AUTOMATIC WINDOW BLINDS

Home

Experience the wonderment of our world in a way that will enthrall, captivate and inspire you! Award-winning aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand and narrator Glenn Close take you on a spectacular voyage around the world in Home, a unique film with such breathtaking imagery, you’ll want to enjoy it time and time again.

Former actor Yann Arthus-Bertrand directed this visually astonishing portrait of the Earth as seen from mesmerizing aerial views. Home is not the first documentary to survey our planet from the air, but Arthus-Bertrand brilliantly and dreamily captures the miraculous linkage within delicate eco-systems. For viewers whose eyes glaze over at descriptions of the way Earth recycles energy and matter, Home underscores the beautiful and awesome reality of that complex process. Narrated by actress Glenn Close (in this English-language version), Home begins by exploring and clarifying the natural history of water, sunlight, and the role simple life-forms such as algae played (and still play) in making the planet hospitable to more evolved, living things. As the film moves along, it also has a way of rebooting one's lazy assumptions about familiar phenomena. The Grand Canyon, for example, might be a fantastic sight to behold, but it's also a collection of billions and billions of shells compressed under Earth's oceans long ago. The carbon trapped in the Grand Canyon was drained from the atmosphere, helping--once again--oxygen-dependent life to develop.
Similarly, plant life, Home tells us, broke up the water molecule and released oxygen into the atmosphere. Everything is linked, everything is part of a grand machine--the film makes this clear in scores of ways, and not just by telling us. Arthus-Bertrand reveals the intricate, breathtaking designs and patterns of glaciers feeding rivers, of animals feeding on plant life so more plant life can grow, of Australia's great Coral Reef's role in keeping the ocean in eco-balance. Of course, a big part of the story is the impact short-sighted humans have on these systems: the way we overfish, or drain deserts of scarce fossil water, or turn non-farming lands into perverse engines for agriculture. There is much to be alarmed at watching Home, but there is much to move one as well. --Tom Keogh

This is the first of many Polynesian Voyaging canoes that have sailed throughout Polynesia and the Pacific by wind power and celestrial navagation. This is boat that Uncle Eddie Aikau took his last voyage on. Out on the ocean there is limited protection from the elements. You stay in the shadows whenever possible.

I dedicate this photo to the spirit of Eddie.

As a young boy I grew up in Pauoa Valley, a little neighborhood nestled between Punchbowl crater and Pacific Heights. Just a couple miles from downtown Honolulu but far enough removed to avoid its haste and endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit of happiness. It was a place where a kid could be a kid. We hiked the mountains and swam in the streams surrounded by the city. No one ever locked their doors and everyone was always welcome.

I attended Pauoa school for my second and third grade years. I had my friend
Wayne in my class and he was there at church on Sundays so naturally we became best friends. Everyday after school we'd spend our time exploring, fishing in the stream, or trying to find something gross that we would give to his brother who would eat anything for a quarter. We'd always end up at Wayne's house, and time it for when uncle Eddie was done working as caretaker for the Chinese graveyard where they lived.

Man how we loved him. He always had time and a smile for us. We'd ride on the power mower with him sitting there with our arms around him smilin. We'd help him rake or whatever he needed to do so he could be done for the day. Because when he was done...it was time for football. He would throw hundreds of passes and we would play until sundown. "Eddie would throw".........perfect spirals everytime. I'd get home late every night for dinner with my mother asking where I was. It was always the same answer, "oh, me and Wayne were just playing with Uncle Eddie."

Days when uncle Eddie wasn't around weren't quite the same. But we knew if he was gone, he was out surfing, saving someone or getting into some kind of adventure he would tell us about later. We were so proud when we found out he was invited to sail on the Hokule'a. We knew it meant a lot for our culture and what it meant to our kupuna.(elders)

It was early one morning in March 1978(I remember it was real dark that morning) and I arrived at school and there was Wayne sitting on the steps outside of class, crying. I sat down next to him and put my arms around him to comfort him and ask what happened. He turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "Uncle Eddie is dead!" My heart just dropped and my eyes started to water and I just sat and cried too. The bell rang and we didn't hear it. The teacher came out to get us into class and asked us what was wrong and we told her. She told us to come in when we were ready with a tear in her eye. We just sat there for what seemed like an hour, until she came out and MADE us come in.

Things were never the same we had lost a great friend.....we had lost uncle Eddie =(

We found out later what had happened....that he had died doing what he had always done. Risking his life for others.

baz the builder has done an awesome job, don't you think? he'll put up the remaining shade sails when he gets home from touring ... and the new fence will be done in the meantime, after which i'll put in the screening trees for our privacy.

(the tree branches are bent over and tied, just for now, so the fence guy can do his thing and won't be tempted to hack them off ... must ... preserve ... tree ...)

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