THE FIRST 84 YEARS OF MY LIFE

The first half of my life was spent preparing myself for my final 42 years.  This was a mostly trying and stressful period involving a less than ideal youth, then struggles to get through school, my first few jobs and accompanying life, ending two months later on a Sunday with Part 15E, so it was a spiritual conclusion to my final transition.  I never did count the number of actual postings, but I suspect it was around 25 parts.  The ending had to do with golf, the disappearance and re-appearance of an  8-iron cover.  That was the final clue to whether the beyond after death would be eternal gloom or Heaven.

Today, I provide only one transition, but hint about a final one, for this, after all, is Sunday.  I'm 84 years old, so let me summarize what happened during the first phase, from 0-42, and follow with the years 42-84.  As this is 2024, that key transition year was 1982.

I can't seem to find this photo, but as a one-year old baby, I was fat.  Most of my actual first half of my life I was skinny.  Certainly not athletic, and  somewhat sickly for the first 15 years.  However, my only hospital experience had to do with taking my tonsils out.

I was born in Honolulu and never left the state until I was 18 to go to Stanford University.  You can read those above transition postings for details.  IFor example, TRANSITIONS: Part 7--Return to Hawaii and Naalehu, the Southernmost Community in the USA. 

Spent almost seven years in the sugar industry with C. Brewer as a process engineer.  By far, the most difficult years of my life, although I did meet my wife in Kau on the Big Island, and was sent to Kilauea Sugar company, Kauai, where we lived next to the Slippery Slide, made famous by the movie South Pacific.  Pearl and Pepper in our backyard.

Was sent by my Hawaii company to get a sugar graduate degree at Louisiana State University in 1969.  Tiger football, Pete Maravich, Mardi Gras and more.  However, in that period, also was in the Army reserve to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam, and life in the South was a whole new experience.  I picked a topic for my PhD dissertation that had to do with building a tunable laser before one could be bought, to focus on Escherichia coli in a micro reactor that was most challenging.  Toss into this the comprehensive exam and needing to pass the College Board language requirement...I feel fortunate that I was able to accomplish it all for a PhD in biochemical engineering.  

Then I luckily was hired by the University of Hawaii in 1972, spending later summers at the NASA Ames Research center on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion, twice.  In 1979 I was asked to work on the staff of U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, where I drafted original bills on ocean energy and hydrogen.  These topics inspired me to develop the Blue Revolution.

So I'm now into that fabulous transition year, 1982.  I have had several colonoscopies, but those were the only time I've been a patient in a hospital.  A life-changing event in 1982 had to do with headaches.  I remember getting regular migraines, but got by taking Empirin.  Here is something I found about this pill:

• Early forms came from the UK around 1912, but Burroughs Wellcome & Company began selling Empirin in the U.S. around 1938.
• Then in 1982, I read that this product would be banned.  I don't know what really happened, but because I thought my remedy for this ailment was disappearing, suddenly, my headaches also stopped.  Turns out that Empirin, as a product, kept being sold (although I haven't seen it for more than 40 years).  Here is something from this source:  Empirin's active ingredients were caffeine, aspirin, and phenacetin, which was removed and replaced with acetominophen.  Phenacetin, it turns out, caused Howard Hughes to die from kidney failure.  Excedrin and Anacin were also reformulated.
• Aside from minor headaches from drinking too much red wine, I have not been bothered by this ailment during the second half of my life.

From DC, returned home to the University of Hawaii in 1982 to begin the second, and more enjoyable second phase of my life.  There was that transition when I owned two homes in the DC area, my apartment in Honolulu, which was leased out, so I had to somehow qualify for the best I could find, a penthouse at 2101 Nuuanu Avenue.  I was able to sell the other three with a small profit, and had an incredible view of Honolulu for 32 years until I moved into the adjacent 15 Craigside, where I now live.

But from 1982 to 1999, all those years of schooling and working prepared me for a wonderful life of accomplishments and experiences.  Won national awards in energy, hydrogen, ocean and administration, and developed the Blue Revolution.

Retired in 1999, and have spent the past quarter century with freedom to travel and better enjoy life.  Publishing three books was a grind, but that led to starting this blog in 2008 to Save Humanity and Planet Earth.  The analogy I like to use is this:

• We all go through kindergarten, elementary/intermediate school, high school, then for the more fortunate, college.
• As students we have weekends, holidays and spring/summer vacations off.
• I have been writing this blog every day for nearly 16 years.  That is the equivalent starting kindergarten, and now soon to be a senior in college.  Daily!

So from 1982 when I left the U.S. Senate, to today, my life with the University of Hawaii and in Hawaii has been....can't find the right term....awesome, fantastic, marvelous, wondrous, with long periods of euphoria.  I still maintain an office on the Manoa Campus, but otherwise spend most of my time at 15 Craigside, which, if you read my blog regularly, is Paradise, or more likely, Purgatory.

• Been on around the world trips at a least dozen times, the latest earlier this year, I acronymed OMGA, and the next one planned for a year from now, to be called OMEGA, for it could well be my final global adventure.

• 
  Approaching 3 million miles traveled on United Airline flights.  But United's program and quality of service have so much declined the past few years that since even before the pandemic, I now avoid them, for other airlines allow you to use their executive lounges if you fly business class or higher.  Still have several hundreds of thousand miles to use on United.
• My final professional activity was probably the TEDx talk I gave on the Blue Revolution.

Yes, considering my start of life in Kakaako and status in society then, compared to what I am today, I couldn't possibly be more satisfied and happy.  

• Will there be a third 42 years?  Nope, because Jeanne Calment of France lived to the age of 122.  
• Another 42 would make me 126.  
• The Social Security Agency says an 84 year old person will live for 6 more years.
• This Average Life Expectancy calculator gives me:
• One chance in 4 to live 10 more years.
• One chance in 10 to live 13 more years.
• And a 3.3% chance of living to the age of 100.
• More than anything else, though, quality of life must come with longevity.  That is my hope.

I close today with last night's cold opening of Saturday Night Live on Harris and Trump Rallies.  Jim Gaffigan played Tim Walz, Andy Samberg was Doug Emhoff, Maya Rudolf appeared as Kamala Harris, Austin Johnson returned as Donald Trump, Bowen Yang stepped in as JD Vance and Dana Carvey as confused Joe Biden.  NBC will celebrate this 50th season with a three-hour special on Sunday, 16 February 2025.

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