JOIN ME FOR MY FINAL TWO MONUMENTAL TRIPS

I recorded Last of the Breed, a PBS program featuring Willy Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price, and as Nelson began singing On the Road Again, I got this inspiration of going on the road again.  Then, when he sang You Were on My Mind, my mind began nostalgically wondering what if I could convince some friends and family to join me for my final trip around the USA?  Then, of course, there is that mythical around the world cruise next year.

I will hopefully reach the Year 2020, my lifelong goal.  This blog will end next year.  I think I have two more monumental trips left.  First, the one I've been gloating over for several years, that around the world journey on a ship next year.

The second just came to me while watching Willy Nelson and his friends.  I've been through most states, driven across country and back a couple of times.  Took Amtrak completely around the country.   I'm headed for 3 million miles on Star Alliance.  What, then, about my final national wandering being a multi-transport mode peregrination around the United States?

I've stopped renting cars, so if road travel is involved, someone else has to do the driving.  Amtrak, sure, for Pearl and I once started in Los Angeles, went up to Vancouver, across the northern portion of the U.S. through Chicago and New York City, then down to Florida, west through New Orleans and San Antonio, and back to LAX.  Took us a month.  I've flown so much, I want to minimize that option.

Would be nice to visit friends in New York City,  DC, Florida, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Austin, San Francisco and so on.  Perhaps catch a University of Hawaii football game against Washington on September 14, or Nevada on September 28, Boise State on October 12, or University of Nevada at Las Vegas on November 16.  These are not must stops, but why not events if the timing is right.

Then I just got an e-mail from someone planning a possible trip involving a conference in Orlando in September, so probably stops in Disney World and Epcot Center, and another activity in Las Vegas from October 4.

Thus I quickly combined our two schedules.  She can of course join me in Orlando, and return to Hawaii after Las Vegas. Here is a very preliminary complete itinerary that could well be around six weeks long:

USA in the Fall of 2019

September       12        Lv        Honolulu                                 Air

                                    Ar        Seattle

                        14        UH-Washington football game

                        15        Lv        Seattle                                     Amtrak

                        17        Ar        Chicago                                              

20        Lv        Chicago                                   Amtrak

            Ar        DC

23        Lv        DC                                          Amtrak

24        Ar        Orlando

                        25        Epcot Center

                        26        Lv        Orlando                                   Air

                                    Ar        Reno

                        28        UH-Nevada football game

29        Lv        Reno                                        ?

                                    Ar        San Francisco

October              3       Lv        San Francisco                          ?

                                    Ar        Las Vegas

                          4        Conference

                          5        Conference

                          6        Conference

                          7        Conference

           

                          8        Lv        Las Vegas                                Bus

                                    Ar        Kingman, Arizona

                                    Lv        Kingman                                 Amtrak

                                    Ar        Albuquerque

                          9        Balloon Fiesta

                        10        Balloon Fiesta

                        11        Lv        Albuquerque  Air (1000 miles by car)

                                    Ar        Boise

                        12        UH versus Boise State football game

                        14        Lv        Boise                                       Amtrak

                                    Ar        Portland

****************************************************

                        16        Lv        Portland                                  Amtrak

                                    Ar        Los Angeles

                        19        Lv        Los Angeles            Carnival Miracle

                        24        Ar        Kahului

                        25        Ar        Honolulu

or *************************************************

October           17        Lv        Portland                                Amtrak

                        18        Ar        San Diego

20        Lv        San Diego              Holland America

                                                                                     Oosterdam

                        26        Ar        Honolulu

or *************************************************

October           18        Lv        Portland                                Amtrak

                                    Ar        Vancouver

                        21        Lv        Vancouver            Norwegian Jewel

                        27        Ar        Kona

                        28        Ar        Hilo

                        29        Ar        Kahului

                        30        Ar        Nawiliwili

November         1        Ar        Honolulu

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Need to check on the San Francisco to Honolulu cruise schedules.  They all seem to only start in November 2019, meaning October is probably fully booked.

Princess leaves Los Angeles on October 7 and November 4.  Oceania Regatta departs San Francisco on November 1 and arrives in Honolulu on November 7.

Oceania is a possible candidate for a fantasy 162-day around the world cruise in 2020.  Insignia departs San Francisco on January 26 and arrives back to SFO on July 5.  Deluxe ocean view is available for $43,000 ($265/day)/person or Veranda Stateroom for $53,300 ($329/day)/person.   

However, all rooms at this time appear to have been reserved.  Princess and Holland America have four-month packages for half those prices.  But Holland America is sold out. Pacific Princess departs Los Angeles on January 20, stopping in Honolulu on January 26, and returning to Los Angeles on on April 25.  Cost?  $31,000/person for a balcony room. 111 days and 41 ports of call.

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I wonder if my brother in Las Vegas and his friend from Seoul would want to join me for part of these adventures?  Just a segment would be nice.  Or perhaps my Mystery Ladies?  Joyce and David.  Dave/Sharon and Louis from Florida.  Gloria and Joe from DC.  Grace, Michael and Katie in New York?  Jim and the gang around San Francisco.  Marie and John in Austin?  Margaret and Harry?  Judith and Bruce. Tadashi and Mayumi?  Anyone from 15 Craigside?  Or acquaintances from my past?  Others?

Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  That was a movie from a third of century ago.  Got an 87% rating from Rotten Tomatoes.  Hotels and other travel costs?  Should be shared as appropriate, although individuality in rooms would be fine.  Decisions will need to be made very shortly, so, anyone interested, let me know now.  Otherwise, maybe I'll go myself.

Of course, anyone contemplating joining me, can suggest other stops.  I'm flexible.  There is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta from October 5-14, something I've long wanted to experience.  I don't want to ride one of those, just take a few photos.

Clearly, that around the world cruise is not for real.  For one, if the trip is a standard 4-months long, then, I need to leave $18,000 with 15 Craigside just to be away.  Then again, why not, as I have only one life to live, and the clock is running out.  In any case, I have yet to have confirmed a cabin mate willing to pay her half.  Also too, I'll need to first check if 15 Craigside will allow me to do this.  My lifestyle has reverted  back to being almost a child again.

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VISION: THE VALUE OF TRAVELS for PICHTR

After I returned to the University of Hawaii in 1982, the new Dean of Engineering Paul Yuen and I agreed that one problem with the research to commercialization model used in our country was that the bridge from the former to the latter was missing.  What was needed was a different type of organization to serve as a technology transfer agent.

So we asked Senator Spark Matsunaga to speak about this problem at an American Society of Civil Engineering meeting in Honolulu, with a solution.  Of course, we wrote the speech, where Sparky suggested Hawaii create such a program.  This is how it all unfolded:

• Governor George Ariyoshi liked the concept, and submitted a bill, calling the organization the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (which should have been called the Pacific International Center for Technology Transfer, for the inclusion of research irritated university personnel).
• Various Hawaii Senate chairmen, Ben Cayetano, Richard Matsuura and Ann Kobayashi, and the Hawaii House, supported the bill, and at the end of the session we had a sum of money to start  PICHTR.
• The original board included Ariyoshi, Fujio Matsuda (president of the UH), Akio Morita (headed SONY), others, and was chaired by John Bellinger, CEO of First Hawaiian Bank.

You need to read that entire posting to appreciate how PICHTR formed.  Anyway, with those funds, I took several trips to Japan to give lectures at various universities, like Tokyo University and Tokyo Institute of Technology, meet with the American Ambassador to Japan, Mike Mansfield, and also Japanese government officials, which we saw as our best hope for external funding.  To quickly summarize, we got a million dollars spread over eight years, mostly to develop OTEC.  The key individuals were President Ronald Reagan and Senator Spark Matsunaga.

I traveled the world to recruit Luis Vega and Gerard Nihous from Berkeley, Steve Masutani, who was with Hitachi in Ibaraki, Japan, and Andrew Trenka from Colorado.  They hired the staff to do the work.  I also made frequent trips to DC, and a fateful meeting occurred in 1986:

Just around this time, Louis Rotundo (left) of the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) and I met with Len Rogers, director of ocean/wind programs of the Department of Energy at Trader Vic's in D.C.  Without much ado, Len told us that he would be shutting down the OTEC program because the government had done all it could and it was now up to the private sector to commercialize it.  Out of nowhere, Louis, who is a history major and noted authority on obscure battles of World War II, blurted out, what about open-cycle OTEC (Louis drove a red Ferrari and later became chairman of the board of FSEC, so there was that something special about him).  This was not planned, but I knew enough to convince Len that this was worth a shot, and more so, I could get Japan to cost-share.  No one knew anything about open-cycle, so PICHTR scooped up all the OTEC funds for the next decade and succeeded with their 40 kW (net) OC OTEC project in 1992.  It remains the last and largest OTEC project to attain net positive.

In the seven years or so I remained with PICHTR as Vice President of Development, I'm sure I took more than 25 trips to drum up business:  throughout the South Pacific for future development sites, plus South Korea, Singapore and Oceania.  Early in the program, a company called Sanki, headed by Paul Yonamine, became involved as our interface.  It was convenient to funnel funds through them for spending.  Federal and State officials are very picky.  Sanki's philosophy was that you gain respect through stays at the best hotels.  Thus the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka designed by Kenzo Tange was one of our favorites.  Hard to believe it was more recently torn down and replaced by the Prince Gallery Tokyo Kioicho.  I remember one trip we had people like Ron Hays (former commander in chief of the Pacific, who was president of PICHTR), Fujio Matsuda (past president of the University of Hawaii) and Paul Yuen.  In a space of only a few days, various Japanese organizations treated us to lunch and/or dinner at the most expensive restaurants, and six of the seven meals were French.

Paul is now Executive Chairman of Central Pacific Bank.  His father was that famous athlete, Wally, who played for the San Francisco 49ers (football) and managed the Tokyo Giants (baseball).  His mother had a thriving pearl store in Roppongi that attracted people like Liz Taylor.  He asked me to go there and his mother would give me a good deal.  So I went, and she mostly showed me those thousand dollar pearl necklaces which I couldn't afford.  Thus, I picked a simple pearl earring for my wife, Pearl, which  cost $40.  She just gave them to me.

I left PICHTR in the early 1990's after getting for them approximately $25 million for the open-cycle OTEC program and another $25 million on a project to produce biomethanol from sugar cane on Maui.  Twenty-seven years later, nothing much is happening in both areas.

I spent almost a decade building up and serving as the chief fund-raiser for PICHTR.  I chose not to receive any recompense, save for all those travels.  I remained director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute during this entire period.

However, I still had a continuing interest for their success, and in the late 1990's, while serving on a large committee to plan for the future of the University of Hawaii, I noticed that Hamilton Library Phase II was soon to be occupied.  Some of us had connections with a new company called Google, and they were already on their way to pioneering digital publications.  Books would soon become obsolete, and I proposed to the committee that we turn this new building into the first virtual library, with Google assistance, thus opening up several floors to another first, university-industry partnerships to spur the local economy.  My thought was to have PICHTR find a new home on campus, but without being managed by the administration.

This could well have been one of my greatest failures, for everyone on the committee thought that was a terrible idea.  Students wanted the space for sleeping (they said studying), university people had too much love for libraries, etc.  Oh well, we could have become the first digital library, and a world leader in something, being on top of this list.

The lesson here is don't just spring an idea on a group of people.  You need to cultivate their interest, arrange someone from Google to make a presentation, and so on.  PICHTR did not just happen by accident.  Matsunaga wrote personal letters to state leaders.  I went on trips with legislative movers and shakers.  We went karaoke singing, golfing, had dinners, and more.  This I did not do with that University committee.  Frankly, while this matter made sense to me, it just wasn't a priority.  I was too busy trying to save the world.

Some, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are lucky.  They have visions, and quickly become billionaires.  Me?  My dreams are amorphously complex and monumental for the benefit of Humanity and Planet Earth, considerably lowering the assurance for any success.  Someday I still think these concepts will gain prominence, and maybe too PICHTR, but I might not be around anymore.

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