R Blog

Body Surfing Rules!!

Some folks don’t need a board to surf the big waves. They just put on swim fins and walk backwards into the ocean. I guess that’s how you tell a body surfer from a distance. They are walking backwards so those fins don’t trip them up. And they aren’t toting a board. This weekend was the Patagonia Pipeline Body Surfing Classic—2005, the sport's most prestigious event. There is no pro body surfing circuit. These people surf for the fun of it.
The famous Banzai Pipeline is about 100 yards to the left of Ekuhai Beach Park. The wave break is less than 200 yards off shore so it’s easy to watch. Body surfers enter the water in groups of six, each wearing a different colored water polo cap so the judges can tell them apart.
A North Shore Lifeguard jet ski is hovering just beyond the wave break in case someone gets in trouble and to make sure the pipe is reserved for the competition. It’s the one day of the year the body surfers don’t have to share the waves with boarders. In between heats the jet ski roars inside the wave break with lifeguard number two hanging onto the trailing sled. Then they charge out through the surf leaping over the breaking waves.
The next heat of six competitors enters the surf while the previous heat is still trying to catch a big wave.
They all seem to have an unusual heads up swimming style so they can see the waves coming at them. They dive under the wave just before it breaks on top of them and appear again on the other side, little white, pink, black, blue, red and yellow caps bobbing like tiny balloons. The current at the beach is fierce and moves the swimmers sideways past our view point faster than the can swim forward. So, to get to the line up the surfers are swept one hundred and fifty yards to the right at an oblique angle requiring them to swim that same distance out and then back to get even with the spot where they enter the water. They cluster around the jet ski like baby ducks. But if they touch it they are disqualified. Several judges sit under a canopy at a table and watch the action.
A timer with an air horn sits just outside the tent next to a pole with three large squares of color. Green means the heat is on. Yellow means it’s almost over and red notes the end of the heat. The timer rotates the pole so the body surfers can see the status of their heat.
Farther down the beach where the spectators and participants sit is another tent with an announcer who describes the action and gives results over a PA system. A spectator who has the urge can plunk down fifty bucks and enter on the spot if there is space available. The only qualification seems to be a willingness to enter the water and play with the big waves.
Last time I was here I met Michael who is a big wave body surfer. He told me that body surfers can do whatever the boarders do. There are lots of maneuvers like climbing, stalling, cut backs, dropping, belly slides, spinners and tube rides. The participants are judged on wave riding ability, maneuvers, wave size, travel distance and sportsmanship. Points are deducted for fouls like interference.
I’m not sure we saw much of that fancy stuff today. The waves, with ten to fifteen foot faces, were rambunctious and seemed to be giving the riders a hard time. I saw a couple guys drop off the top of a wave like they were falling off a building. The Pipeline breaks weren’t spilling nicely. Most of the rides were short and the riders disappeared into the foam as the tube collapsed around them.
We focused on one of the two women competitors. Her name was Judith Sheridan.  It turns out she has quite a reputation (which you can read about  here  and
here ) in the body surfing world.  A fortyish Ph’d from California, she had been the only female competitor in 2003 and 2004.
She backed into the surf and began swimming. It was easy to see her baby blue top and yellow cap.The current swept her past us and she dived under a series of approaching waves.
Once the heat started she rode up and down in the big waves which must be a thrill itself. Choosing a wave, Judith would windmill down the face of it to gather speed. If the wave was good she would ride for quite a distance. If the timing was off she wiped out. Ms. Sheridan did well enough to finish third in her heat and move onto the next round. Anyone who swims out there and back is a winner as far as I’m concerned. Of course, they are also nuts.

The Kingdom of Hawaii

A US Army lieutenant, a Hawaiian, named Nainoa Hoe was killed by a sniper in Iraq a couple days ago. His company was out trying to encourage voter participation.
“A surfer and swimmer, Hoe was so proud of his Hawaiian heritage. ‘You could say he was a nationalist,’ (a member of his unit) said. Hoe's father, Allen, is a Vietnam veteran, and Hoe carried an American flag that his father had carried. His younger brother, Nakoa, is about to be deployed to Iraq as a member of 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry. Hoe was proud of his family's military history but joked that Hawaii had been better off without the mainland. "He would say, 'We don't have to be a state; we were fine without you, just fine.’ "
Yesterday as we drove out towards Kaena Pt. we passed an encampment of “The Kingdom of Hawaii.” Perhaps twenty-five people were camped in a narrow stretch of land between the highway and the chain link fence of Dillingham Field. They weren’t doing anything. Just squatting. Their collection of cars and pickup trucks were backed up against the fence; tarps were stretched for protection from the rain. There were kids and dogs and chickens milling about looking bored.
There are several groups in Hawaii who make the  argument that the US Government has no legal right to the islands and that Hawaii should be returned to native Hawaiians. Not reported by the Washington Post, the late Lt. Hoe’s Vietnam veteran father Allen Hoe is the... 1st Associate Justice for the Acting Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom . This is a parallel government set up by an organization called The Hawaiian Kingdom. There is also an activist group called Hawaiian Independence as well as other groups promoting the historical illegality of the US takeover of Hawaii in 1893.
In 1993, in commemoration of the takeover, Hawaii’s Senator Inoue was able to pass an apology bill which declared in part, “...that the Congress...on the 100th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893, acknowledges the historical significance of this event which resulted in the suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people...” The State of Hawaii has an Office of Hawaiian Affairs and sponsors a Hawaiian Coalition which is looking for a way to form a Native  Hawaiian governing body. And there is a federal bill rolling around the halls of Congress that would create some sort of entity for the Native Hawaiian people. So, the squatters and the 1st Acting Associate Justice of the Hawaiian Kingdom aren’t exactly cranks.
They seem to have a strong legal basis for their claims.
In all probability, however, Hawaii will not become a kingdom again. The disparate independence groups often have conflicting agendas. The USA isn’t going to turn the islands over to the natives.
So, in the meantime, while they work for some sort of independent status, the separatists and kingdomists work in the islands or on the mainland, serve in the army and get killed trying to talk Iraqis into voting. It’s a strange little undercurrent that causes a slight rip in the fabric of Hawaiian politics and society.

My Astral Name is Larry

I’ve never seen a ghost, or communed with nature spirits, or had an out of body experience or even been led by intuition. In short, I am bereft of the woo-woo. Except for one thing. Throughout my adult life when people get my name wrong, they always call me “Larry.” This has happened at least 100 times. It has happened so often that it’s a joke between Linda and I. Close friends, customers, and mere acquaintances have called me “Larry.” I understand people forgetting my name and would not be surprised if they called me “Ronnie,” or “Rudolph” or “Ralph.” Something that begins with an “R.” They never do. It’s always, “Larry.” But where does “Larry” come from? It happened again the other night. Our friend Inga introduced us to a person we had not met as “Linda and her husband, Larry.” She immediately caught this mistake, was very apologetic and couldn’t imagine she came up with “Larry.” I told her not to worry, that I’d been called “Larry” so many times that I usually just responded as if it were my name. But it’s time that I started paying closer attention so I can solve this mystery. There is no scientific way to determine the reason for this phenomenon. Lacking any factual data we humans tend to theorize. Like this: Supposedly, we all have a finer, more subtle body called the astral body. Some people claim they can see this and the auras that radiate from it. I can’t, of course. My current theory is that we all have an astral name tag, with our name written on our astral shirt. My astral name is “Larry.”

Snack Blog

Great and Mighty Greens has a mission. They want to bring healthy and delicious snacks to the world. In a tiny restaurant in Waialua, a settlement started by cane workers, Great and Mighty Greens manufacturers “Malina’s Spirulina Pops.” This is popcorn covered with spirulina, a powdered seaweed. The label features a dark haired surfer girl in a pink bikini. “This is quite possibly Malina,” I thought. There’s a hibiscus in her hair and she’s making that Hawaiian hand gesture with the thumb and pinky finger sticking out which means... it means something cool. Out of her pinky comes a dialogue bubble which tells us that these pops are a “Dairy free snack with a ‘cheesy’ taste.” Cheesy has its own quote marks to indicate, I believe, that there is really no cheese, just a cheesy taste produced miraculously by the combination of popcorn, macadamia nut oil, sea salt and spirulina.  We dropped in to Great and Mighty Greens Natural Kitchen and Cafe for a papaya smoothy on the recommendation of Chayla who lives down the street from Bart. She needed a ride to a garage in Waialua to pick up her car. She has a really nice place that seems to hang over the ocean and features three round houses. Her place is very noticeable if you are driving the Kam Highway and look up. Chayla has had it with the Bush Administration and is moving, probably to New Zealand where she will set up a foundation to teach young professionals how to make money while saving the environment. Chayla is always doing something interesting and knows and has known all manner of interesting people, like the Beattles for crap sake! Chayla said we ought to check out Great and Mighty Greens Natural Kitchen and Cafe (which is a subsidiary of Great and Mighty Greens) so we did and enjoyed the decor while we waited for our smoothies to come up. We enjoyed the picture frame decorated with sea shells and we enjoyed the tables that had surf magazine photos decoupaged onto the surface along with more sea shells embedded in some kind of acrylic substance. “I think we should make a table like this,” I told Linda. We like sea shells and if you have a problem with this you should be aware that sea shells are very “in.” In the new Coastal Living Magazine there’s a feature on an artist who has switched from painting to shells. So there. (We like to have a copy of Coastal Living around as it reminds people that we often live on a coast).
Behind the counter at the Great and Might Greens there was a giant white plastic bin, long and narrow, filled with freshly popped popcorn. The popcorn was then transferred to another bin. This one was round and turned by hand as spirulina, sea salt and mac oil was added. They bagged it right there and slapped the colorful label that in addition to the cartoon like drawing of the surfer girl I think was Malina, has some ocean, some plumeria blossoms, a seal of organic authenticity and a logo that shows stylistic waves breaking across the face of the sun. I wish you could see it. It’s a socially conscious company too. A portion, I don’t know how much, of the proceeds will benefit Save the Turtles International. It says this right on the label. The label also says at the bottom, “We love to hear from you—call us at 808-371-3463.” So, I encourage to give them a call.
Linda grabbed for a large bag of Malina’s Spirulina Pops with Macadamia Nut Oil. “Noble (our son and family lay dental expert) has warned you about eating popcorn,” I reminded her. All those crowns would be at risk. She put the big bag back and took a 1.5 oz bag and ate it all (carefully) and said it didn’t taste a bit cheesy.

Lost—On the Set

Terry O’Quinn invited Bart, Linda and I to visit the set of Lost. It was a nice treat on several levels.
Today’s Star Bulletin carried the story that ABC is thinking of moving it’s hit show from Hawaii because of the high costs. “Lost, with its ensemble cast, costly sound stage, office and storage space and crew expenses, arguably is the most expensive series on television, costing $2.5 million to $2.8 million an episode, several sources said. The series has cost at least $60 million to date, with 75 percent of its budget spent in Hawaii. About half of that spending is local crew salaries.” Hawaii is working hard to keep the series here.  Read the entire article
Lost is hard to find unless you happen to know that they are filming at Police Beach and you are with someone who happens to know where Police Beach is. The entrance to Police Beach is an unmarked (except for No Trespassing signs) gate today manned by a very large security guard. Bart told our story and the guard waved us in. The Police Beach property may be as big a a couple hundred acres next to Haleiwa Beach Park and is owned by the Bishop Estate. The Bishop Estate, an interesting organization, is the largest property owner in Hawaii with assets of $10 billion.
The costs for the show were apparent as we walked through the base camp with truck after truck for equipment and food and several first class trailers for the cast.
A woman wearing a headset, sitting on the back of the wardrobe trailer hailed us and asked if we were Terry’s friends. She said Terry told us to look out for some locals. Linda and my disguises are still working! She was Assistant to the Assistant Director and she was soon talking on her headset asking one of her assistants to lead us to where Terry was rehearsing a scene in the jungle. The Assistant to the Assistant Director then passed us off to her Assistant and we began to see why the costs were high. It takes a small village to make a TV show. A big, healthy girl named Melanie, dressed in shorts and hiking shoes and a tight tee led us into a realistic looking Hawaiian jungle, realistic because it was Hawaiian jungle with old, gray barked trees wrapped with vines and creepers. After a few steps we arrived at the scene of the rehearsal. A guy in shorts offered us some mosquito spray. Terry finished up and came over to greet us. He had warned Bart that he might not be in a position to be host but he had clearly made it known that we would appear and I could hear “Terry’s friends...Terry’s friends” ricochet through the jungle on the ubiquitous headsets. He said, “I’ve got to get my scar on but I’m going to take you over to where they are filming a scene.”
“Have you seen Time Magazine?” I asked as we walked past a couple of trees to where the filming was taking place. He hadn’t. “You got the only mention,” I told him. “Everyone is going to hate you.”  “Terry O'Quinn, in particular, shines as a paraplegic office drone whose ability to walk, along with his self-respect, is miraculously restored in the (airplane) crash,” said Time in naming Lost one of the best shows of 2004. In a small clearing were about thirty people, a large stand with lights on it, and some black and white screens to reflect the light. The scene they were filming involved  Hurley and the “French chick,” one of the newer characters. They brought us some of those tall director’s chairs, gave us headsets so we could hear the dialogue and sat us behind the Script Supervisor, Director and Director of Photography. It was what they call a one camera shot with the camera always on the “French chick” who had her back to us and was holding a high-powered rifle with a scope on Hurley who was breathing very hard. They’d already filmed the scene with Hurley’s face and would edit the two for the final product. They went through the scene four times trying to speed it up and get some different camera angles. There was the usual “Quiet on the set!” “Action,” and “Cut” and the little marker thing they hold in front of the camera to note the scene and its version. It’s not too boring if you are only there for thirty minutes. Might be if you had to stand around all day waiting to move some equipment. Both actors in this scene were particular good all four times.
They broke for lunch and we reluctantly turned in our headsets and wandered back out to the base camp. Our guide learned via her headset that Terry was in makeup and that she was to take us over there. When we found him he invited us to lunch which was good and plentiful and we had a nice visit before he got hauled off to do an interview. Most impressive was the friendliness and courtesy shown by all the crew members who are hoping like hell that Lost doesn't get lost.
And Terry. Is the limo picking him up? Nope. This morning he drove down from Pupukea parked at Foodland and walked the five miles along the highway to Police Beach. “Gets me looking right for the part,” he told us.

The 50 Most Loathsome Creatures in America, 2004

From The Beast comes a list with some surprises: Clay Aiken, John
McCain, Ellen Degeneres, Jim Lehrer, Ben Affleck and, of course, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz and

#3—You

Crimes: You gaze idly at the carnage around you, sigh, and go calmly back to your coffee and your People magazine. You can’t stop buying useless crap, though you’re drowning in a deepening pool of debt. You think you’re an activist because you bitch all day on the internet, but you reelect the same gangsters at a 99% rate. You consider yourself informed because you waste a significant portion of your life watching the same three news stories cycle over and over again on your gargantuan, aerodynamic television set while you eat processed food. You really thought everything would be okay if Kerry won. Not only do you believe in an invisible man who magically farted out the universe, you also excoriate and marginalize those who disagree. You have a poorer understanding of your country’s foreign policy history than a third world peasant, but you can’t wait to see what Julia Roberts will be wearing at the Oscars. You cheer as Ukrainians challenge an election based on exit poll data, but keep waiting around for someone else to fix your problems. You can’t think, you can’t organize and you won’t act. This is all your fault.

Smoking Gun: You’re fat.

Punishment: You’re soaking in it.

I Prefer Picking Avacodos

When you see an ambulance at Ekuhai Beach Park parking lot, you fear the worst.
I could hear the waves building early this morning and by the time we got down the hill and rode the bike path from Three Tables to Ekuhai the bigger wave faces appeared to be about twenty feet.
A large crowd was gathered on the beach to watch and photograph the action. Lots of big telephoto lens on tripods, girls in bikinis, older tourists in white walking shoes and pressed Hawaiian shirts, and dudes with cowrie shell necklaces. There might have been a hundred surfers jammed up out in the lineup waiting for the right wave. It’s a wonder they weren’t crashing into each other. It was a traffic jam. Some took the waves standing up. Others on boogie boards wearing swim fins shot down the wave faces and spun around on their boards. The boogies could ride a wave almost into shore. The wave at Banzai was breaking both directions. A surfer had to decide which way he or she was going to go, left or right. The films you see of surfers on big waves are a bit deceiving. Film, especially telephoto seems to slow down the action. When that wave crests and the surfer decides to go she slides down the wave at a tremendous speed before making a break one direction or the other and fighting her way through the tube made by the cresting wave. (There’s lots of girls out there). One guy disappeared for many seconds, then reemerged with a fist held high in triumph. These people are just nuts. I noticed a boogie board without a rider slide up on the beach. A few minutes later I could see the boardless guy trying to make his way in. Every time a wave came up behind him he would dive down under it and when he finally made it to shore and retrieved his board he seemed exhausted. We got back on our bikes and rode another mile to Sunset Beach. The waves weren’t as big. While we were there a little, blue Honolulu Police helicopter landed on the beach. They didn’t seem to have any particular business. When they took off the cop in the passenger seat  waved to the beach people as if he were in a parade, his arm fully extended out the window as they flew out over the ocean. Back at Ekuhai the lights blinked on the ambulance. Linda heard someone say there’d been a death. We didn’t wait to see. Some people have more courage than good sense when it comes to waves. You don’t need a license to be a surfer. All you need is a board and the willingness to take the risk.
I celebrated not being on a surfboard by picking some avocados from the tree outside our door.

Beach Access

Sunday was a beautiful day with moderate waves and the limited parking spots along the highway were packed with cars. Everyone with a surfboard was out. At the main congregation points like Sunset Beach Park, the Dodge Neons filled with gawking tourists poked along looking for a place to pull in so they could watch the action; take a picture with waves breaking in the background. Beach access is a problem for those people who find a sticker on the inside of their trunk lid which says in large letters, “DO NOT LEAVE VALUABLES IN THE TRUNK.” (We keep an old beater Nissan van at Bart’s. Saves the cost of a rental car and fools people into thinking we are local. We’ve got stickers too. One asks, “Have you surfed today?” in Portuguese. The other says “Eddie Would Tow” a reference to the North Shore’s famous lifeguard and big wave surfer Eddie Aikau). Beach access is easier than it appears to the casual tourist. There is, in fact, approximately one public beach access site per mile of shoreline on Oahu. The public owns the beach in Hawaii, and in most other coastal states, and has a right to get there. If you know where they are you can get to quiet spots through narrow right of ways. These are alleys that often cut through to the beach in the poshest of neighborhoods. They aren’t readily apparent driving down the highway.
Another way to get to the beach is at the big resort hotels. They don’t own the beach and you have a right to use it even if you are not a hotel guest. Turtle Bay Resort is the only hotel on the North Shore. It’s one of a handful of Oahu resorts not at Waikiki. In winter I like to swim at the little protected cove beside the hotel. It’s safe, appears clean and has a shower and restroom. It’s never crowded. As part of the master plan filed with the county Turtle Bay has to provide 24/7 public access. In addition they are required to make forty free parking places available. Plus, they have to provide the public restrooms and showers. But more trouble in paradise. Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) Local 5 is boycotting Turtle Bay. They are mad because the new owner has spent 60 million dollars refurbishing the resort but won’t take care of the employees. We have often seen them at the entrance picketing. They aren’t upset that we go in. On the contrary, they encourage the public to use the Turtle Bay Resort public access and five miles of shoreline 24/7. But, they add, “Please do not patronize the hotel.” The new owner of the formerly rundown Turtle Bay is Oaktree Capital Management. Businessweek wrote, “Howard Marks, chairman of $20 billion vulture fund Oaktree Capital Management LLC, has no interest in gaining control of companies for the long run. He aims to earn a big payoff as fast as possible by buying the troubled loans of debt-plagued companies…. ‘We are trying to buy a dollar for 50 cents,’ says Marks, who operates from an immaculate white-marbled office overlooking downtown Los Angeles. ‘If you want cheap, you have to find it on the slag heap.’” Because of this management philosophy the union believes that Oaktree has no commitment to the community.
Because of the union and conflicts with local fishermen the resort has had the spotlight shined on its public access policy and they are very friendly when I drive up to the entrance barricade and ask for a pass.
This weekend the Senior PGA will have a tournament at Turtle Bay. “Will the public access parking spots be available during the tournament?” I asked. “Of course,” replied the gate guard. So, maybe I’ll take a swim, then watch Arnold Palmer hit a few. That’s beach access.

Philobolus

Last night, Saturday night, we went to town. That’s what you say when you drive from the North Shore to Honolulu. It takes forty minutes in normal traffic. About the same as driving from Ashland to Grant’s Pass. You go up the long hill out of Haleiwa and cross the plateau where the pineapple fields are, stop and go through the grungy town of Wahiwa, pass Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Field, catch the freeway and race down the hill past Mililani. You begin to catch glimpses of Pearl Harbor, Tripler Army Hospital (a large pink edifice on the mountain side), and in the distance the buildings of Honolulu’s business district, the incongruous multistory condos behind Waikiki and beyond them the very familiar profile of Diamond Head. Honolulu is pretty big and the traffic is often heavy with cars creeping along the freeway and peeling off to take the H-3 over the mountain to Kaneohe or the older Likilike Highway. It was an extraordinary afternoon. Not a cloud anywhere. We were heading to Chinatown for dinner and then a show at the Hawaii Theater, one of those restored Pantages type extravaganzas. We ate at Little Village, a restaurant so good that folks were waiting out on the street to get in. Fortunately, we had reservations. Back in the seventies I was assigned to Hickam AFB for reserve duty and for four years in a row spent two summer weeks in Hawaii. This was before Bart even moved here so I didn’t know anyone. Every night I would catch The Bus in front of the Bachelor Officers Quarters and ride into Honolulu. I had to change buses in Chinatown on Hotel Street, a street notorious at different times in its history for nefarious activities involving mostly booze and sex. There was usually a thirty minute wait for the bus that would take me over toward the University District to the Lauilima Vegetarian Restaurant, my home away from home. So, I always had time to take a little walk in Chinatown and enjoy the strange smells and weird people who congregated there. It looks pretty much the same as it always did with lots of restaurants and curious shops. But now they have the restored Hawaii Theater as a focal point for cultural activities and on the two occasions we have been there the art galleries in the neighborhood were busy and festive. We came to see Pilobolus, the dance company and, as is often the case when Bart buys the tickets, had seats in the front row.
I was disappointed in Philobolus. The six dancers were strong, acrobatic, enthusiastic and energetic. They performed machinations of physical interaction that were hard to believe and impossible to describe. They rolled and looped and leaped and fell. They hopped, lifted, carried, flipped, shook, jumped, slapped, slipped and shimmied. They pas de deux’d and pas de six and were often clumped together like one huge twelve legged organism. The audience gasped and laughed and mostly stood when they were done. But I ended up wishing they had danced.

Opala is Still Garbage

I’m looking at garbage (opala in Hawaiian, the language that makes everything sound beautiful). The yard is piled with ironwood trees, remnants of bougainvillea, logs from the alpesia, piles of prunings and Norfolk pine needles. We have to get rid of them. I favor tossing them over the bank and letting them compost. Bart wants to keep the bank free for future landscaping. We will haul them to the transfer station starting Monday. The great thing about Hawaii is that you can dump things for free. There are lots of conveniently located transfer stations. When you combine 7,000,000 visitors with the local population, the Pacific Fleet, the 25th Light Infantry Division, etc. Oahu has quite a management problem when it comes to garbage. They have lots of it—1.5 million tons every year. They burn about 40% of it in a power plant which actually produces 7% of Oahu’s electrical power. They also have an aggressive recycling program. But garbage is always controversial even when it has a pretty Hawaiian name. Opala is still garbage and you’ve got to do something with it. Even when you burn it and recycle it there’s a lot left over. The Waimanalo Gulch Landfill, located on the west side of the island is filling up. The nearby residents and the Ko Olina resort hate it. But the City Council just reversed itself and voted to extend the use of that landfill. There have also been discussions about shipping excess garbage to Oregon. Rogue Pundit, a retired environmental engineer has the details on this.  It’s strange to think that someday the garbage we create here might follow us back to Oregon. Hawaii doesn’t create many exports except for pineapple and cans of mac nuts. Those barges that haul everything over here go back empty. So, it wouldn’t cost that much to send the garbage to Oregon. Hawaiian politicians aren’t sure they want to take the risk of ever being held hostage over garbage. Politicians don’t like to give up control, even of garbage. Of course, mainland environmental groups have objections to Hawaii’s garbage piling up in Oregon landfills. Nobody’s happy. We don’t like garbage but we have to do something with it. Here’s what I’m going to do: from now on I’m going to take out the opala.