P90X and how to get a great body

Have you seen the P90X commercials?  They're the type that come on late at night or on obscure cable channels.  The commercial shows people with Before and After pictures.  What a difference!  The Before photos show flabby or average guys and girls.  Some of them have a bit of muscle.  The After pictures show these people lean and mean with six pack abs.  You can easily tell that the same person is used in the Before and After photos.  The commercials also show live video of the people.

We see commercials that seem to good to be true all the time.  This one looked like the real deal to me.

I ordered P90X

I've been fairly active in my adult life, having competed in numerous races including 11 Ironman Triathlons.  Never…

Dee Thai Restaurant in Kapahulu

This restaurant is located at 829 Kapahulu Avenue.  Dee Thai has been around about a year or so. A food court was in its place prior to Dee Thai.  The decoration of the restaurant's interior is... interesting.  The walls are pink. Paintings appear to be traditional Thai mixed with some felt portraits that remind me of the paintings seen in Tijuana.

Parking for Dee Thai

Dee Thai does not have a parking lot.  Vistors park on the street or at Bank of Hawaii's parking lot, about a block Diamond Head of the restaurant.  Dee Thai has an agreement with Bank of Hawaii, so that their customers can park here in the evenings after the bank is closed.  It only takes a couple of minutes to walk to Dee Thai from the bank parking… Read Full Post

Sabrina's

Several people have told us about this cute little restaurant near Saint Louis Heights.  They raved about the food.  I was a little skeptical.  In my younger days I worked as a cook at two Italian restaurants and have eaten many tasty Italian dinners.  A lot of Hawaii's Italian restaurants are good but they're not always great.

Sabrina's location at the corner of Waialae Avenue and Saint Louis Drive is loaded with restaurants.  Many of them open up and then close after a few months.  The other night it was getting late and we didn't have much to eat at home.  My girlfriend suggested we try Sabrina's.

We sat down and there were just two other tables with customers.  That made me wonder more about the food.  On the other hand, it was 9 p.m.,…

The Police concert in Honolulu

The Police completed their world tour in Honolulu this past weekend.  Initially they we had one show scheduled for Saturday, February 16th.  Tickets sold out in about two hours. 

The Police decided to have another show on Sunday, February 17th.  I managed to get tickets for that show, held at the Blaisdell Arena in downtown Honolulu.

The opening act was a group called Fiction Plane.  They sounded pretty good, I'd never heard of them though so the songs were not familiar.  If I were in my 20's again I'd probably have all their albums.  We later learned that the lead singer, Joe Sumner is also Sting's son.  Fiction Plane finished their set and we waited for The Police.

After about half an hour the lights darkened. People…

Tax information for Hawaii homeowners

Selling your principal residence

A single homeowner can claim up to $250,000 from the sale of a principal residence as a tax-free profit. A qualified married couple filing jointly in the year of a home sale can claim up to $500,000 tax-free profits.

To qualify, Internal Revenue Code 121 requires owning and occupying your principal residence at least two of the last five years before its sale. However, if you acquired your home in an Internal Revenue Code 1031 tax-deferred exchange and later converted it into your principal residence, for sales after Oct. 22, 2004, you must have owned it at least five years (but only two years of occupancy is required).

Buying your principal residence during the year

This is the…

Momentum Multisport triathlon shop in Honolulu

Momentum Multisport opened its doors in August, 2007. Owner Nguyen (pronounced "Wen") Le is a competitive cyclist and triathlete.  His crew includes Kurt Chambers, merchandise manager and Mike "Biz" Bisig in charge of sales.  Kurt is an elite triathlete with a wealth of knowledge about training, equipment and nutrition.  Biz is an experienced salesperson who's worked at Performance Bike, among other stores in the mainland.

Mechanics include Tom Captis and Keith Nishimoto.  If you've been around the Honolulu Tri scene for awhile, you may remember seeing Keith working at the Bike Way, which used to be located on Ward Avenue.  He also worked at The Bike Shop on King Street and probably a few other places in…

Ninnikuya

Take a look at the sign, Ninnikuya is known as the Garlic Restaurant.  And oh is this good stuff - if you like garlic!

Dinner at Ninnikuya

We shared a spinach salad for starters.  In the salad there was cooked garlic and it tasted great.  Dinner was a ribeye steak served sizzling on a platter with large chunks of garlic.  We cut pieces of the steak and chunks of garlic and the taste was just fantastic.  A side order of garlic-fried rice balanced out the meal.

Each time I've been to Ninnikuya, everything I ate had garlic in it.  I think nearly everything on the menu has garlic.  The desserts are non-garlic foods, but you can have some garlic sauce added to your ice cream if you're in the mood.  Oh, and if you get gas easily, bring some…

The Surf Room at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel

The Surf Room is an oceanside restaurant with a full menu.  On Friday nights there's also a seafood buffet.  We visited the Surf Room recently and tried the buffet.

If you're not a seafood lover, don't worry.  The buffet has a wide variety of foods.  On the evening of our visit, the seafood selections included crab, shrimp, sashimi and oysters.  Other main courses were chicken, pasta and prime rib.  There were several different salads that were tasty and healthy. 

We talked with the waiter and learned that the menu changes frequently.  We looked at the array of desserts and tried hard to just take what we could eat.  That night we enjoyed pumpkin mousse, bread pudding, haupia cake and a pastry with green tea…