I ask because I’ve come to realize that when ESPN came along in the ‘80s, it changed out sports culture in more ways than one.
It made stars of sportscasters. Anyone who’s ever watched Berman would love to get a nickname from him. I’d probably greet him with “backbackbackback” or  “he …could .. go .. all …the way” or even “rumblin, stumblin …”

Fun guy. Big guy. Larger than life personality.

Now, what would you say to Kobe?

“Uh, hey Kobe, great season, except for Game 7 … you ever get over what happened in Colorado? How ticked are you at Shaq?”
OK, so maybe would be interesting, but I contend that sportscasters like Berman and Dan Patrick transcend sports.

And what’s been on my mind lately isn’t Kobe vs. Lebron, it’s Rick Reilly vs. Dan Patrick.

I have no idea why Reilly left Sports Illustrated, or why Patrick left ESPN. Anyone with info on that, please share it.
But each landed in each other’s spots as if it were two teams in a trade. Reilly is now at ESPN, Patrick now at Sports Illustrated.
Personally, I miss the Life of Reilly on the back page of my Sports Illustrated. It was the highlight of my weekly SI read, and now I’m buying ESPN the Magazine to get my fix.
Patrick, though, is great mornings on 1500 AM and his Just My Type writing is pretty entertaining in Sports Illustrated. Give me his radio show over Colin Cowherd, self-absorbed shock jock in the same time frame on 1420, any day of the week. (I still listen to 1420, just not his show).
The question(s) today: Are sportscasters bigger than sports stars?

Who would you pick — Reilly or Patrick?

I’ve heard of the “Hawaiian centipede” packing a wallop of a sting, but never experienced it until last night.

I’d been sleeping for about an hour when I felt a sensation above my toe similar to being stung by a portugese man-o-war or wasp. (Sadly, I’ve been bitten by both). I’ll save you all the details, but it actually bit me three times and after I failed to kill it the first time around, it returned a second time.

This time, I managed to scoop it up and do away with it, but even this morning the sting is still there.

I washed the bite area with soap and water and iced it, feeling fortunate I’m not allergic to the stings.
But is there a better way to treat centipede bites? Why are they so aggressive?

We’re on the 10th floor of our condo complex, which is sprayed for bugs every few months. Where it came from, how long it’s been there, are there more … those are all questions I’d like answered before my head hits the pillow tonight.

How do you cope with centipedes and their bites?

How do you pass the time? Who’s this year’s darkhorse to win the Super Bowl? Is Larry Johnson worth a top five pick? How about Stephen Jackson?
Help!

It’s grieving time and it often feels like an invasion of privacy.

For most of us, we muster the courage to do it because we want the victim’s family to have the chance to let the world know who was taken soon.

It’s not just a case number or “another” fatal. It was a mom, a dad, an aunt, a son, a friend.

It’s not easy for families to discuss and it’s not easy to ask the questions, but this person deserves to be honored.

Today, I’m asking all of you to share your own experiences here of losing someone you love too soon.

I’ll start: I lost my aunt to a drunk driver last night.

Rosemary Larson, 62, was coming home from work in a tiny Minnesota town on the North Dakota border when she was struck on County Road 17 by a Ford Mustang traveling at a high rate of speed.

The driver who killed her was drinking. The three people in the other car were coming back from tubing down the Red Lake river, they sped over railroad tracks, ran a stop sign and broadsided her.  One died.

The TV station’s coverage shows Rosemary’s car in the middle of the field, barely recognizable.

Rosemary, my godmother, we’ll miss you.

She raised a great family, lived on a farm with her husband Roger. He turns 65 today and they were going to celebrate  by going to the lake.

It was never just Rosemary, it’s always been “Rosemary and Roger” and “Roger and Rosemary.” They were joined at the hip the way you’d want a marriage to be.

She was close to my dad, stopping in to give him treats, checking in to share heart surgery stories (both had surgeries performed by the same doctor more than a decade apart) and they’d go to dinner or talk story.

She could have passed for a boot camp drill sergeant when I was growing up. When she spoke, you listened. There was nothing on the fence about her. If Rosemary felt one way, she let you know it and stuck to her guns. And as I grew older it became easier and easier to see she was more bark than bite.

When she smiled, it was glowing and her eyes twinkled. She would give the shirt off her back to help a friend or family member. She may have looked hard on the outside, but she was soft and sweet on the inside.

There’s so much more to Rosemary than can be wrote here.

Her’s was the second drunk driving experience that struck too close to home for me since I wrote the ignition interlock story for The Advertiser earlier this month.

A few  weeks ago, after a card game in Hawaii Kai, my friend and her boyfriend were following us home in her new truck when a drunk woman tried to do an illegal U-Turn at Puuikena Place — while never slowing down — and broadsided her.

They were fortunate: The idiot drunk hit the front wheel well and totaled the car. A nano-second later and she would have struck the driver door. Ten seconds earlier and it could have been our car she hit.

When you’re young, driving drunk can seem like a dirty badge of courage. (“Dude, I can’t believe I made it home last night. I was wasted!”)  As you get older, you realize it’s just stupid and not worth the risk to you or anyone else.

I have lots of friends who have had DUIs, and I’m fortunate that I escaped my party days unscathed and without hurting anyone.

But none of that matters right now.

Rosemary raised a family, was a good wife and friend. She accomplished much, and she was taken too soon.

Please share your stories and experiences. Lives taken too soon deserve to be heard.

They are my co-workers and fellow bloggers who wrote about the Koko Head Crater trail and its majesty.

They got me thinking I needed to experience it.

So I did.

Twice.
You’d think I’d learn.
The first time I plopped a 20-pound backpack over my shoulders and gasped and wheezed my way up just short of the summit. My mistake: I tried to run the stupid thing before I could walk. Literally.
I ended up crawling across the little ravine and barely making it.
If I sound a little put off right now it’s not really because of Kim and Wes. It’s really because the second time I did the trail I went sans backpack, this time knowing what I was getting into.

And as I huffed, and puffed, and blew my lungs out — a fricken 6-year-old girl skipped down the mountain side and looked at me like I was a penny-less freak asking for a handout.

“You alright, Mister?”
“????”
“Can, I (gasp, wheeze, gasp) ask (gasp, wheeze, gasp) how (gasp, wheeze, gasp) old you are?”
She didn’t even wait for me to finish. Though she had long passed me, her mom sidled past.
“She’s 6,” she said. “She loves to beat us to the top, too.”
OK, so maybe I met a future Hall of Famer, I don’t know.
What I do know is it is a magnificent view from the summit and climbing Koko Head Crater gives you a sense of accomplishment and appreciation for the beauty it watches over.
What I also know is that little kids and little dogs have no idea how monumental this task can be. Therefore, I say we ban them for our own dignity.
I say this because as I walked up I turned and looked back a housewife who had started on the path when I was half way up started to close in. She was methodical. I was gassed.

By the time I made it past the ravine, she was giving me the “never give up,” speech.
No biggie. Love those strong women, and she said she’s been climbing it a few times a week for years, so maybe I’ll get to that point someday.
Or not.
Near the very, very, very top I took a quick break to suck in the scenery and the sweet, sweet trade winds.

The natural wonders were one thing, but I was focused on the little boy who was jumping down step-by-step from above and a girl and her weiner dog who were closing in from below.
See, the thing is, whern you’re getting back into shape, all bets are off on how you’ll handle a situation.
Your lungs are on fire. You’re sopping wet from sweat. You’re looking around for shelter from the sun and water sources as if you’re Bear Grylls — the survival expert who purposely puts himself into dire situations just to show you how to get out and survive — and then you realize this little kid is hopping from step to step in slippahs.
I reached to him. Grabbed at him. Lunged at him. This time, the kid’s gonna answer.
“Kid, how old are you?”
“8.”
And as he hopped away and his parents came into view, smiling, I mustered up just enough to say: “Ha! Come back in 20, no, 30 years and if you’re hopping down the steps like this I’ll buy you a house!”

He didn’t understand.  He couldn’t understand. Not at his age. He just looked at me with pity before hopping away.

“Yes,” I remember thinking, “this is what this climb can do to grown men.” It wasn’t a pretty sight, I knew that. I didn’t care then and still don’t now.

As for the weiner dog and owner, I couldn’t fend them off.

He looked me, the girl looked at me … I stepped to the side.

They didn’t pass me on the way up, but they rolled me on the way down, thereby making me the slowest walker in the history of Koko Head Crater.

But I made it.
So for this experience I say thank you, Kim and Wes.

You made Koko Head Crater sound like so much fun that I tried it.

Twice.
I sure hope the third time is easier.
Anyone got any other hiking suggestions?

It made me think of how close we come to disaster, particularly at night.

A few weeks ago my friend in Hawaii Kai had a few of us over for a friendly little game of Texas Hold’em.

We left at about 3 a.m., and some friends who live in Salt Lake were less than a minute behind us in their new truck when we got the call: A drunk driver driving toward Hawaii Kai pulled an illegal u-turn on Puuikena Drive and totaled my friend’s 10-day-old vehicle.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but the girl who hit my friends never apologized and tried to tell police she was already going townbound.

Never mind that she never slowed for the light, or the sign that says “No U-turns.” She nearly killed two people, but seemed oblivious to it all.

Thirty-seconds earlier and it could have been us that she hit; one second later and she would have my friend smack in the driver’s door instead of the front wheel area. Her blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit.

It could have been worse, definitely.

Close calls are a part of life, but how do you respond to them? Have you ever had one that made you change your habit?

One of my closest calls came on a motorcycle. I had just turned 21 and my buddy was riding with me when my back tire blew out. No helmets. No leather. I ended up burning holes in my shoes ala Fred Flintstone-style keeping the bike up long enough for him to jump safely into a ditch before I dropped it — and avoided injury because my highway pegs stuck in the ground and saved the bike from dropping on me.
I sold my bike shortly after that and earlier this year, when I nearly bought another bike, it took one trip down the highway with all the traffic rushing by and a car nearly cutting me off to remind me that I dodged enough bullets when I was younger.

I bought a ‘97 convertible instead.
What’s your close-call story?

Some friends from Tacoma and Seattle didn’t even make it to the tables, spending the days at the MGM river pool and the nights in the clubs.

I should have done the same, but I think I’ve finally accepted the real Vegas motto: What money you bring to Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Still, Vegas is the one place on the Mainland where you can leave Hawaii and never feel like you’ve left home.

Our waiter at the Studio Cafe in the MGM was from Kalihi, the resident manager at the timeshare we stayed at was from Kaneohe and the bus driver was also from here.
Downtown, we gambled next to a Big Island family, heard some ladies from somewhere on Oahu shouting at the roulette table and tossed dice at Main Street with some locals at 6 a.m. (Maybe 7. It’s a blur).
For as many Hawaii residents who go there, has anyone else noticed how dead downtown is nowadays at 3 a.m.?

Is the economy starting to affect the city of light’s, too?

Also, if you were there last weekend and noticed Las Vegas Boulevard being shut down for a few hours overnight, did you know it was for Dwayne Johnson’s new movie  “Escape to Witch Mountain”?

We sat on the overpass and watched as the cars sat motionless for what seemed to be hours, then they’d slowly drive through to the stop light and do it over again.
The one thing I didn’t do on this trip was get to Hugo’s Cellar in the Four Queen’s Casino.
Everyone has a favorite Vegas place to eat and this is mine. You can find a $5 table upstairs and then walk into the cellar for the best steak Vegas has to offer. It is a hidden, high class gem.
I’m always looking for Vegas’ little secret hideouts. Anyone got any tips to share on where to eat if you’re up all night?

Where do you like to go, and stay, in the city that never sleeps?

The last major quake we had on Oahu a few years ago I remember vividly. It was 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning and I turned on the tube to watch the NFL early game. New Orleans was playing, and that was as far as I got.

By the time I figured out nobody was shaking my bed, I looked out the window to see the lights on our eighth-floor tennis court at our condo swaying like palm trees, nearly touching the ground to the left, then the right. The tenants on the 40th floor, I could only imagine how much our building swayed and what they were going through.

Not long after, all power was gone. I had to use a flashlight to make it down 10 flights of stairs to the parking garage, then drove through downtown to the office with no traffic lights to help along the way.

First in the office and it was pitch black and eerily quiet. All the landlines were out so we started calling reporters on cellphones to assess damages throughout the islands and we posted updates through the use of backup generators.

Blogger Cat Toth was working for the paper at the time and was on vacation on Kauai. She had her laptop with her and was one of the few people who could post any info so we fed her info and vice versa.

Earthquakes are freaky.

You want to get outside and your mind tells you if you do, all the shaking will stop. You want to believe it would be like leaving a fun house at a fair or carnival.

Nope.

When I was in the big earthquake in Tacoma in 2002, I remember getting out to the parking lot as other co-workers jumped under desks. When I stepped outside I fully thought everything would be normal, but I remember seeing everything rocking and all I could do was look at the ground and wonder if it would open up suck me in.

Living in Hawaii, we also have to worry about tsunamis an earthquake may bring. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center does a great job of posting updates whenever there is a threat, but when nothing was posted overnight to say if Hawaii was in danger from the China earthquake, I called.

The China quake was too far inland to cause any rift with ocean waters was the basic response. But even better, they were continuing to monitor the quake and asked for information on casualties. They’re human, just like us.

I can only imagine what the people in China are going through today. If you have an earthquake experience, share it here.

And if you’re wondering about the overnight shift, two sites we check all the time are the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Hawaii Volcano Observatory for earthquakes in Hawaii.

If one hits, we want to be as ready as humanly possible, and we want you to be ready, too.

I have no problem owning up to that, particularly on Mother’s Day.

I haven’t lived in the same city as my folks since 1989 and I left our homestate in 1996, but in some ways I’m closer to my mom and dad than I’ve ever been.

Maybe it’s because as you grow older you can appreciate what they went through for you growing up. Technology has made it so much easier for kids to spread their wings and fly and yet never be further than a plane ride away from home.

And email? It is my personal conduit to back home.

There is a sort of comfort in knowing that every day at about 2 a.m. here in Honolulu I know I can check my earthlink account and there’ll be a message from my mom back home in North Dakota.

If I tell her I’m going for a bike ride, like I did earlier this week, the next email will include a safety tip to “be careful.” If I’m looking at buying a house, the next email will include all the pitfalls: “There’s insurance. Garbage. Electric bills. Taxes … it’s not like renting you know …”

Most of the time it’s nothing but an extended hello just to let me know they’re ok: “Nothing happening here. Dad is going golfing and I played cards with the girls. Lost 35 cents. We’re going for a walk and then to Don’s for supper … the kids next door came over. God, are they handful. They jump all over the place. If you had done that …”

Straight and to the point. What else could you ask for from a mom’s email?

So reliable are these daily e’s that not having one show can only mean one of two things: a) I haven’t called lately so she’s being stubborn, therefore I have to call — which is similar to having to restart a computer; or B) Something is wrong, in which case I need to call immediately.

Fortunately, the latter rarely occurs.

My mom may kill me for doing this, but since it’s Mother’s Day I thought I’d share part of her latest email. I always get a kick out of them. I hope you do, too:

“It’s snowing! The ground is white, can you believe it on the 10th of May? We got an invitation to Maureen’s daughter’s graduation open house next Sunday. Chris called from Texas yesterday man her & Scott are doing well. I was thinking about the day you were learning to ride that little two-wheel bike with no training wheels. I think we spent the whole morning giving you a pushes up & down the sidewalk but you got it mastered.
luv u mom”

Happy Mother’s Day. Feel free to share your own stories and memories here.

You start a diet and exercise program, follow it diligently for more than a week and you’re “sure” you’re already feeling results so you decide it’s time to step on the dreaded scale.

That’s when reality hits: Weight loss? Zero pounds.

You rub your eyes. You step off. You give the scale a second chance before flinging it off the lanai.

You step on again and this time, it says … same as two weeks ago?

What the … ?

Now, I don’t expect to move mountains in just 10 days, but a baby step or two would have been nice.

Zero pounds?

You mean to tell me that eating oatmeal, brown rice and salads offers the same weight results as a bacon double cheeseburger and fries? And don’t tell me of portions or eating small meals is the key, I’m trying all of that, too.

Reality bites and I feel like I just got punked.

My first reaction was to look up Pizza Hut’s  phone number, but fortunately my cell phone was in hiding and not within reach.

A calmer, gentler me minutes later rationalized the biggest mistake of the day was stepping on the scale so soon after starting the diet.

I have to believe that if you’re feeling better from dieting and working out, it will work out in the long run.

Right?

But I’m curious as to how many people this happens to and how you deal with it.

Let me hear some success and failure stories.

How do you cope?