Gas Prices in Hawaii Are Really Messed Up. Why Is This?

In the last month I have been to the Big Island of Hawaii and last week I worked on the one town Island of Lanai. I live in on Maui and yet the gas prices in Kahului Town that are located within a mile or two of the holding tanks that supply them are constantly changing price and just driving around Kahului, it's possible to find gas prices ranging from $3.79.9 to $8.39.9 per gallon. We are only talking about blocks away. Maybe it's just the time it takes for the person to get out there to change the sign. Usually Kahului is about the same everywhere.

"Looks like it's hard to keep up with the changing of the prices"

"Only a few blocks away the price changes"

While on the Island of Hawaii last month, I drove through the town of Naalehu which is the very southern most point in the United States, let alone the Big Island of Hawaii. This place is about a two hour drive from Hilo where the gas is shipped in and their prices were less than Maui at about $3.53.9 per gallon. They drive for two hours to deliver to two gas stations and it's cheaper than Maui?

Last week on the Island of Lanai their gas price at the one and only gas station was well over $4.00 per gallon. I think like $4.39.9 per gallon. Their holding tanks at the harbor are a few miles away, but they are closer to the Island of Oahu where it's shipped in from in the first place. 

Then on the way home I noticed that gas prices in Lahaina were $3.77.9 per gallon and thats a 20 to 30 minute drive from the holding tanks! What is the deal? They are quick to raise the price, knowing people are hurting and out of work, but very slow to bring them back down, and then if they do it's only by a few cents.

I can drive up the Face of Haleakala on Maui to Kula Hardware and I have almost always seen them an average of 5 cents per gallon cheaper than Kahului. This is probably at least a 20 minute drive to carry a heavy load up a very steep hill and yet Kula Hardware consistantly charges less for their gas than Kahului.

A number of years ago, the Government decided to finally look into the Gas Companies pricing structure and after a very long time, it seems that they couldn't make sense of it all and gave up. The Governor tried to regulate them with no success and so the consumer continues to pay.

Today I stood next to an elderly Hawaiian Woman in the bank as I was trying to do some banking and she was going around and around with them over three $39.00 over-draft fees that she couldn't afford to pay. I don't even want to get started on the banks, except to say what ever you have to do, get out of debt!

With major Hawaii Corporations shutting down and laying of people with no regard to our economy, or in the case of one such company, trying to hold jobs for ransom over water rights to be able to control and build more homes that have lost value and no one can afford.

We need to have some way of getting these corporations out of controlling our lives by keeping the majority of people so under-paid, unemployed or afraid for their jobs that they will settle for anything to survive. The highest paid carpenters in the cities of India might make 75 cents a day and we are buying and shipping good from off island, instead of buying more and pushing more local food and supplies. Our Keiki (children) only go to school for 4 days a week because the State is to broke to pay the schools to allow a full 5 day work week. Then to top it off you get people like Joe Souki trying to bring back not one but two Super Ferries and have them subsidized by the State. Something is wrong with that picture if we can educate our kids, but can consider subsidizing a con-traversal project like bring back the Super Ferries to burn 600 gallons of fuel for each trip.

Well that's all I've got to add except that the answer is probably to get more educated and learn to provide for your families through new sources of income. Mine happens to be Internet and Consulting, because I know physically my brain will probably out last my physical endurance. So be on the look out for every chance to create a business and look into Vitec on Maui. They have excellent starter classes and often are discounted quite a bit.

Aloha for now!

Mind Movies are Playing in our Heads All the Time

Whether you live in Hawaii or deep in the snow and cold of the mainland, attitude and the mind movies in your head are an important part.

Living in Hawaii, I am asked quite a bit from people living in different parts of the world about what life is like living in Hawaii and especially on an Island like Maui. My reply is that it's pretty much like living and working anywhere. I live within a few miles of the beach, wake up to beautiful days and some pretty rotten, wet and windy days, but most of those days I only see a small portion of it. I rarely even get close to the beach.

For the most part if you work in an office, and it's an office like mine where I wear two long sleeve shirts, a jacket and sometimes gloves because of the airconditioning in the building. Then work eight to ten hour days, it really doesn't matter where I work or live.

Living on and island you can have a mind set that allows you to get up at 4:30am and go to work. Put in your time and go home to do the work that still needs to be done. It's not easy and requires you to create a goal in your life and that goal can be like a movie in your mind.

For me, I enjoy traveling and I love mountains. I am grateful for the chances I have to spend at some of the most beautiful places on earth and yet there are many places I would love to visit or even live for a short while.

So this is the mind movie I create for myself. One day to be able to sit back on a deck admiring the scenery and working from home. Or traveling to different places and living and fully experiencing those places for what they are. It would be nice to have the choices and there are ways to create what you envision.

With the economy they way it is and being employed, you have to count your blessings, yet at the same time a few more years to reach retirement age and depending on companies and contracts to provide for you can make the future seem very uncertain.

My mantra and what consumes quite a bit of my time off the "job" is educating myself in areas that interest me. By doing so you find that before very long you have become somewhat of an expert in those areas. For myself I have a variety of interests and not being able to predict the future, but keeping my eyes, ears and especially my mind open to the possibilities, I can see having options in place not only now, but especially in the future.

The last thing I want to do is be in a situation where I physically have to be able to keep up with younger and stronger workers and have to compete with them in the job market.

My advice is to keep an open mind and good attitude. Work at educating yourself in various fields. Hopefully they are one you truly enjoy, but don't limit your education to just your passions. You can be very passionate and enjoy doing a certain type of work, but if there is no demand for it and it doesn't help to pay the bills, it may be best to work that area as more of a hobby.

Eight years ago I didn't know anything about how the internet worked and now I may not be the best, but I know enough to blog, twitter, and even build a website by scratch. That took a lot of learning and time, but it was part of my goal and the mind movie I made for myself. I would love to do a number of other things such as photography, learn to play various instruments and tinker with ideas I've had in my garage, but those I hold for either future use or hobbies, although the photography works well with the internet and social 2.0 internet work. So with that said, open yourselves up to new possibilities. Learn to adapt to the changing world, and it does change fast. Remember education is one thing no one can take away from you.

Maui Sun Versus Texas Snow

I was working at one of our sites with the best views looking out over Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii towards the Island of Lanai on a blue sky day with a few white puffy clouds floating overhead occasionally. In the view was the cruise ship and many other ships anchored of the Lahaina Harbor. The ocean was flat and calm. There was little if any breeze and the sun was shining bright. I can't say the same about today though. It rained on and off today.

I was talking on the phone to an engineer located in Texas that had been working from home for the past two days because the snow was so bad. I can't relate too much having never been in any myself, but I couldn't help myself and sent him a picture of what I was looking at while asking him questions about the equipment I was working on.

He replied with a short message about us Hawaii guys not knowing how good we have it and then sent me a picture from his phone that he took while trying to go out to get some lunch from home. Most definitely different worlds. Just the Saturday before I was at the beach and catching some video of the Whales slapping their tails just off shore of Kihei, Maui, Hawaii.