Tuesday is almost pau

Tuesday is almost pau was Originally Posted on October 13, 2004 by lavarock

Well, Tuesday is about pau (finished, done, complete) for me. Tomorrow is another day, and will include the first of what is supposed to be two (count them) TWO partial eclipses of the sun THIS MONTH! Tomorrow’s will happen in late afternoon the the partial eclipse near the end of the month is probably better seen on the other side of the island from me.

Recently I have been shipping out packages to people via the website, but now that the “cat is out of the bag”, it’s time to stop.

A week or so ago a few of us were chatting online. Someone left the islands and carried handfuls of fliers with them to send to friends. If you have ever visited Hawaii you know the fliers I am talking about. You find them at the airport baggage claim areas or in holders around town. There are books like “101 Things to Do” and ones with discount coupons, etc. All of these are free and tell you all the things you can do on the islands. Unfortunately, people tend to pick them up when they land here, then spend the rest of their vacation trying to plan what they want to do.

This guy decided that he would let his friends plan BEFORE they came. The kicker was that someone then decided to go on Ebay and charge a lot for the same thing. Granted, he very carefully explained that the cost was for his time to go get the things. He charged something like $8.00 for the package and then charged $5 shipping onb top of it. Nowhere did he misrepresent what the customers got, just that they were really getting ripped off!

I decided to offer a better package for just the cost of shipping (which is $3.85). What I did was create the packages and stuffed as much as I could in a “Flat Rate” USPS envelope. There were maps and fliers and coupons and all sorts of stuff. I then posted a link to the package on Flyer Talk the frequent flier discussion area. People would click on the link and it took them to my http://ItsKona.Com site where they could add the item to their cart and check out. In a way, I was devious because I would now have them as a customer and can send them specials on my coffee, etc. Speaking of coffee, I also slipped in a surprise gift of a 2 oz bag of coffee. Hopefully I will get a few customers out of this project, but if not, at least I was able to give a bit back to the flier community as they have given me lots of help and links to deals.

The reason I’m pau with the packages is that traffic into Kona will be horrible for the next week until Ironman (IronmanLive.Com) is pau. Also, now that people know that they can get free samples of coffee for next to nothing, I’m afraid they will order the pachage of fliers just to get the coffee and then throw the fliers away. The fliers cost the companies quite a bit of money and I am blindly shipping out handfuls of fliers that may or may not pertain to customers tastes. Here on the island they would be able to only take the ones they think they may want to do, rather than take one of each.

On another topic, I have been noticing that Hawaii has been getting quite a few famous bands lately. Let’s see, we had the Who over on Oahu and Maui recently and here on the Big Island we have had or will have Los Bravos and also the Doobie Brothers. I have not kept up with the groups, but at least one has a member who is pau…

On the mainland, I still have 2 cars for sale and will need to renew the registrations and insurance this month. I can’t wait until I’m pau with them, although I will FOREVER miss the 1990 IROC Camaro! I’m still missing the 1995 IROC which a friend bought from me. That one had t-tops too! I actually owned BOTH the IROCS at the same time!!!

Anyway that is all for this blog as I am pau!