Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Greetings from Hawaii

Currently at the Hilo airport waiting to go to Honolulu. Impressions:

Weather is really nice! We spend a lot of time in air-conditioned areas, though, which I'm not so keen on. I'm always too cold.

Airports here are weird. Kona's airport was outdoors, and Hilo has a large waiting area/lobby after security but before the gate. Also, security is not quite as intense. At Newark, you can feel the glare of everybody behind you if you hold up the X-ray line. Not so here.

50 ISO film is really slow! There were many shots I just couldn't take because of inadequate lighting, even in the daytime. The 50mm f/1.8 lens makes things okay, but my f/4-5.6 telephoto zoom isn't fast enough. Also, the telephoto zoom is super heavy (as much as the 50mm and camera body combined).

Plants everywhere! Even growing almost directly on new volcanic rock. What.

Gas is expensive. The lowest I saw was 3.50 a gallon. Makes sense; all of it has to be shipped here on tankers. Did some research; Hawaii has really low per capita energy usage (though jet fuel makes up a significant proportion of its energy consumption). Most of the electricity comes from petroleum (there is synthetic natural gas from refinery byproducts, too), with most of the rest from coal (15%, but why import coal?) and geothermal and other renewables (7%).

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