Peek-a-boo!

After several failed attempts, I think this will be my first successful post on this blog (fingers crossed). Remy, if you're checking while on safari, blogger came out of beta today, and, coincidentally, I found I had posting capability from the dashboard.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Orbs

88 blog

Merry Christmas from Umo & Family

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around

http://mail.yahoo.com

Bon Voyage!

Hey Remy, have a good trip. Good work on the blog. Here’s a pic of Kara on her new swing.

Robin Hirano

(808) 220-3006

* EDITOR NOTE: I posted a picture of Robin and Kara, until I can get the image issue sorted out.

Like Beef?!

It was brought to my attention that Iolani 88ers who had an Iolani Class of 1988 Huli Beef t-shirt was to take pictures of the shirt or themselves with the shirt where ever they might travel to around the world. The first set of these pictures comes from Kyle Seto, who took his huli beef t-shirt into Alaska and Canada. Below are the pictures that he took from recent trips to Alaska on Norweigian cruise line (Mendenhall Glacier), the Molson beer factory in Montreal, and the Hilton Bonaventure hotel in Montreal. I was hassling Kyle a bit because of the resolution of the pictures being rather crappy, but he told me that all he had was a camera phone. Now, being a photographer, I couldn't imagine taking a trip to Alaska and only bringing a camera phone, but I suppose that's just me. After a bit of ribbing he told me that he just bought a new digital camera when he braved the post-Thanksgiving holiday sale at BestBuy. He got there around 9am, which meant he was part of the 4-5th wave of shoppers coming in. Kyle, being a bit new to digital camera, was looking for a salesperson to tell him what the difference was between a digital camera and a Playstation 3. Luckily, he found a very informed and helpful BestBuy associate to help him. A few minutes into the conversation, he realized that the person helping was none other than our own Rueben Nagasako. Kyle is planning another trip in March to New Zealand, where he plans to take the Iolani Huli Beef t-shirt to the land of the Hobbits and the Maori. Hopefully, we'll get some half-way decent resolution pictures, and we'll have Rueben to thank.

Thanks Rueben!
and thanks Kyle for the update!

An update from Kurt Ginoza. Apparently, the Huli Beef T-Shirt was won by Kurt in Las Vegas during our 35th Birthday Reunion in Vegas. The thought was that the shirt would be handed around and people would take pictures with the shirt in various places around the world. So, the first recipient was Eli Yim who is living in Seattle (remember my Eli Got Married Post?), and took the shot below with the famous Seattle Space Needle. Thanks for the update Kurt! Now, who took photography at Iolani?

Introducing Mr.& Mrs. Bryant and Cindy Zane

IMG_0935, originally uploaded by RemyOmar.

Beez and Cindy Goodness were married in a beautiful wedding ceremony at Luana Hills Country Club in Maunawili on November 25, 2006. There were a few Iolani 88ers in attendance, including Mark Sumikawa, Cecily Tsuchiya, Kurt Ginoza (Kurt and Cec were co-emcees), Jeff Masatsugu, Davin Hironaka, Kyle Seto, and the groom's man, me (and am I forgetting anyone?). Cindy is an 88 grad from Punahou, so there was a fair number of Punahou alums there as well, which made for some interesting conversations on our table. I will upload more photos from the wedding as I sort through them. But please join me in congratulating Mr. and Mrs. Bryant Zane.

Click on the link below for pictures from the wedding
BZ and Cindy Wedding Pictures!

IolaniAlumni.com

There is a wonderful alumni website put together by Dean Shimamoto '94 (Robin's little brother) called Iolanialumni.com. It's a all alumni blog, and very well put together. There is a bit of Class of 88 news that was posted when a "small contingent of Iolani alumni went on a two week “business exploration” tour through China where they examined emerging markets in Hong Kong, attended the Canton Fair in Guangzhou and met up with fellow alumnus Sam Lawn ‘96 in Shanghai." And included 88ers, Derek Ichiyama, Jimmy Wong and Greg Sekiya. Here's the photo from the Iolanialumni.com website.

Congratulations Maile!

Congratulations to Maile Shimabukuro, who was re-elected to the Hawaii State House representing district 45! She clobbered her republican opponent, Bud Ebel, 3082 votes to 890 votes. Election results can be viewed here. Suffice to say, we are all very proud of you Maile!! I know my uncle was one of the 3082 votes.

Congratualtions!

And for a little extra bit of embarrassment, here's Maile and Sandee Yuen in 1998 at our 10 year reunion.

Eli Yim got married!

IMG_0645, originally uploaded by RemyOmar.

I was in Seattle last week, and was trying to hook up with Eli Yim. We chatted a bit during the 35 birthday reunion, and found out that he was living in Seattle working at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. You may have heard of the foundation. Anyway, I dropped Eli an e-mail letting him know I was going to be in town, and hopefully we could hook up for a beer or something. Anyway as luck would have it Eli just got married in August of this year to Jeanette (sp?). We would have hooked up but Eli called me from the hair salon, and told me that his wife's hair appointment was going far longer then he expected. Oh, well, next time. Anyway, join me in extending a warm congratulations to Eli and his wife on their wedding this past august. I was hoping to have a picture of us getting together, but alas, you'll just have to settle for my shot of the very first Starbucks store at Pike Place, Seattle, Washington.

By the way, who else is in Seattle?

Part 2: Unforgotten Classmates

In keeping with the unforgotten classmates theme, I have decided to post these two pictures that I scanned in a little while ago. The first is of Mia Iuchi from when I bumped into her, her boyfriend and her dog on the Yosemite Falls trail about 6? years ago. This chance encounter had an improbability index up there with the time a bunch of us were going to the Santa Clara luau and bumped into Branden St. James and Drue Apao at the In and Out burger in Valencia when they were headed in the opposite direction. Anyway, I was up in Yosemite to do some climbing, but it was misting that day, so we decided to do some hiking instead. I was going up the trail, and I saw this woman looking at me with a slightly puzzled look on her face, and I suppose I had a similar expression on mine. We passed each other, and then we both turned around and we realized that we knew each other. Now I hadn't seen Mia since a Loyola Marymount luau way back when BZ was still at Loyola, and Rick Takeshita was up for a Nobel Prize for story telling, so it was quite a surprise to see her. I haven't seen her since so if any of you have kept in touch with her, make sure she knows about this site.

The second picture is of Kim Nakano, Ricky Kessler and BZ from a few year back, and many of you might recognize the background being the casino of the California Hotel in Vegas. A few of us were out in Vegas for a get together and Jimmy Wong and I were sitting at a blackjack table. Jimmy turns to me and says, "hey, look at that guy playing craps. Isn't that Kim Nakano?" My first thought was, there is no way in the world that it could be Kim Nakano, but when I looked up from my 9th King-Three in a row, I realized that it was indeed Kim. I turned to BZ, and he went up to him, and confirmed that it was Kim. We ended up playing golf the next day, and while we were on the course, Kim mentioned that Ricky was living in Vegas. What were the chances? Kim was between jobs, had driven across the country, stopped off briefly in Vegas before heading back to Hawaii, we bump into him, and find out that Ricky was working at Caesar's Palace. We ended up finding Ricky, and he met us at the Casino after his shift was over. It was nice to get caught up since I had not seen Ricky or Kim since Iolani. Again, as with Mia, I have not been able to keep in touch with Kim and Ricky, so hopefully, this blog will find its way to them as well.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the blog, and I hope that stories and pictures are forthcoming. Please tell our other classmates about this blog, come visit, leave a comment, or send me a note for a story that you would like to post. And like the Kikaida post...つづく(to be continued).

Unforgotten Classmates

This past Monday I started a jury trial. On the jury panel was a female 35 years old who's lived in Hawaii for 35 years who's HPU's music director. This person's name is Margaret S. Duprey. You must be thinking that's not our classmate. But had one additional clue at the bottom of the jury card. Correction to reference to her name: M. Susan Duprey (do not go by Margaret). I was thinking I know someone who could fit this and sure enough on the panel of jurors was Susie McCreary. We cannot talk to the prospective jurors, but I know she recognized me because she gave a half-hi waive. I let the judge know that she was my classmate. Ho I don't think I've seen her since high school. She eventually got deferred. Had she been able to serve she would have been treated to a pretty interesting trial. My client, Vernon Gomes, was accused of trying to cash 2 forged checks at Am Sav Bank. Our defense was he never know was forged checks, because he no can read. This guy was the stereotypical lolo. First of all cannot get one more Podagee name than Vernon Gomes (I had this other client named Denton Souza, you choose). He is Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian looking, short afro, a Rap Reiplinger/Junior Boy hybrid. Twice I asked jurors if they could look at him and presume his innocence and turned to him to see him full on crash out on the table. The guy slept through or struggled to stay awake through out the entire 3 day trial. In the end, the jury acquitted him. I'm assuming they believed he couldn't read. Just thought I mention that we often take for granted our high quality education. I called his girlfriend's mother to opine that he cannot read. She said she based her opinion on living with him for 9 years and that she reads every letter to him plus when they go restaurant he nevers looks at the menu and always orders hamburger steak. Now I've noticed that everytime we go Rainbow's Remy doesn't look at the menu board and just orders hamburger steak(plus extra salad, chili on the rice, gravy all over), but unlike Vernon I don't think that is an accurate indicia of illiteracy.

Another classmate I haven't seen since we drank beer in class at UH is Clayton Yee. You know his name in Hawaiian class was Kaleikane (literally the male lei). Now the kaona (or hidden meaning) was that our teacher asked him at the start of class what his name was and he said Clay and she thought he said Kalei. [I'm at work right now and there's this Chinese guy from Ohio that works with us. His name is Henry P. Ting. I thought it would be great if his middle name was Pua]. Back to Clay. I saw him last summer at Kaiser Hospital. He had leukemia. Haven't seen him in a year. Anybody know how he's doing?

Hope all is well with everyone. Happy that "Da Hui" is back together.

Umo, I watched the UH game last night at the Lee's. According to Sha, in the morning, Logan kept repeating that she was going to see Uncle Umo today. However, when she got to your office and figured out what you do she told Sha she wanted to go home. When I asked Logan, how was Uncle Umo it was evident she didn't want to talk about it. I'm wondering if the other parents who take their kids to Uncle Umo have similar experiences.

Out. Beez.

つづく

Remember all those old shows that we used to love? Watching Checkers and Pogo on saturday? Watching Kikaida, Rainbow Man, Zaboga, Kamen Rider and Ikyu San (that funny cartoon about a young Buddhist monk having adventures, somebody has to sell that idea to Fox) on KIKU: Nihongo Terebi Desu. I thought about posting this on my other blog, but I think the significance would be lost on folks not from our generation and from Hawaii. And I thought it would be a good post to comment on. The first video clip is the opening credits to Kikaida, and the second one is the beginning of Kamen Rider V3, but from a PSX game only released in Japan. It has the origninal theme song though. And I think you can figure out who the picture is of. I know that at least a few of you were actually on Checkers and Pogo at some point, and I think we'd all like to hear who was actually on the show, in the audience, got to grab the pennies, eat the pie, whatever. Speak up! The rest of 88 wants to know!

Maile in 2006

I'm sure everyone reading this knows that our very own Maile Shimabukuro is running for re-election in Hawaii's 45th District (Makaha, Waianae, Nanakuli). She will be running against R-Bud Ebel, but being a supporter of Maile, I don't think she'll have any problem winning re-election, particularly with the backing of my uncle Keijiro Umebayashi, who lives in her district, and is an ardant supporter of Maile. If you forgot, my uncle is the tiny Japanese man who lives near the dump on Plantation Road and whose pidgin, even for local folks in Waianae, is nearly unintelligible. You can read Maile's bio (since leaving Iolani) on the Capital Webpage, and you can also see that through her voting record and environmental work, she has secured the endorsement of the Hawaii Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Maile was recently featured in a Honolulu Weekly column, called Eat with Me Q&A with Maile Shimabukuro. Having to be very pro-Waianae, pretty much all of the food/eating places have a West Oahu slant to it (that's okay Maile we understand... Rainbows, Ono Ono's, Waiola Shave Ice, Char Hun Sut Manapua are in somebody else's district). You can read her answers in the article in the Honolulu Weekly.

Good luck in the general Maile! You have a very proud class of 1988 behind you!

Uncle Ed has left the building

Here are some photos from Uncle Ed Collier's retirement lunch in June of this year. Pictured are Mark Sumikawa, Greg Sekiya, Mike Nakagawa (starting to look like Anderson Cooper from CNN, okay not that much white hair), and Lisa and Scott Simon. Dawn Izawa Hirano was also in attendance, but missed the photo op.

Uncle Ed Collier has been at Iolani for... kinda long time (Umo, Lisa, you guys gotta help out). But from the couple of yearbooks I have here in California, he went to Leward Community College and then on to University of Hawaii, Manoa. And in 1987, he listed his favorite quote as: "There are brighter tomorrows." Well, considering that he has retired from such a wonderful career at Iolani, with loving friends, family, old students surrounding him, he has as wonderful foundation for forging into his brighter tomorrows. Congratulations!

Thanks for the update Umo!

BZ is getting married!

After a couple of years of courtship, BZ and Cindy Goodness are getting married on November 25 of this year. Cindy is a 1988 Punahou grad, and is currently finishing her doctorate in psychology. Cindy also has her JD from University of Hawaii, and met BZ in the public defenders office where they both worked together before Cindy decided to return to school and get her doctorate, Psy.D.. Both my wife and I have had the privilege to get to know Cindy over the years, and we couldn't be more happy for both BZ and Cindy. BZ was one of those classmates that everyone liked, because he was genuine and everybody enjoyed his company, and Cindy is no different, she is just a joy to be around. Both BZ and Cindy enjoy playing golf (and believe me, BZ knows how lucky he is that Cindy enjoys to play golf, and that they can share the experience together), and in 2004, they both completed the Honolulu Marathon together. Currently, BZ is still at the public defenders office, but personally, I enjoyed his stories while he was an assistant prosecutor on Kauai more (although I'm glad he decided to move back to Honolulu, if for the only reason that it brought Cindy into his life). Join me in congratulating Bryant Zane and Cindy Goodness on their engagement and upcoming wedding this November.

Eh, what happened to da hui?

Hey Class of 1988,

Can you believe that in under 2 years, we will have been away from Kamoku Street (except for those who have returned as faculty) for 20 years!! I got many of your e-mails from Scott Simon, but alas, almost half of the e-mail addresses have bounced, so if you didn't get my e-mail regarding this blog, and got the address for this blog from somewhere else, please send Scott (iolani1988@hawaii.rr.com) or myself (remyomar@gmail.com) an e-mail with an update to your e-mail address. The idea here is to have a forum where info regarding folks in our class can be effectively disseminated, and have a little fun (i.e.: sharing pictures, video, stories about what our classmates are doing these days).

If some of you rather not be in contact with the rest of the class, well, I suppose that is understandable, but hopefully reading news about who's having a baby, getting married, seeing pictures from Iolani related events, or class mate related events doesn't constitute "spam". And it doesn't matter where you sat under the library, all are welcome here. In fact I didn't even sit under the library. Kim, Ricky and I usually went...oh wait, how long does the statute of limitations...never mind.

Speaking for myself, I would love to hear what you have been doing, and hopefully, you'd like to share it with the rest of the class. Send me an e-mail and/or pictures (or links to pictures on Shutterfly, Flickr, Webshots, or whatever service you might use [or youtube.com if you have video]) and I'll post it to this blog.

Years ago, someone started an e-mail list called "Da Hui" which worked for a while thanks to BZ and Umo and others who kept it going. Soon after that kinda died out, Reid put together a great website. My hope here is to marry the elements of both, and keep it going such that we'll have a great way for all of us to communicate in a fun and entertaining way. Kind of a real-time classnotes on steroids. Please feel free to comment on the site, either through e-mail to me, or directly on the site. Also, if you have a business (web-based or otherwise, like a dental practice [i.e.: Umo], or a store, or whatever) that you would like to advertise, send me an e-mail, and I'll try to incorporate it into a link on the blog.

Anyway, check out the pictures, read the stories (as they come), send me your news events, and I'll post them as promptly as I can.

A hui ho and malama pono

Remy

10 Year Reunion at Stecks

Nakamura Twins

Reid and Lisa Nakamura had twins (two beautiful girls) this past july, 2006. You can check out their pictures on their website. Congratulations Reid and Lisa, as you said in your e-mail, Twinsanity is right!

35th Birthday Reunion

In lieu of our 15 year reunion, the class of 1988 opted for a 35th birthday reunion in the summer of 2005 in, where else, Las Vegas. Enjoy the photos!


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