Aloha is Hawaii

Just wanted to share an experience of a few years ago.

I had a friend help with my online hawaiian shirt store, and he used text from other sites as place holders.

Problem being, he didn't take it all out like he should have.

Fast forward some eight years later, I get a nastygram from some guy out in California. Seems he is not too appreciative of having his store copy used.

And rightfully so. But here is where his lack of character comes forward.

Before I go there, I will go here. I had my entire site for Maui scrapped. It took me three years to get the owner to take it down. Every word, every original image, weeks of work.

I know what it is like, it doesn't feel good at all.

But it is not a license. In all that time, I never once became abusive or insulting. It was within my rights to do so. But I chose not to.

Back to the guy from California. It's all nasty. It's rude. No explanation is accepted, all apologies are replied to with insults, everything I say is a lie (despite the offending text being taken immediately down), he seems thrilled to have an excuse to be abusive. You know the kind, a big man when out of arm's reach. It is without any aloha. Odd for a guy selling aloha shirts to not have any aloha.

But then again, maybe not.

There is something to aloha shirts being from the aloha state. If you run a shirt factory in California, or anywhere that is not Hawaii, YOU ARE RIPPING OFF HAWAIIAN CULTURE. How "without aloha" can you possibly get than that?

If it isn't from Hawaii, it is not an aloha shirt. It is not a Hawaiian shirt. Nuff said.

Opportunity lost/opportunity cost

I have noticed that there are quite a few suppliers of Hawaiian shirts that are fasing out the old patterns.

I am looking forward to what the new season brings.

I can only hope they have learned their lessons as to what sells and have invested heavily in both specialty and foliage print themes.

On the other hand, someone offered me $400 for my XL day of the dead hawaiian shirt the other day.

Turned him down flat!