Aloha

[jason_]

Hello Everybody,

I'm Jason. I'm a 32 year old man. I'm been following Stefan and helping out when
I could for about six years now.

I'm living on Oahu in the Hawaii Island, although I was born on the Mainland in
the Great Lakes Region. I spent the first 12 years of my life there and moved to
Florida in the middle of middle school (actually from private school into public
middle school -- public school was horrible by comparison).

When people starting getting laid-off due to the recession, a friend in the
Military offered me a place to stay in Hawaii. I started and now operate an IT
business and I'm working on a Degree in Computer Science at the University of
Hawaii.

Software and philosophy require the much of the same sort of mental engagement,
and I always find Stefan's productions a welcome dose of reason. Once the brain
is trained to think logically, bullshit is much easier to recognize.

I hope to meet people within the FDR community and hopefully contribute to it.

Aloha!

 

[iuliuspro]

Aloha Jason, how would you rate living in Hawaii? I always thought that having those beautiful beaches so near is just beautiful.

[jason_]

Aloha Jason, how would you rate living in Hawaii? I always thought that having those beautiful beaches so near is just beautiful.

 

The natural beauty of this place is striking and I try to find the time to enjoy it, but unless you were born here it's hard not to find it much like any other place. And in that way it's worse that other places because it is so expensive to live here.

 

The biggest industries are government, lots and lots of military, and tourism. The local and state government seems to be primarily funded by the tourism industry and that's were the bulk of the jobs are for working class people. The other powerful force on Oahu is the union who's jobs depend on building tourist attractions, public works, and other large scale projects. Many 'regular' people hope to work for the government or unions because they offer the best wages; the university has a school of travel industry management, some of the population ends up as executives in the industry but I don't imagine it's that much, and lots become front end managers, and other low paying jobs.

 

I run a small IT business and my clients are mostly government or military personnel -- I don't live in a tourist spot. One of my largest clients right now is a property management company. It's interesting, because the military, government, and unions create a situation -- by providing non-market based wages -- where if you're not in those industries it's extremely hard to find affordable housing. So this local company exists largely to maintain property (mostly houses) the workers at the company can't even afford to rent!

 

It's great to come to visit, but I'd suggest the neighbor islands. They're more rural. Oahu has a lot of people, lots of tourist. It's hard to find a place without a crowd. I've been to Kauai, and it is beautiful there. Not a lot to do, but if you enjoy nature it's great. It gets unbelievably dark at night!

 

I'd like to go to the Big Island. From what I hear, it doesn't have big tourist areas and the beaches aren't as nice, but I'm attracted to the vastness -- It's bigger than all the other islands combined -- and what I imaging the sky looks like at night.

 

Let me know if you are planning on being in this part of the planet, maybe we could check out some of that Big Island together!

[iuliuspro]

The natural beauty of this place is striking and I try to find the time to enjoy it, but unless you were born here it's hard not to find it much like any other place. And in that way it's worse that other places because it is so expensive to live here.

 

The biggest industries are government, lots and lots of military, and tourism. The local and state government seems to be primarily funded by the tourism industry and that's were the bulk of the jobs are for working class people. The other powerful force on Oahu is the union who's jobs depend on building tourist attractions, public works, and other large scale projects. Many 'regular' people hope to work for the government or unions because they offer the best wages; the university has a school of travel industry management, some of the population ends up as executives in the industry but I don't imagine it's that much, and lots become front end managers, and other low paying jobs.

 

I run a small IT business and my clients are mostly government or military personnel -- I don't live in a tourist spot. One of my largest clients right now is a property management company. It's interesting, because the military, government, and unions create a situation -- by providing non-market based wages -- where if you're not in those industries it's extremely hard to find affordable housing. So this local company exists largely to maintain property (mostly houses) the workers at the company can't even afford to rent!

 

It's great to come to visit, but I'd suggest the neighbor islands. They're more rural. Oahu has a lot of people, lots of tourist. It's hard to find a place without a crowd. I've been to Kauai, and it is beautiful there. Not a lot to do, but if you enjoy nature it's great. It gets unbelievably dark at night!

 

I'd like to go to the Big Island. From what I hear, it doesn't have big tourist areas and the beaches aren't as nice, but I'm attracted to the vastness -- It's bigger than all the other islands combined -- and what I imaging the sky looks like at night.

 

Let me know if you are planning on being in this part of the planet, maybe we could check out some of that Big Island together!

O thanks for the detailed answer. I'm sorry that living there is not as interesting as just visiting once in awhile, Everyone should enjoy a beautiful place like that even if he is born there. As for visiting, I wish I could afford it, for now I will remain closer to Europe, Greece is very cheap these days, this year I went there and spent only 300 euros in 8 days, transport, accommodation, food and fun. If I were to come to Oahu I would spend at least 1300 euros on the plane tickets alone, maybe one day