Sunday has become a special day for me. I rest my body.  No exercising. Usually I stay at home to relax. This Super Bowl Sunday will not be much different, but I'll eat and drink more, maybe to excess. In past Super Bowls, I've sometimes hosted, many times gone to parties, and remember one Sunday when I missed the game.  This was in 2010 when I was in New Delhi, India. The following day,   my posting  said: Let's forget yesterday. I'm appalled that I said " India Sucks. "   Today, though, was not much different, but my attitude has re-adjusted and returned to my normal self. To begin, can you believe there are 82 HD channels, and at the time of the Super Bowl, there were 6 soccer matches, 2 rugby, 2 badminton, 1 tennis, 1 golf, 1 auto racing, 3 cricket and, on ESPN, a SEC gymnastics competition. NO SUPER BOWL in Delhi. Anyway, I couldn't have caught all of it as at 6:15AM I was picked up for my Taj Mahal encounter, the primary reason why I'm on this t...

Talking about largest snakes, last week one of my postings was entitled,  A COMING TRUMP DICTATORSHIP?   Someone e-mailed me this link of  Senator Chris Murphy's speech on the Senate floor, also sounding an alarm about President Trump's coordinated effort to dismantle democracy.   Watch it!  The Florida Museum reports that the Titanoboa is the largest snake that ever lived.  Perhaps up to 50 feet long 2500 pounds and 3 feet wide, was the largest predator on the planet after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.  However, 23 million years ago came the  Megalodon .  Okay, a deviation, for this was not a snake. Several  films,  but there are so few remains, that there can only be estimates of size:  perhaps 47 feet to 80 feet long and at most, 200,000 pounds. However, this is about 10 times larger that an adult Great White Shark.  Here are two comparisons. Today, the  Green Anaconda  is the longest a...

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...