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Kaua’i, Hawaii is one of the most beautiful places on earth to live. The island embraces you with a feeling of love and there is a pulsating spiritual energy that covers the island.

I was fortunate to live and work on the island for 5 years. I can recall several instances where I encountered ghosts when traveling around the island. I saw Hawaiian ghosts in my house, at my work, in restaurants and even hotel bathrooms.

At the airport my shift began at 5:00 A.M., even though the first flight didn’t arrive until 6:10 A.M. or so. As I walked back to my podium from unlocking the foyer doors, the doors opened by themselves, and then another set of doors opened, then the same set opened again. I felt chills go through my body and got a little freaked out for a second. I regained my composure and thought to myself, standing alone in this room, I wonder if I’m not alone or if it is an electrical shortage.

Then I remembered that this had happened in another foyer as well. It was not always the same doors and a different pattern, so I thought an electrical short was unlikely.

I knew the history of the Hawaiian Islands and that the airport was close to sacred ground. I was afraid to admit to myself that the airport and the room I was standing in was haunted. I was trapped and couldn’t leave my post, so I sat there talking to the ghosts, letting them know that I was only there to help people and that I didn’t mean any harm. Later, I asked around the terminal and got verification that the airport was, in fact, known to be haunted.

I never told anyone what had happened except for a very spiritual coworker who believed in spirits. I asked her if the doors opening ever happened to her. She said never. I thought that was interesting. It proved my point that it wasn’t an electrical short since she was recently assigned to the foyers as a result of an injury. I asked her to do me a favor. I told her that if she said good morning to the ghosts from me, they would respond by opening the doors for her.

The next morning she did what I asked her to do, and sure enough the doors opened for the first time for her too. She couldn’t believe it. She said they knew my name and that I had made some friends. I responded by saying, “Blessings to them.”

There is a story about a lady in white who stands on the jet-way late at night. She just stands there, blowing in the wind. Many employees have seen her and agree she’s not a malicious ghost. She just wants to exist. There seem to be a lot of friendly ghosts, like Casper. Knowing the spirits were friendly put me more at ease.

I discovered historically that the Hawaiians buried commoners along the shorelines and kings and queens in caves. Since the airport is built at the water’s edge,

I would say I was visited by Hawaiian commoners who wanted to check me out. The hair on my arms always stood straight up when they came around.

Natalia Ippolito, a former airport screener and author of: I MIGHT AS WELL BE NAKED: How to Survive Airport Screening With Your Clothes On.

Receive her FREE Tip of The Week, Sample Chapter Ultimate Packing List or Unknown Violations and Fines Report at http://www.airportbook.com

If you’ve gone to the expense of using chauffeur car hire, then you want to get your money’s worth. Drink the champagne provided, however cheap, try out all the seats, use the champagne bucket for throwing up in, wind the privacy partition up and down, up and down, up and down, hang out of the window being loud and obnoxious and squeeze as many of your mates in as possible.

For anyone that uses chauffeur car hire, seeing how many people you can cram in is an absolute must. The driver won’t mind, in fact, he would think you were rude and unappreciative if you didn’t. The idea is, you drive around to your friend’s houses to collect them. It is essential that you go to each in turn so that they think they’re neighbours think they are something special. The only problem with this is that around prom night there are more limos on the streets than any other car and it becomes the norm.

Drinking the courtesy champagne is a good start on the way to being totally inebriated. Of course, with so many occupants there will need to be more alcohol supplied but there is definitely something daring about travelling in a vehicle whilst being totally wasted. Of course, the champagne bucket comes in useful when the alcohol becomes too much and will get passed around as a sick bucket. Just remember to pull over and empty it occasionally.

The winding up and down of the privacy window is the perfect childish entertainment, particularly if there is a squeak involved. You start off by sitting near the window looking sweet and innocent. One slide of the window will have the driver alert and by the time you’ve done it ten or twelve times you will see him physically start to bristle as it becomes irritating and you and your mates find it ever more amusing.

If you’re a bit of an exercise freak and feel guilty for using chauffeur car hire, why not exercise while you go along? With an open sun roof, you can stand quite comfortably and carry out calf raises while getting fresh air. This is best done when it’s not raining or snowing. Sit up’s are also possible in the back of this car. Wedge your toes under the back seat and carry out your sit ups at leisure. Best not done in a queue of stop/start traffic or on a belly full of champagne.

Knitting is also a good past time while enjoying the pleasures of chauffeur car hire. Many a good jumper has been constructed by a person sat in the back of a car with nothing better to do and if your wool gets in a two and eight, you can always get the chauffeur to hold out his hands while you wind the wool round.

Crochet, cross stitch and sewing all come under the list of hobbies that can be carried out in the back of such a vehicle but hobbies such as glass blowing, blacksmithing or wood carving are all hobbies probably best left at home.

For anyone that uses chauffeur car hire, seeing how many people you can cram in is an absolute must. The driver won’t mind, in fact, he would think you were rude and unappreciative if you didn’t.

Entertainments expert Catherine Harvey looks at the uses for chauffeur car hire other than driving to a destination.

Look up the back of the kitchen cupboard, or under the stairs in any house in Britain and you will find a product of industrial design that has been hidden away since its first use. Get someone in the house to admit is was useless and you’re on a losing streak.

If the husband bought the gadget it was highly important and absolutely necessary at the time of purchase. Any product of industrial design deserves a loving place in the garage. What the wife wants to know is how come this desperately needed piece has been taking up kitchen floor space, gathering dust and simply being a thing for her to bash her shins on frequently. This is where it will stay until she puts it under the stairs.

If the wife bought the gadget and it costs over a pound the husband will see it as a useless waste of money. He will complain, no matter what products it can slice, dice, clean or create. To him it is a useless piece of industrial design unless it is something he wanted. If she uses it once and finds it’s a pig to clean she may well get it out a few times, using it in front of her husband whistling like it’s the easiest thing in the world before his back is turned and she slides it up the back of the cupboard.

There can’t be many people who don’t have a juicer tucked away somewhere. Not a useless gadget in itself, in fact, if you are on a health kick it is absolutely essential. Of course, this only works if you get up at the crack of dawn to start whizzing and mixing and pulping just so you can have a drink. I always thought that was what those cartons on the supermarket shelf were for but maybe that’s just me.

Products of industrial design always start out as an innovative idea in someone’s mind. These ideas are normally generated from a job that someone finds particularly difficult and precede the phrase that begins ‘Why don’t they make something that….’

And so we have the scissors with the laser light. These were created by someone who got the hump when they couldn’t cut in a straight line and thought this would be a good idea. Great idea if you have a steady hand - useless if you have a shaky hand and that is why you can’t cut straight in the first place.

Then we have the 200 pounds electric nail file that promises to give you salon perfect nails. This replaces the 1.50 pounds emery board that you can get in the corner shop - sensible. This must have been made by a man in an anorak who decided his wife spent too much money on emery boards or too long in the nail salon. Yeah right - ‘cos that’ll stop her!

Do these sort of people not understand just why we go to nail salons? It’s not a simple matter of getting our nails done for vain reasons. There is a whole aura about the process. We start off by feeling down and ugly. This usually accompanies that time of month when we’re feeling fat too. Then we focus on one aspect of ourselves - often our nails. Everything is going wrong in our lives because we have bad nails.

A trip to the salon will cheer us up no end. The smell of acetone, the banter of the orange ladies and the constant praise that we now look beautiful all work a treat. Set off a good set of nails with the perfect outfit with matching shoes, handbag and maybe a hair trim and you will come home to a much happier lady.

Expert buyer Catherine Harvey looks at some of the products of industrial design that haven’t quite made it.

You’d think with the advent of spell checker that mistakes would no longer be made but one rule of the typist and computer programmer is never to trust the spell checker. You would be amazed that one slip of the finger and you will write all manner of things which could be mis-construed and god forbid you should mis-spell whatever it is you are looking for on the internet.

Take for instance the humble ink cartridge. All you need is a nail malfunction, or temporary loss of concentration and you’ve typed extra letters where there shouldn’t be any. Search results will be entirely different. Very possibly you will be searching for ‘pink’ cartridge instead of ink cartridge.

A pink cartridge is a little devise that you can purchase if you are young with a teeny, teeny body and daddy has lots of money. It gives you the ability to view the world in pink alone. Everything looks rosy and sugary and the world takes on a completely surreal tint. You will feel compelled to carry a small dog in your hand bag, or even as a handbag and delight will be found in things like a horrendously priced hairclip or some such banal trivia.

Another attempt at looking for an ink cartridge will come up with a ’sink’ cartridge with the wrong spelling. Unlike an ink cartridge, you will not get reams of perfectly printed letters or colourful pictures. You will, instead, get a multi-purpose devise that is purely for the plumbing industry.

A genuine slip of the index finger whilst searching for an ink cartridge will bring you ‘think’ cartridges. These are acquired rather than purchased and you will find yourself with them the morning after the night before. Through a haze of alcoholic hangover you will be racking your brain trying to remember what you did, who you spoke to and how many ex’s you phoned and abused.

A rink cartridge is something from the line of refrigeration. They come in various sizes and are used to freeze anything from the local ice rink to the fridge/freezers of domestic use. Long term usage in the domestic environment can have the knock on effect of freezing the wife or long term partner and this is not recommended.

Link cartridges are computer programmes that will link all websites that you request it to and is quite useful but not an ink cartridge. There are also mink cartridges that are pellets you put down holes in the ground to smoke out the furry coated critters and thus provide a lovely little coat for next winter for those who have taken the pink cartridge.

Take great care in how you type in ink cartridge. You need a devise that’s going to supply inks to your printer or photocopier. If in doubt, check it out before you try using it. It should be a relatively small, probably black, contraption that makes a mess over your hands and fits neatly into the void in your printer. If you don’t take care when looking for an ink cartridge, you could well end up with a kink cartridge and that is an entirely different thing altogether.

Expert writer Catherine Harvey looks at what can happen if you mis spell ink cartridge in a computer search.

Do YOU know anyone who loves going to the dentist, lying flat on their helpless back, relinquishing all control over to “The Mad Dentist?”

What joy to spit blood, have needles jabbed in our swollen sore gums, pink goop crammed in our mouth for impressions, suction devices, hard plastic forced in our mouth for x-rays, & blinded by their stupid bright light. Not to mention the picture on the wall, of fake flowers painted by some dirt ball kindergartner, that is supposed to give us that nice relaxed feeling.

While treating myself to a double stick of delicious Double Mint chewing gum, I almost paid double the price. Out comes a cap (tooth cap, not a golf cap) Better in the wad than down the sink drain. The cap is worth more than it’s weight in gold. No exaggeration.

I phone the dentist, “Hi there, I’m one of your valued customers and one of my caps came off…how much to glue it back on?” “No charge, if we put it on,” was the response. Seems fair. “Come on over, we’ll take care of you!”

Thank God, I wasn’t in any pain. The rates charged at the dentist office are in direct proportion to the amount of pain you are experiencing. Hurt just a little, $350. Hurt a fair amount, $550 (but not fair). Hurts a whole lot, special today $950. Hurts like hell, “How much equity do you have in your home?”

I ease into THE CHAIR and think about what happens to people who are flat on their backs . . . Would it happen to me? A perky dental assistant stops by and skips away with my tooth for some minor cleaning. So far, so good. She returns with a smile on her face! “The dentist will be right with you Mr. McLellan.” Several years later the MAN shows up “Hi Mr. McLellan, it seems we didn’t put your cap on after all.” “Well, OK, I hear someone sheepishly mumble, as in me” No doubt about it…I’m in an extremely compromised position.

How much can a drop of glue cost? I certainly hope he will remember that our family did buy him his new Porche Carrera GT (a late-2003 model with an open cockpit and a six-liter V-10 engine that will produce 558 horsepower), the fastest street-legal Porsche on earth at around a cool $180,000.00.

“That will be $120, Sir!” I’m shocked, plus I hate it when anyone calls me Sir. I can feel my blood pressure starting to rocket out of control as I lie there looking up at the “masked man.” No need to stick my hands up, I’m already screwed . . . OR am I? “$120? that’s an outrage, a rip-off,” I yell, loud enough for everyone in the other dental chairs to hear….and those in the waiting room, and behind the counter, and in the bathrooms, and those walking by and across the street & truck drivers with loud mufflers driving by. “Well, Mr. McLellan that’s our policy.”

“Screw your policy! Give me my tooth!!!” I rip off my bib, sit straight up in the chair and flex my lats! “Well Sir, (there’s that word again),what are you going to do about it?” he inquires with an arrogant smirk on his face? “I’ll show you,” as I charge out the door leaving stares of disbelief in my wake.

My lovely wife is waiting for me in the car. “How’d it go Honey?” she asks.” “Fine, here’s my tooth . . . the sumbitch wanted to charge me $120 for a drop of glue.”

We stopped by Walgreen’s and bought some glue, the same kind that dentists use, for $4, that’s a $116 dollar savings, with glue left over! I told the cashier what had happened at the dentists office and she said the same thing happened to her. She said the glue works great, and it does. That was two years ago and the cap is doing just fine, thank you very much ladies and gentleman (as per Elvis accent).

So there you have it. Another example of self reliance for today’s sermon.. It would not be discreet for me to divulge the name of the dental facility or the dentist. Above all, my policy is to be discreet at every turn. Integrity and professionalism must be a creed I honor dispite any adversities.

P.S. Information available upon request.

At age 15 Jim’s students came from four surrounding states. Jim consistently broke par, owned 2 course records and could drive the ball 300+ yards.

Attended Arizona State University at Tempe on a golf scholarship,graduated from the PGA Golf School,Long Beach,CA in 1960. Find your best golf.
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What is it with people making a mockery of their kids these days? Anything that makes them look ridiculous, from the funny baby t-shirts to the weird haircuts and plain silly names, anything that draws attention to their child will suffice. Even if others are laughing at them rather than with them, they don’t mind. Apparently all publicity is good publicity.

Whatever happened to babies being clean and tidy to be taken out in public? What’s wrong with these old fashioned ideas? Why do we have to see them adorned in so many colours with slogans splashed all over funny baby t-shirts? They look like buckets of vomit rather than the cute little bundles of joy they’re supposed to be.

And have you noticed that babies are getting louder? Remember the days when a baby would be in a position where it could see its mother, wrapped up in soft baby blankets all cute curls and clean smiles. There is no such thing these days.

Today you will see babies in luminous plastic buggies at car exhaust height dressed in buckets of puke that their parents pass off as funny baby t-shirts with their mouths wide open in a desperate bid to be heard above their t-shirts!

Celebrities are the main instigators in this fashion for drawing attention to their offspring in the weirdest ways. Michael Jackson may well have thought that his children were disguised in veils but how many children do you see normally dressed like that? They were never going to blend into the background now were they?

Another well know celebrity was seen out and about with her baby who must have been paid to advertise the Burberry brand. From the buggy to the sunshade to the baby bag to the baby clothes, from her clothes probably right down to her baby’s nappy, all were the signature beige tartan of Burberry. Sad, but true. However, she did have the excuse of bordering on being a chav.

The only thing separating this celebrity from your average high street chav was her bank balance. Unfortunately, money cannot buy you good taste.

Take a walk round Basildon shopping precinct and you will see funny baby t-shirts galore. Simple slogans that the fifteen year old mothers can read, some that are even so funny they interact with their friends funny baby t-shirts. You know the sort - ‘I’m with stupid’, that sort of thing. Oh, bring on the Burberry, please!

Scientific research suggests that babies who are consistently dressed in funny baby t-shirts will grow up to be emotionally insecure due to people constantly pointing and laughing at them. They will also suffer hearing defects due to the loudness of their clothes and often require surgery for dislocated jaws where they have been trying to shout above them.

Statistics show that a staggering forty nine per cent of children forced to wear comedy clothes will grow up to be clinically depressed, a further nineteen per cent will run away with the circus and become clowns, seventeen per cent will become clinical psychologists in a bid to understand what made them that way and the remaining fifteen per cent will become estate agents (unofficial figures). To avoid cases of child cruelty being brought against you in later years, I suggest you avoid the trend for anything that will draw undue attention to your child.

Child care expert Catherine Harvey looks at the trend for funny baby t-shirts by mothers today.