Today is the beginning of summer.  From  Condé Nast:    How Summer  Solstice is Celebrated Around the World : The summer solstice occurs in each hemisphere annually, when one of the earth's poles has maximum tilt toward the sun. The result is the sun reaching its highest position in the sky, causing the longest day of the year. For thousands of years, the solstice has drawn people together for ancient celebrations, from gatherings at Stonehenge to romantic rituals in Belarus . I yesterday featured red wines, and particularly spotlighted Paso Robles and Petite Sirah.  I have one more story that has nothing to do with either, but is relevant because of close proximity and utter fear.  In these drives between Stanford and Oxnard up and down Highway 101 from 1958 to 1962, we also always passed by Atascadero.  Here is located the  Atascadero State Hospital . This all-male maximum-security forensic institution houses mentally ill convicts on its 70...

Well, Honolulu remains beautiful.  A couple of photos from where I sit composing this posting. There have been good trips and bad.  Since I retired a quarter century ago, the 50 or so I've taken have all been good to great.  However, I've been thinking about all my travels, and a few did not go right. Some particularly worried me.  For the next few Tuesday nostalgia days, I'll focus on the worst ones.  There was danger in Papua New Guinea, concern that I might not be able to leave China, an incident at Machu Picchu, Peru, the weirdness of Cairo, Egypt and scare in Delhi, India.  These experiences were sufficient so that I can't imagine my ever returning to those countries. The first I'll report on occurred in 2010.  This was a global journey, and here is how it started. Today, I begin my journey. I will visit Seoul, Hanoi and other parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand, New Delhi, Barcelona, Munich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, A...

But first, was there any movement on Ukraine-Russia peace talks?  Well, there is this  guitar duo .  Have you seen  Zelensky, Putin and Trump entertaining  as three tenors?  Watch  We Run the World . Four of my favorite cities are Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Honolulu. We are here in Vancouver, and this stop has been mostly wet.  But I've been here around a half a dozen times, and, aside from rain and cold, this city has much to offer. Our previous trip in October of last year began in Seattle, where we caught the Norwegian Encore for a 39-day cruise through the Panama Canal to Southampton, UK.  I've also been here at least 6 time, the first for the Seattle World Expo in 1962. The Encore's first stop was in San Francisco.  The San Francisco Bay area is my second home. Graduated from Stanford University. Worked at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View on the Search Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Spent two summers at the ...