MY GREAT WEEK IN HONOLULU

It was a busy week, for I had a meeting to explore funding for the Blue Revolution, received my new passport, which allowed us to follow up on India/Qatar visas for our Regent Seven Seas Explorer cruise in November, complete the sign-up for our second cruise--53 days on Seabourn from Sydney to Honolulu next spring--finalized details for our outing this coming week to watch Jersey Boys, went to a campus football game, and had a birthday party. You say, what is so great about all that? Well, my usual pandemic week involved nothing much more than write this blog, exercise, sometimes golf and watch Netflix.

I've now been on the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii for 50 years. I can still remember my first day in Keller Hall, August of 1972. One, it's an amazing feeling to still be alive, but also, I deserve to do some celebration after all those years.

Thus, to have my first tailgate party in my office was a monumental event, especially when I only learned on Friday that on football Saturdays, the authorities block faculty from parking in our usual lot, plus they lock the building door at 11AM.

First ever tailgate in my office (at ground level next to corner) because our football team in the past played at Aloha Stadium, and only this year moved the venue to our campus.
It took me 10 phone calls to learn that I could get the combination numbers on one of the building entrances, plus a phone number if that did not work.

Well, the parking lot next to my building was blocked, but just around the corner, perhaps closer to my room, was a line of parking spaces. I have a sticker that allows me to park there.

Most importantly, the combination worked, and I got into the building.
We had stopped by Nice Day to purchase dishes for a Chinese tailgate.
After a few drinks with deviled eggs, we enjoyed Peking Duck with all the trimmings, roast pork, chow fun and scallop soup.

David and Tommy, golf buddies, above. My office is a short walk to an elevator, followed by another easy walk to the football stadium:

David secured three tickets in a very favorable location.

Hawaii beat Duquesne 24-14 for our first victory of the season. I fear this will be our last win this year.

I might add that I had a few other good meals this week, beginning with hot and cold soba

Pork tonkatsu and sashimi.

And a final highlight this week, a 176th birthday party at 15 Craigside, the combined ages of Bob and me. We are both dragons, so you should be able to calculate how old we are.

What a week!!!

Oh, it just got better. Tua Tagovailoa of Miami just led a wild comeback over Baltimore. At the end of the third quarter the Dolphins were trailing 35-14. Four passing touchdowns later...35-42.

There are two major ocean storms. Typhoon Nanmadol made landfall over southern Kyushu as a Category 3, and is rolling over Japan, bringing a lot of wind and rain.

In the Caribbean, Hurricane Fiona became the Atlantic's third, but should keep away from the U.S., as all these storms have tended to do this season.

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 a...

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 suspicio...

IS FLORIDA AGAIN THREATENED BY A MEGA TSUNAMI FROM LA PALMA?

From the morning New York Times : Here is a graph comparing average daily COVID-19 deaths/100,000 people, and the USA is doing something really wrong: The difference between our country and Europe is that we have flubbed the availability of cheap and ubiquitous at-home RAPID testing. They have covered this base. There are two obvious problems: The FDA is much too bureaucratic about quickly approving anything related to this pandemic, including testing. We seem stuck with the test that takes one to several days to get your result. The good news is that the Biden administration has finally realized this problem and through executive order hope to soon flood the market with take home testing that at first will be subsidized to make it affordable. Now, on to getting everyone vaccinated, especially 5-11 years olds ( and we are close to getting to making this happen ), the undereducated and Republicans. What to do about the latter two? The other concern is whether we a...

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