Sure, Armstrong's walk on the Moon was remarkable.  Our space exploits helped bankrupt the Soviet Union, leading to the end of the Cold War.  Yes, the James Webb Space Telescope is doing wonders.   However, maybe the most impressive NASA space project has to be those two Voyagers hurtling into interstellar space.  You can keep track of their status  here .  Voyager 1 is 14.8 billion miles and Voyager II is 12.4 billion miles away from Planet Earth.  They are moving along at 38,027 miles/hour (I) and 34,391 MPH (II).  It has been more than 45 years since they were launched.  Light would take more than 22 hours to reach Voyager I.  Every day they move away by another three to four light-seconds.   See Voyager I's path . Tim Folger has an excellent article in the July 2022 issue of  Scientific American , entitled  Record-Breaking Voyager Spacecraft Begin to Power Down .  I'd recommend you read it, but the story...

  This Regent Seven Seas Explorer trip was memorable, but certainly not as meaningful as others I've had.  For nostalgic Tuesday, I return again to that once-in-a-lifetime adventure I had around the time of the 11March2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake because, save for that cruise itself, was somewhat similar in location.    I left Honolulu on March 1, 2011 for Bangkok .   I did not get home until April 10, so the length was similar to my recent trip.   On the final day in Tokyo  I felt several serious tremors, one around 7.1, which no doubt was more intense than 95% of you have ever experienced.  A couple of days earlier I  wrote an article for the  Huffington Post  on a similar earthquake .  I did visit Shinjuku Park that final day, for this would be a night flight. The trip was so monumental that I had two summaries.  First:   GRAND SUMMARY OF THE ORIENT:  SPRING 2011 .   The   Great T...

  I'm tempted to write about all that snow, the end of Trump and the skyrocketing number of new covid cases in China, but will just show three photos of one Christmas meal this weekend. Why the splurge?  Not sure.  But the choice was not mine.  For example, that 25-year old Kurayoshi Pure Malt Whisky from Japan is close to $1000/bottle.  And that Caymus Cab was also not exactly cheap. $80.   Having those quality alcoholic drinks match with the 15 Craigside Christmas dinner was almost unfair.  In that bento box were ham, pork and turkey, with dressing.  The soup was Kahuku corn chowder. I should also add that playing for free on Netflix was  Glass Onion:  A Knives Out Mystery , starring Daniel Craig, Ed Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe and others, including cameos by Angela Lansbury, Stephen Sondheim, Serena Williams, Jake Tapper, Kareem Adul-Jabbar, Yo-Yo Ma, and even the likeness of Jared Leto and Jeremy Renner....

 How much do you really know about Santa Claus?   To begin , historians identify Bishop Nicholas of Myra, who was born around the year 260 in what is today southwestern Turkey, as the first Santa Claus.  He was known to be a miracle maker, and was known as the patron saint of schoolchildren. But it took until the end of the 11th century for his relics to be transferred to Italy for the cult to begin. The Feast of Saint Nicholas (this painting by Jan Steen in the 17th century) was welcomed in the Netherlands, which spread the tradition. Around this time, Dutch Calvinists fleeing religious persecution set sail for what became Nieuw Amsterdam, later named New York.  But Sinterklaas was introduced to the New World.  He was also called De Goedheiligman (The Good Holy Man), so who knows where this would have gone if it had prevailed. His Dutch name was Americanized to Santa Claus, as a symbol of resistance against the British around the time of the 1776 Revolutio...