WE ALL FAIL, BUT YOU MUST OVERCOME TO SUCCEED

Failure happens, and regularly.  As a first example, somehow, life began, leading to Homo sapiens, us.  We began to evolve, and almost expired 70,000 or so years ago when the super eruption of Toba in Indonesia reduced humanity to perhaps only a thousand breeding pairs.  But we recovered, perhaps too well, for we are up to a population of 7.7 billion.

The USA, in a sense, only began between 13,000 and 23,000 years ago when the ice age allowed the Clovis people from Beringia to cross the Bering Strait to populate both Americas.  Irish monks might have come in the 6th century, or perhaps the Vikings in the 10th century, and Zheng He of China might have arrived 71 years before Columbus, with the latter opening the door to European colonization, leading to the formation of the United States of America.

The early years were difficult ones, but the Nation continued to overcome, and we are today the most dominant country in the world.  More recently came President Donald Trump with all his nonsensical travails, epitomized by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, which dropped to another low with the actions of the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance him to the full floor.  However, Senator Jeff Flake "overcame" to secure an investigation by the FBI to occur before any final vote is taken.  Why should the the leadership listen to him?  If he votes no with just another Republican, consideration of a replacement Supreme Court justice will almost surely occur after the November 6 election.  Flake saved the integrity of the U.S. Congress....maybe.

My life has been fraught with failures, but I somehow kept overcoming.  Growing up in Kakaako and scoring in the bottom tenth percentile in my practice college board verbal test during my junior year:  HOW TO LUCK OUT AND GET INTO STANFORD.  Then, when I got there to learn that I was totally out of my element:  financially, intellectually, physically...in every way.  Plus being the only person of Japanese ethnicity in the entire class (there was no black person and I had no idea what Hispanic meant).  The two advantages I gained from graduating in less than four years were confidence and how to get along with white people.  Sorry for this blatantly racial paragraph, but success came in my ability to fit in and compete in the mostly Caucasian leadership of the University of Hawaii, NASA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and U.S. Senate.

But what have I accomplished in my entire professional career?  Last year I addressed a MENSA gathering in Honolulu, and summarized these opportunities:

• World Peace:  I proposed a 10% simple solution, and this got nowhere.

• Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence:  Worked at NASA Ames Research Center, and, well, no signs of alien presence...yet.
• Eternal Life:  how to live forever, and don't hold your breath.
• Remediation of Global Warming:  I advanced geoengineering options and a 5 cents/pound carbon dioxide credit concept, plus, noting that a two-by-four solution was necessary, wrote about The Venus Syndrome.  Then President Donald Trump tells us this is a hoax.

• Fusion:  Spent two assignments at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion, which has gone nowhere.
• Transportation for our future:
• The best nearer term option is the direct methanol fuel cell.  Nothing is happening.
• We need to start now for a next generation aviation system.  Nothing is happening.

• I assisted in drafting original legislation for:
• Hydrogen, for which the hydrogen jetliner is the best future.  Nothing is happening.  However, I did participate in a hydrogen fuel cell gathering in Japan, and Toyota and Honda appear to be very interested.

• OTEC, the power and resource source of the Blue Revolution.  Nothing much is happening.
• Then there were three enterprises:
• Rainbow Pearls International:  no progress.
• Hawaii Geo-Spa:  no progress.
• The Ultimate Ocean Ranch:  no progress.

I fail almost every day.  Today, for example, was Craft Fair time for 15 Craigside.  Residents were asked to display and sell their cookies, artwork, whatever, where just about everything was donated back to the residency.  I had an ideal location, the entrance.  Next to me was Gene Kaneshiro selling his boiled peanuts, called Gene's Nuts.

He sold $450 worth of nuts.  Not one person bought my photos, which were offered for $2.  Sometimes, though, failure can be beneficial.  If I sold, say $450 worth, I would need to find 225 originals in my computer, load them onto a flash drive, send them to Leilyn for copies, where she would then inform the purchaser to come into her office to pick up the photo and pay $2 to her.  What a relief for her, and me, to now have to do nothing.

Thus, has my life been a total failure?  Well, yes and no.  I will not be able to overcome much anymore, but you can.  Or you can refer someone to me.  As a start, just one imaginative billionaire desiring a legacy for the Blue Revolution would be a great next step towards success.

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Hurricane Rosa is now at Category 4 and could find its way to Arizona and other states, after Baha:

The truly dangerous one is Typhoon Trami.  There will be serious devastation:

The eye will be at Category 3 strength between Miyakojima and Naha, and continue on at more 100 MPH when when crashing into Kansai, then passing over Nagoya and Sendai.

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