MUGA: Day 2--San Francisco to Sydney

MUGA, of course, is the acronym for My Ultimate Global Adventure.  I had a few hours today, so decided to catch BART to SFO downtown and have lunch at Tadich Grill, not only the oldest restaurant in the city, but also the entire state of California.  One hundred and sixty four years old according to their neon sign:

According to Forbes, this is one the top ten classical restaurants in the country:

My favorite waiter is Anton:

I started with a Bloody Mary (1) and a Sierra Nevada beer (2) with a bowl of Coney Island Clam Chowder:

My main dish consisted of grilled tuna and salmon with a large green salad:

The total bill came to $60, including $17 roundtrip on BART.  Considering that a small appetizer at Robuchon's is more expensive, all things considered, it was worth the outing today.  The walk from the Montgomery Street Station east end is only around 5 minutes, and it took about an hour from the Four Points Sheraton at the airport to the restaurant.

I first came to Tadich as a student at Stanford when the restaurant was on Clay Street (that is a menu from 1964).  This area got redeveloped, so Tadich Grill came to the middle of town in the Financial District on California in 1967 

Reservations are not accepted, so if it's lunch you want, wait at the door at 11AM (11:30 on Saturday, closed on Sunday).  By 11:15AM both the bar stools and tables could be filled.  They serve 700/day.

About that unnervingly long 14.5 hour flight expected, all over the ocean.  Surely, United must use the best airplane they have, which today will be a Boeing 747-400 (later in this itinerary I will fly on the new Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 from Beijing to Frankfurt, and that giant Thai Air Airbus 380 from Bangkok to Tokyo).  Anyway, that's a lot of water today with no fail safe option.

Another matter that has been on my mind is, if the surface of our planet is moving, west to east, at 1000 miles/hour, why, since the plane is at 40,000 feet, the flight west to Sydney from San Francisco takes so long.  You would think 600 MPH plus 1000 MPH divided into 7400 miles should result in a flight time of 4.6 hours.  But I will be in the air 14.5 hours, an average speed of 511 MPH.  Why?  Well, the atmosphere, apparently, moves with the surface of Planet Earth, and, more so, other conditions can cause headwinds, even more extending the flight time.  The flight from Honolulu to San Francisco took only four hours, or the plane averaged 600 MPH, because of tailwinds.  Going back from San Francisco to Honolulu generally takes 5 hours because of that headwind, which is only 480 MPH.

Well, anyway, got kicked out of my hotel at 3:30PM, and my flight is not until 10:30PM, so I went to the United First Class Lounge (listen to the nice jazz music--I think only Narita, Los Angeles and Chicago are the others).  That is my plane with a few drinks [from the right: Crown Royal Reserve on rocks (3), a junmai daiginjo sake (4) and champagne (5), plus nuts).

I had such a large lunch that I hardly touched the lounge food:

Well, return for the full story, which I'll re-post from Sydney.

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MY ULTIMATE GLOBAL ADVENTURE: Day 1--Honolulu to San Francisco

I awoke this morning to a Moonset:

Today I begin my ultimate global adventure.  The primary purpose will be to build relationships and seek funding for the Pacific International Ocean Station of Blue Revolution Hawaii, a non-profit corporation.  I will also continue to spread Pearl's ashes, mostly symbolical on this journey, so that I can flesh out the book I plan to publish on this subject.

Very simply:  Honolulu - San Francisco - Sydney- Bangkok - Tokyo - Osaka - Awaji Island - Hiroshima - Tokyo - Matsumoto - Tokyo - Nikko - Tokyo - Seoul - Shanghai - Beijing - Frankfurt - DC - Denver - San Francisco - Napa Valley - Sea Ranch - Mendocino - San Francisco - Honolulu:  35,354 miles by air.  I will be flying via Star Alliance Round the World, and just this air portion, if I paid for all the segments individually, would have cost $51,189.  Of course, I'll only be paying about 59 cents per mile, still, not exactly cheap.

It seems odd to be going from Honolulu to San Francisco, then west to Sydney, but I need to drop off my golf bag before really beginning my journey, for the week in Napa at the end will involve 6 days of golfing in a row.

For your future planning purposes, always go west, for then your body clock will not be as challenged.  Also, I try to fly only during daylight hours.  First, because it's party time, but, also, so that I can get to my hotel in daylight.

It takes around 14 hours from SFO to Sydney.  While the distance is close to 7500 miles, the Boeing 747-400 has a range of 8300 miles.  Just pray for minimal headwinds.  In comparison, the flights from Beijing to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to D.C. are around 10 hours.  Some get claustrophobic being in such tight quarters going so fast.  How fast?  The cruise speed of a Boeing 747-400 is close to 600 miles per  hour.  The muzzle velocity of most pistols is less than 700 MPH.  So picture yourself flying at the velocity of a speeding bullet in cramped quarters for 14 hours.  Or, try not to.

I note today that North Korea placed it's missile artillery on highest alert, with Hawaii specifically mentioned.  Glad I'm leaving?  Nope, Japan is closer to Korea.  The danger is that Kim Jong Un could do something stupid rather get overthrown.  You think those generals are really taking him seriously?  Further, it was just a couple of days ago that I reported the Tokyo area is 9 years overdue for a major earthquake which could cause up to $2.3 trillion in damage.   China?  Just posted on their serious air and water pollution problems.  Plus I have two stops in San Francisco and I keep hearing about the San Andreas Fault and the next 1906 earthquake.  At least the USGS has said there is only a 2% chance of a similar shake over the next 30 years...but, watch out for that Hayward Fault.

In any case, you can't let possible threats run your life.  Maybe I should not have used adventure in the above title.  In any case, after sequestration and the fiscal cliff, the American stock market remains vibrant, as the Dow Jones Industrials today again broke an all-time recored, up to 14,559, while the S&P missed by two points.

To begin, I'm at the Honolulu Airport United Club Lounge with a Bloody Mary and double expresso cappuccino. That's my Boeing 777, with Diamond Head in the background:

Now on the other side of Diamond Head:

The first drink was champagne:

The main meal was a double helix pasta (not rotini...maybe fusili...not sure) with marinara and spinach, plus red and white wine:

This was all so appropriate because I am just now reading a Scientific American article on XNA, the synthetic future of DNA/RNA.  I'll later post on this exciting new subject, which shows promise for a quantum leap in next generation life.

I ended with a hot fudge and strawberry sundae with coffee and Bailey's, then a White Label:

Finally, approaching San Francisco:

Appropriately enough, waiting for my hotel shuttle, I saw a Moonrise (full moon is tomorrow):

You can keep track of where I am through this blog site.

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MOST IMPORTANT JEWS IN HISTORY

This is Part 2 of my education about the Jewish people.  There are huge gaps in my sphere of knowledge, and, until recently, I was largely ignorant of this subject.  Click on my Part 1, which expressed my amazement at the dominance of Jewish broadway composers, while sharing some rather shocking information about the decline of their intellect.  There are only two countries with a lot of Jews:  Israel and the U.S., both with a bit over 5 million.

There were, indeed, some famous Jews two thousand years ago:  Jesus, Moses, Abraham and St. Peter (the first Pope).  Of course, there are those who say Jesus was Judean and not Jewish.  But here is a case for Jesus being Jewish.  Controversial, but certainly at least a borderline Jew.  To check on who is or not, click on Jew or Not Jew.  Of course, this site has a sense of humor, and considers Einstein, the sheepdog from Back to the Future, Jewish, but only because his name is Einstein, who was Jewish.

Oh, yes, and Charles Darwin.  How Jewish was he?  According to Scientific American, Darwin wrote:

 “Don't get me started on Fitzroy and his meshuggaas. This meshuggener had a bed with only a wrong side because that's what he always woke up on. Always looking for tsuris. What a schmuck.”  

But you didn't see this, for the editor adjusted to:

“Fitzroy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in the early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect something amiss about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame.”

Other Jews?  Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Neils Bohr, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, George Gershwin, Levi Strauss, Jonas Salk, Henry Kissinger, Jerome Kern, Benny Goodman, Sandy Koufax...plus, Elizabeth Taylor, Woody Allen, Julio Iglesias...and Bugsy Siegel, the Three Stooges and Ron Jeremy (of porno fame).  More recently, Sergey Brin (Google), David Axelrod (Obama's advisor), Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Supreme Court), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Bob Dylan (musician) and Sacha Baron Cohen (comedian).

Let me end with a Jewish soul singer who is gaining acclaim, except that you'd be hard pressed to find her on You Tube, for reasons I don't understand.  I think this might have something to do with plug-ins on my computer, actually.  (Anyone know how to cure this?)  Jessie Ware was born in the United Kingdom 28 years ago and is known for her 2012 hit, Wildest Moments.  See her on the Jimmy Fallon show in her American debut this year.  Why she is said to be a next star somewhat mystifies me, for this song only reached #46 on the UK charts, although the album, Devotion, from which this song comes, came in at #5 last year.

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SUNDAY AT THE MOVIES

Can you believe five movies?  I'm off on my ultimate global journey in two days and won't see another film for a couple of months.  The ratings:

                                           ROTTEN TOMATOES    MY GRADE                  

                                            Reviewers    Audience

InaPPropriate Comedy                 ?              63%                  C

Olympus has Fallen                   51%           79%                  A-

Admission                                  44%          58%                 B          

Croods                                       65%           87%                B

Spring Breakers                         70%           67%                B-

InaPPropriate Comedy was offensive, but funny, sort of like Film 43, but not as blatantly pornographic nor humiliating, as such.  Scurrilous and unseemly vignettes starring people like Rob Schneider, Michelle Rodrigues, Adrien Brody and Lindsay Lohan insult  your intelligence and morals, but nevertheless trouble you by being somewhat entertaining.  Lindsay, yes, but how did those others get trapped into this garbage...which was almost worth it.

Mind you, The New York Post gave it a four star rating and called the film " brutally funny."  But Lou Lumenick was being sarcastic...I think.  The director, Vince Offer was responsible for that "Sham Wow" TV commercial, which works, because I got some, and they're terrific.  If nothing else, I can warn you that Lohan appears next month in Scary Movie 5, (which, wow, got a RT audience rating of 86%) including a scene with Charlie Sheen.

I liked Olympus has Fallen.  Gerard Butler carried the show, but Rick Yune, as one of those nasty villains, stood out.  Before becoming an actor, he was a hedge fund trader on Wall Street.  You've previously seen him, for he has been around since 1999 in Snow Falling on Cedars.

The movie itself should do well for it has all the ingredients:  shooting, dying, explosions...  North Korea has become moviedom's favorite invader these days.  Remember Red Dawn?  Morgan Freeman again plays the equivalent of POTUS.  Sorry, but it has a happy ending.

I kind of identified with Admission.  Tina Fey plays an admissions officer for Princeton University, and the process brings me back to those days when I was applying for college.  I still wonder how I got into Stanford.  The film indicates that Princeton dropped to #2 in admissions with something a bit above 20,000, but #1 is UCLA with 61,564, and Princeton is not even in the top 25.  It can't be yield (percent accepted who enroll), because BYU is #1, Harvard #2 and Stanford #3...and Princeton #18.  It could be national ranking, where Princeton follows Harvard.  In any case, the premise holds hope, but the portrayal is flawed.  Tina gets fired and disappointed, but the ending is sort of okay.

Croods is for children.  I went because I heard it was to be the box office winner this weekend (beating out Olympus by a bunch), and I paid $4 more for the 3D version.  You need to have a child's maturity to gloss over the technical impossibilities.  Nicholas Cage spoke as the caveman father, with daughter Eep (Emma Stone) the love interest of Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a wandering Homo sapien (I think the others were Neanderthal).  The star of the show was Belt (Chris Sanders, because he serves as wise advisor and belt, to hold up the pants), a pet sloth of Guy.  I'm not a fan of animation, nor vampires.  Not sure how the ending went, for I had to leave early to catch the beginning of...

... Spring Breakers.  Last night on TV, Where the Boys Are was shown, a film from 1960.  See Connie Francis sing this song in 2010.  Spring Breakers also occurs in Florida, but in St. Petersburg instead of Fort Lauderdale, during, of course, a college spring break.  However, the 50+ years shift in time has changed everything, reflecting the spirit of today, but with a dark twist into nightmare.  For example, instead of Connie's ballad, we have James Franco, playing a gangsta and rapping.  Yes, the same James Franco who is the Wizard of Oz.

It's an R movie, but could just as well have been an X.  The Boston Globe thought this offering was mesmerizing.  Selena Gomez is the only good person in the film.  The ending was left up in the air, but looming terrible.

In between I had a spaghetti with chicken, Caesar Salad, Prosecco and house red:

Amazingly enough, I only barely slept a couple of times and drove home without a headache.

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THESE SHOULD INTEREST YOU

It's Saturday, here are some infocandy for your mind:

1.  The U.S. economy is doing remarkably well compared to our competitors.  Relative to the 2007/8 peak:

We are the only major country in the plus.  Greece, of course is suffering, but bet you didn't know China continues to despair?

2.  Is outer space a vacuum?  No.  Throughout the Universe there are 100-1,000 molecules per cubic centimeters.  Our atmosphere at sea level has 100 billion billion (quintillion)/cc molecules, with 92% hydrogen,  almost 8% helium, and the remaining one tenth of one percent, 180 other types of molecules.  Who cares?  Astrochemists, who now have a new toy, the Atacama Large Millimeter / sub millimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile.  There are 66 dishes at an elevation of 16,400 feet and cost $1.3 billion, mostly paid for by the USA and European Union.

3.  What is the most abundant organism on Planet Earth?  No, not ants, nor some type of bacteria...but a virus, for now known as HTVC(010)P.  While indeed ubiquitous, Pelagibacter unique, a bacterium, was once considered to be the most prevalent, being from a quarter to half of all the living cells in the ocean. No more, for there are 1000 times more viruses than bacteria, and a 100 billion times more of them than all the stars in the known universe.  This Smithsonian article was not clear, but that dish to the right could well be this virus.

4.  Hurricane Katrina in 2005 officially caused $81 billion of damage.  The eventual cost of Hurricane Sandy last year could reach $60 billion.  The Japanese government this week revealed a 400-page report showing that a 9.0 (same magnitude as the one that undid Fukushima two years ago) earthquake off the coast of central Japan could kill more than 320,000 people, displace 9.5 million and cause $2.3 trillion in damage.  The scary thing is that a major earthquake occurs in this Nankai Trough every 100-150 years, and last big one was 159 years ago.  And I'll be there in a week.  Are the Japanese just being paranoid?  Well, the two most expensive natural disasters in history occurred in Japan:

  #1  $235 billion    2022  The Great Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster

  #2  $100 billion    1995  Kobe earthquake

  #3  $  81 billion    2005  Hurricane Katrina

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SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC PRICES ARE DROPPING

It was exactly a week ago that I posted on the growth of solar photovoltaics.  Today, Paula Mints of SPV Market Research/Strategies Unlimited, reported with further details about the continuing drop in the price of PV modules:

  2011     $1.37/peak watt
  2012     $0.79/PW
  2013     $0.65/PW  (today)

A 50% decline in less than two years.  Remarkable!  Better yet, the slide is continuing, as the cost of PV modules should further decrease to $0.46/PW by the end of the year.  This would mean a price reduction of more than a factor of 10 in 20 years.  Note, though, that rise in prices beginning a decade ago.  This was caused by feed-in tariffs legislated to promote solar energy.  Demand jumped, and inventories dropped.  While it will be more difficult to again orchestrate, you can bet that manufacturers are developing a plan to repeat this economic windfall.

Wonder how solar cell efficiencies are doing?  With much hesitation, I provide the following:

You can click on that graphic to read it.  While efficiencies have zoomed beyond 40%, no one sells these systems because they're too complicated and exotic.  Anything you install these days falls below 20% (12%-18%).

How are some companies doing?

Note that not many companies are making much money.  Yet another firm, Abound Solar of Colorado, which received a $400 loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, went bankrupt last year.  Even China's Suntech Power just filed for bankruptcy.  

Further, these are manufacturers.  Those companies buying these modules and installing them face a totally different challenge.  Labor costs continue to increase, crazy companies enter the scene to both distort and corrupt the marketplace, governments pull back incentives and more.  

Thus, a range of factors comes into play when converting module to installed cost.  Then there is that matter of economic reality.  No matter what the installation cost might be, or extent of government incentives, if you live where the insolation is low, or cloud cover high, it would not be worth your while to go this route.  Residential prices are in the $5-$7/watt range (depends on where and when), whereas utility costs for systems larger than 10,000 kW are around $3/watt.  Thus, the PV module cost is only 10% of the total installed cost for homes.  Cells could drop to zero, and you still can't compete with fossil fuels / nuclear today!   But as that cartoon shows, are companies looking up or down?

But, ah, once in place, you are set for your lifetime (should be good for 20, if not 30 years, with limited degradation), whereas you can be sure that electricity from conventional power plants will only increase.  Consider life cycle cost in your final analysis.  While this photo is just one of my sunsets, no doubt solar PV is at sunrise.

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THE NEXT GENERATION BRIDGE BETWEEN JAPAN AND THE USA

I was in the perfect position to serve as the bridge of collaboration between Japan and the USA.  My roots are in Japan and I was born in Hawaii, which is strategically positioned between our two countries.  I still remember a panel I moderated more than a couple of decades ago when the relationship between Japan and USA was getting testy.  Herman Kahn  had predicted that the next emerging superstate, Japan, would become #1.  Then, eureka, a thought occurred to me:   it was important that our #1 and #2 nations take the high road to cooperation, and, as "Takahashi" means high bridge, it is clear that I was fated to be this interface.  It did get a lot of laughs.  

At around this time I was playing around with my family crest (kamon or mon), added a few colors and came up with:

I used that hybrid art form for my book covers.  That rainbow over the ocean linking countries represents every thing I've been trying do during my career.

Note that I used the past tense.  My time is coming to an end.  Today I had lunch (note my onaga with a glass of Chardonnay) with the next generation to carry on this partnership:

They are from the left, Remi Ie, Mike Rogers and Julie Rogers.  They all speak fluent Japanese and English.  Remi is with the relatively new Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.  (OIST).  Their board includes five Nobel laureates, and Jonathan Dorfan, former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is the new president.  Their graduate program involves international students.    There are no departments and everything is interdisciplinary.  Terrific, something I've long advocated!  I think that's the campus, located at Onna near the East China Sea. I hope to visit in the Fall.

According to Remi, one prime focus will be ocean development.  She expressed keen interest in the Blue Revolution.  I glanced at the names on the board and saw only scientists, including a couple who I've fenced with in the past, for they primarily advocated monitoring, modeling and preservation.  They controlled the budget and, well, guess who prevailed.  I hope this Institute can transcend the model used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Science Foundation, which focuses on fundamental ocean science, with token engineering and almost no actual development.  Makes no sense, for NOAA reports to the Department of Commerce.  I underscore this point because the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) also does only science.  The technology part is engineers making instruments and habitats for scientists. What has been almost befuddling to me is that I was quite close to a couple of JAMSTEC chairmen, both engineers from industry, and they still adhered to the NOAA/NSF priorities.  You'd think Japan, of all the countries, would want to commercialize future technologies.  They do, but not in the ocean.  OIST will hopefully be an enlightened pioneer.

Well, 'nuff for that.  Mike Rogers has taken over the role handled by Guy Toyama at the Friends of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, and appears to be interested in hydrogen.  Remi, Mike and I also talked about Rainbow Pearls International.  Julie just returned from Bhutan and is now linked with the East-West Center.  Henk Rogers, founder and chairman of Blue Planet Foundation, is the dad of Mike and Julie.

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