People who aren’t sports fan just don’t understand. I know this is so, because I used to be one of them. For most of my life, I paid little attention to sports. Sure, I enjoyed watching the occasional football game, but even when the final score was a disappointment it wasn’t personal. Then I got hooked on University of Hawaii Warrior football in the Colt Brennan years.

For those of you not acquainted with our little team, Colt Brennan was the quarterback who led us to a Western Athletic Conference championship, a win over Boise State, and a trip to the Sugar Bowl. Those were the glory years.

We haven’t done all that badly since then, but this season has been frustrating to say the least, and last night’s game against the Nevada Wolfpack was an extremely painful loss–a bizarre mix of wild luck combined with fumbles, interceptions, pointless penalties, and a star quarterback with a broken leg.

My son thinks I’m weird to get so wrapped up in what’s happening on a football field. Sorry kid. Life is no fun without emotional involvement. I’m a football dilettante. Don’t ask me about play formations or any of that, but I’ve been in the stands of Aloha Stadium screaming my throat raw and feeling the balcony shake under me. I’ve stood in front of the TV shaking my fist and yelling “WTF were you thinking??” I’ve traveled with my husband — only a couple weeks ago — to Moscow, Idaho just to watch a Warriors’ away-game. I think it’s a tribal thing. This is a small state, and this is our team (and my alma mater!).

When it doesn’t go well I’ll get as angry and critical as the next fan. But on the day after, I have to say that I can’t imagine how hard it must be to play your heart out in front of a demanding, critical audience, and still not quite measure up — not to your own hopes and expectations and not to those of your fans — and yet to come back the next week and play your heart out again.

Even a non-sports fan can admire that.

Just wanted to mention — if you’re interested in a signed copy of the Mythic Island Press LLC edition of the The Nanotech Succession books, I finally have copies of all four available. Christmas presents anyone?

If you’re interested, click here and scroll down a bit.

Thanks!

We don’t do daylight savings in Hawaii, and given that I haven’t lived in the mainland United States since I was nine, it was a new — and disorienting! — experience to undergo the “conversion” last weekend while visiting in the great state of Washington.

The concept is easy for those of us sitting out here in the middle of the Pacific. After the winter change, the west coast is only two hours away, and the east coast only five. (It’s a three and six hour difference in the summer.)

But when one actually undergoes the change…what time is it, anyway? All clocks immediately become suspect. Did someone reset that digital display? Did someone adjust the analog dial on the wall? And who resets all the clocks in hotel rooms? I expected the staff would do it, but that didn’t happen at our airport hotel. Who resets the clocks in all the rental cars? That’s probably a crowd-sourced effort, but after the switch I just ignored the clock in our car. I was a bit unsettled when, on our flight back to Maui, the pilot kept saying we would arrive at 1:40pm when in fact we were due to arrive at 2:40pm, and did arrive at 2:40pm. Seriously, who resets the pilots? Isn’t time kind of important to navigation? (I’m sure they navigate with GMT, or GPS, but still…)

Both my Netbook and a wristwatch that I carry in my purse are set to Hawaii time, so I could always calculate the proper time, but those are crutches. There is one, true reference that I trust to provide me with correct local time, and that is Verizon Wireless, of course! Thank goodness for my cell phone, which is clever enough to reset the time when driving from one timezone to another and has no problem at all with daylight savings.

The winter conversion did illuminate a minor mystery to me. During the first part of our trip I was marveling at how long daylight lingered, given that it was so late in the year. Then on Sunday night, darkness suddenly fell an hour earlier, and all seemed normal again.

Personally though, I’m glad to live in a state where clocks can keep the same time all year round.

Confession: The only reason I grabbed a Kindle sample of this book was because it was written by a Maui author–not someone I know, but there aren’t all that many of us, and I’d like to be familiar with who’s out there.

Small Island, falls, I think, in the thriller genre. It features a former army officer working as a bartender on Maui’s westside, who reluctantly gets drawn into a personal investigation of illicit goings-on on the island. I started this book feeling pretty skeptical, since one of the prominent characters was described as a former porn star, but the author handled that aspect quite well, and I’m pleased to report this turned out to be an impressively good book.

This isn’t my genre. I really don’t know how Small Island compares to other PI/thrillers, but I enjoyed it. It explores a seedier side of Maui than the one I live in, but the descriptions mostly rang true to me. I thought the writing was smooth and effective and the character portrayals had just the right depth.

So if a book set in modern Maui appeals to you, do give Anthony Pignataro’s Small Island a try.