Swine flu: here’s what we do next

Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9 | 2 Comments

Up to now, our plan to combat the 28% drop in Japanese arrivals has been to urge them not to take swine flu so seriously. But now it’s time for a second step: we need to take it more seriously ourselves.

Let’s see if we can disengage the natural human tendency to try to classify everything as a big deal or not a big deal, and look clearly at the degree to which swine flu needs to be watched by all of us.

Swine flu really is a milder form of flu than most. But the first confirmed swine flu death in Hawaii reminds us that you can die of mild flu if you have enough pre-existing medical problems.

And let’s not forget that even a mild bout of flu, in some respects no big deal, is more than a little inconveniening if you get it on your vacation. Furthermore, in Japan, where it is considered highly ignoble to let down your coworkers, you risk embarrassing yourself if you fly to Hawaii for a nice weeklong vacation, return to work, and sicken your colleagues.

Japanese news media played up the fact that Japan’s first confirmed swine flu cases were a couple of people just back from Canada, and the first cases in people just back from Hawaii, a few weeks later, also got big play in the Japanese press.

It would help reassure the Japanese, and it would be good for us, if we got more serious about washing our hands and covering our coughs.

A common vector for the spread of this or any flu is the hardy worker who sucks it up and goes to work, spreading his flu to his brethren on the job. This actually causes more sick leave than if he stayed home for a few days.

Jun

29

Ala Moana Center: even in recession, hugely profitable

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When General Growth Properties, the nation’s second largest owner of shopping centers, got into financial trouble last year, I suggested that a Hawaii hui try to buy Ala Moana Center. But the truth is, you can’t afford it. I don’t care how much money you have.

U.S. News & World Reports, after studying a variety of public data to determine the nation’s most and least profitable malls, put Ala Moana Center on its list of six super-profitable malls with annual sales above $1 billion.

A Las Vegas mall may be even more profitable – Forum Shops at Caesars – but Ala Moana Center has been 95% occupied despite adding a new wing with 30 retail spaces.

General Growth stopped urgently needing cash when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year, and now all it really needs to do is hold on until credit markets improve.

Jun

29

How I celebrated my birthday (after the show ended)

Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9 | 3 Comments

You already know that on Friday I celebrated my 56th birthday by working on “Sunrise” as usual, where my colleagues got all the contestants for Miss Hawaii to sing “Happy Birthday” to me. But you don’t know yet what happened to me after that.

The Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce had invited me to keynote its annual meeting. I originally demurred on the grounds that Bernadette probably had something planned for me on my birthday. But they sweetened the pot with an offer for both of us to stay at the Four Seasons Hualalai. I’m not impressed by many-star resorts (I don’t golf or get spa treatments so what’s the point?) but I am impressed by nice people and the people at Hualalai are very nice, Old Hawaii nice. So I agreed.

Then my father said he was flying out to visit. Now, my dad is 90 and deaf as a post, but he’s still got all his marbles and we’re close. So I decided to chip in some of my own money and bring him along. I told the chamber so they could let Dad see me give a speech. They were so great about it. And they bought me a birthday cake hat!

We were cutting it close, getting from work to the airport and from Kona airport to the luncheon. So the chamber decided to send a car for us, then take me back to the airport later to get the rental car I had reserved.

That’s when my luck changed. My driver’s license expired on my birthday!

Looking back, I think they ought to have rented me a car for a few hours to drive to the local motor vehicle office to renew the license – one assumes the expiration happened at the end of June 26 rather than the beginning – but it didn’t occur to me to ask. I was too flabbergasted.

But the nice lady behind the counter suggested I work the phones and get them to fax over a temporary extension. “We do it for California tourists all the time,” she said.

The Dillingham office where I got my license clicked straight over to recorded music. Ala Moana satellite city hall was a busy signal every time I called. I tried another satellite office but no one answered. Finally I called the mayor’s office, which answered right away and gave me customer service, which called me back fast and got me through to Ala Moana, where they said I did not have to call the Dillingham office, it would be okay to work through the office in Kona. I called that office and got an answer right away, from a nice lady who said Hawaii doesn’t do faxed extensions, and the office was closing in 15 minutes, but if I came in Monday they could easily handle the renewal. Monday!

If I had been smart enough to call the Kona office first, I would have had enough time to renew the license. Instead I wasted an hour making more than two dozen calls to people who didn’t answer the phone or couldn’t help. There was nothing for me to do but call a cab and slink back to the hotel. On the way back I told the whole story to the cabbie.

“What a coincidence,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The same thing happened to me once when I flew to Oahu for my birthday,” he said.

[Postscript: I renewed my license Monday at the Dillingham motor vehicle office and everybody was really professional and nice. These are people facing mandatory furlough days, mind you, and yet the line moved quickly. I cannot praise that behavior enough. HMD]