Aunty’s take on Airbnb and Uber

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Aunty goes to City Council meetings to testify against Airbnb proliferation in Hawaii because of alienating neighbors who want stable places to live with those who want to profit from renting out their rooms to short term visitors.  Aunty rarely takes a taxicab, much less Uber, which young people use a lot.  This post is about new tricks for an old dog.

On Airbnb

On a recent 2 day trip to California to attend #1 son’s swift and unpredictable courthouse wedding, Aunty decided to find a hotel near his house, but son found a room a few minutes away on Airbnb for $89/night with private bathroom.  The pictures looked nice and had high positive reviews, so Aunty opened an account with son’s referral link (guest must have their own account) with a very thorough application process, and booked for 3 nights.  Aunty was ready to for her trip!

After taking forever to get off the skinny and long Hawaiian Airlines plane arriving in Oakland late at night, son and fiance met Aunty at curbside and we were off to a house owned by Doris, whom Aunty never met/knew/spoke to.  Since Doris was on a trip and returning the next day, the house was empty and cold.  Son figured out how to turn on the heater and then Aunty was on her own.

Such a surprise!  The bathroom was drop dead wonderful with tiled walls and floor, fantastic soaps, and artistic touches and windows that brought joy to the space.  Bathing in cold weather is BRRRR! but do-able with a lot of hot water.

The next morning, Aunty explored the garden, parlor and kitchen, discovering great art with more artsy decor pieces and arrangements.  The house was so charming and wonderful, as was Doris when we met her later that evening.  We didn’t see each other more than a couple of times after that because she was off to her business and Aunty was mostly with son and new wife and family at dinners, shopping, and such.

Staying at Doris’ place was a great new experience that opened up Aunty’s eyes to the positive aspects of Airbnb from a guest’s standpoint of price, convenience, and location.  It fit Aunty’s bill perfectly because there were NO suitable hotels near my son, and the house was comfortable, quiet, and safe.

After this very positive experience, Aunty has a slightly different opinion about Airbnbs.  Because of its vetting process for both sides – guests and owners, quality and safety are ensured.  However, Aunty still feels that having strangers (even if they are good strangers) in our local residential neighborhoods can be disruptive.  Allowing a few to lend out their rooms or houses might open up the doors to more rooms and houses on the short term rental market – and then there goes the neighborhood for the sake of profit in the homeowner’s pocket.  Not in Kaimuki, please.

On Uber

Aunty’s return flight to Honolulu was leaving at 9:00 in the morning.  Aunty does not like early morning flights because the whole day is shot and getting to the airport 2 hours ahead of time is unpleasantly too early and inconveniences family or friends for rides.  Even though #1 (and only) son insisted he didn’t mind driving the 20 miles and back that early in the morning, Aunty was adamant and insisted on trying out Uber.

This took a bit of time to set up and download on Aunty’s iPhone, with more vetting, a selfie picture, and input of credit card info.  We tested it out the night before from son’s house to Doris’ house.  What a BAM! awakening!  It was like a movie picture segment of inputting a destination on a map (it already knows where you are), choosing your type of ride (regular, luxury, shared, etc.) and then confirming.  The smart phone screen will show the progress of your ride along with name of driver (Jamell), type of car (Nissan Rogue), and arrival time – which in Aunty’s case was 1 minute.  One minute!  Sure enough, a grey Nissan Rogue pulled a U turn in front of son’s house, and there was Jamell – who looked like a younger heavier version of Will Smith.  Eight blocks later, we rolled to Doris’ house.  Aunty thanked Jamell, and he drove off into the evening.  NO cash/credit card/or tip was exchanged.  SO easy!

The next morning, Aunty opened the Uber app and requested a ride to Oakland Airport ($28.41) in a Subaru Legacy driven by Hakan, a bakery shop owner from Turkey.  He helped Aunty with her 2 heavy suitcases (Trader Joes, IKEA, 4th Street in Berkeley) and we were off and arrived safely and in good time for Aunty’s flight home.

Once home, Aunty got to rate each driver (high marks) and give them a tip.  SO easy!  This is going to definitely put taxi companies out of business because there is hardly any wait time, no phone call, and total transparency on who the driver is and how much it will cost.  Uber may be going public soon and that will be a stock that Aunty would want in her portfolio.

Eyes opened

It was a very very good trip with happy events and learnings.  Aunty never thought she would stay at an Airbnb and/or use Uber but this proves the adage, “Never say never!”  Who knows what is next?  Sky diving, bungee jumping?  Er, ah, eh.  Absolutely NEVER.

Andrea Bocceli

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Gorgeous father, gorgeous son. Aunty fell into idolship after watching Andrea Bocceli’s life story on Netflix “The Music of Silence”. He takes on the name of Amos Bardi in the movie, so a bit confusing at first. Still, his talent transcends all.

And here’s another one for goosebumps – with Ed Sheeran in “Perfect”.

Quick and easy home made rope

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When Hawaii had the recent threat of Hurricane Lane looming and imminent, we made sure that we had cases of water as well as filling up buckets and tubs with water in case of disaster shortages.

It was also time to secure anything that could potentially blow around in the high winds and cause damage.  This sounds easy enough to do – until you find that you really don’t have enough rope.

A trip to the hardware store was already out of the question so Aunty cut an old tshirt up, going crosswise, using fabric scissors.  Each strip was about 2″ wide and tied to another strip until the length was long enough for the task at hand.

The resulting fabric rope was very pliable and stretchy, making it easy to tie wire shelves to benches, planks of wood to tree trunks, and securing chicken houses (one of these days Aunty will have live chickens to lay eggs) down to the ground and to the fence.

One long tshirt yielded several yards of rope, enough for everything in the yard.  Unused strips and rope can then be easily stored in a ziplock bag and saved for another day.

Hopefully this is a tip that will be useful to Aunty’s readers, as we seem to have more and more storms and hurricanes aiming for our islands.  So far we have been lucky, but that is no reason not to be prepared and ready for safety’s sake.

 

 

A better way to hold money in the bank

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If you are a saver and have a little nest egg put away, or a person who believes in having cash in the bank just in case a great deal comes along, then you know how piddly the returns that banks give on your money.  Something like one-tenth of 1%.

Somehow we have been conditioned to believe that money in the bank is safe, and maybe it is, but what if you could do better?  Also, why is it, with the recent increase in mortgage rates, our savings rates have remained the same?

A recent post from E.B. Tucker of the Strategic Investor spoke of how interest rates are on the way up, and how to take advantage of it using government money.

The US Treasury is in debt for $21 trillion and is willing to pay anyone willing to “loan” them money, at interest rates that beat the banks.  For example, $20,000 sitting in a bank savings account at .01% will yield $20 annually.  Lending that $20,000 to the US Government for 4 weeks at their current rate of 1.59% will yield $259 annually (if you keep rolling it over every 4 weeks).  How safe is it?  As safe as you believe our government can pay.

For this reason, E.B. Tucker invests in the shortest term of 4 weeks.  At the end of each term, the principal and interest are deposited back into your bank account, ready to use or deposit again.  3 month yields are 1.80%, and 6 month yields are 2%.  The longer the time frame, the higher the interest BUT interest rates seem to be rising, so shorter terms are a better play on this strategy.

How to do it

The first step is opening an account with the US Treasury.  Here is the link: Treasury Direct website.  Complete the forms which will then link to your bank accounts.  Here is a link to a guided tour of the account.  It is rather easy to do.  Choose  either individual or entity accounts.  A personal trust account defaults to an entity account, rather than to an individual account.

There will be a layer of security checks such as choosing a picture and captioning it as well as being emailed an account number (write it down).  You then log in with the account number that was emailed to you.  A one time passcode will be emailed to you for the first time.  After that, your own password is the valid one.

You are now ready to participate in US Treasury auctions!  After you are logged in, choose “BuyDirect” from the tabs at the top of your account page.  Choose “Bills”.  This will take you to a purchase information page with all the available short term bills in chronological order.  Choose the one with the term (Aunty chose 4 weeks) and the date that you want (Aunty chose this week).

Enter the dollar amount that you wish to invest and designate if you want it to automatically re-invest after the 4 weeks.  For this first time, Aunty has decided not to do this, but will probably have it enrolled in scheduled reinvestment in the future when it feels more comfortable.

After you have chosen your term and week, click submit.  This will take you to a page that asks you to confirm this transaction (as in, are you sure you’re sure?)

Congratulations!

Confirm submit, and it is done!  After each auction, Treasury bills will show up in your account with the corresponding interest rate and maturity date.  Four weeks later, it redeems the bills and your principal plus interest is deposited back into your bank account.  Cool!

You can participate in as many auctions as you want, though you must submit each one separately.  Do NOT back out of a page or you will have to go to the home page and log in again.

To see a Tentative Auction Schedule of U.S. Treasury Securities, go to Announcements, Data and Results – though this is a spreadsheet of tiny letters and numbers that Aunty could barely read.

The process will seem daunting, but it just takes a bit of time to learn.  It also feels good – lending money to our government, and getting paid for doing so.

Update, August 11, 2018

Aunty linked her bank checking account and invested $5,000 in a 4 week treasury bill.  Rather surprisingly, only $4993.08 was swept out of the account.  Just before the 4 weeks was up (time flies so 4 weeks is a great term), Aunty opted for the automatic renewal for one term.  At the beginning of that 2nd term, $7.23 was deposited into the account by US Treasury.  Hmmm.

Then, after the 2nd term expired, and Aunty did not opt in for a renewal, $5,000 was deposited back into the checking account, and all was good!  It was perfect timing because Aunty really needed the funds.  

This is an excellent strategy to park money short term and earn more than the banks’ piddly interest on savings.

 

Like an Ohmmmmmmmm, for your lungs

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Aunty is not a doctor of medicine so this is not medical advice.  Aunty must say that as a disclaimer, and also because Aunty sometimes tries weird (and wonderful) stuff.

Decades ago, in my twenties,  I attended a workshop on iridology (the study of the eyes) from the renown Dr. Bernard Jensen.  He stressed diet (you are what you eat), herbs and healthy lifestyles, attitudes and choices.

He did not like the choices of the traditional medical doctors which were dominated with 2 therapies – drugs and surgery.  He, and Dr. Richard Schulz (HerbDoc.com) were constantly criticized for their radical and risky therapies of nutrition, cleansing and herbal remedies.  Their retort was to ask: what is more radical and risky:   a) cutting or interchanging parts out of the body and/or bombarding the body with chemicals that have the ability to blast through and destroy cells and systems; or b) clean out and flush toxins from the colon and other body parts and then use natural plants and herbs to aid in the healing process?

Choices

Aunty feels that the main difference in modern vs alternative (sometimes referred to as pseudoscientific) medicine is that modern medicine treats the symptoms and the subsequent side effects and natural alternative medicine treats the causes.  To be a believer in alternative medicine, one must also believe that the body is capable of healing itself.

This is not to say that Aunty does not believe in modern medicine at all.  Because of the dedication, research, and the leaps and bounds of medical discoveries, modern medicine helps and is sometimes the reason we live long and well.  It’s also faster – take a pill and your headache goes away, put a stent in your arteries and your blood flows again, get a pace maker and your heart beats the way it should.

It is also the standard of choice for most people, and an easy way out.  Going the all natural route of diet or cleansing, changing one’s lifestyle and actually exercising and revamping attitudes takes a lot of effort, and it goes against the mainstream way of life, subjecting the ones who do the “radical” naturopathic route to ridicule and condemnation sometimes, “Oh yeah, so-and-so didn’t believe in going to a regular doctor, did only natural stuff and he died.”  A question to ask then is, has anyone ever died due to the intervention of modern medicine?  Drug overdose, mistakes and misdiagnosis, surgical errors, etc.?

It doesn’t hurt

So, in a roundabout way, Aunty comes back to the “Ohmmmmmmmmm” of this subject, for this “self healing of lungs” is neither naturopathic or modern medicine.  It’s other realm kind of stuff from Master Sha.  Whether or not you believe him to be a healer or not, this leap of faith into a different kind of exercise may make you a believer in your self, and your body’s power to heal.

Basically, it is: Sitting up straight, contracting the perinium (down there, ahem), placing a hand over the lower chakra (just below the belly button) and the other hand over the lungs, imagining golden light while chanting “Compassion”.  It sounds weird but very do-able.  Aunty’s doctors will probably not think much of it, but if it works for even one person, the weirdness is worth it.  Greater lung capacity and removing blockages is a good thing, right?

This Normal Aunty still goes to the doctor and sometimes (but not always) takes his advice.  Naturopathic Aunty takes nutritional supplements and herbal formulas for elimination (tmo, lol).  Weird Aunty is always looking at other methods for cures and maintenance of good health and wellness, because Aunty believes there is so much more that we do not yet understand until we search or take notice of what is revealed.

And thus, I share, for truly, I wish you good health, great lungs, and a long and prosperous happy life.

Your normally weird Aunty

 

 

How to make Spam Musubi

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Aunty is a junk cook.  However, the ONE thing that Aunty does well is making spam musubi with sato shoyu spam and ume.

Aunty shared one with Thomas Bena when he was in town showing his excellent documentary “One Big Home”, just in time for the City Council to approve a monster house building moratorium.  This picture is from an email from him about his trip over here.  Cool, yeah?

This recipe will make 5 spam musubis, so adjust accordingly.

 

2 cups of cooked white rice

5 slices of spam

equal parts of brown sugar and soy sauce

smashed slices of fresh ginger root

ume pieces (avoid putting in the small ume with seed so it isn’t a hazard to eaters)

3 nori sheet cut in half lengthwise

Cook white rice in rice cooker – short grain rice is best (Aunty has become a rice connoisseur), stir 10 minutes after done to fluff, and cover until ready to place rice on board.

Heat a skillet or pot and add a heaping scoop of brown sugar in the pot, stir with wooden spoon and then add about the same amount of soy sauce.  Add smashed ginger root and a tablespoon or so of water.  Stir, bring to a small boil until all the ingredients smell wonderful.

Put the slices of spam in.  Turn slices every once in a while, simmer for about 5 minutes, then turn off heat.

Put equal sized mounds of rice on a cutting board and add pieces of ume to the middle of each mound.  Rice should be nice, hot, and soft.

Use a deep bowl for hot hot water from the sink faucet to wet your hands and sprinkle salt on wet (but not dripping) hands.

Grab a mound of rice with your salted wet hands and smash into a ball to compress, and then shape into a rectangle shape and set back on the board or a plate. (This is the toughest part because your hands will be handling hot rice, but you can do it!)

After the 5 mounds of rice have been compressed and shaped into rectangles, carefully put a delicious cooked slice of spam on each rice “brick”.  Allow a couple of minutes to cool, wrap with the half sheet of nori, and you are done!!!

Wrap with waxed paper or plastic wrap if you will be taking these to share or eat later.

*updates:  Use Aloha Shoyu because it is a mild shoyu otherwise it is too salty.  Or, Aunty just tried a super easy lazy way of cooking the spam with Bob’s Barbeque marinating sauce (from Aunty’s favorite fast food drive in on Dillingham and Waiakamilo).  REALLY ono – a little sweeter and so tasty!

Aunty’s too many tansus solution

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Pal Cookie is currently on tansu hunting missions whenever she goes to Japan.  And she goes to Japan a lot.  Aunty understands this behavior because she is guilty and vulnerable of buying tansus at the collectible shows here as well as at Robyn Buntin Gallery‘s annual 40% off sales.

A couple of years ago, Aunty decided to bring all of her wooden treasures out and display them together as a collection.  It was a wonderful creative and workable transformation of a blah wall.

BUT, at the last March Wiki Wiki show, Aunty found and had to have 3 more little tansus, without enough room on her shelves.  Her existing layout of tansus spanned 60″ over 2 short bookcases that were bought at City Mill, and the new tansus weren’t going to fit without awkward stacking, finding and purchasing perfect sized new bookcases, or major elimination of existing wonderful tansus.  After careful measuring and juxtaposing new with old, Aunty needed a 67″ base on which to add her new tansus to her old over the existing pair of bookcases.

Alex, Aunty, and Gary

The Solution

Min Plastics to the rescue!  Aunty has used Min Plastics in the past, for furniture toppers to protect wood surfaces such as dining tables or as connective “bridges” between desk and shelves with great success, so Aunty called in the order to Alex and picked it up the next day from Gary.  (808) 847-1511.

Aunty ordered a 67″ x 12″ x 3/8″ clear piece with rounded corners, flame polish.  This is quite thick, almost invisible, and pure functional perfection.

The staff there is really helpful and nice, even when Aunty later placed a dinky order of a couple of smaller table toppers in the 1/100″ thickness, with slightly rounded corners and sanded.  City Mill has this type of sheet plexiglass and can also cut, but Min Plastic has a wider selection of sizes and the price difference is only slightly higher with better attention to detail.

The result makes Aunty very happy.  So happy, that maybe Aunty will stop buying little tansus.

Maybe.

On Financial Advisors, CFP

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Because of the original nature of this website, Aunty has been asked if she is a financial planner or advisor.  Nyet, no, negative.  No license, and no desire to take control of other people’s money.  We have been propositioned by a few bonafide financial planners to control our money, but so far none of them has been in alignment with our goals, needs or plans.

Naks with smarts

Aunty has a good friend Naks (pronounced knocks, short for Nakayama) who is one of the smartest people I know because whenever we get together to talk and we differ, he always says, “You right!”

LOL, it’s not that Aunty is right.  It is that Naks has the ability to avoid useless conflict whether he agrees with the speaker, or not, and that is what makes him wisely smart.

Last week, Naks called to say hello and we began talking about his new retired lifestyle.  He is actually in pretty good shape financially, with more than enough to live on, and retirement funds that he was thinking of juggling around.  Enter into the picture – a financial advisor, CFP.

Group participation, please

Please comment below if you have a financial advisor and what you think of them, how they have done, etc. because this is a relatively uncharted area for Aunty.

The following comments are only Aunty’s opinion of CFPs.

A few years ago, a couple of CFPs came to Uncle and Aunty representing an annuity firm.  Annuities sound wonderful.  You give them your thousands of dollars forever, and you get paid a decent return, forever.  Usually it is 5%, sometimes 6%, sometimes even 8%.  Some have set rates, some have fluctuating rates – anywhere from 0-13% depending on the market.

Aunty was not interested.  The reason was that these bright good looking young men acted like they knew everything and were on top of the world with their very nice cars and homes in the best areas along the California shoreline.  They were making and spending a lot of money on doodads.

Proof is in their own spin

They brought along charts that showed what the return could compound to and how wealthy we would be in 10, 20, 30 years from now.  More charts that showed how much could be drawn out and still have the assets multiply.  Their commissions, they said, were reasonable and up front.  Results were guaranteed.  Nothing was as safe as annuities.  What they didn’t say, but they did flash was that other people’s annuities bought them their BMWs and ocean front houses.

A hidden plan for a sale

At another financial seminar that hyped about taking care of retirement needs, we filled out a questionnaire about our current financial picture and listened to an interesting presentation of what retirement life might be based on social security, income, needs, choices.  Most people were in good shape, and all would be hunky dory, until our health begins to fail.

Thus, the second half of the presentation focused on insurance.  Do you have enough for this, or that, and what if you get sick, disabled, or need help?  Insurance is something you need to have in place BEFORE you need it, so the push was on to buy it today, or else….

The biggest pitch was for Long Term Care Disability Insurance, and Uncle and I bought into it.  It was rather expensive and set to go up as we got older, but it irked me.  It felt like reverse gambling – insuring that you would have your bets covered if you hit craps, but you weren’t even throwing any dice yet.  And, if you never needed it, you “lost” all of those premiums to the insurance company and agent.  After 2 years of paying thousands of dollars, with potential increases as we got older, we terminated our plan and saved money.

*Update:  Aunty has recently purchased a hybrid type long term care insurance with a death benefit from Jason Wong of Shiraishi Financial Services.  It took a LONG time to decide after several meetings and potential policies, and different schedules, costs, etc.  The one that Aunty decided on had HIGH monthly premiums for 10 years, without increases, and then after 10 years, NO premiums are due.  This policy will cost $150,000  in total but will payout $300,000 worth of long term care.  If Aunty passes without using any of the long term care benefits, $300,000 will be paid out to beneficiaries, so double the payout of what was paid in.  Aunty feels a great financial burden has been lifted from her family’s shoulders if she should become incapacitated in the future.   Using a C Corporation has made it even sweeter because premiums are an expense that can be deducted.  (C Corp post coming – one of these days.)

Everything has a spin

Years ago, we had put our retirement funds in mutual funds through our bank of choice.  We chose our own funds based on past performance.  Of course Aunty picked the most aggressive, Uncle chose a bit more conservatively.  20 years later, Aunty’s and Uncle’s portfolios were in sad shape, yet those mutual funds still had good looking historical yields!

The stock market crash of 2008 had not yet occurred, and luckily, we closed out the funds and transferred our sad retirement accounts into self directed vehicles before the crash.

Who is making money?

The answer to that question should be YOU.

A certified financial planner has to be licensed to take care of your money.  To receive their license, they must go through courses, college, apprenticeship.  They become the experts, the specialists, the qualified salespersons.  Many of them are good (Aunty plays poker with one of them), some are not so good.

Sometimes they make good returns for you, sometimes they do not.  Sometimes you might even be losing money.  In any case, good or not so good, they are making money.

Hidden fees

Whenever something is bought or sold, a commission is collected from the client.  Mutual funds, load or no-load, seem to be one of the favorite investment choices for financial advisors.  That, or a basket of this and a basket of that.  Quite a lot of choices, all with layers of unseen fees and many hands that get paid.  The breakdown of those payments is not easily determined, and most people don’t even bother to ask about them.

Real estate is not in their vocabulary

Actually, one of the biggest reasons that we do not use a financial planner is because they do not have cash flowing real estate properties in their arsenal.  It is out of their scope, and there are no commissions or fees for them to generate from your acquiring real estate, unless they are also real estate professionals that are agents or property managers.

You make their world go round

In a perfect world, when you trust someone (a financial planner) with your life savings or retirement accounts, you should get exactly what you were told that you would get.  They make money because YOU made money.  If they lose your money, then they should be paying you back.

The problem is, we do not live in a perfect world.  There are no guarantees.  Past performance does not necessarily predict future performance.  Most people are looking out for themselves, and not for you.

Who loves ya, Baby?

Remember that line, spoken often by Telly Savalas as Kojak?

If you feel inclined to go the route of having a financial planner and buying into whatever they have to offer, then please make sure that they care about you.  You want someone who loves ya, baby.  Or at least someone who is ready to sit down and listen to what you have to say, understand exactly what you want, and then design an individual plan to get you there.

If you get the slightest inkling that they are looking at plans for you that will benefit them the most, then get yourself out of their office and find someone else.

To each, their own

Naks, in his capacity to trust and believe, is vulnerable to vultures, but so far has been safe.  He has hired a financial planner to manage his portfolio made up of stocks and funds.  He seems to be doing okay.

Perhaps Aunty’s previous encounters and dealings with financial planners were not the norm, and Aunty is too jaded.  Aunty really hopes that Naks has found someone who is caring and capable of managing his retirement funds well so that he can have an even better retirement for as long as he chooses.

Aunty’s favorite investment vehicle is rental real estate.  Naks’ choice is for something on autopilot and no stress.  The main thing is that everybody is able to live happily ever after, right?

“You right!”

Thank you, Mr. Nakayama.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aunty and Monsters

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Hoolulu Street behind Zippy’s Kapahulu

Monster houses have been popping up on the island of Oahu in neighborhoods that normally have single family dwellings with yards and frontages allowing for parking of their inhabitants.

Granted, Kaimuki isn’t a ritzy area.  It is spotted with some derelict houses amongst nice old houses and a few new big houses that don’t always fit in, BUT, 10 – 20 bedroom houses are being built on average sized lots that are zoned for single family dwellings, passing the permitting process with unusual speed.  These “homes” do not have enough parking (wasn’t there a requirement of 1 parking available per bedroom?), some are 3 stories (what happened to the height restrictions?) and they take up the entire lot without setbacks (aren’t there 10′ setbacks for front and back and 5′ setbacks per side?)

Aunty’s beloved Palolo Valley has fallen victim.  Wilhelmina Rise, with its already horrible lack of parking has a community up in arms, but the building goes on.

A recent KITV news report highlighted one project on Houghtailing Street with 29 (!) bedrooms and 17 (!) bathrooms that has been permitted as a 2 family unit.  The same contractor is building another one on Kalihi Street – a 6 (!) story home with 20 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms.  The parking situation on those streets will definitely cause problems.  These look and act like apartment buildings.

Regardless, these “homes” have NOT been in violation of building codes – until a City and County moratorium was passed this February with the Mayor signing off in March.  This is a temporary halt with rough edges until the new building code laws are changed sometime this year.

Currently, our State legislators are pushing through a bill to make lying to county inspectors a crime, to strengthen the enforcement side of illegal building and/or use.

A question to determine our future

Thomas Bena produced a documentary, “One Big Home”. about monster homes that started popping up on Martha’s Vineyard, in Chilmark – a rather laid back township, sort of like Kauai.  Some of those monster homes had 66,000 sq ft of building!  Aunty went to see a free showing of it since Thomas was in town.

Kristin Andres, a reviewer, asked this question, “What is it we value about our town, our community, and what is our responsibility in protecting it?”

Aunty feels that this is a question that everyone who loves our island should think about and answer.

You can also share it in a comment below.  Aunty’s answer of value is growing up in a neighborhood that is safe and friendly.  Having mangoes handed over from neighbors that call me “Aunty.”  It does not include being invaded by monsters and an over growth of buildings changing our skylines, horizon, and density.

Share your answers with your elected officials.  Let your voice be heard, and in doing so, you are doing your bit to protect our island lifestyle that is getting more fragile with every pour of concrete and uninhibited change.