First I'm intrigued by the sudden popularity of this blog site.  Visitors: All Time 8307449  Today 774535  Yesterday 882129  This Month 2796190  Last Month 653676  In other words: 8.3 million viewers since this blog began 18 years ago. 0.775 million today, which has a few hours to go. 0.882 million yesterday. 2.8 million this month. 0.654 million last month. My first blog was on at the end of April 2008, so this site is now a little more than 18 years old. 18 divided into 8.3 million gives 1263 visitors per day. Yesterday, there were 0.88 million visitors, a record that will be broken today. Could well reach 1 million viewers today, which would be 792 times more than my daily average. For reasons I can't comprehend, this blog site has gone viral. There was a jump in visitors during our recent 50-day trip to the USA and Canada. Historically, I do get more viewers on a trip. But we returned almost 3 weeks ago, and the exponential viewership began this week. My blog postings ...

We spent Day 3, 1January2026, of this Ritz-Carlton Luminara cruise moored off Koh Samui, Thailand. Never been there, and have no particular wish to see a fisherman's village, Wat Khunarum, Secret Buddha Garden ( right ) and Chawan Noi Beach (below). Also too because we would need to catch a boat to the pier.  And Koh Samui would still be 19 miles away. Oh yes, and the cost is $339/person. According to the write-up:  Koh Samui's charm extends beyond its sun-drenched beaches, etc.  They believe in siestas.  Temperature is supposed by be 82F, but it feels like 90F on our veranda. Wikipedia  spells the city as Ko Samui, but locals just call it Samui. Off the east coast of Thailand, and is the country's second largest island after Phuket, Is beginning to approach 3 million tourists annually. Was not troubled by the great tsunami of 2004, and actually had a boom, for visitors avoided Phuket, located on the west side. The top global events in 2026: January 11:  Go...

We leave today for San Diego.  Probably will go to the zoo, some rank as  #1 in the world .  Here is another video of  how to visit the zoo .  There is also a hop-on-hop-off trolley system, with a stop at our hotel, the Marriott Marquis. But our primary purpose for this trip is Paso Robles to taste Petite Sirah.  We have relatives in the San Diego area, and four of us will drive from San Diego to Paso Robles, then back a few days later. The cities are 332 miles apart, a drive of 6 hours without stopping.   If you're a fan of this blog, you know by now that my favorite wine is Petite Sirah from Paso Robles.   There is a lot of history going back more than half a century . I tasted a very early version of this wine when it was not yet bottled.  I was spending a summer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the early 70s and knew a colleague whose last name was Concannon.   James Concannon founded the company in 188...