First installment of Kauai notes:

* What happens when one takes advantage of Hawaii's lack of a helmet law by renting a Harley and riding it nearly around the island's entire perimeter, with only goggles and insufficient sunscreen above one's neck? Yep, one ends up returning with what looks for all the world like a skier's tan, raccoon-style. The perverse injustices that trail me around the globe! The indignity, the nonconsensual comedy!

* Kauai's justly famed shave ice is best enjoyed watching Waimea High's football team practice, thinking thoughts that are not strictly legal.

* It is blackly ironic that a person as concerned with the treatment of our animal brethren as I am would spend well over an hour tormenting a large praying mantis by blowing on it, shining a penlight at it, poking its feet through the screen it was resting on etc., just to see how furious the poor mantid would get. Pretty damn furious, it turns out. How it punched in my direction with its savagely serrated forearms, how unearthly were its robotic head twists, how disconcertingly rhythmic were its war dances! I can't defend my behavior convincingly. I just wanted to see what rage lay within the insect world's most predatory predator. Still, my guilt grows. PMs deserve a certain respect, and hooting "Sure you could kick my ass if you were my height, but you're not, champ, are ya?" doesn't qualify.