We arrived into Kahului, Maui.  That's Haleakala, 10,023 feet high, A ten-minute walk away is Maui Mall.  Might go there for some exercise later today.  If so, I'll surely have some Tasaka guri-guri, a concoction that is an ice cream sherbert.  Cash only shop. The Silver Whisper's itinerary did not have Kauai as a stop.   If on our schedule, the ship would not have been able to stop there because of damage caused by Hurricane Lowell .  However, as Kauai has been in the news lately I thought I'd use this day to provide some background for those reading this posting considering a vacation there.   Hurricane Lowell cause considerable damage to Kauai, including knocking out power to 90% of residents. That is bad enough, but Kauai was a few days ago identified as having a  COVID positivity rate of 13% .  Authorities began to take measures when this number reaches 10%.  And, by the way, we heard from a 15 Craigide resident tha...

What are the largest companies in the world?   Nine of the top ten are from the USA.  We have long been the greatest. Note that #5 shows Google in parentheses next to Alphabet, and #7 has Facebook as part of Meta.  What happened? Google, as you know reinvented the way the world accesses information.   Why restructure? Without much warning in 2015, Google renamed itself Alphabet. This allowed the parent, Alphabet, to expand into domains outside of internet search and advertising. Google now runs a lesser risk of antitrust violations. You might get confused by GOOG and GOOGL, stock ticker symbols of Alphabet.  I won't try to explain it, but  you can click here for details . 52-year old  Sundar Pichai ( originally, Pichai Sundararajan ) is the CEO of Alphabet,  while founders Larry Page ( 52 ) and Sergey Brin ( 53 ) no longer are involved in daily operations.  Sundar's compensation last year was $10.72 million. Note that Alphabet is the 5th...