All In-Security

**The following is a guest contribution by Jim, my security guard.**

“If we think we need to install a security system at our house, then we should think about moving” is what self-righteous Jim would (and did) say. And move we did, to the most safe and trusting of places in the US where people leave their front doors open and keys in the ignition. Yet we now have a video surveillance camera installed at LKM. Because our neighbors warn of kolohe (rascal) kids and young adults that sometime scour our mountain (as our neighbors like to call it) for things they can steal and sell for quick money? Because both our fairly expensive camper and solar setup are very portable and very important to our happiness and we don’t want to be without them, or at least want to be able make sure they are still there before our 2 hour trek to the site late on a Friday? Turns out the most important reason is to maintain an umbilical cord to our happiest place on earth. 

Installation was not without its learning curve, and 2am alerts about movement that turned out to be rain or grasshoppers (hopefully not locusts). 

But once I’d engineered the PVC post, figured out reliable power and Internet while we were away, and told the app to stop alerting me so much, I was mesmerized. I am enamored of this place and now have the ability to “be” with it and stay connected any time I wish. I can watch sunrise and sunset there and it is calming. Likewise I can relieve stress by bringing it up on the screen real time to see the sites and hear the sounds of the spot I call home. 

Or there was the proper camera placement and allowing for the wind there (Makani is in the name for a reason).

Do I worry about losing all we have invested in this plot of land on the other side of the island from where we spend most of our time? Sure. However the unexpected benefit of being able to feel like I can spend more time there whenever I want (wind and power and Internet willing) has in 2 days already more than paid for the weeks of trial and error and cost to get it working.

Click on the grasshopper image above to link to the NPR podcast that talks about more than locusts. It focuses on how people deal with seeing themselves very differently than they have for their whole lives. No longer the dismissive and stubborn zen Buddhist trying to enlighten myself or others with a sharp whack of a stick, I’m enjoying this less judgmental and insecure version that enjoys a more open mind and being with a life partner that loves to explore the nuances of gray in the shadows, too. 

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” – Albert Einstein

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