Howzit oneula, The traffic over here is also a pain, especially with all the tourist rental cars, but nothing like what you have to deal with. When I lived on Oahu they were doing the H1 thing in the red hill area and it was a scene. Luckally we worked nights in Waikiki and the bad traffic was usually going the other direction. But when we knew it would be bad we went the back way around to the Wilson tunnel. What was a trip was they used to change the temp lanes by moving the cones and so the lanes would be different when we would drive home to the North Shore at night. After cruising Kauai all these years driving on Oahu is definitly a challenge.Aloha,Kokua
Sounds like you are prime candidates for a Disney style light duty monorail.
Howzit Mark,Honolulu has been entertaining just that idea for years but they always come up with some reason not to go there. The city has also thought about using ferrys to alleve the traffic, lots of talk but no action. But boy they spend a lot on researching the options.Aloha,Kokua
Hey kokua, hope you’re having a happy…
I get the feeling there are a lot of souls responding to this topic who often have to accept less money for their product than they feel it is worth, hence the title. Is that fair to say? I detect a little frustration in some, even hostility, but not you, not at all. Bless you.
With a little marketing, I don’t expect it would be so difficult for a recognized craftsman to get all the rich commissions they could handle, and then some. At the very least, I think it’s bad marketing for a craftsman to ask if it’s worth it.
one house one car or maybe two would do it…
right now it’s more like one house 5-6 cars
2-3 in the driveway 1-2 parked in the street.
But I shouldn’t talk cause we have 4
1 collectable
1 fancy
1 work
1 beach
I find it amusing watching my neighbors do the car merry go round when some one has to leave or comes home…
And yes we do need some thing cause gridlock happens everytime there’s an accident. And if there’s a fatality forget about it cause they shut down the only freeway for hours.
The problem is that the power broker and money people live in Hawaii Loa Ridge, Kahala, Waikiki, downtown in highrise of in Hawaii Kai. And they could care less(car dealers too) about what the people in central and west Oahu have to put up with… Along with alot of folk I’d serious think about quitting my job if something decent came along that required me not to be downtown… The whole second city idea has been a joke. All they build is houses out here 3000-5000 more going up in the next 5-10 yers as I speak. Based on my calculation that 18-30 thousand more cars to add to the mess… Remote working also hasn’t panned out. It’ll get alot worse before it gets better…
Maybe Mayor Mufi has the gumption to win the mass transit battle for the little people, but they are already complaining about bid rigging and financial fraud… Funny in that the councilman( a doctor) yapping about all this lives and represents Hawaii Kai… He’s rather spend the money building a dog walking park for his constituents and reducing the property taxes on their million dollar luxury homes and condos… No wonder that lifestyles of the rich and famous dude live out his way…
Sorry…
but having to get up at 4AM and to sleep by 8:30PM just to make and survive that horrendous drive into and out of work and the rest of my crazy day has me a little prejudiced about it all…
HI koku,
That’s just incompetence tth ehighest levels of govt. Sad.
People who know how to do stuff like that don’t need lots of studies.
They just do it. Public transportation in this situation would be a perfect fit. The engineering companies that did and still do the Disney work are private concerns and can be hired. Just need to get some public bidding going. The process is not easy or eveyone would be doing it. Best arguments for it is the pollution of idling cars, wasted time, and waste of boated in fuel. Generally a drain on the economy. Disney’s city of tomorrow is more than a theme park. It is a working model people can try out. First time I was in DW was about a year after it opened. The monorail was totally crowded so I talked to the conductor and we got to ride in the front engine with the engineer. Just us. Tourist resort and monorail go together. Heck we have one for our stupid airport.
Howzit test_article, The thing is to have clients who appreciate your craftmanship and are willing to pay for it. Yesterday I was asking my construction boss about what to charge for the restoration I’m doing on the wooden dolphin and he told me that the owner of the dolphin doesn’t care how much it costs as long as the job is done right. These are the kind of people I like doing business for. Finding the right market for a product is a very important factor.Aloha,Kokua
Howzit oneula, Read a piece in yesterdays Advertiser editorials about Mufi setting records when it comes to tax raising. On the same page there is a piece about what to do with all the extra money Honolulu has gained from these taxes and yes the property tax thing is way out of control here in Hawaii.Aloha,Kokua
Quote:
Public transportation in this situation would be a perfect fit. The engineering companies that did and still do the Disney work are private concerns and can be hired. Just need to get some public bidding going. The process is not easy or eveyone would be doing it. Best arguments for it is the pollution of idling cars, wasted time, and waste of boated in fuel. Generally a drain on the economy
Shoot, boys…every gallon of Island gasoline that gets blown into the environment while idling on the H-1 means more gasoline tax dollars for the state and feds. I’ve mentioned this before in other threads, but more fuel efficient vehicles have reduced the tax dollar incomes and now pilot projects are working to transfer that income generation to things like mileage tax and peak hours driving fees. Most people who can do so would be willing to pay a little more for improvements - in regards to traffic this is literally buying time - but that isn’t the government’s main interest, especially in states with a lot of state employees.
Howzit Nels, Good answer but Honolulu has spent so much money over the years just doing research and paying consultants and still can't make up their minds, plus the state legislators seem to have a thing about not wanting to make it happen. This is a subject that comes up every couple of years but never gets any where. And this is in a state that probably has more state employees per capita then most other states. One of our biggest jokes about state employees was how you would drive by a state project that would have 4 guys watching 1 guy dig a hole. Aloha,Kokua
Here the gas tax doesn’t even cover highway and road expenses. It’s a false economy. Lost productivity is a far bigger drain than the few pennies they gain per hour per vehicle. Taxing income is a much bigger fish.
kokua-
In Oregon it’s more like 5 or 6 guys watching…
Hey guys, I’m not even trying to be snotty in my response. People are people everywhere, there really isn’t any diffrence between Hawaii, California, Oregon, or NJ when it comes to human nature. Watch your back though, Dale - Oregon State University is Ground Zero for the New Highway Concepts. Check 'em out right now. Powers that be set it up at OSU thinking Oregon is such a low profile state the little programs will fly in under the radar. Becuase Oregon (and Hawaii) are low profile - to the big money and big population states with higher profiles…
We hear a lot about the “hidden economy”, which in modern media terms is under the table cash payaments for people like illegal immigrants and backyard surfboard producers, heh heh…but the real hidden economy involves the people who live off political pork - maybe the people Hawaii continually pays to study the same or accellerating traffic problems. They make the big donations to the politicians…maybe as many individuals, but you get the drift.
This is, of course, the difference between craft and corporate chaos…
…yes , craftsmanship is ALWAYS worth it !
If I had taken more time , and paid more attention to detail [and had more skill !] , all my boards would have turned out looking much better , and possibly ridden better , too . [Maybe I could have even sold one or two by now , to recoup expenses !]
cheers !
ben
but back to the original question… another hijacked sways thread…
yes richard.
Craftsmanship is definitely worth it to those who can recognized value in such things…
Then it comes to the part of being able to afford it.
my little last minute fancy wood christmas box fiasco produced not so stella results in fact I was a bit ashamed of them. But the value everyone recognized and was thankful for was that I took the time to stay up well past midnight for the week and a half sanding, laminating, buffing and screwing back things trying to finish enough of them so that all 25 people in the office could get one for christmas. So value also is placed in intent as well. Its the aloha behind the object as well as the quality it represents that increases its net worth.
sadly though there’s many who can’t see past price…
But then again they probably never made anything just with their own two hands especially something out of wood like you do. I could spend a day in the galleries looking and marveling at all the boxes and bowls produced out of wood…
It’s all in the eye.
An artist can see things no one else can see and then somehow magically bring it all to fruition.
Most people are just too involved in themselves and in the here and now that they can’t or don’t take the time to see the beauty that surrounds us all…
Quote:
…yes , craftsmanship is ALWAYS worth it !
If I had taken more time , and paid more attention to detail [and had more skill !]
I might want to mention that this applies to what you are doing and also what others are doing as well, eh? Plenty of good examples in people who post here, who make what they do and their business strong, adaptive, and competitive. Want to make boards but the money isn’t there? Bill has bicycles too, for just one example. But we need to keep an eye on the Outside Weasels too. There is just unbelievable crap in the works right now.
It’s a new year, a good time to rededicate ourselves to taking pride and really investing ourselves in whatever it is we do. In many ways it doesn’t even matter what that is. Genuine mediocrity is the goal of the Lowest Common Denominator - the mark of The Beast.
yep , the whole point behind my “moonlight glassing” thread , just as an example .
If we get “too full of ourselves” , it’s always nice to see someone who does things a LOT better …something to inspire us / egg us on . For sure !
ben
“mark of the beast” may be a little overstated , perhaps ? …funny, but …
Quality starts at the highest levels of government and runs through the entire society at all levels. How else is someone going to have the money to say bild me the best table you can and hang the cost. Quality is a sign of a healthy economy. When the quality is no longer being asked for that is a sign of the decline. It can be stopped. Look at American cars in the mid to late 70’s and look at them now. Answer there was foreign competitoin.
HI has been a one party state for so long it’s no wonder the state is stagnant. The bureaucracy is entrenched, and staffed with everyone and their mother. The whole method of business within a bureaucracy is to make it look like you’re doing something but never actually do anything. Where is the quality of workmanship there? Finish a project and they don’t need you anymore. So never finish. Shit never start. That is the perfect move. Just burn through the money and send out the tax bills. Bureaucracies thrive on problems without solutions. And in the absence of a solution problems grow and give the bureaucracy more to point to. We need more money. It’s a viscious circle.
NY had that problem. IT took Howard Stern to get the governor to change the way the state did business. First thing was get rid of the old governor, then break the strangle hold of the union road builders. Previously the gov, Mario Como, had given no bid contracts to Mob controlled contractors for roads. They put up their cones in time for morning rush hour, then they would stand around all day, then put up cones in time for evening rush hour. Not a shred of quality or dignity in that. Nothing got done. Everyone suffered. Stern made them work only at night. He did that by pressuring the new governor Pataki on his radio show. Boy did that change things. People could get to work and roads got done. (There were some asses still. I saw a crew putting up cones at ten am one morning few years ago on the road to Kennedy airport. They shut it down to one lane. Fuckers were laughing. One big menacing roadworker dude was stepping into the remaining lane of traffic taunting drivers to just dare to hit him. Unbelieveable. I just missed the bulk of the traffic. I was only in it for a few minutes. But within ten minutes the traffic was backed up 12 miles. Passed it and clocked it on my way home. This was New years Eve day, like they were really going to get any work done. The only work they got done that day was collecting double time.) Cumo filled the bureaucracy buildings and built more. The small towns were dieing and companies left never to return. Taxes were through the roof. Everyone was on the dole. No one had money enough to buy paint for their homes. Everyone burned firewood to keep warm in winter. Really stressful on air quality. Everything was peeling and draby. Great plan, if bankruptcy is your goal.
If Hi is to get control of her future again, it starts at the poles.
craftsmanship , politics , and “the mark of the beast” [religion] …
wow this thread has it ALL , eh ?
I guess any day now it will complete the quadruple , and mutate into either an epoxy or an anti surftech thread too …
post some photos of boards , keep swaylocks ALIVE !
craftsmanship , politics , and “the mark of the beast” [religion] …
The trifecta of ssstress