Category Archives: New York City

Geothermal, Iceland, New York City, Travel

Enroute to Iceland, With a Stop in New York

August 1, 2011 Richard Ha 1 Comment

Roald Marth (CEO of Ku‘oko‘a) and I just flew from Honolulu…

…to Los Angeles, and then got a connection to JFK, where we laid over for twelve hours. This gave us the opportunity to meet up with TJ Glauthier in New York City. TJ is on the Ku‘oko‘a Board of Directors, and at one time he was second in command at the U.S. Department of Energy.

He’s great, and it’s good that the timing worked to see him there.

At JFK:

We’re traveling light, for maximum flexibility. Instead of catching a limo into the city, we decided to explore and so we went by train. We took the Long Island Railway to Jamaica, Queens, and then to Penn Station in Manhattan.

This is when we were leaving Penn Station.

We walked down and checked in at the Hilton, where we showered and then did a circle tour of Manhattan Island by boat. We passed the exact spot that Captain Sullenberger landed US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River.

Then we caught a cab to meet TJ at the Algonquin Hotel. This next picture, left to right, is me, Ro and TJ.

photo Wikipedia

He told us about the rich history of the writers who used to meet there regularly in the heyday of print media. There is a mural on the wall of the famous people who hung out there. We even saw the Algonquin cat, who was stretching and lounging right next to TJ’s chair.

More about the cat Matilda.

Then it was back to the hotel, and then we caught a cab back to JFK and on to a Delta flight to Iceland.

It was nearly 17 hours in the air. Piece of cake!

Ro and I thought: We’ve got financing team people on the West Coast, we have a team on the East Coast and a team in Hawai‘i. We’re thinking about Europe as well as Asia. And we’re getting on a plane to Iceland.

It’s good to have clear goals.

(to be continued)

Eating Locally, Food Security, Music, New York City, Sustainability

Farm Aid

September 10, 2007 Leslie Lang

Last night’s Farm Aid concert took place in New York City.

Remember Farm Aid? The first annual Farm Aid concert, organized by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp, was in 1985. Since then, the musician Dave Matthews has also joined the board. The nonprofit organization (mission: to keep family farmers on their land) has raised more than $30 million to “promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture.”

I enjoyed this New York Times article for quotes like this one, from Willie Nelson.

For Mr. Nelson, Farm Aid’s ideals are a reminder of his childhood in Abbott, Tex. “We had organic food and didn’t know it for a long time,” he said. “It tasted great, and we only know that we grew it out in the back garden, and we had a lot of great potatoes and tomatoes and all our own vegetables. Then I left home to go on the road and I couldn’t find that food any more.”

The article goes on to say that there will be no “factory-farmed junk food” sold at the concert. All food offered at the 25,000-capacity venue will be from family farms.

“People have to take over their own food supply,” Mr. Nelson said. “They have to make sure whatever they eat is healthy and do whatever it takes to do that: shopping locally, farming locally, consuming locally.”

And I liked reading this, too, which is something we talk about here a lot:

Why New York? The city brings renewed news media attention to the long-running event, of course. Farm Aid was also invited here, said its executive director, Carolyn Mugar, by an assortment of environmentalists, politicians (including the mayor’s office) and chefs. Over the years Farm Aid has become part of what’s known as the Good Food Movement, alongside organizations working from various angles to roll back industrial farming and promote organic and sustainable food production — and consumption. While the city itself may not be farm country, it’s full of people who eat.

“Farmers are never going to survive if they don’t have as allies the people who want this good food,” Ms. Mugar said. “New York has a huge density of eaters and a density of people who are doing excellent things. There are restaurants, farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture programs, even people who are growing food in the city and teaching people how to grow it.”

The Farm Aid website talks about how to find Good Food, as the organization defines it. Worth checking out.

Food and Drink, New York City, The Good Life, Travel

Exit Interview: New York City

July 5, 2006 Richard Ha 1 Comment

Here are some highlights of our last few days in New York City. It was a great two weeks in shorts.

When we landed at Honolulu International, our first impression was that Hawai’i people walk at half the speed of New Yorkers. In New York everyone seems to be on a mission, as if they’re going to miss the train to somewhere. Where we were, the city was clean and felt safe and the police were visible and personable. The people are fine and I have a favorable impression of New Yorkers. We like New York City very much and are eager to return.

But I like to walk around slowly with my hands in my shorts pockets. It’s hard to do that in New York City.

June_4

We took in four musicals. The Color Purple was very good. Everyone was teary except me. I just had a runny nose.

Chicago was really funny and enjoyable. Rosie O’Donnell, with her partner and some friends, sat five rows in front of us. She seemed very approachable and the people around her in the audience seemed to genuinely like her. She smiled and acknowledged Kapono. We liked her too.

We went to the Saturday evening performance of The Phantom of the Opera and sat in the front mezzanine. Amazing how the smallest sound can be heard so clearly. There are theatres up and down 44th street. We had seen The Phantom at the Blaisdell on O’ahu and so we knew the story. But there is nothing like experiencing it in New York City.

We saw The Producers last. You’d have to be crazy to think up that story line–of making money by financing the show using funds provided by little old ladies, then keeping the difference if the show flops. The expectation is that the worse the show, the more money they can keep. And then having a financial disaster, because the unlikely musical about Adolph Hitler is a big hit. But that’s Mel Brooks for you.

We loved it all. From blocking the whole sidewalk on Broadway waiting for doors to open up for The Color Purple; to going to our seats for The Phantom of the Opera and walking down steps so steep we felt like we were going to fall off the mezzanine; to going to Juniors for cheese cake after the show; to dodging the traffic while crossing in the middle of the block like veteran New Yorkers after The Producers; to sitting on the sidewalk outside of Starbucks watching people go by. It was all lots of fun.

Gelato
We caught a cab to Chelsea Market, the home of The Food Network. We discovered gelato for the first time. Wow. It tastes like good ice cream, only better. Would have blown my diet if I had one. We ordered a sandwich at Ruthy’s Bakery and ate it outside in the hallway watching the people go by. They had the most interesting variety of sandwiches. They all looked tasty.

It will be good to have some of these sandwiches at the Farmers Market gift shop/deli we are planning to build at “The Gears” property, which we own. It consists of 13 acres fronting the highway where the Sugar Mill Road meets Highway 19 in Pepe’ekeo. We will start the permitting process soon.

The best food deal was a $3.50 slice of jalapeno pizza at the Grand Central Station. It had a thin crust with tasty tomato-something sauce with sundried tomatoes and just the right amount of bite and taste from the jalapenos. It would have been perfect with anchovies. We ran down with the crowd and squeezed into the subway shuttle to Times Square and 42nd Street. We poured out into the streets with everyone else but stood behind a post so we could get our bearing without getting swept along out of control.

Empire_state_bldg_hscf_2

We went to the Empire State Building with a friendly cab driver. I asked him why cab drivers blow their horns. He said they can only blow their horn in case of imminent danger. They risk a $350 fine if they sound their horn for any other reason. I guess there must be danger everywhere.

Crazy_kids_6_person_bike_3

How about the weird, six-person bicycle, where the driver is facing the right way and the other five are in a circle facing the center and pedaling like hell? Crazy young people having fun. We were stopped at a traffic light and one flew by with the rest of the cross traffic and a group of young kids on the sidewalks gave them an ovation. We had to grin.

Where do the vendors go with their carts when they’re done for the day? It seems like there is a cart on every corner. The cab driver said there are several warehouses down by the Hudson River that replenish the carts during the evenings. So the vendors push their carts back in the evening and go get it the next morning. That’s a long push. They must make money.

86th_floor_obs_wide_6

After 50 minutes of standing in lines, we finally arrived at the Empire State Building’s 86-floor observation deck for a 360-degree view of the City. Because we had been all over the city, we were familiar with many of the prominent landmarks. Looking to the North, there was the GE and Met Life Building. So, our hotel must be a little to the left and short of the GE building. Further up was Central Park. That must be the pond where we sat on the benches. To the right, the Upper East Side and Eli’s. Further up, Harlem and the Bronx. To the left was the Hudson River and to the right, the East River. Facing the East, there is the United Nations building and across the East River, Queens and Brooklyn. To the south, Greenwich Village, the financial district and in the haze, the Statue of Liberty. We’re glad we came here on the last day. The view is so much more meaningful after having put some time in on the ground.

Our last couple of days were rainy. We’re veterans at the hotel by now. The greeter recognizes us and tells us she will miss us when we leave. We are starting to nod knowingly when newly arriving guests look around disoriented.

They’re just like us with the revolving doors. We eventually figured out that they are supposed to keep on revolving smoothly, not jerky like when we first encountered them. June says it was me who made the revolving doors jerky. It kept talking to us: “Please move to the front.” Now we’re smooth.

The elevators go from A to N and are computer routed. Punch in the floor that you want and the key pad tells you which elevator is going to that floor. And you need to get in that elevator, which will only stop on the floors pushed. There are no buttons inside the elevator.

A person asked, as I got out and the door started to close, where are the buttons? He must have followed someone in and did not push the button for his floor. I could not react in time to tell him to get out and punch in his floor number on the keypad outside. I think he is still on that elevator.

New York is great fun, and we have to go back again. But it’s nice to be home.

Bananas, Food and Drink, Losing Weight, New York City

Weight: Up, Up and Away

July 3, 2006 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

Goal: lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23: 214.6 lbs.
End goal: 175 lbs.

This week’s target weight: 208.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 208.4 lbs. 7/2/06
I am 0.2 lbs. ahead of schedule

I gained 2.4 lbs from last week
Weight loss since 5/23: 6.2 lbs.

Resting heart rate 5/23: 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate 56 beats per minute.*
* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong is said to be at 32 beats per minute. My lowest was 52 beats per minute many years ago.

We arrived back home from New York City on Wednesday evening and immediately jumped on our accurate-to-1/10-of-a-pound home scale.

I gained five pounds in the last part of the trip, when I stopped exercising at the fitness center because I wanted to rest and recover for the trip home.

Here, by the way, is the view from the fitness center there.

Because the fitness center was where the scale was located, during that period I wasn’t exercising I had no accurate way to monitor my weight. By the end of the week, back home and with a little exercise and eating a little less, I had cut that back to a net gain of 2.4 lbs. for the week.

I’m back in my normal exercise routine now. Since the unexpected weight gain has been on my mind, I have cut back a little at each meal. Not much, but just enough to know that I’m doing something positive.

And I’m putting in a few more minutes of training. Not much, just a little more than I normally would. I don’t need to get it back all at once. The lower my expectations, the better the chance of exceeding them.

I’ve been on the scale four times a day since I got back. Fortunately, I was nearly three pounds ahead of schedule before I gained all that weight.

This has been my basic approach:

1. It’s important to keep track of one’s weight. Because I stopped going to the gym two days before leaving NYC and did not weigh myself for four days, I had no way of knowing I was drifting.

It was only a few pieces of cheesecake from Juniors. I needed to try the different ones to really know about good cheesecake. And, oh yes, the Italian food and gelato was unreal. In no time I gained five pounds.

Get a good scale. If on your scale you can make your self “lose weight” just by shifting your weight around, throw the scale out. I use the Weight Watcher scale. It is accurate to one-tenth of a pound and is relatively inexpensive. It has a leveling mechanism that does not allow you to seemingly lose weight just by shifting your weight. Weigh yourself as often as you like. This is a good thing. It will help to prevent five pound weight gain surprises.

2. Set goals so they’re easily achieved. I set mine at one pound per week for 39 weeks. That allowed me to get ahead of schedule. And then instead of quitting after unexpectedly gaining five pounds, it gave me an excuse to feel good. Like, “Boy was I smart to have been 3.6 lbs. ahead of schedule.”

You need to set yourself up to have a lot of little successes as you lose weight. It’s good for your psyche. I had one disappointment. Yes, it was five pounds’ worth. But I’ve had four days of successes since then. Had I not set myself up for small successes, I might have quit the program right then. The term “blowing your diet” comes to mind. But I don’t even have a diet to blow. Instead I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

3. Find any excuse to reward yourself. If I must cut back on quantity, then I plan to reward myself by going for the best tasting food. I now make salads with lots of little intense flavors. I like anchovies (great Caesar salad and great pizza must have anchovies). Rasberry salad dressing is good and sharp crumbled cheeses are good. Cocktail tomatoes, Japanese cucumbers, baby lettuces are all good. Throw some apple bananas in; why not? Doing this makes me feel happy instead of deprived.

I also plan to reward myself for every five pound increment that I hit. The next one is 205 lbs. I haven’t decided what the reward will be. Maybe I’ll hang the portable TV in the garage, hook up the music channel and get good earphones that will make my granddaughter jealous. And for hitting 200, that should be extra special, right?

Now I’m thinking of what else we can grow that will taste really good. Hmmm. What about sweet onions? Asparagus? Those would be good in the salads. And if we are eating less, maybe we need to grow (and eat) things that are more intense in color, for their nutritional value in addition to their good taste. This makes business sense to me. And I’ll bet that my thinking about this is fairly typical of baby boomers.

New York City, Travel

New Yorkers

June 28, 2006 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

We’re starting to ride the subway; still need to get familiar with the bus system. Once we do this, we’ll be able to get around very well.

The Bangladesh cab driver told me that the transportation system makes it possible for immigrants to avoid having to buy a car as they try to make their way in this country. He told me there is a large Bangladeshi population and they get together socially and so they have a real sense of community that makes life comfortable for them.

The real New Yorkers we met were really nice. One guy was in the Sephora store where the husbands wait–against one wall. I walked up next to him when June went in to look around and asked him if that was the spot where the husbands wait, and he talked to me for the whole time, telling me how to get tickets for plays and musicals. He told me about dropping his mother-in-law on a bus for Canada. He even introduced his wife to me. He was the real deal with a heavy Brooklyn accent.

A lady that June started talking to was the same way, open and friendly. I have no negative impressions to report about New Yorkers. When I think about it, it probably was a tourist who elbowed me.

It really is great to get a change of pace. This will allow us to get back to the farm and hit the ground running.

Food and Drink, Losing Weight, New York City

Food by the Pound

June 26, 2006 Richard Ha 1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

Goal: lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23: 214.6 lbs.
End goal: 175 lbs.
This week’s target weight: 209.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 206.0 lbs. 6/25/06
I am 3.5 lbs. ahead of schedule
This week I lost 1.5 lbs.
Weight loss since 5/23: 8.6 lbs.

Resting heart rate 5/23: 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate 59 beats per minute.*
* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong is said to be at 32 beats per minute. My lowest was 52 beats per minute many years ago.

My resting heart rate today is two beats per minute higher than last week. I’m guessing it is because I am only cruising at 70% of max. I haven’t done higher heart rate interval training since leaving Hawaii.

It’s interesting–I’m starting to pay attention to what I’m eating since I’ve set this one pound per week weight loss goal. I’m trying more salads and sandwiches. Somewhere along the line my stomach shrank some and I’m starting to request a doggy bag for the other half of the sandwich. What’s up? Subway

We just got strawberry cheesecake from Juniors on 45th. So I’m not deprived or starving.

We caught the subway and walked around at Columbus Circle off 59th street. CNN’s New York studios are in the Time Warner building. We took a tour and found out that Lou Dobbs, Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn and Larry King’s show are broadcast from there. Imagine, all that and a Hamakua Springs Country Farms bumper sticker, too.

We saw them setting up a red carpet and so we hung around to see who would show up. It turned out that the Gracie Awards were being given out that evening. The Gracie “Allen” award honors programming for, about and by women in electronic media.

Susanlucci

People were being interviewed on the red carpet. Julie Chen of the Early Morning show was interviewed on TV, Susan Lucci came over to chat with the people and many journalism personalities walked by.

I asked Larry King what the dress code at the White House is nowadays. I think he said that it’s now coat and tie. Short pants optional.

Now that I’m on this weight loss program, I notice how convenient it is to combine and buy salads and main dishes by the pound. One can custom make a meal according to one’s whims. I saw this at the gourmet food store Eli’s on the upper east side as well as the Whole Foods at the shops at Columbus Circle.

We can kind of do this now at work. There is a good selection of fresh produce growing on the farm. We have several different types of colored lettuces, different types and sizes of tomatoes, Japanese cucumbers for the crunch, as well as apple bananas for the potassium. And we’re adding to that all the time. All we need is dressing and some precooked chicken or meat to make a good nutritious meal that’s low in calories.

Food and Drink, New York City, The Good Life

Festivities

June 19, 2006 Richard Ha

Richard writes:

Sunday we took a stroll, several blocks to Rockefeller Center, and bumped into a street fair that ran the length of the Avenue of the Americas. (6th Avenue)

There was music all along the way. Indian music, then Egyptian bellydancing, then Mariachi blending into reggae as we made our way up the avenue. Very colorful and festive.

We tried some shaved ice with fresh fruit topping and that was really refreshing in the 95 degree heat.

We got a few pieces of something that looked like malasadas, in size, shape and smell, dusted with confectioner’s sugar. They gave it to us in a brown paper sack with powdered sugar in the bottom. It was tasty–crispy on the outside like andagi but more sticky and stretchy.

Avenue of the Americas is named after the Central/South American influence in NYC. But the name is too long and people still call it 6th Avenue. It’s got the sights, smells and sounds of the Americas. Much off-the-grill meats and chicken on sticks. And not only the Latin American influence; we saw Egyptian bellydancers with supporters in the crowd clapping, laughing and speaking in the language. Further up the avenue we saw several booths selling banana, strawberry, chocolate, mushroom and salsa crepes. All kinds of combinations of crepes. Some you think: why not?

We were heading for Rockefeller Center. Will send more snippets as we go along.

Bananas, Food and Drink, Losing Weight, New York City, Travel

Treadmill over Manhattan

June 19, 2006 Richard Ha 1 Comment

DATELINE–New York:

At 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, June 18

Goal: lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23: 214.6 lbs.
Goal weight: 175 lbs.
This week’s target weight: 210.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 207.5 lbs.
I am 3.1 lbs. ahead of schedule
This week I lost 1.2 lbs.
Weight loss since 5/23: 7.1 lbs.

Resting heart rate 5/23: 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate 57 beats per minute.*
* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong is said to be at 32 beats per minute. My lowest was 52 beats per minute many years ago.

I knew it was going to be a challenge keeping to the one pound per week weight loss schedule in New York City. New York is known for its wide variety of good food and I planned to try it all.

My approach to weight loss has been simple. I don’t count calories very well but I can do exercise. So if I plan to eat more, I exercise more. With this in mind, I have upped my daily exercise to 50 minutes at an easy, 70% of max heart rate. And it appears that I am actually losing more weight than I did at home. Now I have a choice: wine or dessert.

Here I look down on Times Square from the treadmill. It’s better than TV.

Yesterday I got elbowed by a guy carrying a baby. I think he was using the baby as cover. My impression of New Yorkers is that they play it pretty close to the ragged edge. Generally, everything is cool. This particular guy was an opportunist, but I don’t think he’s the norm.

We’re walking many blocks just to get the feel of the city, as well as to burn calories since we’re eating all kinds of stuff. We’re now looking for corned beef sandwiches and pastrami sandwiches at a real New York deli. Next: Little Italy and authentic Italian food.

If anybody has deli or restaurant suggestions, please let us know.

Bananas here look great on the outside but are bruised inside. After breaking off all the bruised parts of one, I ended up with only one small bite, and that tasted pretty bad. Modern day banana ripening rooms, with their precise humidity and temperature controls, can make the yellow skin color look so uniform and attractive that it looks almost like plastic fruit. The computer control rooms look like the cockpit of a 747. The technology can actually disguise bruising of the skin. Bruising is the consumer’s early warning signal and disguising it is not a good thing. No wonder per capita banana consumption has been declining for the last few years.

But I can say with a high degree of certainty that local Hawaiian bananas taste absolutely, without a doubt, better.

I’ve been losing weight for nearly a month now and feel comfortable that I won’t wake up one day and discover I’ve gained five pounds without warning. Setting a goal of one pound per week is easy to do. Now I know that if I’m behind on my weight loss schedule I just need to exercise for a longer period of time at a fairly easy 70% of max heart rate.

Piece of cake.

Bike, Family News, New York City, Travel

Taking the Lead

June 15, 2006 Richard Ha 2 Comments

Richard and June have left the premises. They are accompanying grandson Kapono Pa (that’s Kimo and Tracy’s son) to New York City. I’ll let Kapono tell you what he’s going to be doing there.

Kapono writes:
I am 16 years old and this coming year I will be a junior at Kamehameha Schools Hawaii Campus. The thing that I am going to is a sort of leadership conference where I will be mainly looking at the aspects of Global Business and Entrepreneurship. I was invited by the people at LeadAmerica last year.

I was able to choose from a variety of things to study such as Medical Studies, Crime Scene Investigation, etc. that were to take place at a variety of cities across the U.S. (my conference just so happened to take place in New York).

For the next 10 days I will be with other kids from around the U.S. (possibly the world) learning about global business and entrepreneurship. I think we will be creating a “mock” business plan and going through a sort of fast-forward simulation of how it all works and what happens. We will also have field trips to various locations in the city such as the financial district (NYMX, World Trade Center, Wall Street, Museum of Finance, etc.) Liberty Island and The Statue of Liberty, and Sony Wonder Tech Laboratory. We will also listen to some key speakers and learn from their experiences. That’s the gist of it.

Leslie interjects: Sounds like a chip off the old block, doesn’t he?

Sign_on_seat_at_bush_intl_2

And then Richard picks up the story: What are the chances of spotting a Hamakua Springs bumper sticker on a seat at George Bush International Airport in Houston as we’re changing planes? Could it be George Herbert’s son, George W., is thinking of visiting us to go mountain bike riding?

We took a New York City, double-decker open-air bus tour, getting the lay of the land. We had to occasionally duck branches and low-hanging traffic lights. The weather is beautiful–in the high 70s. The city is cleaner than we had imagined.

The three of us spent five hours, on and off the bus, cruising the city. We walked around a block in Greenwich Village on Bleeker Steet. No wonder that street name sounded so familiar to us–that’s where the New York office of the Rainforest Alliance is located. In 1993, they awarded our farm the first “ECO O.K.” certification in the world.

Bus_tour_5

We knew this was going to be a different experience when we found ourselves in a 150-foot line waiting for a cab. The cab driver turned out to be an easygoing person from Bangladesh. He talked about immigrants and how they manage to survive in the city, all while he was jockeying for space against the other traffic. He and a van dueled at low speeds to get ahead of each other for about a hundred yards. Finally the van got a nose in front and cut him off. It seemed to me that our driver gave in good-naturedly.

But a short while later he spotted an opening, because of a break in the off-street parking, and shot in front and regained the lead for good. All this was going on while he was carrying on this easy conversation. Highly entertaining. If you watch carefully, it is going on all the time by bicyclists, pedestrians, even elevator riders.

It’s not easy to maintain the Hilo pace here. But we’re trying.

We ate dinner at a five-story Appleby up the street. The food is generally pretty good and plentiful. I’ll have to do 50 minutes at the fitness center and hope for the best. I hope their scale measures to the 10ths.

As they say, it’s “the city that doesn’t sleep.” At 8:00 at night, the line at Starbucks was longer than at 8 in the morning. At midnight on a Tuesday, Times Square is packed as much as at 5:00 p.m. pau hana (after work).

Kapono’s conference starts tomorrow and we’ll drop him off at Fordham, which is close to the Bronx Zoo. The conference finishes on the 25th. We’ll just have to keep ourselves occupied.

Here’s Kapono and June at Times Square: