I'll start with those two t ropical storms approaching Hawaii.   Both will become serious hurricanes....but largely miss the islands. Hurricane Karina , to the east and north, just attained Category 4 strength, but should slowly weaken as she heads on a path that will be just north of the Hawaiian Islands around the time of my birthday, September 6.  Unfortunately, we will board the Silver Whisper on September 3 to Honolulu. Lowell will become a hurricane today and move westward, just south of the Big Island of Hawaii. The Sheraton Le Centre is ideally located in the middle of the Montreal Golden Square Mile.  Around 100 yards  away are three Oriental restaurants.  We went had a Chinese lunch on Thursday, Korean lunch of Saturday, and Japanese dinner on Sunday. Dinner began with edamame and miso soup with Sapporo Beer and hot sake. Then a salad. We shared a Sukiyaki meal. End of meal with noodles. Then green tea ice cream. Throughout the dinner, the background ...

A Profound Mystery is not a song.  Tried You Tube and found one video on the subject .  However, not worth your while to click on it.  No dictionary even defines Profound Myster y, but that is because it only does this for an individual word.  Appropriately enough, as this is Sunday, most of the reference to this term comes from religious sources. God is a Profound Mystery.  So is the Big Bang.  Experts dally around the term, but no one can pin down the reality or unreality. Similarly, I don't know why my favorite song is  Wakare No Isochidori .    It is distinctly possible that of the 7.6 billion people living on Planet Earth, I am the only person who has it as #1.  WNI is the only song that was written and first popular in Hawaii, then gained some fame in Japan.  When?  Not sure, but probably in the 1930's.   Here is a quote from a posting of a decade ago , when I traveled from Sapporo to Wakkanai, the northern mo...

Total COVID-19 deaths : World:  1,627,626 Europe:  461,548 South America:  341,129 Asia ( including India and Middle East ):  313,636 USA:  308,091 Africa:  56,740 China:  4,634 Oceania:  1,039 Diamond Princess:  13 Grand Princess:  7 Taiwan:  7 At first glance, you might wonder, how could I possibly link a pigeon with truffles.  As those who regularly read this blog site know, there is a Blue-bar pigeon that follows me around the world.  Of course this is because there are so many of these world-wide.  You almost can't not see one whenever there is a large flock.  The pigeon is so common, that they are wherever we are.  As an aside, a particularly amazing bird is the Arctic Tern , for it annually flies 25,000 miles, the circumference of Planet Earth.  They also have a life expectancy of 30 years.  Thus, in the average lifetime, the Arctic Tern equivalently travels to the Moon, back to Earth and re...