I was reading one of the comments on the posting we had Sunday morning of the fatal stabbing in Kaneohe and it got me to think about close calls and how lives can change in an instant.
Overnight, that’s mostly what I see when I go out: Horrific events that change families forever.
On this particular comment that I read, the reader wrote that he had just passed through the Jack In The Box drive-thru nearly an hour after the stabbing at the Kaneohe bar and he was oblivious to the investigation that was going on just down the road.

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?

I’ve always contended that if you’re going to work an overnight shift there’s no place better than Hawaii to do it.
Spend the night working, spend the days on the golf course, at the beach or on a hiking trail.
Last week was my first trip to Vegas since I started burning the midnight oil, and having gotten used to being up all night, the all-night poker games were a little easier and the marathon gambling sessions a little longer.
I love Vegas. My girlfriend and friends spent much of the time shopping and looking for cool places to eat. They just dropped me off at the poker tables and away they went.

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?

I’ve been monitoring the fallout from the earthquake in China all night, wondering what would happen if one of that magnitude struck here.

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.

Admit it, no matter how old you get, no matter how far away you move, a part of you will always be a momma’s boy or girl at heart.

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.

Has this ever happened to you?

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?