Some good news.   Artemis II astronauts returnd home.   Remember  Suni Williams and Butch Whitmore?   They were on a 10-day NASA mission in 2024, but it took 9 months for them to finally return on March of 2025. I guess  another positive sign  is that there was a pre-peace talk meeting today between the Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Iranian officials.  Veep J.D. Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner also separately met with Sharif. Both sides continue their bluffing, angling for a better negotiating position.  One in particular is Iran seeking release of $120 billion in frozen assets to occur before peace talks can begin. I've stayed at Ritz-Carltons throughout the USA, but never at the Club Level.  We upgraded in New Orleans, and similar to the Ritz-Carlton Yacht cruise we took earlier this year, I don't think the luxury was worth the cost.  Mind you, our Ritz-Carlton Club Level experience in the Orient was even more...

During the past half a century I have been on at least a hundred major trips away from Hawaii for pleasure.  We yesterday returned from what surely is in the top ten of them all.  Just over two months, including two cruises.  How do I feel this morning?  Great, actually.  I don't feel jet lagged after eight hours of sleep last night.  That is quite unusual, for I avoid traveling west to east with a passion, and my around the world extravaganzas always go westward. This one  began on November 21 , before Thanksgiving, and ended yesterday, almost a month after Christmas. A few days in Yokohama, then we boarded the Diamond Princess for a 28-night cruise throughout much of Orient along the Pacific Ocean between Japan and Singapore. A month is now too long for me to be on a ship.  We almost went around the world on the Island Princess in 2021, but mercifully for me, as I think about it now, was cancelled by the company because of the ongoing COVID Pand...