First, our Christmas-like European river cruise on Viking was fine.  The problem was me, for I had difficulty sleeping.   U.S. News and World Report  named Viking in their  2025 Best Cruise Line rankings  as #1 for the fourth consecutive year in: Best Luxury Line Best Line for Couples Best Line in the Mediterranean Some other rankings. For families #1 Disney #2 Royal Caribbean #3 Norwegian For money #1 Celebrity #2 Virgin #3 MSC A week ago today for us was near agony, as we left our Zurich hotel in the morning, caught a Swiss Air flight to San Francisco, and, after a long bureaucratic hassle (if our SFO-HNL flight had not been delayed, we would have missed that flight), we flew United Air, where the seats in business class were like budget tourist class.  From our hotel in Zurich, took us 27 hours to get to 15 Craigside.  While I gained 5 pounds on the trip, a couple of days ago I weighed myself and found that I was already back to normal.  M...

The Diamond Princess arrived in Busan at 7:30AM, and it was raining, so I took this photo from inside my cabin. The rain later stopped. We docked next to the Regent 7 Seas Explorer,  the ship we were on a year ago from Dubai to Singapore .  I said: We boarded the Regent Seven Seas Explorer, and if there is a Heaven, this certainly is one possible scenario.  Check-in was flawless, and in consideration of all the visa and vaccination protocols, quick. Started with a champagne greeting With a welcome champagne, this was our skyline view of Dubai.  Note the Burj Khalifa, the tallest in the world.   But work has begun again for Saudi Arabia's Jeddah Tower, to be called  Kingdom Tower , and at 3281 feet, will be 564 feet taller. So, anyway, this is the same Regent 7 Seas Explorer next to us. First, a Japanese breakfast, to which I added an egg-over-easy and ham. Not long thereafter, lunch.  Again, wonderful, but filling. Dessert. I looked down to the do...

Using   Worldometer   data, the USA had 66,046 new cases during the past week.  This was 55% the World total of 119,320 cases.  This past week, however, saw a 48% drop in the U.S. from the previous full week. That 55% rate is far too high, as many countries, such as Japan and South Korea, don't report anymore, and I know from  other sources  that South Korea at more than 10,000 or so cases/week. South Korea began to have covid outbreaks after most of its citizens were vaccinated.  Thus, their overall mortality rate is  only 0.1%.  Today it is still at 0.1%, twice that of the seasonal flu at  0.05%.  The USA overall is now at 1%.  However, in recent weeks, the mortality rate has dropped to 0.2%, or four times the flu mortality rate. The USA during the 2021-2022 flu season had 9 million cases, or divided by 365 meant 25,000 flu cases/day.  Of course most people got sick during the colder months.  So let's double that to...