Do you have children that are approaching driving age?  How do you feel?  Personally, I’m pretty apprehensive about my two daughters driving in a few years.  Thankfully, although there is a lot more traffic compared to when I started driving, there are many new laws to address youthful driving.  For example, mandatory driving school and zero tolerance for drinking and driving.

But have you also given any thought to your parent’s driving?  Again, for me, I have a few more years before I need to address this issue.  But I have a couple of clients who are going through this process now.  These clients’ parents should not be driving.  Close calls and minor accidents led the clients to try and put a halt on their parent’s driving. 

Both cases provided examples of the two extremes that could result.  One parent admitted that he should stop driving.  The other was quite emphatic that his driving was fine.  He even changed doctors when his long time primary doctor agreed with the client. 

The point here is that many of our parents will be living past the point when they should be driving.  Like youthful drivers, we must also be prepared to have a tough conversation with our parents regarding their driving.

View the following video for more tips: http://www.libertymutualimages.com/ProfDave/#tough-conversation

Last weekend, I made my annual trek to Las Vegas.  I usually go at least once a year since one of my good friends lives in Las Vegas.  I went up with a couple of friends.

One of my friends came with his cousin, who goes to Las Vegas 3 or 4 times a year.  He likes to play bacarrat, which I had never tried before.  On our first night, he made $800 which got me interested in the game.  He explained the rules to me, and I decided to try my luck at bacarrat a couple of nights later.

You may have heard of bacarrat.  It’s traditionally a rich man’s game.  Casinos usually have a bacarrat area for high rollers.  However, many casinos now have tables where you can bet as little as $10 per hand. 

On Saturday night, I joined my friend’s cousin on the table and simply bet the same way that he did.  Basically, you have two choices.  You can choose to play with the player’s cards, or you can choose to play with the dealer’s cards.  After the cards are drawn, the person who is closest to 9 wins.  It’s a 50-5o chance of winning, which makes it the best odds bet in the casino.  I ended up making $400 that night playing bacarrat. 

Overall, I still lost money on the trip.  But it would have been worse if I didn’t learn this new game.  I’ll definitely try it again next time I visit.

Christmas is right around the corner! As usual, it’s coming faster than I thought.  I still have a couple of gifts to buy.

This past Saturday, I went to an annual Christmas party with friends and family.  We’ve been having our annual party at my sister’s house in Hawaii Kai the last few years.  The main reason is that her house is on the marina, and there’s an annual boat parade each year.

This is a fun event!  Most of the boaters go all out to decorate their boats.  I have a couple of photos above.  But there were many more awesome participants.  The last boat actually had a working trapeze.  And someone was actually swinging from the trapeze!  I kid you not.  That’s one of the more original ideas that I’ve seen in a few years.

I hope everyone has a joyous and safe Christmas.  Merry Christmas to all!!

If you haven’t noticed, Oahu’s “second city” of Kapolei is booming!  Consider the numbers.  Homes is Kapolei in 1990 – 11,722.  Homes in Kapolei projected in 2025 – 56,710.  Kapolei’s population in 1990 – 42,983.  Kapolei’s projected population in 2025 – 172,000.

The numbers speak for themselves.  But if you’ve gone to Kapolei in the past couple of years, you can see the development.  This past year, Costco opened their Kapolei store.  And right on their heels was the opening of Kapolei Commons with Target, Petco, Sports Authority, Office Max, Ross, Price Busters and many more.  There’s further retail development planned for Kapolei to add to the existing retailers such as Long’s, Safeway, Home Depot, Consolidated Theaters and many more.  Plus, there are all the eateries such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Zippy’s and a host of others.  There’s even more retail development planned with two more shopping centers to break ground soon.

All this with the planned completion of the Disney Resort in Ko Olina and the opening of the Kapolei Court Complex in 2010.  Yes, Kapolei is definitely taking steps to become Oahu’s second city.  Even my company, Liberty Mutual, has been eyeing spots to open an office.  In the meantime, we’ve been doing a lot of business in Kapolei through our nearby Pearlridge office.

It’s exciting to see how Kapolei has developed, and even more thrilling to think of where the city is going.

Texting and Driving

A couple of weeks ago, Liberty Mutual released some new tips on safe driving.  Each tip was accompanied by a short video clip.  Check out the link above to view the video.

Hawaii recently passed a law that prohibits using a cell phone or similar devices while driving.  When the law was passed, I saw some interviews on the news asking for the publics’ opinion.  Before the law was passed, I would occasionally use my cell phone while driving.  And I admit, it was difficult driving and dialing a number at the same time!  I couldn’t believe that some younger drivers could drive and text at the same time.  But then I saw another interview where the texter could text quickly and accurately, without even looking at her phone!  I made me realize that you could text and drive if you’re good at texting.  Still, as the video shows, even a moment’s distraction can be dangerous.

I visited Las Vegas again from 09/18/09 to 09/21/09.  It was a quick visit mainly to check out the UNLV vs Hawaii football game.  There were 10 of us from Hawaii who went up.  We met with a friend who lives in Las Vegas and another friend who drove up from San Diego.

Although we went up to watch the game, there was plenty of time to gamble and shop as well!  I left Hawaii on Friday afternoon with a friend.  We arrived late Friday night and met up with everyone at the California Hotel in downtown Las Vegas.  We stayed in downtown all night (actually early morning).  I did well gambling wise, so it was a good start to my vacation.

On Saturday, we did a little shopping during the day.  We went to buy beef jerky from a shop in downtown Las Vegas.  We also made a Trader Joe’s run and bought some other stuff to bring home.  We all met at the California Hotel for a tailgate party before the game.  We had Hawaiian food and Hawaiian entertainment, then caught the bus to the game.  It was a great game.  Hawaii had their chances to win, but ended up losing by 1 point.  Oh well, at least they made the spread!  I put some money on Hawaii, so I was already up headed back to the casinos.  We ended up going to the Orleans Hotel after the game.  We gambled a bit, but we went back to our hotel around 3:00 am because we were pretty tired.

On Sunday, we did some major shopping during the day.  We visited a couple of outlet malls.  I bought some gifts for my daughters.  I bet with my friend who lives in Vegas on the Rams vs Redskins game.  I’m a Rams fan, but I didn’t have high hopes.  Unexpectedly, the Rams made the spread and I won dinner from my friend.  We ended up at the Red Rock Casino, which is a newer casino in northeast Vegas.  Although the dinner was free, the gambling was a losing proposition.  I ended up losing all the money I made in the first two nights.

I can’t complain, though.  It was a quick, fun vacation.  I broke even gambling.  I got my fill of shopping.  The only thing that would have made the vacation perfect was if the Warriors won the football game.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Recently, I decided to update my website www.hawaiiinsuranceonline.com.  There really wasn’t anything wrong with my prior website, but I just wasn’t getting the results that I expected.

I met a couple of employees from Super Geeks at a networking meeting, and they were quick to offer their expertise.  After several successive conversations, I decided to employ their services to upgrade my website and have them help me with SEO for my website.

James, Todd, Michael and Cathy Harned did the bulk of the work as far as updating my website and doing the SEO work.  I would strongly recommend using Cathy and Super Geeks to anyone who is interested in these services. 

Check out the video for more details.  Also, check out www.hawaiiinsuranceonline.com to see the results of their work.