LIFE IS STILL WONDERFUL

I avoid showing the Worldometer data on Mondays because they are always abnormally low. There is no doubt both the USA and World are into a new COVID-19 wave this Fall.

I just this weekend, through sheer negligence, lost my keys and driver's license. I won't share the details, for they are both trivial and embarrassing. So I'm doomed, right?

Wrong. Sure, during this time of pandemic it's bad enough trying to renew your driver's license. But replacing a lost one? While at this moment I don't know what to do, I'll get some help and solve this problem. The keys? I've got another set and will make triplicates because I am getting forgetful. The good news is that, even with Trump and the coronavirus, the world is not coming to an end. For one, I'm healthy, and life is good. Got my papaya and breakfast delivered this morning, and two more meals coming today. Plus, I just received a call saying she would deliver the fob to my room this morning. In case you didn't know, a fob is that tiny device you place at the entrance of a door to let you in.

Many others on Planet Earth are not doing as well as me. They've lost their job, might get evicted and worse. For example, how would you like to be this tree?

Although I'm finding it more difficult with age, I can still walk on a golf course, and am scheduled for Ala Wai on Wednesday. There are others who are not so fortunate:

Also too, unlike the 43.5 million in the world who got infected with this coronavirus, I'm fine. Here is close to the most boring video you will ever see. However, imagine being someone who can't breathe because of this ailment:

Yes, life indeed is wonderful. About what I misplaced this weekend? I could just as well have lost my whole wallet. I would still recover from that, but the effort to return to normalcy would have been ten times more complicated. I'm very fortunate.

Which leads to favorite song #65 from these three:

The End of the World: Skeeter Davis
Put a Little Love in Your Heart and What the World Needs Now is Love: Jackie DeShannon

On this day when I'm looking for the silver lining, no way that The End of the World can prevail. Not that Skeeter Davis (Mary Frances Paneck) is singing about doomsday, for she is merely sad about a romantic breakup. This song peaked at #2 on Billboard in 1963, a huge transition year for me. In fact Billboard rated TEotW as #3 for that year. She was the first female country music solo vocalist to achieve major stardom. It was played at her funeral when she passed away in 2004.

In 1965 Burt Bacharach wrote What the World Needs Now is Love for Dionne Warwick, who turned it down. He then went to Gene Pitney, who also rejected it for some financial reason. So it was Jackie DeShannon who recorded it, reaching #7 that year.

In 1969 Jackie and her brother Randy Meyers, with Jimmy Holiday, composed Put a Little Love in Your Heart. It hit #4 on Billboard that year.

There is something in my heart for both songs (so they are duo #65), as for some reason, they were somehow connected to a summer workshop for teachers I co-directed at the University of Hawaii in 1973. Earth 2020, Visions for Our Children's Children, was sponsored by NASA Ames Research Center, and the whole project involved a lot of traveling, opening up my eyes to the environment and future of our planet. This led to me teaching Environmental Engineering, directing the campus Environmental Center and prepared me for the energy crisis, which came in the fall of 1973, and started me off into an entire career on renewable energy and climate change remediation.

Typhoon Mojave at 80 MPH is headed for Vietnam, while Hurricane Zeta also now at 80 MPH. will roll over the Yucatan, then head for the general region of New Orleans. Here is the path of Zeta;

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

Search This Blog