MY BEST MEALS AT 15 CRAIGSIDE

The taking of photos in the 15 Craigside dining room is highly discouraged.  I think it has something to do with privacy.  No matter, for the three best meals I've eaten here were the ones I cooked myself on my lanai, where the view is better.

Last week I had an excellent rib eye, accompanied by a piece of foie gras, with truffle oil, served with a 2007 Mauritson Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma:

A couple of nights ago I dined on an asparagus salad, salmon caviar, truffle pate and castello blue cheese, with  four Russian vodkas and a glass of beer:

For lunch yesterday, I got a corn beef/cabbage and shoyu pork bento with a can of Asahi Dry and went to Magic Island, sitting under a coconut tree, with a view of Diamond Head and surfers:

There were four weddings I could see:

Notice that rainbow mural on the side of the Hilton Hawaiian Village Tower?  There was a re-dedication ceremony today for the $12 million, 31-story facelift.  First unveiled in 1968 as a work of art by Millard Sheets, it is listed by Guiness as the tallest mosaic.  By 2003, more than 100 of those pieces were defective, so nearly a decade later the restoration process finally replaced all 16,000 tiles.

Then last night, I gave some thought to the following bluefin tuna from Marukai:

Yes, $60 per pound!!!  And it's farmed in Mexico.  So  I passed and went to Tamashiro for a $21/pound premium grade yellowfin tuna, or ahi: 

I also picked up a piece of striped marlin, or nairagi:

My meal of ahi sashimi and fried nairagi with rice over cabbage was most satisfying:

I had a chilled 2007 Edna Valley Paragon Chardonnay and heated 300 ml bottle of Hakutsuru draft sake.  I sacrificed the shoyu chicken, beef noodle soup and cherry pie at the 15 Craigside dining room.  I've pretty much made a decision to eat what I want, anywhere I want, even though I forfeit up to $25 for every meal I miss here.

I might add that 15 Craigside does provide more activities then a major resort, for we were entertained by the Royal Hawaiian Band:

The conductor is Clark Bright, who in his university years worked at the Hawaii Natural Energy Insitute, which I directed.  I chatted with him for a few minutes, and he did say we trained him well.

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TRANSITIONS: Part 13B--What I have Accomplished in My Retirement

I am now in my 15th year of retirement.  Except for that dismaying five weeks nearly five years ago when my wife Pearl was in intensive care at Kuakini Hospital, this decade and a half has been the most enjoyable in my life.

Regarding Pearl's fatal period, a month into her ordeal, I received a bill just from the hospital in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars.  The thought of her being on a ventilator for another few months, if not years, tormented me.  Not only was she suffering, but her family and I seemed to be declining, physically, but more psychologically.

Then she passed away the following Sunday morning.  I returned home and wrote an article for the Huffington Post:

     Gratitude, Not Grief, 

which was published Monday morning.  I had purchased a bottle of Dom Perignon for her return, and actually obtained a Casio electronic keyboard to surprise her with a recital.  Well, I started with page one, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," but after a couple of weeks, just could not learn it.  So I went to page 88 and tried Pachelbel's "Cannon in D."  I had even more difficulty.   I've always wanted to instead get a keyboard with sets of rainbow colored keys, which would light up when I am supposed to press it, to accelerate the learning process.  Well, I haven't yet seen colored keys, but I noticed that Casio now sells keyboards with keys that do light up...for $260, which is about the price of one of my extravagant lunches, or a typical hotel bill for one night.  I did one night finish the Dom Perignon, but never went back to the keyboard.

Something we had not before discussed, but I thought I would do two things for her:

• She talked about wanting to go on an African Safari, visit the Taj Majal and hike Machu Picchu, but didn't get the chance, for I was not enthusiastic about Africa, India and the high elevation of Peru.  So I have spent the past few years flying around the world to lay her ashes at these and other sites.  Pearl's Ashes are now at close to #50 locations, most at scenes she most liked, plus others I thought she would have, and am thinking about writing a book on this experience.  As I many times found myself in exotic places with fabulous restaurants, I tended to dine at Michelin 3-Star and Pellegrino Best 50 establishments.  Rainbow Falls in Hilo was where the first ceremony was held.

• With the help (above) of Councilman Fresh Onishi of the Big Island (Pearl's cousin) and former Councilman Nestor Garcia, and the leadership of Garrick Iwamuro, Golf Course System Administrator of the City and County of Honolulu, there is an effort to plant the Gold Tree (below) on both islands.  Here is a photo (right) of the 50 of these trees being cultivated at the foot of Diamond Head for eventual placement at the Ala Wai Golf Course.  

Gratifyingly the first Gold Tree ceremony was held at the Hilo Municipal Golf Course last month:

Returning to my chronological history of retirement, the first five years I spent in my campus office boiling down everything I did in my professional life for a book I was planning to write.  Finally, in 2007 I published SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth.  Then I thought, why not write a book on what I don't know.  So in 2008 came SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.  In 2010 I compiled my Huffington Post articles into SIMPLE SOLUTION ESSAYS, a tribute to Pearl, to pass out at her second year celebration of life.

PEARL'S ASHES will be white, and a possible novel, THE VENUS SYNDROME, purple.

In the meantime, I have been inspiring BLUE REVOLUTION HAWAII, a local organization with a vision for Hawaii and the World:

     Hawaii today is 90% dependent on imported fossil fuels and 85% on shipped-in foods. The ocean can someday supply much of our sustainable resources in harmony with the marine environment. The initial focus will be on public education and advocacy for the Pacific International Ocean Station as a living laboratory for development of the Blue Revolution.

I have taken on the task to find a billionaire wishing a lasting legacy to Save Planet Earth and Humanity by intelligently developing ocean resources in harmony with the marine environment.  Anyone know of one?

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WHAT COULD THE $6 TRILLION COST OF THE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WARS HAVE BOUGHT US INSTEAD?

According to Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will end up costing us $6 trillion.  When President George W. Bush attacked Iraq,  Director Lawrence Lindsey (right) of the National Economic Council made a statement that this war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, and so irritated the White House for this "ridiculous" overstatement, that he was forced to resign.  Dividing the $6 trillion by $200 billion, Lindsey underestimated by at least a factor of 30.

What have been other major federal government expenditures:

• Manhattan Project:  this effort to build atomic bombs in World War II cost $2 billion ($26 billion today)
• Apollo Project:  Man to the Moon cost $25 billion ($118 billion today)

Today:

• New Aircraft Carrier:  $22 billion
• Carrier Strike Group cost/year:  $2.4 billion
• Cost to operate 11 CSGs/year:  $26 billion/year (three CSGs should suffice for the foreseeable future)
• Cost of F-35 fighter:  $1.3 trillion (that's $1300 billion, and this plane does not work so well--click on that graphic to actually read the details)
• USA annual defense budget:  $640 billion (2013)
• Annual World military budget:  $1.75 trillion (2013)

American bridges:

• 5,218 are structurally deficient...only in Pennsylvania!
• Average age of U.S. bridges:  43 years
• Cost to repair all bridges in the nation:  $106 billion

Higher education:

• cost of academic year at a state college:  $22,826
• students in 629 states colleges:  6,837,605
• total cost of these students/year:  $155 billion

Cost of controlling global warming by halving global emissions by 2050:  $45 trillion

The whole point of this posting is that global warming is more than a thousand times the financial challenge, combined, faced by the Manhattan and Apollo Projects.  The Middle East War budget?  Puny.  If it is possible to totally eliminate the military budget of the world for the next quarter century, and apply this total towards controlling carbon dioxide, this sum would still fall short:  $44 billion versus $45 trillion.

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COULD THIS BE THE END OF DENTAL CARIES?

Nearly two years ago I posted on:  IS THIS, FINALLY, THE END OF DENTAL CAVITIES?  Essentially, the "cure" was a duo of more effective mouthwashes.  There are now two more remedies coming.

The first procedure is being developed by Harvard using a low-power light to trigger dental stem cells to repair teeth by forming dentin, the layer of your tooth that rests between the enamel and pulp.  David Mooney (right) is leading this team.  No indication of commercial availability was provided.

The second bit of good news is of an electronic process announced by Reminova Ltd., a spinoff of King's College London, to also painlessly repair your teeth.  The foundation is, effectively, being laid not only for restorative dentistry, but regenerative medicine to treat wounds and fix broken bones.   Professor Nigel Pitts is co-founder and Chairman.

What happens is that bacteria in your saliva chemically converts the food you eat, especially sugars, into acids, which dissolve key minerals in your enamel.  While I thought everyone had these harmful germs, there must be some differences in your mouth ecosystem, for it is reported that kissing can transfer these bacteria.  This new technique restores the lost minerals (mainly calcium and phosphate), particularly where cavities are forming.

Is there a difference between caries and cavities?  They're interchangeable, but if you want to be picky, the term "caries" is the name of the disease that causes tooth decay, resulting in cavities.  

In any case, this should be the end of drilling and filling.  No injections, no pain.  Reminova indicated that the technique, called Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation, will be brought to market in two years.  However, my first posting on this subject also indicated that the mouthwash product was supposed to have been commercialized by now, and I haven't yet seen any ads.

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FABULOUS ALBINOS

What is this?  See end of posting.  

I happened to see on TV last night an albino humpback whale.  Here is Migaloo (an aboriginal term for white fellow) another one from Australia:

I wondered why this condition occured in nature.  Turns out that all vetebrates show this abnormality.  About one in 17,000 of us are albinos, suffering from albinism.  Suffer because these humans are very sensitive to sunlight and generally have visual defects.  Some animals in the wild lose their camouflage and don't live long.  In Tanzania, witchdoctors make special potions from albinos and a complete set of albino body parts is worth $75,000.

Albinism is a genetic disorder characterized by an absence of tyrosinase, a copper-containing enzyme involved in the production of melanin.  Here is 500 pound White Fog from Gatorland Florida, who is almost 11 feet long:

He lives with three other white gators, his brothers, and there are only 12 known worldwide.  Actually, White Fog is more accurately leucistic, for he has piercing blue eyes.  This condition occurs every 5 million births.

How's this for an exotic rarity, a two-headed albino snake:

Snowflake is the only albino gorilla raised in captivity, captured from the wild in Equatorial Guinea, lived 37 years at the Barcelona Zoo, fathered 22 offspring, none albino, and passed away in 2003.

Albinos can be pink, as this dolphin.  Meet Pinky from Lake Calcaeieu in Louisiana:

And more:

One in ten million buffalo (also known as bison) is born white.  But there is a herd of 12 Sacred White Buffalos at Spirit Mountain Ranch 20 miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona.:

Then, of course, there is Moby Dick, the novel by Herman Melville.  

• Turns out this story is based on Mocha Dick of two centuries ago, a true white sperm whale with a lot of white barnacles, who was measured to be 70 feet long, and is known to have attacked 100 ships, sinking 20.  He only went after whalers, because they came after him first.   He was finally caught and yielded 100 barrels of oil and some ambergris.  He had over 20 harpoons on his body. 
• Regarding Melville's masterpiece, the book only earned him $556.37, and sold perhaps 3000 copies in the forty years after publication.
• Whalers have taken around a million sperm whales, however, there remain around a million in our seas today, but are protected.
• Best as I can tell, no one alive has seen a white sperm whale, but here is a photo of a standard one by Brandon Cole:

And, of course, they have the profile of a sperm.

• Moby Dick films:

• 1926:  The Sea Beast, with John Barrymore as Captain Ahab, and remade in 1930.
• 1956:  The most recognized, with Gregory Peck as Ahab.
• 1965:  The Bedford Incident, with an anonymous Soviet submarine as Moby Dick, and a Navy destroyer as Pequod, captained by Richard Widmark, with Sidney Poitie and Donald Sutherland.
• 1978:  Moby Dick, Jack Aranson as Ahab.
• 2004:  Captain Ahab, a French flick.
• 2010:  Moby Dick, with Barry Bostwick as Captain Ahab, on a Navy submarine Pequod, and the whale wins again.

• 2014:  The Whale, a 2013 British film to be shown this year on Animal Planet as Revenge of the Whale, and stars Martin Sheen as a cabin boy on the Essex, a whaling ship which was sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific in 1820, and inspired Melville to write his book.  Has not yet been shown, but is coming.

Oh about that albino baby dragon at the top, it's a fake.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week at an all-time high:  16,946.  Said to be the reason was geopolitical easing of worries about Ukraine and Iraq.

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