15 CRAIGSIDE VERSUS SEABOURN ODYSSEY

Long live King Charles III. Here are some photos from Time. Jill Biden and granddaughter Finnegan.

Prince William and Princess of Wales Catherine, with Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte.

Prince Harry was there.

King Charles III being crowned.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla from the Buckingham Place balcony.

There were some unhappy people protesting the coronation, led by an anti-monarchy group, for this event is expected to cost taxpayers $125 million. One of Boris Johnson's protests featured a 350 million pound banknote. Here is only a one million pound note of King Charles III.

On Monday I already gave the Seabourn Odyssey pluses and minuses, mostly good. Yesterday I began the case for 15 Craigside, where we live. Today I add more and then compare the two.

On the Odyssey I was afraid to use their wellness center for fear of the outbreak. I checked, and 15 Craigside today has no covid cases. I use that recumbent elliptical cross trainer to the left and cable strength machine to the right. I'm too old for the treadmill.

I might add that among the activities at 15 Craigside are a dozen wellness classes each week, and a host of other attractions.

Pacific Taiko performance.

May Day program.

The staff and fine service on the Seabourn Odyssey are about as good as it gets, and the same can be said for 15 Craigside. The Seabourn food was spectacular, but we soon got tired of the caviar, escargots and foie gras. The same can be said for 15 Craigside, but the advantage is that many of the dishes are stuff we grew up on, plus I do a lot of enhancements to add variety.

For example, 15 Craigside provides the pork tofu. However, I quickly fry it in wagyu fat and add onions. Plus, o-toro sashimi, here with hot sake and cold Kirin beer. Seabourn cannot do this.

Kalua Pig and Cabbage, again with Wagyu Fat plus cut onions and more cabbage, with mac salad, soybeans and hamachi sashimi.

I felt like going fundamental Japanese, so had hot rice topped with butter, ikura (salmon eggs) and natto (a good probiotic), with tsukemono, sashimi, miso soup, hot sake and cold Sapporo beer.

Even the spaghetti is enchanced, with sliced garlic in butter, large salad, beer and a Dutton-Goldfield Pinot Noir from Stanford.

Yesterday I mentioned Cinco de Mayo. Here are those photos, plus the Boy's Day Strawberry Mochi and Takoyaki.

Here is our menu for Mother's Day, next week.

One additional eating option at 15 Craigside is that you also have a pick on Honolulu restaurants. On the Odyssey you hesitate eating in port cities because the food is free on the ship. No such restraint at home. Yesterday we went out for pork tonkatsu.

While I have tried to compare 15 Craigside with the Seabourn Odyssey, that is not the point. The beauty of having both experiences is that they complement each other. 15 Craigside is a secure and comfortable environment with decent cuisine and a lot of activities. I do very little, but enjoy the freedom to do so. A cruise opens up the world to opportunities not available in Nuuanu and Hawaii. Now on to the rest of my life.

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

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