Posts from — July 2008

HILO, HI - The Hilo Bay is the scene of a terror response training drill, as the 93rd Civil Support Team coordinates with Hawaii county, state and federal agencies to formulate a plan of action. The mock situation entails a WMD chemical incident aboard a boat in the harbor, and the 93rd CST works with the local first responders to set up a staging area.

The video can be seen here: www.bigislandvideonews.com/20080731drill.htm

The staging location was the old Orchid Isle hotel lot along Banyan Drive, so if you happened to drive by on Wednesday or Thursday and saw all the activity, rest assured: it was only a drill.

In the video, you will hear from Lt. Col. Trey Johnson, who took a moment to communicate to us the purpose of the drill, as well as the mission of the 93rd Civil Support Team.

… the operator of which added me to the site’s blogroll without my asking; a kind gesture from a well respected news source on the west side of the island.

I have thus added The Kona Blog to the Big Island Video News website blogroll.

If anyone is wondering, I am not satisfied with my site’s west side coverage thus far. I would like to pledge that I will do much more on the Kona side of the island once I get my bearings. I have calls out on setting up some interesting stories, some them already reported on but without video as far as I know.

In the meantime, I will continue reading sites like The Kona Blog to keep up to date on things. Thanks again for the support!

Hilo, Hawaii - Residents of Puna, and supporters of the district’s Community Development Plan, rally outside the County Council meeting held to discuss the matter. Participants in the demonstration are concerned that their district councilwoman’s proposed amendments to the plan will delay the process.

The video is here: www.bigislandvideonews.com/20080730punacdp.htm

This is only a raw video clip. It is actually a long story that would be better served by a wordsmith’s coverage than a videographers. Check out updates from the Hunter Bishop blog about the rally and the subsequent meeting. You’ll also find a lot of good info on the back story there, too.

HILO, HI - The historic downtown landmark, The Palace Theater, closes its doors until August 9th for renovations. Included in the improvements: ADA compliant wheelchair areas and ramps to the backstage door, an improved mauka walkway, lighting upgrades and balcony repairs. The cost is estimated at $90,000. The Palace Theater was built in 1925.

Watch the video here: bigislandvideonews.com/20080729palace.htm

Cheryl “Quack” Moore was very helpful in helping to produce this segment, which also aired on KHHB tv news. The Palace Theater is an important piece of the historic preservation puzzle in downtown Hilo. Visit the website for the theater here, at hilopalace.com

Perhaps I was inspired by my new blogroll partnership with Coconut Girl Wireless, which has a great daily surf report, when I set out to shoot some surfing video.

It is here: Surfing at Honolii Cove

I shot it for no real reason other than its fun to shoot. I heard the east side of Hawaii might have some rough surf all day today (Tuesday) so I figured it would be worth a look.

I hope to have more of this sort of thing on these pages as the weeks go by.

I’ve already been lucky enough to have a handful of bloggers and website operators support the cause by adding Big Island Video News to their blogroll.

Mahalo to fellow video enthusiast dustrotter.com, the well versed Coconut Girl Wireless, wordsmith Leslie Lang, and the well connected Puna journalist, Hunter Bishop.

The gesture of being added to their blogrolls is very much appreciated, and reciprocated on my end at the bigislandvideonews.com website.

Once I figure out how to put a blogroll on this blog, I will do that, too. I love this setup, but sometimes I get stumped on the simple things. I vow to figure it out.

The blogroll list goes in order of first response, so compliments to dustrotter.com for being the first to take the offer. I will continue to reach out to the local bloggers and media members as I try to spread the word.

One thing that strikes me about the Big Island media culture is the proliferation of blogs, and well written ones at that. Many seem to be operated by actual journalists, (or should I say experienced journalists, since I suppose we are all journalists of some sort in this digital age) … which is refreshing.

I’ve also noticed the support that the bloggers give one another by maintaining lengthy blogrolls in an attempt to cross promote one another. What a great way to spread the word on some great work!

Thus, I throw my hat into the ring, as I embark on a political quest to create a blogroll of my own. I’ll issue welcome posts as each entity agrees to reciprocate blogroll links. Who will be the first, brave, mini media moguls to accept my humble offerings?

Has ‘The Year of the Paniolo’ influenced the naming of this hand edited news blog?

Hosted by Google Blogger, Big Island Roundup will be a modest site that will try to keep up on the latest reportings by all the Hawaii County news from world and local media, especially the dedicated island bloggers.

I don’t plan on elaborating too much on the articles. It will mostly be a link portal. And I do plan on mixing in video links where I can, for the Big Island Video News website, as well as some embedded YouTube content.

The rss feed will be displayed on the Big Island Video News site and blog.

Enjoy!

HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, HI - Over 1,000 avid runners convene on the Big island to take part in what is considered to be one of the Top 10 toughest marathons in the world to compete in. This year, a change in the volcanic activity at the Halema’uma’u Crater has forced the National Park Service and race organizers to reroute the course. Therefore, all the times made history as new course records.

Watch the Big Island Video News story: 2008 Volcano Marathon

Special thanks to the Volcano Art Center and to Wayne “Big Dog” Joseph for inviting me into the park to film.

The winner of the race was Laupahoehoe’s Alan Ryan, with a time of 3 hours, 20 minutes (55 seconds). Results are posted on the Volcano Art Center website, located here.

On the way to the Honoka’a County Gym for the Waiawi public meeting, I took an unplanned detour, and found this excellent view of Mauna Kea and its observatories.

The 1.) shot is here: bigislandvideonews.com/20080717maunakea1shot.htm