The World According to Josh » Josh Haley

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

Josh Haley — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:23:09 +0000

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Josh Haley — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:19:28 +0000

yes. indeedy.

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What Hawaii Is to Me

Josh Haley — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:11:12 +0000

(The following is a paper I wrote for my Hawaiian Studies class over 4 years ago, but it is all from the heart and true still.)

Hawaii is home. I was born on Oahu in Honolulu, where I lived for my first 26 years. It did not take long for me to find out what a melting pot of cultures Hawaii is, and struggled to find where I fit in. Being considered “haole” my whole life, I was often picked on and ridiculed by others. I tried to not let this get to me as a youth. I was busy falling in love with Hawaii and all it had to offer in beauty and culture. I noticed that I was living among Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Samoan, Tongan, Portuguese, Hawaiian and others as well as mixes of each. I found that Hawaiian and Chinese was a very common mix among Hawaiians that I knew growing up. I spent much time at the many beautiful beaches, hiked mountain ridges and swam under waterfalls, enjoying and eventually taking for granted my surroundings.

My father was a professor at the University of Hawaii in the department of Zoology. He embraced the Hawaiian culture after moving to Kaneohe from Texas. He bought and taught himself ukulele and played and sang for me as a child. This inspired me to learn to play and sing Hawaiian music myself. Some of the music was more jazzy than traditional Hawaiian, and I would learn later that it was the foreign influence on Hawaiian popular music that brought forth songs like “The Hukilau Song”, and other songs in English that were not originally sung in Hawaiian.

I was a city boy, and either caught the bus, walked or rode a bike to get where I was going, since having a car in Hawaii was more of a luxury than a necessity for us as a family. I had to know the streets of Honolulu well so I would not get lost. I came to know the streets of Makiki , McCully, Moilili, lower Manoa, Kapiolani, Kaimuki and Waikiki very well, down to how long each traffic light would take to change. I also knew where to get the best cracked seed snacks and plate lunches and shave ice. We never made a trip back from the North Shore without going through Haleiwa to stop at Matsumoto’s for shave ice. As a youth, I figured everyone in the world took their shave ice with azuki beans at the bottom!

I found out through a handful of trips to “the mainland” to visit family in Texas that there were a LOT of things I enjoyed in Hawaii that were not available anywhere else. I remember the frustrated look on the face of the cashier at a McDonald’s in Texas when I kept trying to describe my breakfast order of Portuguese sausage, eggs and rice. Things are different outside of Hawaii. This made Hawaii even more special to me. I miss it when I am not there.

I embrace being a “local”: I learned and spoke pidgin and proper Hawaiian phrases, as well as proper English, I participated in May Day ceremonies, sacrificed my physical health for “ono grinds” and gave and received hundreds of leis in my life there so far. I brag about my heritage to others, even though I do not have any Hawaiian blood literally running through my veins. To me, what matters is being able to say that I have the Aloha Spirit, which is palpable to anyone who tries to see it or feel it. I am proud to be from one of the hubs of the Pacific and the world, “The Gathering Place” of Oahu.

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“Thunder Gauntlet” by Nutnfancy (Shotgun Desert Run)

Josh Haley — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:07:00 +0000

August 07, 2009 — “InadvertentSmell” and Nutnfancy continue the workout of three quintescential combat pump shotguns after an already long day 12+ hrs of shooting in the mountains.: the Remington 870, Mossberg 590A1, and Winchester 1300. Son “TacticalDoodle” bailed on this session to hang out with his chick so it was just Smell and I doing trigger duty. Previous testing that day and previous ones had taken place high in the mountains and other desert locations. Official slug testing ensued and yielded surprisingly effective results for a simple bead sight at 60 yards laser measured. Fighting both the rapidly waning light and threathening thunderstorms,. we pressed forward into the “Gauntlet,” a dry river ravine I set up where we engaged three steel plates in rapid succession Actiion Targets “Evil Roy” targets on stands. As usual I like getting the heart pumping and adrenaline flowing a bit for all my shooting so running the Gauntlet and its uneven terrain was the order of the night; challenging to keep footing, locate, engage, and reload with speed. A couple of transitions to the Taurus PT1911/Kimber .22 conversion were irrestible. As night fell we lost light for more visible camera shooting but many rounds had been sent and conclusions drawn: all three shotguns performed impressively…fast, accurate, and reliable. This vid is a companion to my “Combat Shotgun Shootout!” tabletop series./////////// Music used is my own and from both Jimmy G and Kevin MacLeod. Their websites are www.jimmyg.us and www.incompetech.com respectively.

The World According to Josh » Josh Haley

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

This is a post

What Hawaii Is to Me

“Thunder Gauntlet” by Nutnfancy (Shotgun Desert Run)

Mossberg 500 Disassembly

The Judge Taurus Handgun .45 bullets & .410 shot shells

Mirror Prank – Am I invisible?

Shell comparison in the Mossberg 500 Rolling Thunder

12 gauge shotgun (slug) vs Car door

Recoil on a SKS, CZ 52, Shotgun and Glock

Girl and a Mossberg 500

Remember Kristy Lee Cook?

Elm Fork Shooting 5-Stand

Youth Trap Shooting – WFRV TV

Tom Knapp – Ten Clays Record

Benelli Slug Guns

How NOT to Shoot a Shotgun

Fastest Shotgun in the West

Why I’m Leaving Friendfeed

Unsynchronized Boogie