Getting married in Hilo, Hawaii? Need professional pics?

Are you getting married outdoors on the Big Island of Hawaii? Do you need fun and creative outdoor engagement/wedding pictures? If so, call me. I'm a professional photojournalist at your service! Reasonable rates for two hour or more sessions. Capture your wedding the way it was meant to be remembered! For more information on my services, contact me at writeaway777@hawaii.rr.com
If you would like to view more photos, please press the "play" button on the Wedding Sampler card below!
I can also take outdoor portraits of any kind too!

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Visting a Friend/Family Living in Hawaii: Here's What You NEED to know!

There is a sad reality that the Aloha Spirit can be stressed to its breaking point., especially for those living in Hawaii. There are times when the phone starts ringing off the hook by people who want to come and visit the islands (usually in the spring). Here are my Top Ten suggestions (and the stuff your hosts won't tell you) to make a visit palatable to your friend or relative who resides in paradise and wants to keep it that way.
1. Plan ahead: Everyone wants to visit someone who lives on the island. It's cheaper and oftentimes more fun, but it can often feel like a revolving door to your hosts, especially in the summer months. Be aware of this and ask your potential hosts the right questions. Find out if their schedule is busy and plan accordingly. You might have to put off your trip for a year or two, but that's the breaks.
2. Don't come with unreal expectations: Don't be a negative guest with great expectations. Don't expect that because you dropped a wad on airline tickets that you have a right to be served or catered too. Demanding guests can suck the life out of their hosts. Be polite. Be patient. Be kind. Be courteous. Think ahead. Be aware of your surroundings and don't put your hosts in uncomfortable situations. In fact, put your hosts first and you will benefit with many happy returns!
3. Don't bring the kids: If you hosts don't have little kids, chances are they're not too excited about having them in their home for days on end. It might be better to plan a single person/couple trip. Leave the kids home with grandma and come to the islands to unwind.
4. Rent a car: If you are planning on visiting the island for more than two days, rent a car and take yourself places. Look online to see what's available on the island you are visiting and keep yourself busy. Don't rely on your hosts to tour you around every day. They have a life and need to live it. I can't tell you how many residents put in a full day extending their hospitality to guests, then secretly staying up an extra three or four hours after they go to bed to catch up on their job.
5. Offer to help around the house: Please don't treat your hosts like your personal maids. Don't expect them to cook and clean for you every day. Offer to help out in the kitchen. Do the dishes. Empty the dishwasher. Make your bed. Straighten/clean the bathroom/bedroom before you leave. If you have time (depending on your flight), wash the sheets and towels. Get the cleaning supplies/vacuum out and spruce everything up!
6. Fix something around the house: Surprise your hosts and spend a half day of your trip (choose the "rainy" day) to help with a honey-do list. Let them know you want to do this beforehand so they can make a list. This will also help them look forward to your visit!
7. Be appreciative: Thank your hosts often. Use your words and verbally appreciate all they do for you, because it often comes at great sacrifice to them. More than likely they are happy to be with you, but it's nice to hear it!
8. Treat your hosts out once and awhile: Offer to take your hosts to breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It doesn't have to be every day, but a few times during the course of your stay won't hurt. Give them a break every once in awhile! It's difficult to watch a guest horde their monies, only to have them go to the store and spend a wad on souvenirs. Strike a balance. Be generous during your stay. One of my visiting friends said "It's the least we can do, and we always do the least we can do!"
9. Leave a monetary gift: Write a thank you note and include some money in the card as your return gift of aloha. Although most hosts don't expect or count on it, this is a nice gesture, as the cost of living in Hawaii is astronomical and adding extra people into the household can double, even triple the electric, food, and propane bills. I suggest you give anywhere between $20 to $50 a day, depending on how much you can afford.
10. Wait until you're invited back: Depending on your relationship with the hosts, don't assume that you can make yearly or bi-yearly plans to visit your friends/relatives in Hawaii. Wait until they invite you back. If you follow the first nine tips on this list you will be considered a friend from HEAVEN and, more than likely, that will probably going to be a guarantee you will be asked back. On the other hand, it's awkward for a guest to have a potential guest bugging them for a return trip, especially if the first visit didn't go very well. It happens!

All that Twitters is glittering gold!

If friendships were money I'd been one rich wahine! Seriously, one of the bright treasures of Twitter is meeting my tweeps from time to time. This occurred yesterday when I met @damontucker (the founder/moderator of http://fbiblogs.com and @lazarus2000 (launching http://hawaiicentered.com later this summer). The crowning jewel of social media is finding and connecting with people you might not otherwise meet. It's also about collaboration, which is always fun to do over food rich in calories!

I'll probably look back in 10 years and find that my tweeples had a profoundly enriching effect on my life. Besides Damon & Lazarus (Ed), I can honestly say @AndyBumatai @davelawrence @tracitoguchi @JustBagHI @zensunni @sshawnn @easthawaiiarts @thebookangel and a few others I'm remiss to mention have changed my life for the good.
And, who knows, we may sit around the table eating luau one day in the future and laugh at how we made each other millionaires! Truthfully, I feel pretty rich already and I want to meet more tweeps -- as long as there's food! Cha-ching!

VOG 100, Karen 0

It's all relative. I mean, if you're gonna live on an island with a very active volcano, you're going to have to pay the price. Sometimes. It's kind of like having that auntie come to your home as a child. You know, the one who would head straight for you and pinch your cheeks. It's annoying, but it's inevitable. That's exactly what the Vog (Volcanic Fog) can be like. The lack of tradewinds invited the unwanted sulfur-laden haze, or laze, or pollution, whatever you want to call it, to become trapped and accumulate over East Hawaii, proving an overload on my sulfur allergy. I was fighting it to the point where it not only pinched me in the cheeks, but it spanked me a good one! My eyelids were nearly swollen shut, my lungs became so filled with mucus that I nearly stopped breathing (it was actually the first incident in my life where I went to inhale and NO air went into my body!), my nose was running like a fully turned on faucet, I began coughing uncontrollably, and my body began to fever. Did I mention I passed out? As if life isn't stressful enough, this was definitely not an opportune time, as my in-laws were only days away from arriving to attend my son's high school graduation. That meant the house needed to be company cleaned (sans my nornal ainokea attitude towards chores in general).
Despite a bleak outlook on any weather changes, the trades mercifully started to come back on Saturday and the air was relatively clear by today. That offered a bit of relief to my ultra-inflammed body parts. The wanted in-laws arrived safely, to a home that is relatively clean. All is now cheeky. Well, my bum still hurts. If that's the price I have to pay, I'll choose East Hawaii any day!