STORYLINE

Lahaina To Host 5th Annual Manimal Cocktail Championships

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Lahaina will once again become the center of the energy drink cocktail universe this weekend, as it hosts the 5th annual Manimal Cocktail Championships. The contest brings in hundreds vying for the prize, and thousands of spectators clamoring to see and taste the contestant’s creations. The winner receives bragging rights, and the title of World Champion, as well as having their drink permanently listed in the official Manimal Cocktail Guide. The competition begins this evening, and the drinks will flow until the champion is crowned Sunday afternoon.

Hundreds of barkeeps, tapsters, victuallers, mixologists, and lovers of liquid energy in a collins glass, will descend on Lahaina this evening to see who can create the finest cocktail utilizing Hawaii’s favorite energy drink. The three day competition consists of four preliminary contests leading up to the championship round. Participants in the: Before Dinner Cocktail, Short Drink, Long Drink, and After Dinner Cocktail rounds are judged on taste, presentation, radical garnishing, and originality. The winners come together on Sunday with their finest creations to see whose drink will join the: Lahaina Sunrise, Sloe SSHAM Fizz, Pineapple Mantini, and the Abramo Bomber, in Manimal’s official guide to cocktails.

While there are plenty of contestants from around the world, most of the attention this weekend will be on two-time champion Olive “Shakes” Leroux, and last year’s winner and local favorite, “Soda” Sam Ona. Having both won the competition twice, many see this year as the deciding factor in who is truly the greatest Manimal cocktail creator.

Experts say that Leroux, known for her strong tumbler work, has been focusing on her pouring flare and better pairing of Manimal flavors with specific spirits. “Soda” Sam says he knows he has his hands full with everyone in the competition, but acknowledges that he has his eye on Olive. “There’s no doubt she’s my toughest competition. I know they take Manimal and drinking almost as seriously in Baton Rouge as they do here in Maui, but I won last year, and I plan on taking the title again this weekend. As everyone knows I like blending local flavors in my drinks, and I’ve expanded my garnish game into non-edibles to allow more intricate designs and artistry. As long as none of the judges chip a tooth, I’m confident I’ll come home with the title again.”

With the electricity of competition, and the smell of Manimal in the air, many are gearing up for what has traditionally been a wild weekend. Mayor Albert Cravalho says the county is prepared for the worst, but hoping for the best.

“I think it’s no secret to anyone that this is one of my least favorite events. While we love our hometown energy drink, and all the wonderful things Manimal has done to support the community, there have been numerous company events and promotions that have caused a lot of trouble for first responders and hurt Lahaina’s image. Last year we had the incident where a contestant gained access to the emergency alert system to let everyone know that Lahaina was “officially drunk and hydrated,” and we learned after the first year that we have to disable the public ATVs during the event for public safety. The confluence of unreasonable energy drink consumption, and excessive use of alcohol is a terrible idea, but the people seem to love it, so with the help of more than a dozen Hailoha drivers hired by the city to shuttle fans to and from the competition, the show will unfortunately go on.”

Manimal CEO Spencer Kane says he understands Mayor Cravalho’s trepidation about the event, and points out that the company has paid for an increased police presence this year, and doubled the number of lifeguards working the area beaches. The company has also added new warnings and code of conduct guidelines to all promotional materials. “We are specifically asking all spectators and participants to “Please, Be Cool!” We’ve added it in big letters at the beginning of all of our promos, and the front of our flyers, so I’m pretty sure this year will be much more manageable, but still extreme enough to represent what Manimal is all about,” says Kane.

“Throughout the year much of our marketing is geared towards extreme athletes. We celebrate those individuals who push their limits every day, but let’s be honest, lots of people just like the extra kick our drink gives to their favorite adult beverage. Being a Maui based company we like to think of our customers as family, and every family has a few drinkers. This event, pushing the limits of mixology, and celebrating the hair of the dog, is for them.”

STORYLINE

Parks Department Using Squirrels To Help Keep Lahaina Parks Clean

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With the busy Winter season just around the corner, Lahaina is about to be flooded with tourists enjoying the beautiful parks and sandy beaches. However, the cleaning crews at the dozens of area parks will look a little different this year. Visitors will notice dozens of squirrels around these popular locations carrying cigarette butts and refuse, but the Parks Dept. doesn’t want you to worry. The squirrels aren’t another invasion of non-native species, and they’re not in any danger. They’re working.

Three dozen trained squirrels in all will be employed to keep Lahaina’s most beautiful areas trash-free, according to Mayor Albert Cravalho. “Our intention is to not just keep our parks clean, but to show that nature is one of the best teachers. If these small animals can be taught to clean up, we can certainly teach our children to be responsible stewards of the land, and maybe learn ourselves. Plus, the squirrels literally work for peanuts. So far, they’re just as good at cleaning up as their human counterparts, and it’s been a hit with the tourists.”

The brainchild of former DLNR officer Brandon Kama, the squirrels come from his animal sanctuary and rehab non-profit “Creature Comfort.” With the help of the public, and donated veil travel from Veilcorp, Kama says he has been able to save over a thousand animals in the past three years. While Creature Comfort focuses on returning animals to the wild whenever possible, often the animals Brandon takes in are too hurt, or lack the ability to fend for themselves. Most of these animals are used for therapy purposes, but Kama says he noticed something about the squirrels living at the facility. “Whenever we took the squirrels out, they’d grab anything they could off the ground, and that gave me an idea.”

“Not many people know this, but squirrels are amazingly easy to train. You can even teach them to use a litter box if you keep them inside. People have trained animals to do all sorts of things over the years. They’ve taught monkeys to search for landmines, and Chinese fishermen have used cormorants instead of nets for centuries. I didn’t see why you couldn’t teach a squirrel to pick up a cigarette butt. I started off with the ones most food driven, and let their natural instincts be part of the training.”

Working in teams of twelve, Kama’s bushy-tailed cleaning crews have been trained with the help of an automated food bin. The squirrels receive a food pellet or treat each time they deposit a small piece of trash, or discarded cigarette end. Kama says it takes one of the squirrel teams about an hour to clean up a five acre area. “Sometimes you run into something that’s too big for the squirrels, and you have to toss it in the bin yourself, but for the most part you don’t have to do anything but wait. You don’t even need to pack up the squirrels if your next location is nearby. They’re so focused on the bin that they will follow it wherever it’s wheeled.”

However, many have complained in the past few months that Kama’s squirrels don’t always stay where they are supposed to, and that some have developed a taste for the nicotine in the discarded cigarettes they collect. In an open letter to the Lahaina Advertiser, one frequent park visitor said in part,

“…..I tend to avoid the parks in the morning now since I find the squirrels to be overly aggressive until they’ve found a few butts to chew on. I’ve seen them steal unattended packs off of picnic tables, and follow around smokers, chittering angrily until they can get a square of their own….I’m just thankful that they weren’t trained to seek out old beer cans, and liquor bottles, or by the end of the day, the park would be filled with belligerent drunk squirrels falling out of trees.”

There have been a handful of cases involving squirrels that have wandered out of the parks as well. In addition to worries about escaped squirrels starting a breeding population on Maui, the rodents can cause serious damage to buildings, and the island’s electrical infrastructure. Hula Noodle owner “Uncle” Ralph Umeke has had his own run-in with Kama’s cleaning crew, and thinks the program should be cancelled.

“I get that tourists get a kick out of seeing a tree rat pick up garbage, but Hawaii has had enough trouble with invasive species. This Kama guy does a terrible job at keeping these things under control, and it’s already cost me plenty. For weeks we could hear the damn little things crawling on the roof during lunch. I called to complain, and they came out , apologized and promised to not let it happen anymore, but a few days later we heard them running around again. About that time, I’d occasionally catch a whiff of cigarettes in the restaurant, usually in the morning. I assumed it was one of the kids I hired to bus tables sneaking a smoke. They denied it, but it was the only thing that made sense to me. Then one day a big storm came through, and I found out where the smell was coming from. I noticed part of the ceiling began to drip brownish water, and before I could get a bucket out in the dining room, a section of the ceiling caved in. Over a hundred pounds of wet cigarette butts poured out. The squirrels had chewed a hole in the building, and had been storing cigarettes in the roof space. Cigarette butts haven’t been, and never will be, one of the many delicious condiments you can get for your noodles here. This squirrel thing is the pits, and needs to be shut down.”

STORYLINE

World War II Era Mine Discovered At Veilcorp Construction Site

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A construction crew got the surprise of their lives over the weekend, when they discovered a World War II era mine while working on a Veilcorp project. According to reports, the workers discovered the mine early Saturday, but didn’t know what it was. It was only after one of the workers posted a picture of the device on social media that it was identified as a mine. Work at the site was immediately halted while the Navy’s explosive ordnance technicians secured the device. Veilcorp says they are glad nobody was hurt in the incident, and are thankful for the Navy’s quick response.

The Maui Conservation and Recovery Act set strict guidelines on the storage of 127, and other hazardous materials on Maui. As a result, Veilcorp has been building a number of underground storage facilities across the island to store the volatile, and controversial element used in the veiling process. The mine was discovered by a crew working on one such storage site.

According to Ronnie Kalipalani, owner of Ronnie Kalipalani Construction, it all started Saturday morning when his company broke ground on the project. Within minutes, his team found what they thought was a discarded fuel tank buried just inches below the ground. The crew spent the next few days trying to clean-up the object, and discussing what they were going to do with it. After one of the crew posted a picture on social media of himself posing with the object, Navy personnel descended on the site, and evacuated the construction workers. “It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I lived through the lurchin craze,” says Kalipalani.

“We find buried stuff all the time. You’d be surprised what can end up in the ground,” says Ronnie. “Mike found the mine while working the excavator. It was pretty beat up, but you could tell that it had been in the water at some point because of all the coral build-up. It looked like an old fuel tank to me, and Mike asked if he could keep it. He builds all kinds of things out of old junk we find in demo jobs. I’ve seen him make grills, planters, chairs, and even drums out of old tanks we’ve found. You’d be surprised at what the tourists will buy, and how much they’re willing to pay if you tell them something was made by a local artist. Thankfully we decided to try and clean it up before cutting it apart. I’m not sure we’d be around to talk about it if we hadn’t. We tried using the angle grinder, but after chipping away at it most of the day, we had to give up and do some actual work. The next day we started building a jig to hold it in place so we could take the jackhammer to it. We secured it, and were just about to start hammering, when all these Navy vehicles showed up and everyone was shouting. At first, I thought one of my guys had snuck into the base again, but then they told me what was up. I’m still shaking thinking about how close we all came to being blown up.”

The mine was identified as a Japanese type 93 model 4 anti-ship mine. While the Japanese used relatively few naval mines during WWII, hundreds of thousands were still deployed throughout the Pacific. Weighing in at over 1,500 pounds, the mine contained 243 pounds of explosive when deployed. Officials say they believe the mine was washed ashore and buried when hurricane Neki hit Maui last summer.

“These people were extremely lucky,” says a Navy spokesperson. “These mines were built to punch through the armored hulls of military vessels. If it could destroy a foot of reinforced steel, I assure you it would have no trouble obliterating a person. It was the corroded firing mechanism and age that saved lives here. This device uses what’s known as a hertz horn mechanism. Each of the four horns contains acid. When something hits a horn hard enough the container breaks, acid spills out energizing a battery, and the mine explodes. Despite their actions, the horns were so corroded that they were no longer functional in this instance, saving lives. While finding an unexploded WWII mine is highly unlikely, we would like to encourage the public to not take power tools to any mysterious objects they happen to find in the ground. If you don’t know what something is, call authorities before you start hammering on it! Please.”

Kalipalani and crew say they are thankful for the Navy’s swift action and would like to thank whoever saw the picture and alerted authorities. However, Ronnie does have one request.

“We are beyond thankful of course that nobody was hurt, but we’d really like the mine back. I mean it’s not everyday you find a piece of history like that, and Mike had some great plans about how to chop it up. I thought there was some sort of rule about abandoned property becoming the finders after 90 days, but everyone I’ve talked to at the base seems to think that isn’t true. They could at least give us a few dummy bombs or training warheads or something if they plan on keeping our mine. We’re not trying to be jerks. We’re willing to work with them here. We just want what’s fair and reasonable.”

STORYLINE

Announcing The Lahaina Zipline Tours Big Reopening

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For almost 18 years The Lahaina Zipline Tours was one of the most popular attractions on the island for both residents and tourists. Our 4 lines offered a unique view of parts of downtown, the beach, and Lahaina’s beautiful wild places. Over 150,000 people took a scenic trip down our lines in 2047 before hurricane Neki put an end to the rides and devastated much of the island.

Like many other hotspots, we’ve been busy rebuilding and we’re almost ready to show off our new tours. Things are about to get bigger and better at The Lahaina Zipline Tours thanks to our new owner, Big Bob Abramo. He’s already well known for his award winning chop house, but his vision for the ziplines will amaze you. We’re announcing our grand reopening next Friday, july 10th. Come on down, and see our expanded lines and learn about our unique new offerings sure to be big fun for the whole family.

Bob doesn’t believe that our liners should have to rely on gravity alone so we’ve completely upgraded our technology. Our all new bidirectional lines and motorized trolleys allow guests to slow things down to get a good look at the world below, or break free from the limits of traditional ziplining. Guests can experience speeds of up to 70 mph on a number of our longer runs. (Goggles can be purchased at the gift shop.)

We have expanded the reach of our original lines as well. Now you can pass over nearly all of Lahaina. Take a romantic zip down the beach or get your adrenaline flowing by passing over an active lava field. Stop using your legs like a sucker and let us do all the work. Big Bob’s web of lines offers zip lovers miles of fun and a complete view of the area without the drudgery and hassle of walking. Our new automated quick exchange system lets you quickly move from run to run without ever having to touch the ground. Our entire loop offers almost an hour of zipping fun. While these technical upgrades are exciting enough, it’s our big new programs that will have everyone talking.

Take a direct line to dinner with our express run to the Abramo Chop House. Whether you’re picking out an animal to eat for an upcoming birthday, or just want to take a big bite from something off the grill, the Chop House has something to appease even the most voracious appetite. Check out 10 feet of the world’s best pork on our famous Long Pig Buffet, or enjoy one of our delicious bacon infused cocktails. Our menu is all organic and is specially designed to accommodate a wide variety of carnivorous tastes. We strive to use locally-raised organic meats as much as possible.

You’ve flown like the birds and now it’s time to sing like them with Big Bob’s nightly karaoke. When the sun goes down our ziplines glow purple and the magic begins. Our host Bouncing Brandi keeps the music and fun going nightly until 4am. Use your ceremplant to join one of our public networks or pay a little extra for your own private virtual room. Let your voice be carried on the wind or belt out a power ballad to everyone below.

Our big collection includes close to 500,000 songs in 6 different languages, so if we don’t have it, it’s not worth singing. In addition, all of our midnight crooners have a chance to broadcast their performances thanks to our partnership with Glimpsea. Take advantage of their nanocam technology to show your family, friends, and anyone in the broadcast area what they’re missing. Due to a request from the Lahaina police department, we encourage our guests to refrain from loud singing after midnight when passing over residential areas.

If you liked it before, you’ll love it now. Nobody knows the sweet taste of recreation like Big Bob Abramo. With the grand opening a little over a week away, spots are going to fill up fast so make your reservations today. Go big and go to the new home of island fun: The Lahaina Zipline Tours.

STORYLINE

Magnetic Resonance Device Promises to “Taste” Meat For You

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Researchers from the University of Maui Lahaina College have developed a handheld device that promises to “taste”, and determine the quality of meat without having to cut into it, or put it in your mouth. The device uses the same magnetic resonance imaging technology used in common medical tests to determine the meat’s density, doneness, and many other flavoring characteristics. Building on research started by Spanish scientists almost 30 years ago, the researchers hope to improve their prototype, and make a commercially available version by the end of the year.

Most commonly associated with diagnostic medical procedures looking at organs and other structures inside the human body, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been used by a handful of specialty meat purveyors for several years. However, until now the technology has been too bulky to be of practical use for consumers.

“Our biggest breakthrough has been in the size of the device,” says lead researcher Brad Acosta. “The device can scan an average sized steak in less than 30 seconds. Once it has properly imaged the piece of meat, the results are analyzed with computer vision algorithms to get a series of numerical scores. We use these scores to predict the quality and characteristics of the meat in question. Our technology allows consumers to accurately know such things as: the amount of fat, moisture, internal color, doneness, marinade perfusion, optimum aging, and salt diffusion. It really takes all the guesswork out of the grading process, and can tell you how delicious a piece of meat is going to be before you take a bite. Our goal is to help consumers make the most of their food dollar, and we hope to see one in every kitchen some day.”

However, not everyone is sold on the idea. Brandi Essen, Operations Manager of Abramo Holdings LLC says that the last thing an enjoyable dining experience needs is another gadget. “Walk into any restaurant tonight and count how many people aren’t eating, but are taking pictures of their food. I can’t begin to guess how many entrees we had to warm up, or re-fire every night before Bob instituted a “no phones” policy in the Chop House; and don’t get me started about the pocket meat thermometer crowd. The truth of the matter is, Mr. Acosta demoed the device for us in the restaurant a few weeks ago, and we were far from impressed. There seemed to be a number of glitches and some questionable readings. On top of that, there are still some very serious questions about his devices’ safety. This technology might be useful and safe someday down the road, but from what I’ve seen, we’re not there yet.”

Despite Essen’s misgivings, Acosta says he stands behind his team’s technology, pointing out numerous studies of the device highlighting its efficacy. As far as safety is concerned, Acosta says that MRI technology has been safely used by medical professionals for over 70 years. “If there were a health risk, we would have discovered it by now. What this is really about is a fear of technology and change. Every new discovery is met with anxiety and panic by a few, look at all the protests when veil technology was first introduced to the public. We’re confident that with time and use, the public will see the utility of our device.”

Bob Abramo doesn’t see it that way, and says that in addition to the safety concerns, he has a philosophical issue with Acosta and his team.

“First, let me dispel this notion that I’m somehow afraid of mixing food and technology, nothing could be further from the truth. We use the most advanced oil filtration techniques in the industry, we have patents on the processes we use to make our marinades, and our line of edible health and beauty products represent the cutting edge of tasty wellness technology. However, I’ve seen this device in action, and in my opinion it was a complete failure

As a joke we scanned Doug, one of our line cooks, and it determined that he was delicious, tender, with just the right amount of salt, but slightly underdone. It was ridiculous! Doug is a chain smoker, and his diet is full of packaged snacks and Manimal. There’s no way he’s not overly salted, with a chemical aftertaste.

Despite all that, my main issue with Acosta’s team is a philosophical one. Every piece of meat has a story to tell. From the lowliest chuck roast to the finest Iberian ham. They all have their own character, smell, and journey to your plate. I don’t believe that a machine can quantify the metaphysical and intangible qualities of a piece of meat that can make it truly great. There’s a reason that the finest things on earth like wine and gems are graded by people yet. I don’t see a well marbled steak as any less magnificent than an IF graded diamond. A good piece of meat, perfectly cooked, can’t be quantified by a machine, it should be enjoyed as an act of pure personal consumption.”