Call me Uncle Silas (at least from Feb. 20 - Mar. 14)

Because that's the slave-owning, gun-toting character I'll be playing in APAC's production of Big River, the music-by-Roger-Miller musical based on Huckleberry Finn (not to be confused with the Johnny Cash/Grateful Dead song of the same name). February 20 - March 14, 2009 at the Aloha Theatre in Kainaliu. So I got that goin' for me!

Also, I tried out my new Swissgear Hiking Poles purchased for about 7 bucks each from Amazon ($11 including shipping). As an old person/hiker I've been eying the poles at Sports Authority, but at $79 a pair, I figured my knees would just have to do their best for a while. But the $7 deal was impossible to pass up, so I bought two. Amazon sent them separately, each in a box roughly 3' x 2' x 6". One of those boxes could have held about 20 poles, if not more, but I suppose they have their reasons. Using them was awkward at first, but I soon got the hang of them, although the Kaloko-Honokohau hike has almost no uphill or downhill, which is where they're supposedly the most valuable. My knees are thanking me already, in their own special way.

Here's a Kona sunset, over our friendly, placid Kona sea;

"Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry, cry, cry
And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky.
And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River.
Then I'm gonna sit right here until I die."