virtual vacation

hopefully, the weather cooperates and we are at the beach this morning since the forecast looks rainy for the rest of the week. somewhere on the other side of the island, roxanne & her dog lexi are filming their morning stroll and sharing the beauty of hawaii & a few deep thoughts with the rest of the world. yep, the award winning beach walks with rox vlog is definitely a pleasant way to start the day . . . especially if you are far from the islands.

and, if you want to send some instant aloha spirit to homesick kama'aina or dreamy wanderers across the world, lovena from east coast tropics recently buzzed me about her new site hawaii e-cards stocked with local kine photographs that she has snapped around the islands.

kokua festival 2007

maybe one year i will be home for the kokua festival but it looks like it is not meant to be in 2007. if your calendar is open at the end of april, celebrate earth day weekend with jack johnson & pearl jam frontman & part-time hawaii resident eddie vedder (fyi - if you have the sundance channel do check out the iconoclasts episode with ev & laird hamilton if you have a chance). all proceeds benefit jack's kokua hawaii foundation which educates island keiki on the importance of being green.

the official on sale date is next week but here's a little info on a few hush hush pre-sales:

• sat, feb 10th - remaining tix from the kokua members pre-sale (which has already ended) go on sale at jack johnson's website.

• thu, feb 15th - myspace members who made friends with the kokua festival await instructions to access their own not so secret sale. how very mission: impossible.

• sat, feb 17th - official ticketmaster sale kicks off at 9am hst and the poor souls who didn't score pre-sale tickets hope for the best.

there is a 4 ticket limit which will hopefully keep the ticket supply in the hands of the fans (and away from the profiteers selling tickets for obscene amounts on ebay & craigslist). more details can be found here.

get lost

in honor of lost going back on the air tonight, i thought other fans of the show may want to check out the lost virtual tour which maps out all the filming locations around oahu. we always have fun trying to identify the spots used whenever the production goes on location and the website is a nice resource to hit when you're stumped (ex: kate's iowa car chase in "born to run" was really shot at pearlridge).

kudos to the location scouts & production designer for being so imaginative & resourceful when the script calls for them to find and then transform someplace we all know into one of the many lost worlds featured on the show.

and if you really want to dig into the many layers of the show be sure to click over to the transmission, hawaii's very own lost podcast.

pearl jam + hawaii '78

i finally talked to my friend the other day after playing phone tag since the holidays and learned that she scored free tickets to the big U2/pearl jam show at the stadium last month. she raved about pearl jam's cover of the makaha sons' classic "hawaii '78" so i went online to have a listen.

of course, someone posted video from the blaisdell show on youtube but if you want a copy of the song hit up pearl jam's website for the official bootleg (which is recorded straight from the board).

no. 1 - goodsearch

here's a way to be an online philanthropist without tapping into your bank account. one of the neatest search engines to pop up is goodsearch (powered by yahoo!) which donates 50% of their ad revenue to charity (about a penny per search). it may not sound like much but over time it does add up.

it's pretty easy to use. just go to their homepage, select a charity, and then goodsearch away. there are a number of hawaii organizations listed or, if you can't find your favorite, submit them for approval. in the name of research, you can even take a peek at the number of clicks and the amount raised for a specific charity. and to make life a bit easier, download goodsearch to your toolbar so it is always ready for your next search.