On Sunday, I indicated that my life had three 27-year periods after the age of 5, and provided details of the first trio, but only got through high school.  Today, I will complete this initial educational cycle with Stanford University, an important learning experience in the Hawaiian sugar industry, then graduate school. So in 1958 I left Hawaii for the first time. My brother by then was working at the Naval Civil Engineering Center in Port Hueneme, California.  I stayed with his family that summer, for he secured for me a summer job at this center. Stanford was a challenge, for I was below average, again, in all facets of life, sociologically, economically and intellectually. There were no Black students, Hispanics were not yet even identified and I was the only student of Japanese ethnicity. Actually, there was one Black in 1891, the year the school opened, Ernest Houston Johnson.  He graduated in 1895 in economics, but sadly died of tuberculosis in 1898 at the age of ...

Baseball for men and softball for women just started their seasons, softball a week ago.  I don't really cover these sports in this blog, and there is little general interest from the general public compared to football and basketball.   I do, though, regularly field fantasy Major League Baseball fantasy teams, and will again this year.  However, the season begins in an unusual fashion this time, featuring the New York Yankees against the San Francisco Giants in a night game on March 25, the earliest start in league history.  Netflix will stream the game also to its international audience.  However, you can still watch it on your home station if you don't subscribe to Netflix. Then, the traditional Opening Day follows on Thursday, March 26, with all teams in action. All-Star Game on July 14 in Philadelphia, beginning of the postseason on September 29 and World series on October 23. The Los Angeles Dodgers are heavy favorites to win the World Series.  A...

My life has been up and down, but mostly good.  In this blog I've actually said that my life has been in the 99.99th percentile.   But part of that is because, over the course of time,  Homo sapiens  have had 117 billion birth s.  As there are now only 8 billion of us, and life today surely must be a lot better than in the past, that already places me at a great advantage, and you too. I was born in  1940 , a dark period in history when Hitler was conquering Europe.  The #1 song in the USA was  I'll Never Smile Again , by Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers. But more than just that, after an acceptable youth growing up in Kakaako ( Honolulu ), not a slum, but definitely below average, I had a great final two years of high school and got accepted at Stanford University. Life was generally fine there.  I read today an entry in  Quora  entitled:   Is Caltech the most academically diffic...