WestZero (Car Racing Project Update)

The above are the photos taken and posted by Endless Garage. These are a few photos that I took. The amount of work being done on my car is intense. I think my car has broken the priceless barrier making now even more impractical for me to ever sell it. It's going to be mine forever.

Join a live Webcast!

You're invited to join a live Webcast now: "www.ricknakama.com"



PC: http://www.livecast.com/live?ricknakama



Mobile phone: http://www.livecast.com/asx.aspx?523487

I have noticed the other live video streaming application I was trying on my phone has stopped working. See the Qik Video post below. I can't even get to their website qik.com anymore. I'm just playing around testing this one now. Too bad it doesn't seem to let me embed my live video pages. This is the only way I've been able to figure out how to get it to display here (kind of) live.

Join a live Webcast!

You're invited to join a live Webcast now: "www.ricknakama.com"

PC: http://www.livecast.com/live?ricknakama

Mobile phone: http://www.livecast.com/asx.aspx?523487

Join a live Webcast!

You're invited to join a live Webcast now: "www.ricknakama.com"

PC: http://www.livecast.com/live?ricknakama

Mobile phone: http://www.livecast.com/asx.aspx?523483

Mana Bu's

We tried out a new musubi (Japanese Rice Ball) shop that opened up on King Street. It's called Mana Bu's <-click for Google links. They specialize in creating hand made musubi and always inform you of the origin of each ingredient. It's not so specific as to the exact location of the ingredient, but it gives the distributor or brand of the ingredients. If you were really particular I guess you could research the rest of the origin from there. We went on a Sunday at about 1130am. As you can see by their business hours sign they are only open in the mornings and until they run out of food. When we got there most of the items were sold out. I did get a good selection that I wanted to try. I had a 10 grain rice musubi with shiso, a veggie curry pilaf and a 10 grain rice hijiki (seaweed) musubi with some kimpira gobo on the side. Kelli had the brown rice takuan, 10 grains spicy ahi and a teri SPAM musubi. Each item that we saw ran between about $1.20 to $2.00 for the food items. It was very attractively displayed; even though the shelves were almost bare it still looked irresistibly delicious. I could hardly resist eating them before arranging them for this photo! We'll have to go back again some day, a lot earlier...

The W Night Lounge on Friday.

Friday night... we were invited to join in on a friend's cousin's birthday party at the W. Kind of just to keep Kelli's friend from being lonely. So we went. It also kind of marked the night just 4 years and 1 day prior that Kelli and I actually met there at the W. So it was kind of convenient for us to celebrate. There wasn't any ridiculously long line to deal with even when we arrived at the door close to midnight. Thank goodness for that because 4 years ago, anytime after 11pm you would be spending the majority of the night standing in the line to be decoration along the wall. Thanks Tara for getting us out of the house and into the club for a night of celebration. Here's a few pictures that are publicly postable from that night. I should say barely... =)

Splendor of China Exhibition

I went to the Splendor of China held at the Blaisedell Center during on 10/4. I wanted to watch the performance of this famous magician that changes his face masks multiple times, so fast that you can't figure out how he's doing it. I took some video, but it's kind of small so you can't see the mask changing. Oh well.

Qik Streaming Mobile Videos

This is really neat. I can stream video live from my phone and it automatically publishes it on the web. www.qik.com. If you have a Java enabled phone try it out!

Got my new phone... Finally! Nokia N82.

After over a year of researching and holding out on spending money on another "powerful mobile phone", I finally broke down and ordered it a few weeks ago. I purchased my Nokia N82 in Black from Dell.com for an amazing price of $461 shipped to Honolulu. The phone is occasionally available locally in stores that carry unlocked phones, but the prices are outrageous! They advertise the prices from about $580-$650 and they do not come with any warranties! My Samsung SGH x820 has been a good phone for the past 2 years, but the "0" button finally went nuts. It wouldn't register when I pushed the "0". Anyway, my friend's classic Motorola Razor also "broke" a few weeks ago and he's been asking about phones. I recommended the Nokia N82 because I've done so much research on phones and this phone in particular that I knew it was the one I would buy. He shopped around and discovered it available at Dell.com for the great price. We ordered 2 at the same time. I couldn't resist. Now the price is $500! :) I'm pleased with the phone. The features and reviews are all over the web ->here<- so I won't do a full detailed review. I will occasionally post something neat or maybe something I don't like if I find something... Mostly will be the great photos this PHONE can capture. This is a photo I took without flash, auto setting, in medium resolution in the darkness of the night. Looks pretty good to me.

1st Hawaii Red Mango Yogurt Grand Opening in Waikiki!

Last week Saturday was the official grand opening of the 1st Red Mango store in Hawaii. It opened at 227 Lewers Street, across the new "Waikiki Beachwalk" area. The promotion was 100 free t-shirts to the 1st 100 and a free small yogurt. Of course we were in the line just before 12 Noon and there were only about 20 people ahead of us. After we got in the line it started to get long. I had the Green Tea yogurt with blueberries. I wanted to add chocolate chips also, but it was a limit of 1 topping during this promotion. Kelli got the plain yogurt with her favorite fruity pebbles. She always gets fruity pebbles when we go to Yogurtland in Manoa. (And I always get blueberries.) The store is really small and a little awkard because it seems you are supposed to pay then get your yogurt, but I think they want you to get your yogurt 1st then pay. (not during the free promotion.) We went an evening before the grand opening and stood at the register to pay, but he wanted our topping selections at that time although we weren't able to look at the toppings yet. That's why I say it's awkward. Their system prints the label for the yogurt cup with your name and the toppings on it. So you should be ordering and paying 1st, but I guess you are supposed to know all the toppings. It's not like going to an ice cream shop and looking at the flavors then deciding. It's decide then see. Anyway, we always get the same toppings so it's fine with us. Below is the shirt I got. "Team Red Mango". There were some other designs, but this is the one I got. I don't have a blog post for Yogurtland because they don't allow photography at the store. :( Anyway, Yogurtland is Kelli's favorite place to go practically everyday possible.

Kitchen Update

Current Photo... :] Finally, an update to my blog. It's been a while. I just really haven't been able to sit down and post anything to my blog. Lots of it had to do with the big mess of construction junk taking up most of the place. Anyway, it's not complete, but at least it's a fully operational kitchen. We're still waiting on countertops and a few cabinet pieces, but other than that it works as well as the Death Star did for Vader... Mid-Demolition (Almost 2 years ago...) :|

Homemade Pizza

A few weeks ago I made a pizza for the first time. It came out pretty good. I realized that I will need one of those things to take the pizza that is raw from the preparation area to the oven. That is something that is not needed when you are working with a frozen pizza dough. Where can I find one of those? We've looked at the kitchen stores in the malls and have not found one yet.

Home Made White Bread Bake...

I've been missing from the blogging world for about a month. Things were getting a bit hectic and I have not been having time to blog. :( I've been wanting to bake some bread at home for a few months now. My kitchen is still not completely finished with the renovations, but at least I have installed my range/oven and have some plywood counter tops. Here is my 1st loaf of "Basic White Bread". I kind of used the recipe from the KitchenAid Mixer book with a bit of variation. Eventually after practicing, I hope to finalize my favorite recipe and use it from then. Oh, I forgot to mention that I found a temporary hire job as a "Baker Assitant" for a Japanese bakery. The ad looked very tempting requiring no experience and only 1030pm-5am for $16/hour. I figured why not get paid to learn?? So that's what I've been up to about 3 nights a week. It's at Kimuraya, on Koko Head Ave., for those of you familiar with Honolulu. By the way, they are planning to close down February 15th or so that's why they have the temporary hire baker assistant. That's sad news because I remeber this bakery being there since I was a child. Here is my 1st loaf of white bread. It smells so good I just want to eat it! At the same time it looks so good I don't want to cut it! What will I do? I'll let you know how it tastes and what I do with it... Ok I couldn't resist so I sliced off a piece. Tastes like bread. The crust is very tasty and soft. I think I will increase the sugar and milk quantities in my next dough and see how that goes.