TODAY HONOLULU...TOMORROW SEATTLE...THEN OFF FOR EUROPE

First, about Super Hurricane Milton. Started the day at 180 MPH, dropped to 145 MPH, then re-strengthened to 155 MPH. The size also grew. The eye was yesterday headed directly for Tampa as a Category 3, but today seemed to move south towards Sarasota. If this path prevails, Tampa might just miss its storm of the century, for it is vulnerable to storm surge. A 2010 evacuation survey found that 2 million of its 3 million population in the Metro area would need to evacuate if a Category 5 hurricane came. 2000 deaths and $250 billion in damages were projected. With the eye veering south, Tampa would further be saved from impact by the forceful northeast quadrant. If there is any further movement to the south, areas including Cape Coral and Naples would then be in especial danger. Milton is now projected to leave Florida Thursday morning, with the eye over Cape Canaveral, as a Category 2 into the Atlantic.

Tomorrow we're off to Seattle, then on Saturday board the Norwegian Encore, via the Panama Canal, to Europe. There was a time when I looked forward to these adventures. Still kind of do, but find that just staying home at 15 Craigside is a lot easier on my body and mind. Yet, any next journey could well be my final one, so off we'll go. Thus, the following lifestyle in photos will be missed, beginning with my aquarium and lanai.

We are served three meals a day, but have specials every so often.

Our Chief Operating Officer Bree.

The meal.

My breakfast is usually fruits, like papaya with yogurt.

We have regular golf tournaments. The latest was at Royal Kunia. A rainbow greeted us, so I thought must be an omen for my first hole-in-one.

When we returned to 15C, they had a Wine Down welcome home for us. Not only did I not get a hole in one, as a random pair of golfers with David (in the photo above, the person looking towards the camera), we came in last, winning 50 cents each. Embarrassing, but better than nothing.

The Chef and Marco.

The coordinators for this tournament were Avin, Viva and Maryann. You see them in commercials for 15 Craigside.

Some of the residents have formed Sounds of Craigside, and this is a typical show, a Hawaiian program.

My neighbor John on his guitar.

We celebrated Octoberfest.

About my new Apple 16 Pro iPhone, went to two photo sessions at the Ala Moana Apple store.

Wide angle to normal to 25x telephoto capability, scenes from my computer seat at 15 Craigside.

And twilight time.

15C blessing for pets.

Brunch at Orchid, Halekulani Hotel with Mayumi and Tadashi Matsunaga, starting with Bloody Mary and champagne.

Note the price of this brunch.

The sumptuous buffet.

Ice cream and piano music.

View of Diamond Head from Orchids.

Tomorrow, off to Seattle.

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...

Search This Blog