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Elizabeth Weintraub
Sheraton Expo Hawaii Living and Design
Seemed like a good place to explore yesterday was the Sheraton Expo Hawaii Island Living and Design, sponsored by the Kona Kahala Chamber of Commerce. The Sheraton Kona Resort and Spa is located in Keauhou Bay, which is about 10 minutes down the Queen K from Kona. I have never stayed at this resort, not like almost every other resort up the northern coast. It’s a bit isolated, there is no direct beach, and Sheraton is not in my top list for hotels.
Well, smack my snobby face, this is a rather nice hotel. Instead of walking directly into the Sheraton expo by going up the driveway, my friend and I walked around the entire resort.
Altogether, there were probably 50+ vendors at this small space. Fortunately, I am finished with our Kona kitchen remodel. But my friend is planning to remodel her kitchen, and she is inspired by the blue cabinets in the Great British Baking Show.
We found cabinet makers at the show, but they seemed to be reps for a product line and did not have an office yet. Although, not everybody needs an office, I would hate to see my friend get involved with a vendor who works out of a storage unit, like I started with. But they seemed OK, and she might end up ordering cabinets from them.
They say she can pick any Sherwin Williams paint color and they will paint the cabinets. The warranty, though, on that paint job, is an unknown at this point. What bugged me a bit was the reps were so salesman-y. Apologizing for doing this or saying that, humbling themselves before us. Ick! That kind of behavior always makes me wonder why can’t they just talk to us like regular human beings? Don’t employ such obvious sales talk. You can sell without a script, and I would certainly know that as a Sacramento Realtor who believes in letting my authenticity be my guide.
This display won “Best in Show” at the Sheraton Expo. I’m not sure what you get for winning an award. Probably your name in the West Hawaii Today, alongside a photograph of the owner holding that coveted ribbon.
We stopped to talk with these guys, too. They have a Kona office but work out of Hilo, Honsador Building Products. When I asked if they could give me a price for two French doors with louvers to replace icky bypass doors on our hall closet, they said sure, it would be about $500. Usually you don’t hear that kind of direct answer at an Expo.
What a view, yes? This is Ray’s on the Bay, a restaurant and cocktail lounge in the Sheraton. I don’t know why I’ve never gone here for dinner, again, probably due to my preconceived idea of the Sheraton brand, but this place is lovely. You don’t get much closer to the ocean and, with tourism down in Kona, probably not too difficult to get a reservation.
All it takes is one lousy little exploding volcano and tourists back off. Our air is so clean, and the volcano is no longer erupting. Kona is too far away from Kilauea to worry about hot lava, but vog was a concern earlier this spring and summer. However, there are so many sales promotions now, it’s a really good time to visit Kailua-Kona!
Ah, I have saved the best photo for last. This is a photo of Keauhou Bay. Way to the right, inside the calmer waters of the bay, is where I first tried out my Lahui Kai paddle board. There is talk now of re-doing Keauhou Bay, and that would be such a shame. It has retained its wild and pristine force in nature for so long, one of the last places like it. It doesn’t seem pono to disturb the setting when there is nothing wrong with it.
Hawaii Avocado Festival in Kona
If you look closely at this photo of the action at the avocado booth at the 13th Hawaii Avocado Festival, you will see Avocado Man. He is in the back behind the juicer wearing an avocado costume. At first blush, my friend Linda thought he was having a medical problem; whereas I thought he was carrying a baby in a knapsack. But it was just an avocado costume with the seed in the center.
We are not accustomed to staring at half avocados because it is only the whole avocados you generally see. Except a whole avocado is not a terribly attractive outfit.
Linda and I had gone to Holualoa for our Saturday morning yin yoga class. It is a wonderful experience, stretching what was once beyond our abilities. The class is taught on the third floor of a historic building, and all the windows are open to let in the ocean breezes from the spectacular view. Taking the class with others over 50 is pleasant too. There are no show-offs in class, and everybody struggles.
Amazingly, I can almost touch the floor with folded arms by bending at the waist, so I am making excellent progress. After class, we stopped at a gallery to view Anita’s artwork, the random woman from New York I met yesterday. I bought a beautiful ceramic soup spoon holder, handmade with a small turtle perched on its edge.
We toured a few open houses along Guava Road off Hualalai in a gated subdivision. One was atrocious. I had viewed it online and, as a Sacramento Realtor, I cringe for that listing agent. It is horribly ugly, no curb appeal, awful updates. Much of the design looks like they were created by the seller saying, “Oh, look at how cheap this product is, let’s buy it. Better yet, let’s install it ourselves without training or reading directions.” No rhyme nor reason for the design, and there is nothing you can do make it better short of tearing it down. Price tag is almost $1 million.
The view in the photo above is of our walk along Ali’i Drive toward the Hawaii Avocado Festival at Hale Halawai, just past the Waterfront building. Many spring flowers are beginning to bloom.
Inside the building, we spotted Avocado Girl! She is wearing a costume commissioned from a shop in Hollywood that cost $500 to make. Our local newspaper, West Hawaii Today, reports she is to possess supernatural powers of some sort, but see, dogs like her.
Behind her is Dr. Tim’s Medicine Band, which played a lot of old cover songs from the 1960s. They probably played indoors — which doesn’t carry sound well for a band — because it was sprinkling a bit outside. There would have been people dancing if alcohol was served, but these family-rated events do not serve even beer or wine.
Because we were so busy touring open houses and doing yoga, Linda and I had a really late lunch at the Hawaii Avocado Festival. She chose a bento bowl without kimchee and I went with the spicy noodles over lettuce. Primarily because I will eat almost anything that is served with jalapenos and is only 10 bucks.
Of course, this is the view of the back yard of the Hale Halawai, the beautiful lava beds, beach and ocean. Even a light sprinkling rain was not enough to draw crowds away from the Hawaii Avocado Festival.
They featured sharwil avocados and a large assortment of others, including the avocado named Linda. Which is almost as big as my head. The focus seemed to be on shipping avocados to Japan. Apparently, even though USDA decided last month to lift the ban of sharwil avocado shipments to 32 states in the U.S. but only during November to March, that is not enough. Further, 25 years was a long time to wait to ship avocados to the Mainland.
According to West Hawaii Today and the executive director of the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers Association, almost 80% of the 9 million pounds of avocado production in Hawaii goes to waste due to restrictions on shipping by the federal government. We have no choice, Hawaii is saying enough is enough, we’ll ship to Japan then.
Contrasting Winter Seasons in America
The scene before you is my sister’s sidewalk in Minneapolis, representing contrasting seasons in America. She has experienced so much snow, and being a mail carrier at USPS, she gets more than her fair share being outside to deliver mail. My sister is not a well person. She likes to say I got all the good genes because I am the oldest, and she, obviously, is the youngest. Our brother died from cancer. Our middle sister went insane. Both parents are dead.
Her doctors say she should seek early retirement due to pain and injury from 30+ surgeries, but the post office refuses. The post office forces her to perform work that her doctor prohibits, and nobody seems to care. She is not offered jobs that accommodate her disabilities. So she works in pain. She claims there are no lawyers willing to fight the post office, except the dishonest ones who want to charge non-refundable upfront fees.
There is no better way to show contrasting winter seasons in America than to show you the photo I sent to her. It is the only recent picture I have of my lanai in Hawaii. Just replaced our patio furniture with something less lumpy, worn and uncomfortable. See below.
All over the country, we see contrasting winter seasons in America. In Sacramento, it’s been difficult holding Sacramento open houses due to the crummy weather, cold and rain. Buyers just haven’t been going out in high numbers. Not like previous years.
Yesterday, we had such hot weather in Kona. So hot that my friend Loli texted that we should go to the beach when she got off work. The beach we chose to visit was in the midst of a wedding, so instead we met some random woman from New York driving down the road, who also did not realize that beach was occupied.
Somehow, we jumped into her car and headed off to Kahalu’u when Loli suggested a beach just before that spot where the turtles show up in record numbers. You have to walk down a path just before Poinsettia and travel over lava rocks, aa and pahoehoe, to reach the place, but it was very private. Once we arrived there, we met another friend Loli works with, so the four of us hung out, checking out shells to determine occupied vs unoccupied. Careful not to step on sea urchin.
Life in Kona during the winter is probably the most contrasting winter season in America. It is unique in so many ways. I consider myself so extremely fortunate to experience this. Some people do not consider Hawaii to be part of America.
How a Sales Background Helps Real Estate Agents
A friend on another real estate board talked in her blog yesterday about out how a sales background helps real estate agents. Her research revealed that many real estate agents had no sales training before joining the real estate profession. She commented on how much her corporate sales background helped her in real estate. And boy, can I relate to that. I did not become a top Sacramento Realtor by chance.
From an early age, I won sales contests. Taught me to be competitive and to win. Even today, at my age, going on 67, I still like to win. When I no longer really need to win. It’s ingrained.
One of my first jobs was selling flower seed packets door-to-door in Circle Pines, Minnesota. In fact, I engaged in a lot of door-to-door sales, maybe because I wasn’t old enough to work in a stores. Also, there were not a lot of telemarketers on party-line phones in the 1950s.
Some of my sales background was acquired and some naturally inbred.
When I sold flower seeds, I would engage the person who answered the door in conversation. Oh, I’m not selling anything, lady. Like, where I lived in relationship to them, so they knew I was a neighbor who went to school with their kids. I wasn’t beyond begging them to buy my flower seeds. Or using my mother’s name in the community. The problem with that job was I wasn’t really motivated by money. I simply enjoyed selling every seed packet I had. Creating answers to handle rejection on the fly. Most neighbors could not say no to me.
Did not realize at the time how much a sales background helps real estate agents. I sold newspaper subscriptions for the Circulating Pines (a suburb of Minneapolis) and won a brand new Schwinn bicycle! My parents sure as hell were not buying such an expensive toy for me. I sold more newspapers that year than anybody.
While supporting myself through my senior year in high school, I sold magazines over the phone. People would say, “Oh, I don’t have time to read a magazine.” Oh, really? What about when you’re stitting at the breakfast table, eating a bowl of Cheerios? You’re probably reading the back of the Cheerios box when you could be reading Playboy, for the articles, of course. I take my cues from the conversation. Smile and dial was the name of the game. And not surprisingly, I made good money doing this.
When I moved to Denver, Colorado, at age 18, I sold Grolier’s Encyclopedias door-to-door. Something people would “value, use and appreciate, not only now but forever through the years.” See, I still remember the lines. I memorized a 90-minute presentation and was very good at ad-libbing my delivery. Changing it up in the middle of my performance. Complete strangers let me into their home, and for the next 90 minutes, they were all mine. Very similar to a listing presentation today.
Having a sales background helps real estate agents, no doubt about it. For a short time after moving to Ventura, I became a headhunter. The company sent me for training at IBM, to learn sales techniques. I learned how to sell benefits over features, like a duck to water.
The mere fact that I came up the ranks through working as a title searcher and later as a certified escrow officer boosted my analytical nature. Knowledge is power. But that sales background helped mold me into the top producer I am today. If a person says to me, I don’t think this is a good time to buy, for example, I will die trying to change that thought.
Most agents would shrug, say OK and get on with their lives. But I like to change minds. Just ask my husband what an argument with me is like.
Wordless Wednesday: Turkey Terrorists in Kona
Beware of the turkey terrorists roaming the streets in Kona this morning. Although it is does not really qualify for Wordless Wednesday because I do have words for this blog and it is not Wednesday. Reminds me of the theme song for The Monkees: Here we come, walking down the street. (Hey, sing along now.) We get the funniest looks from, everyone we meet.
I hate these guys. Not The Monkees. The turkey terrorists in Kona. There used to be 7 of them, a big gang. Nobody stops them. Don’t think we are allowed to shoot them but any other means are OK. I brought up that question at the last HOA meeting I attended, what are we gonna do about the turkey terrorists in Kona? Someone suggested a bow and arrow.
Where is Jon Snow?
Our neighbor across the street, Richard, was at the HOA meeting, too. He is in his 80’s, I think, and he’s been reading books from a house he takes care of for an off-island occupant. True story, the other day we were outside talking on trash day, because everybody drags a garbage can to the street. Richard began to describe a very lengthy and convoluted story line about a married couple who divorce, begin seeing other people and the drama that ensued.
I said to him, “This sounds like a Danielle Steel novel.”
His eyes enlarged and he gasped, “How did you KNOW?!?”
I take it he has never heard of Danielle Steel. Well, I never read any of her books but I can recognize the plot line, ha, ha, ha.
As we drove home from the HOA meeting, I pressed the issue with Richard, jokingly, to see if I could a rise out of him. Asked if he had thought of ways to murder those turkeys. Hey, those wild turkeys jump on our cars. Crap on our lawns. Scare the bejesus out of house pets. Block the street and act like they own the darned place. Plus they are mean! That guy in the center would stomp on me and bite my head if I didn’t get out of his way.
What about dental floss? I suggested. Double strength, wind it around their neck and snap it.
Richard nodded thoughtfully. That would work.
Yeah, but then we’d have a big ol’ turkey carrcas lying in the street. We’d have to break their legs to get them into a standard size 30-gallon garbage bag.
Richard didn’t blink an eye.
