WHAT I DID ON VETERAN'S DAY

The above photo of retired General Eric Shinseki (the Washington Post had a long article today on His Mission to Mend) and Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama on Veteran's Day at the site of the Tomb of the Unknowns, exactly where I stood a couple of days ago.

Lunch today was at Tosca, an excellent Italian restaurant close to the Willard, hosted by Claudia and Suresh Patil, who was a colleague of mine on the Manoa Campus:

I had a mushroom and black truffle risotto:

It was good, but nothing like my white truffle risotto I had in Rome a few years ago, which is the best dish of anything I've had in my life.  I brought a bottle of Stanford Alumni Silverado Cabernet Sauvignon to Tosca.

I then went to the most popular Smithsonian, the Air and Space Museum.  There are nineteen museums and galleries, pluls the National Zoo.  Seventeen are in DC, with eleven along the National Mall.  They are open every day but Christmas, and are all free.  While the Louvre in Paris draws the most visitors (8.8 million annually), the National Air and Space Museum is #2 with 8.3 million (about the annual visitor count for Hawaii) and National Museum of Natural History (which I toured yesterday) is #3.  

I did say that these museums are free, but there is a charge for special events, like the 3D IMAX story about fixing the Hubble Telescope, which is $8 for seniors.  IMAX is an abbreviation for IMage MAXimization, was developed by a Canadian company and was first demonstrated at the Osaka 1970 Expo.  There are now 697 IMAX screens in 52 countries.  Here are a few photos I took, slightly fuzzy because the film was in 3D:

Actually, I was surprised as to how clear these shots developed, as, when viewing the video without my 3D goggles, everything looks out of focus.  I don't know if this was my imagination, but I noticed that the middle photo of Hubble looked a bit clearer with the goggles, which I borrowed for this experiment.  For the record, Edwin Hubble would have been 124 next week if he were still alive.  He was the first to postulate that the Universe is expanding.

Something tells me that I have finally attained classical curmudgeon status, for I feel compelled to say that our national museums are getting old and stale, sort of like the Willard Hotel and St. Regis in DC.  I guess I mostly like new things: shiny and sparkling and high tech.  While there is a lot to be said for preserving history and maintaining tradition, some major makeovers can be recommended for the national museums I visited on this trip.

Let me close with a photo of the Washington Monument, and a note that the re-opening will be some time next year.

While Veteran's day in our Nation's Capital was mostly sunny, with highs approaching 60 F, I'm glad to be leaving DC in two days because the weatherman hinted that tomorrow morning could experience the first snowfall of the year.

But, ah, the day was not over.  I went next door to Occidental Grill and Seafood for dinner and started with a Prosecco, the smallest cup of tomato soup I've ever seen and a large pan of corn bread:

I then ordered three beginnings: a blue cheese wedgie, parmesan crusted broccolini and seared foie gras:

I'm having lunch here with Kerry Kehoe of NOAA tomorrow to talk about the future of OTEC.

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THE LATEST ON APOCALYPSE HAIYAN

"State of National Calamity," declared President Nenigno Aquino III..."Worse than Hell," said CNN,  Super Typhoon Haiyan (also known as Yolanda in the Philippines) was the strongest ocean cyclone to ever make landfall, at 195 MPH.  While towns like Basey and Marabut were totally destroyed, the city of Tacloban apparently suffered the most.  

Tacloban, 360 miles southeast of Manila, was for a while the capital of the Philippines during part of World War II, and the beach here is where General Douglas MacArthur landed to liberate the country.  This is home to Congresswoman Imelda Marcos.  Tacloban City had a population of 221,000.

While as of Monday morning, the official toll was 255, the Red Cross ordered 10,000 body bags.    Ten million citizens are affected and half a million are already in evacuation centers.  The news will only get worse.

The news will only get worse!

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BUTTERFLIES IN DC

Yes, butterflies in DC.  But, first, I had brunch at Juniper in the Fairmont Hotel close to Foggy Bottom. The salad was fabulous:

The Mimosa (orange juice and vodka) was endless.  I had a strange French Toast, crispy, with a syrup laced with balsamic:

The meal cost $50 plus tip.

I then caught the Metro to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on the Mall.  Yes, there were dinosaurs:

Or, at east a lot of bones.  A shark photo caught my attention:

But here is a cute fish:

I think it's a fish.  Then, of course, the Hope Diamond:

Have you ever seen a blue diamond?  

• Formed around a billion years ago, it was found in India sometime in the mid 1600's, and was originally more than 100 carats large.  
• Now 45.52 carats, it is the largest deep blue diamond in the world.
• The curse of the Hope Diamond:

• King Louis XVI and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette (couldn't find a painting of her wearing the Hope so Miss Piggy's photo will do--yes, she actually wore it when she visited the Smithsonian!), were guillotined, after which the diamond was stolen.
• The English Hope family from which came the name, bought it, but had a lot of bad luck, and the final owner, Lord Hope, went bankrupt, at which time the stone again disappeared.
• Somehow, the Hope ends up with Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of Turkey, who was deposed.

It is said that the Hope Diamond is worth $350 million, but the most expensive is the Cullinan Diamond (3107 carats, with the largest cut at 530 carats) at $400 million, worn by Queen Elizabeth II:  

I can go on and on, but let me get to butterflies, for I paid for two entries at this museum today:

• Live Butterflies, a butterfly pavilion:

At $5.50, the room was hot and humid (and I was wearing attire for the freezing weather outside), and I've putted in balls from longer distances than the short walk.  Anyway, here is another shot of Monarchs:

The IMAX 3-D film ($8 for 45 minutes) on Flight of the Butterflies was fascinating.  This is the 40-year research story of how it was determined that Monarch Butterflies migrated from Mexico to Canada and back.  But some of them end up in South America, Bermuda, Florida and California, and they are also found in Oceania.  It takes three or four generations to make the trip.  The caterpillar eats milkweed (in Hawaii they consume crown flower leaves) while the butterfly consumes nectar.  

Birds usually don't eat Monarchs because the milkweed makes them taste really bad. 

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HAWAII ZERO-9

You've of course heard of Hawaii Five-O.  Well, the University of Hawaii football team is now Zero-9.

However, we had a memorable tailgate outside the Navy stadium in Annapolis:

Frankly, I would have been disappointed if they had served lau-lau, poke and rice, for you want to experience the cuisine of the local natives.  The tailgate featured barbecued chicken and pulled barbecue pork/beef sandwich, with potato salad and beans, with a dessert bar.  The potato salad used the wrong mayonnaise and the food temperatures were all wrong.  Let me change my mind and say that I would have preferred the Hawaiian-style tailgate.  At least the drinks were all free:

The Hawaiian trio with some hula dancers entertained well:

Hawaii Athletic Director Ben Jay joined the 600 tailgaters:

You might note that I am wearing a Navy football t-shirt.  The Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium:

It was an entertaining game, but Hawaii maintained a perfect record:  ZERO-9.  This is beginning to remind me too much of the von Appen years when Hawaii did not win for 23 months, and the tailgate was the highlight of the night.

Tomorrow?  I have a free day in our Nation's Capital.

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TRAGEDY IN THE PHILIPPINES FROM SUPERTYPHOON HAIYAN

Possibly the strongest ocean storm in history, Super Typhoon Haiyan, struck the central part of the Philippines yesterday.  Latest estimates are 10,000 dead.  Haiyan now weakened to 95 MPH, will now take a track south of Hainan and over Thai Bing, east of Hanoi, then China:

More to come tomorrow after more is known

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ARLINGTON AND ANNAPOLIS

On this Friday before Veterans' Day, the timing was propitious for a visit to Arlington Memorial Cemetery.  To make a long story short, it all began when the North "stole" the home site of Southern General Robert E. Lee, whose wife's (she was the step granddaughter of George Washington, or something like that)  family owned the land.  Arlington is the second largest of the 130 national cemeteries (Calverton on Long Island is #1),  with 400,000 interred.  As theoretically (there are various restrictions) any "clean" veteran and his family can be buried here, Arlington has added a special set of priorities for consideration.  However, construction is soon to be completed for 50,000 columbariums, where restraints will be eased.

The popular sites are:

• Kennedy Family Grave:  John (with perpetual flame), Robert and Ted, with an acknowledgement of Joe's presence.  Jacqueline and their two children (John Jr. and Patrick, who only lived for two days) are also here.
• The story of actor Audie Murphy is remarkable.  With only a 5th grade education, he quit school to pick cotton, then later lied about his age and snuck into the Army for World War II, all of 5' 5.5" and 112 pounds, but won more medals than almost anyone else, including the Medal of Honor.  He had a 21 year acting career and died at the age of 45 in a plane crash, after which he was buried at Arlington.  His gravestone at Arlington has collected $29,000 over the years, even though there is a sign that discourages this.  He was known to have been generous with his money:

• Tomb of the Unknowns (latest correct name), which is guarded by Marines (the ideal guard is 6 feet tall with a 30 inch waist, although there are now females in the mix--and they serve for two years).  The Changing of the Guard Ceremony is well-attended:

The Fall colors were resplendent (the top photo is from the Kennedy Family site):

The U. S. Army manages Arlington.  We drove by the Iwo Jima Memorial, where in 1945 Marines raised the flag on Mount Suribachi:

Then off to Annapolis, less than an hour (33 miles) away by bus, the capital of Maryland and home of the Naval Academy:

Getting into the academy was painful...worse than at an airport.  At the entrance was this bronzed animal:

The Navy mascot is a goat, Billy.  However, this certainly looks like a ram, which is a sheep.  Goats have sharp pointy horns.  I asked the tour guide, and she insisted the above was a goat.  Now I'm confused.  

The Naval Academy was built on an Army post in 1845 and occupies only 340 acres (West Point and the Air Force Academy have more than 5 times that area).  Their football coach is Ken Niumatalolo of Hawaii.  Each year Annapolis (yes, it's also the city) welcomes 1200-1300 (22% of women) freshmen, called Plebes, an abbreviation of the Roman plebian.  As there are around 4500 midshipmen (students with lowest navy rank for an officer), that gives you an idea as to how many drop out.  They get nominated by congressional members and the White House, although the children of Medal of Honor awardees automatically are considered.  Almost everything is free, plus, they get a salary of around $1000/month, which goes to uniforms, books, etc., but they only see a small portion for spending...the difference is banked.  They graduate with a technological B.S., and become ensigns in the Navy or second lieutenants in the Marine Corps. 

The campus actually recognized the existence of the Hawaii football team, twice:

This sign is at the base of a famous statue of Tecumseh.  It's a long story, but what started as a recovered wooden figurehead from a sunken ship, has over time become bronze and is painted before football games.  Navy plays Hawaii tomorrow.

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It's not officially official yet, but I yesterday reported that the strongest ocean storm ever in recorded history slammed into the Philippines:

Typhoon Haiyan has dropped in intensity "only" to 125 MPH, but all reports point to 195 MPH at landfall.  For certain 100 were killed in one city, but the casualties will mount and the devastation will be horrific.  Haiyan now heads for Vietnam and will make contact on Sunday just south of Danang (China Beach).

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