A GOOD START TO 2024 AT 15 CRAIGSIDE

But first, a terrible beginning for Japan. On New Year's Day, a 7.5 earthquake struck Japan.

So far, 57 have perished, and roads into the Noto Peninsula remained unaccessible. The highest tsunami hit 4 feet, so nuclear powerplants were not affected.

Then later in the day, at Haneda Airport, an Airbus 380, Japan Airlines JL516, while landing from a Sapporo flight, collided with a Coast Guard plane on it's way to bring supplies to the earthquake area. Five crew members on the DHC-8 JA7221 (photo to the left) were killed, and the pilot is in critical condition. Amazingly, everyone, all 400 or so crew and passengers, safely escaped the burning super jumbo-jet, which is a total loss. The plane has a value approaching half a billion dollars. Of course, what is human life worth?

We have a lot of rainbows at 15 Craigside, where I live. Yesterday.

On New Year's Eve, we had a special dinner followed by poker.

Note above that the sirloin roast had no fat. That is because they cut that off. I love beef fat, and got the chef to save me some, as you will see on my plate. There were also salad and fruit bars.

Our meals.

That piece next to the cut is fat, with a lot of taste.

We had a Stanford Highway 12 Cabernet Sauvignon.

I should mention that my annual Stanford wine collection just arrived in time for this meal. I've been doing this now for almost 30 years.

Also had two kinds of whisky. One from Japan, and the dragon one from Costco.

Then from 9PM to midnight, the 15 Craigside poker group got together.

Honolulu fireworks at midnight.

I've traditionally had ozoni for breakfast as the first meal of the year. I was not the chef for this to kick off 2024, but here is what I enjoyed.

Mochi is part of the soup.

Watched the two NCAA playoff games with my meals today. The games and ozoni were classics.

The ozoni was accompanied by four types of sashimi and gau gee.

Then for dinner I had kalua pig and cabbage, with an egg, plus macaroni salad, sashimi and salad.

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