I will be doing something today I've never before done in this blog. Since my very first posting on 29April2008, almost 16 years ago, I have always attempted to only send out completed articles. Today, I will do something different. I will provide an information dump, sort of like a storyboard, and perhaps next Tuesday, or some other Tuesday in the future, post the officially finished version. I will add more graphics, songs and videos. It could be longer, or maybe shorter. I at this point am not sure what this will look like. After all, this is my life, and it has to be special. Why am I doing this? Well, I have a doctor's appointment coming up, followed by picking up a hearing aid at Costco, where I will be taught how to use it. I mistakenly last month ordered two audio books, so now will be able to hear them, although I guess I could have done so with just bluetooth earbuds.
Before I proceed, here is something impressive:
- You know how long almost 16 years is? I think "is" is the proper grammar.
- Say you begin kindergarten and go to school through high school then to college. You would be a junior in that 16th year. One more year and you should graduate to start really working.
- I've been doing this blog, daily, for that long.
- When you consider that there are weekends and holiday breaks, like all summer, school has a lot of free time.
Also, I've published 5890 articles in this period. If a book is 300 pages long, and the time it takes to write one page is about the same as one blog article, that means I could have written 20 books instead. I have written five, but those have been through my entire professional career.
Thus for nostalgic Tuesday, I will review my life, the first half which was stressful and challenging, and the second, constantly improving to where I now mostly truly enjoy my lifestyle. To summarize:
- I will be 84 this year, beginning in 1940, with that second half thus being from 1982.
- Started great, actually, for here is one calculation that the odds of me being born was 1 in 400,000,000,000,000, or 4 times 10 to the 14th power.
- But that was from Instagram, not a credible source. Science Alert uses that beginning and goes on to say 1 in 10 to the 2,685,000th power. Keep in mind that there are only 10 to the 80th power atoms in the whole universe. Why so much smaller the odds for one to be born? You need to go back to the time when life began.
- Those other miracles of the Big Bang and microscopic life did occur, so my appearance would be the third. On day one I could only be deliriously happy if I had any intelligence to appreciate this beginning.
- My life started at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu, and the #1 song on 6September1940 was Tommy Dorsey's I'll Never Smile Again. Perhaps I did not smile much for the first half of my life, for it was mostly difficult, but not that bad compared to many others.
- Last night watched Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir (93 reviewers rating by Rotten Tomatoes). She wrote The Joy Luck Club. First, I thought that was the only book she published. Nope. 30 books. But what I learn from that documentary was that she had a terrible upbringing. My life was terrific compared to hers, and true paradise relative to her mother.
- For the first 16 years or so I lived in Kakaako, a below middle class neighborhood, where my family was about average compared to our neighbors, all of us being poor. Food and shelter was never a problem, but family life was somewhat stressful.
- I belonged to a gang (not the kind that fought other gangs), we played and had fun. Lived close to the shoreline, so went fishing a lot. My school grades were fine, but not outstanding. I was not good enough to play Little League Baseball. So life was not great but tolerable. We were the Brooklyn Dodgers, and I just looked at their real roster of 1952 and actually recognized most of the names. That was more than 70 years ago. I have the entire 1952 Topps baseball card series.
- In my sophomore year at McKinley High School, we were kicked out of Kakaako by the Bishop Estate as they began their vision to build Ward Village. Moved to Kalihi and used a bus to continue at McKinley, where in my first year there was placed in an average English-Social Studies class.
- Had to have something to do with moving away from Kakaako--which was a terrible experience--but in my new environment, something changed. There seems to be a pattern for me. If something bad happens, my life changes for the better.
- Can't really explain it. No family member, friend, teacher or anyone spurred me to improve my goals for the future. Yet, in other ways, they were all catalysts in different ways.
- I suddenly decided I would go to Stanford or CalTech to study engineering. Maybe my older brother being at the University of Michigan engineering graduate school was catalytic. I did not even bother to apply to the University of Hawaii, so absurdly confident I was that I did not need to do so.
- So for the first time in my life I organized my life to go to one of those schools.
- In my junior year I ran for vice-president of the senior class, and against all odds, won. I previously had never run for anything in my whole life. This automatically made me chairman of a bunch of committees, which looked good on my application.
- I joined the tennis team and became third singles, winning most of my matches against the best private schools. Very few public schools had tennis teams in those days. Oh, I learned how to play tennis when I tried out for the team.
- I could not write well, and was confused about poetry. But my entries were accepted into the national anthology of essays, plus in poetry. I don't think anyone else in Hawaii succeeded.
- During the 8th grade my verbal score in a national test placed me below 10%. Interestingly enough, in a practice Scholastic Aptitude Test taken in my junior year, my verbal score was 200 something, again less than 10%.
- "Luckily," I broke my wrist playing basketball in my junior year, and during the summer before my senior year could not work in a pineapple cannery (as many did in Honolulu from McKinley), so I essentially memorized the SAT book. Still remember the color of the cover, in 1958, red and blue. My verbal score jumped into the 600s. My math was close to 800, for I had always been good with numbers and spatial relations.
- Keep in mind that all of this was stressful and challenging, for I was doing all the above, not having any need to do that in the past.
- I was accepted into both Stanford and CalTech, but chose Stanford because they gave a full scholarship ride. One of my postings was HOW I NOW THINK I REALLY GOT INTO STANFORD. Had to do with pumpkin pies.
- Two songs I recall in particular were Susie Darling by Robin Luke of Punahou and Here is Happiness by Teddy Chinen, who changed his name to Teddy Tanaka. He was a year after me at McKinley.
- Our McKinly alma mater, Hail McKinley, Hail, sung at commencement 45 years later.
- Stanford was of course challenging, but not particularly stressful because very few flunked out. They want you to try things like travel, art and social activities, which are important for developing a successful life. However, I was deficient from most student, sociologically, financially and intellectually. I was the only Japanese, there were no Black students and the term Hispanic was not then used.
- All went well, and I graduated in 3 years 8 months. The most potentially disastrous point occurred in my junior year when someone talked some us to join him on a drive to Florida for the spring break. First, stopping off at Fort Lauderdale where college students gathered in 1961. Where the Boys Are was a popular film, with the song sung by Connie Francis. I just saw that Paul Anka was co-composer. But that was not the danger. We were then to join the Bay of Pigs expedition, which was sold to us as a patriotic adventure. Well, I chickened out and no one went, saving our lives.
- Graduated in 1962 and found a job working for C. Brewer in the Hawaii sugar industry. Toughest job I ever had in my life. Met my future wife in Kau, served six months in the Army Reserve, which was very difficult for me. Spent eight years, mostly on the Big Island and Kauai. Here are two posting providing details, a recent one of Pepper, our dog, and another dealing with my Kauai roots.
- C. Brewer provided full salary for me to get a master's degree in chemical engineering focusing on sugar. LSU was the only college providing this service, so off we went to Baton Rouge. Actually, adding a total fellowship, we saved money during this 3 year 8 month experience. Living in the deep south from 1968 to 1972 was memorable. All those festivals, and Tiger football and sociological difficulties were good and bad. Maybe surprising, but as an Oriental, there was no racial prejudice at all. My attempt build a tunable laser was trying, I somehow passed the language requirement and the comprehensive exam, all huge possible problems.
- But I graduated with a PhD in biochemical engineering and was able to get hired as an assistant professor at the University Hawaii in 1972.
- Again, it was difficult, for the state had financial difficulties, and over the next three years I got two letters indicating my position was in jeopardy.
- This spurred me to work during summer for the NASA Ames Research Center just outside of Stanford on the Search for Extraterrastrial Intelligence and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion.
- Taught courses in computer programming and environmental engineering.
- Then came the energy crisis in 1973, and this changed my life again, for in 1979 I found myself in DC working for Senator Spark Matsunaga. Drafted original legislation on ocean thermal energy conversion and hydrogen, both becoming laws. These led to the Blue Revolution. Life here was maybe the most important part of my future, for I made contacts, had a chance to see much of the Eastern side of the USA, and really learned to get funds for research. They don't teach you this in college. However, hours were long and stresses were at times intense.
- After three years, went back to the University of Hawaii.
- I did not realize in 1982 that the difficult part of my life had passed.
- I got promoted to full professor and tenured, which insured for a lifetime job.
- A new dean of engineering, Paul Yuen, and I became lifelong golfers, and we formed the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR) to serve as the pass through agency for federal funding. You can also read the other articles from that link that lead to the Blue Revolution.
- Starting PICHTR initiated me into international travel. I haven't stopped, for I now am approaching 3 million miles on Star Alliance and have gone around the world at least a dozen times.
- I was selected as director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and enjoyed total freedom to expand it from no positions to 12, which grew to 100.
- Became the national centers for the National Science Foundation Marine Bioproducts Engineering Research Center with the University of California at Berkeley, Department of Interior Marine Minerals Technology Center with the University of Mississippi and Department of Energy Hydrogen Research and Education Center with the Florida Solar Energy Institute.
- Much of what I got started coalesced into the Blue Revolution by 1992.
- There was some stress, of course, to get funds to support a hundred people, but HNEI was the highest performing research funding organization per full time equivalent for the final ten years of my time as director.
- Honored as administrator of the Year during this later period, and won several national energy and ocean awards.
- Retired in 1999 at the age of 59, and am now in my 25th year of mostly joy.
- Wrote three books, traveled a lot, gave a TEDx talk last year on the Blue Revolution and have continued this daily blog site for 15 years come April.
- I can't say my life is complete, but it phases in and out of euphoria because of my relationships, life at 15 Craigside and health.
- Sure, my knees hurt and I'm set to get a hearing aid this week, but I am 84.
- Like everyone, there up and downs, daily, but life is great with a lot more fun to come.
- Of course, the Apollo 11 Moon Landing drew up to 150 million, vs the 123 million of this past Sunday. Plus consider that the U.S. population in 1969 was only 202.5 million, compared to the 336 million today, which proportionally would boost Neil Armstrong on the Moon at an equivalent of 249 million, just about double what this latest Super Bowl drew.
- Super Bowl 58 would rank #16 in a world ranking.
- Even the O.J. Simpson verdict program had more, at #15.
- The Moon landing is #10.
- FIFA soccer World Cup Final of 2022 is #7.
- While the 1996 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Atlanta was #2 (3.5 billion), the others in the top four were funerals: #1 Elizabeth 11(2022, 4 billion), #3 Princess Diana (1997, 2.5 billion), #4 Michael Jackson (2009, 2.5 billion.
The Chinese New Year holiday extends for the next couple of weeks.
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