COVID-19: One Year of Continuous Euphoria

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil   India   South Africa

May     27    1535     5283         1148     190         28

            28    1223     4612         1067     177         25
            29    1212     4873         1180     269         34
            30    1015     4084           890     205         32
June      1      638     3189          480      223         40
              2      730     3053          732      200         22
              3    1134    4669         1232      221          50
             4     1083    4928         1269      259         37
             5     1031    5511         1492      275         56

Summary:  The new deaths trend seems to be on an upswing, especially for the current epicenter, South America, and possibly next one, Africa.

From The New York Times in their daily briefing today:

If you look at one of the charts tracking the coronavirus in the U.S., you’ll probably notice a disturbing pattern: The number of new cases has virtually stopped falling, hovering around 20,000 for the past 10 days. However, there are now more tests than before, resulting in a dropping positive test rate: The World, especially the USA, is struggling.  Me?  I'm happy. For the first ever, from 2018 entered a state of sinusoidal euphoria.  It was exactly a year ago that this feeling became continuous, into today.  As reported in my posting of 6 October 2018, the first eight months had a few minor bumps.  Two examples: I woke up one night and couldn't walk.  My right hip had locked.  A few minutes later, all became well, and this fearful experience never returned.  I nevertheless the next day I ordered a walker from Amazon, and it came not quite all put together.  That was a challenge, but if I become incapacitated, I have awaiting a spiffy aide...which is taking up space in my small apartment. Then there was that alert about a missile from North Korea heading for Hawaii.  That turned out to be just a bureaucratic blunder, but it was tense for a few minutes.

Early in 2019 an additional aggravation was my trip to France, for I almost fear going there.  There are too many things that can go wrong in places like Paris, Milan, Nairobi and certain cities of the world.  However, it was more than made up for with visits to Chateau Lafite Rochschild and Remy Martin.  The caviar/champagne lunch at the Los Angeles Airport and Chaise Monet in Cognac were also memorable.

Actually, the road to euphoria goes back even further, to four years ago, when I finally decided to...give up on trying to organize or run anything....my enjoyment of life subsequently materially increased.  Combined with cataract surgery, which restored my eyesight to 20-20, the mostly disappearance of my tinnitus, a colonoscopy to verify that I was free of possible cancer, and good enough knees that did not prevent me from walking 18 holes at the Ala Wai Golf Course twice per week.  I'm less stressed, feeling good and do whatever I want.

This metamorphosis came on the sudden realization that my end was not that far away, and I felt I had sacrificed enough for my one and only life.  I have been a giving person, and don't know anyone who has donated more to Humanity and Planet Earth.  Whether it was my time and attitude to make people better, sacrificing credit for the sake of accomplishing group and their personal goals, or even like endowing my penthouse apartment to the University of Hawaii to initiate the Blue Revolution.

I now don't bother with giving gifts and am rather obtuse to volunteering for anything or merely only doing the right thing.  Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, for I remain somewhat charitable on a limited basis.  Mind you, I still generally smile and try to be reasonably kind and helpful, and most might not even recognize how much I have actually changed.  But don't expect anything consequential from me....except maybe towards my Blue Revolution crusade.  I have an important meeting scheduled soon, but will most likely delay it because of the current pandemic limitations on gatherings.

I continue to post this blog because, after some introspection, realized that I'm doing this mostly for myself.  My global platform allows me to gloat and pontificate.  Sometimes I get pedantic, for I've been in education all my life.  There is something to this site being visited by 221 countries, 45.5% from foreign sites:

The highlights during my continuous euphoria were bountiful, but this ecstatic feeling now and then was challenged by adversity:

• 1 June 2019:  MY WORST WEEK IN DECADES ENDS REASONABLY OKAY
• 30 June 2019:  WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY ABOUT DONALD TRUMP? (Just had to insert something about The Donald.)

• 3 July 2019:  CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE HEADING STRAIGHT FOR HAWAII
• 8 August 2019:  HOW THE USA CAN STOP MASS SHOOTINGS (Of course, there were mass shootings.)
• 14 August 2019:  FUTURE FATE OF HONG KONG and TMT (Getting worse for Hong Kong today and the Thirty Meter Telescope appears to be on a perpetual hold.)

• 22 August 2019:  DONALD TRUMP versus GLOBAL WARMING (Trump again, for we do have this other pandemic regarding our environment.)
• 24 October 2019:  ARE THESE SIGNS OF DEMENTIA? (Am I entering an early phase of dementia?)

• 5 December 2019:  SO HOW WAS THE DIAMOND PRINCESS?  (Yes, I was on the ship that started COVID-19...but a month before it began to happen.)
• 2 February 2020:  COULD THE WUHAN CORONAVIRUS BE A SIGN OF DOOMSDAY? (Then the world knew for sure where this pandemic started.)

• 20 February 2020:  DAYS 8 and 9: Phuket to Chiang Mai (Our trip to Thailand was wonderful.  I include these days because Phuket was not worthy of a stop and on the flight to Chiang Mai, a person from China was seated between us.  Not only was he slightly coughing, but he said he had luckily sneaked into Thailand for a visit.)
• 30 May 2020:  COVID-19: Riots in Time of Pandemic (Not only the coronavirus matter, but now racial protests.)

Donald Trump was an irritant, but none of the more serious domestic and international crises kicked me out of my euphoric state.  An occasional hangnail, sore joints and such, sure.  I reveled in quarantine, for life was stressless, meals were delivered to my room, I had an angel in town who bought me wagyu beef and sake and sashimi and stuff, enjoyed watching Netflix/Amazon Prime, loved naps (one of my coming postings) and felt I actually got healthier.   Turned out that walking on golf courses had cause those ankle swells, for they were back to normal as I prepare for golf today. 

My plants and fish survived.  In fact I was getting worried that the aquarium was getting covered with algae so I could not see inside.  I tried scraping and wiping the growth off, but got nowhere.  Then, one day in my neon tank, small snails suddenly appeared and in a month completely cleaned up the glass.  Where they came from I had no idea.  So I transferred some to the water lily tub.  Same thing happened.  The wonders of ecology:

It took a month to get this far in the water lily container.  A couple more weeks and this aquarium will look like the neon tank.

Year 2004:

• Mark Zukerberg creates Facebook.
• The first Southern Hemisphere hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean ever, Hurricane Catarina, makes landfall over Brazil.  The reason why never before is wind shear.  Sixteen years later, still no #2.

• European Union adds 10 members:  Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
• End of Soviet Union passport.

• Summer Olympics in Athens.
• Edvard Munch's The Scream and other paintings stolen in Oslo.  If this sounds familar, it's because there is more than one of them.  Another was stolen in 2004
• The four deepest caves in the world are in the country of Georgia:
• Veryovkina Cave is the deepest at 7,257 feet, but the entrance starts from 7,497 feet above sea level.
• For the first time, explorers reached the bottom, 7208 feet, of #2, Krubera-Voronza Cave.  The bottom is 5610 below sea level, the deepest ever reached.  A mile is 5280 feet.

• NASA Scramjet reaches a velocity of 7366 MPH.
• The Great Sumatra Earthquake (Indonesia) of 9.1-9.3 magnitude sent tsunamis around the world, killing over 200,000.  Nearshore waves exceeded 100 feet high.

Top 50 of 2004, in 16 minutes.  Have a great weekend.

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