Out
Came out in 1980 and dazzled us with visions of a tower cantilevered over Halemaumau from which scientists could do fantastical research, and ultimately incur the wrath of god, or some such (and got the island, and more specifically the Kona Surf destroyed), having what was at the time the ‘new’ observatory come with an observation tower was like another mythical dream come true. I had been working at HVO for four or five years already when that tower was built. Until then HVO was in a much smaller building, which afterwords was remodeled into what was later named the Jaggar Museum. When we moved into the new building that tower was an attraction to everyone. And when we got it it was just an empty room. The internet had yet to come up the mountain, and everyone’s offices were an isolated work station of sorts, without all the interactivity we have today. Sheesh, when ethernet was first adopted it was installed with wires running along the outside of walls.. there was no provision to wire the offices together.
So, that tower had our attention, but what to do with it? It was decided to make it a map room of sorts, big tables with maps under plexiglass so an observer could look out over the landscape and have topo maps readily available to further quantify what we looked at. It was a cool plan, and I was contracted to do the construction. Other instrumentation was all wire up there. I think Bob K put a multi channel develocorder up there for a while. And it was cool when we’d have an eruption down at Puu Oo, which we could see from there and watch the seismic data steaming in in 'real time.'
But that tower got way too much sun. And anything left up there for a while faded.. was bleached out, regardless. We tried different shade films over the glass, but it was impractical to think we could do anything with that space, other than run up there to look for any new changes in the volcano. Although it was a great place to have small parties. When George Ulrich retired we had a great beer tasting party up there. That was before we had boutique/designer beers all over the place. Then I went down to Safeway (it was on Kilauea Ave - where Ben Franklin is now - back then) and just bought a six pack of every kind of beer they had. We had a blind tasting, and I think Samual Adams won.. lol!
Anyways, yeah, the tower, the whole building, which was dedicated to the memory of Reggie Okamura, was a good part of my life. And although being crammed into the older observatory, where the library was the gathering place, and only a few had defined enclosed offices, was as if to have been a part of history, a part of that earlier real physical geologic pursuit of knowledge, the newer observatory, which herald in the digital age, was cool too. I’ll miss it, and all that happened there..