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5 weeks and counting...no container yet. They keep saying one more week to 10 days...
We're okay since house here mostly furnished, but wanna get job hunting and need my computer to get my resume stuff, etc...also Tony's tools on the container and he can't start work until they arrive, so he's got a worried look in his eye. (To which I responded by making him come with me to the other side of the island and snorkel and play in front of the Mauna Kea resort...it helped lift him outta the blues I saw drifting in.)
Dealing with medical, etc for my mom continues to be an unpleasant and tedious experience, although I will say that Senior Services has helped her immensly and already set her up with someone to come out and assist her 3 x a week...gave her a list of assistance devices she could choose from like grab bars and many other aids for disabled people...they are amazing and in Pahoa. They will pick her up and take her to enjoy the afternoons over in Nanawale with other seniors...she crafts and paints and sews, etc. The Pahoa Bay Clinic is a nightmare. We have been there 3 times and had to wait 3 hours from start to finish each time. When her new Medicaid info comes through we will find a doctor in Hilo for her. At the clinic you get a different doctor each time...way too tough when someone like my mom has so many different health issues.
Carrie
"To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater." Bono
http://www.hellophoenix.com/art/dreamhawaii.Cfm
Edited by - Carolann R on 11/01/2006 00:23:49
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I thought I'd bring this thread forward......
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
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Thanks Rob,
I think a lot of us wanna be, gonna be, need to be, folks needed this. That's way I want to bump it up again..
Take care,
dave
Blessings,
dave
"It doesn't mean that much to me.. to mean that much to you." Neil Young
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This thread is kind of the karmic balance to the employment discrimination thread.
Does anyone have any more recent stories to share? Maybe an update from some of the folks who were clearing their land a few months ago?
I'm still looking for land, so I'll post on the thread in a year or so.
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I fell in aloha with Hawaii in the 70's making a trip every year,
doing the triangle --Alaska,Hawaii,California--
Would lay in bed during our cold Alaska nights feeling the Hawaiian sun
or the Hilo rains on my face. Dreaming of my next trip! My dreams
had me living "happy ever after in my little grass shack"
But life has a mind of it's own .
It took until 2006 to finally buy our dream (our lot) and the next 5 winters
building "the little grass shack"
My husband and best friend would build in stages or until our funds
ran out,first year clearing ,next sewer ,then the house pad.
Every project a new adventure we have found some true local friends
men and woman who helped back breaking work when the load was too great!
Our goals and dreams are with-in our grasp.
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Very well, where do we begin?
Our dream of moving to Puna started out as a retirement plan about two years ago. It started on a dreary Alaskan day. While I loved living in Alaska, 15 years of shoveling snow, aging joints, and horrific medical "care" made it clear it wasn't a place that we could comfortably grow old in. During a trip to Oahu I was amazed at the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables that were available- and how cheap they were. We had tried growing things in Alaska for a few years without any success. You can harvest natural things there (salmon, deer, blueberries) but it's not like you can start growing fruits and vegetables. I liked the climate and life that was everywhere on Oahu... but I didn't like Oahu.
We researched other places to go: Florida, Belize, the Virgin Islands, but each had their drawbacks. One of the requirements was that our retirement place must be able to grow some of our own food and that our parrots could live outside in huge aviaries. We started researching the other Hawaiian islands and in comparison with our budget we decided to try out the Big Island. Our first trip we went to Kona. Yuck. As our plane was descending I figured that the view out of my window must have been pretty similar to the view Neil Armstrong had. Fortunately we had a rental car and explored the whole island. We knew our new home was going to be on the East side of the island.
We quickly planned another trip and stayed at a cheap hotel in Hilo. From there we had a good base to explore the Puna and Hilo districts. And we did. The real estate prices had just about bottomed out and our plan was to buy a vacant lot that we could return to every 6-12 months and camp on it. Then in about 13 years when we could afford it, we would either build on it or sell it. We put in an offer on a nice square 3 acre lot. It had some clearing, a concrete pad, a cesspool and a catchment system- someone's dream of building on it had started but never finished. Our offer was accepted. We were happy. We returned to it a few months later and we made some improvements that would make it an ideal and civilized camping spot. We built a bathroom over the existing cesspool and had a cargo shipping container delivered so we could keep our supplies secure and dry. I also installed a solar powered game camera that snapped a photo ever few hours and sent it to me as a text message. While we longed to return to the island we got daily views from the property to gaze upon it. We knew when it was rainy, sunny, cloudy, foggy. It was a powerful motivator getting those images every day.
Then one day something happened. My company advertised for a transfer to the Big Island. It was something that only happened every 10 years or so, so I wasn't expecting it. After a brief discussion with the family (they said "DO IT!") and a few phone calls later the transfer was mine. To their office in Kona. So close. But yet so far. A little negotiation later and they agreed to let me work out of Hilo. They wanted me on island in three weeks. Not enough time to get an Alaskan house ready for sale, etc but a little more negotiation and I was able to get a few months out of them. We worked our asses off, got the house on the market, sold, gave away, or dumped most of our belongings, got our pets started through the importation process, and bought one way tickets to our new lives. We closed on our house in Alaska and sold our second car there the day before we left. Everything was falling into place. 13 years early.
We arrived on the island with 7 parrots and a teenager and only a 2 day cottage rental and not much of a plan. Fortunately we had a crude but liveable situation on our vacant lot so we weren't in a panic. Oddly enough on the 2nd day somebody on Craigslist responded to my wife's post "looking for parrot friendly rental" and amazingly, we had a real place to live. It was small but comfortable. The real estate market was still down- building on our lot would have been more expensive than buying an existing home on another lot so we spent a lot of time with a realtor and less than 3 months later we were living in our new home in paradise.
Coming from Alaska, we didn't have all the sticker shock that people seem to talk about. Everything here is cheaper than what we were accustomed to. Even our electricity bill is about 1/3 of what it was. Our only higher expense is gasoline. The per gallon rate is actually less here but our longest road in Alaska was 47 miles long- there was no place to drive to. Oh wait... TAXES. We went from the least taxed state to one of the highest taxed state so that part sucked, but then again we had planned for that so it was expected. On the other hand we don't have to buy heating fuel at nearly $5/gallon either so it's a wash. The schools here are inferior, but not as bad as we were told. They are graduating our daughter a year early, so she will get a head start on college. We're coming up on our first year anniversary of living here full time. There are a few people we miss from our old lives, but we don't miss our old lives. It was a huge stress to move here, but living here is not a huge stress. This is the first winter ever where I didn't have to worry about lugging home a 5 gallon container of heating fuel because I can't afford to get the big tank filled for $1200.00, or wondering if the oil might run out during the night and our pipes freeze or worse yet get too cold for the parrots. And I get to spend my time living Aloha instead of shoveling snow.
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Awesome story, terracore. One day I'll have to share mine, but it's not quite as dramatic. Especially interesting how you had to put your life in overdrive and got here 13 years early. That has always been my theory: that if we are pressed to do something, it's amazing how fast things can change. The solar game camera thing is also clever. How reliable are they? So it's basically a solar panel connected to a digital camera connected to a cell phone?
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quote:
Originally posted by Hunt Stoddard
Awesome story, terracore. One day I'll have to share mine, but it's not quite as dramatic. Especially interesting how you had to put your life in overdrive and got here 13 years early. That has always been my theory: that if we are pressed to do something, it's amazing how fast things can change. The solar game camera thing is also clever. How reliable are they? So it's basically a solar panel connected to a digital camera connected to a cell phone?
This is the product that we bought: http://oldboysoutdoors.com/
Ours was an earlier (inferior) model but the basic concept is the same. As far as reliability goes, it worked every day that it needed to. We did stop getting pictures for a few weeks and just when we gave up hope we started getting the pix again. Later on when I reviewed the images on the camera the pics were all there so I am left to wonder if it was an AT&T issue.
Our camera used an AT&T "Go Phone" SIM card so there was no monthly bill. We pre-paid the text messages at $4.99 a month so it was affordable to operate. The solar panel (a $49.99 accessory item) contains a fancy rechargable battery so it actually powered the unit day and night. And the camera had it's own batteries should the sunlight be insufficient- though the onboard batteries always reported full charge (the pictures it sends also reports the battery level).
Forgot to mention- they have a dealer in Hilo. Or at least they did.
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Terracore, loved your post. [8D]
The camera is intriguing to me also. You mentioned there was a dealer in Hilo. I went to the website link you included and there is a dealer in Volcano.
FB ENGINEERING LLC, VOLCANO, HI (808) 430-4915
He who hoots with owls at night cannot soar with the eagles in the morning.
He who hoots with owls at night cannot soar with the eagles in the morning.
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We are planning to move to Puna this year. Iam originally from Hawaii, my wife is not. I am so glad to hear the positive attitudes of people on this post. I know Hawaii has its share of issues in regards to prejudice attitudes toward whites. For whatever past history has done to nurture these attitudes, it is just that history, and we cannot go backwards we can only move forward to make a better society. For the Pessimist out there who bash puna, and Hawaii. I have lived as a Asian on the mainland in numerous states, and it has not always been exactly a bowl of cherrys all the time for me either.
I have learned to never broad rush a whole race of people because of one individuals ignorants. No matter where you go in this world you will always fine the good, and the bad. Aloha
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