My intention today was to provide the great Russia story.  However, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky have already accomplished this feat, so was inspired at lunch to instead introduce you to the Aleutian Islands.  How was I so influenced?  Let me start by going back to yesterday when Adam Tanner lectured on Russia. Nice talk, but nothing new.  So I thought anything I could add about this country would be prosaic.  Anyway, dinner was at the Polo Grill, a steakhouse. Started with a Caesar Salad, and then into a ribeye steak with baked potato, cream of spinach, etc. I'll skip the steak photo and go into the petit fours.  Saw the dessert menu.  But passed.  Some enticing delectables, but I'm eating too much. Went on the the Riviera Lounge for a Broadway Show spectacle. Then went dancing in Horizons and closed the place down. Which leads to today, lunch and why my topic of the day will focus on the Aleutian Islands. Started with soup and salad, but th...

  The   New York Times   this morning published 8 charts comparing President Donald Trump's performance with that of this predecessors.  Here are three of them: Doing very poorly. I am the only person I know in Hawaii with a roots link to Hokkaido.  My father's father, Kenjiro, came from here.  I have made several trips to Akita in northern Honshu, Otaru ( where Kenjiro was born ), Sapporo ( where the population was only 1,256 in 1872 when he was born ) and Utashinai.  One thing I learned in this effort is that Kenjiro is a name given to a first son.  I am named after him with Kenji, which stands for second son, which I am. The story of this search is provided in my 31March2009 posting of  THE SEARCH FOR KENJIRO'S GRANDMOTHERS .  In that article, I also explain the colored symbol I have used for my books. In 2009, my wife, friends and I made a roots search in Otaru and Sapporo . On another, I actually started in Akita, from where Kenjiro...