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Sunday, October 11, 2026

MY LIFE: Part Alpha Highlights

In a series that began on 31May2026 as MY LIFE:  Part 1, I've been serializing my life from youth to retirement. 


Fifteen episodes later, I was into some of those incredible journeys I had in my retirement.  These will continue for a few more chapters, but today, I will crystalize the essence of my life into a few highlights.  So I titled it Part Alfa.


On 30September2026, my post was titled:   

MAGIC CAN HAPPEN IF YOU TRY

This article focused on a magical period from high school into Stanford.  So if you want to read those details, click on the above.  I begin with the most important day of my life.  When I was born.  To quote from my 19September2017 posting, THE MOST ENJOYABLE DAY OF MY LIFE:


The most important day of my life was when I was born.  The odds of me being here were very low.  How low?  There are various ways one can determine the odds of my creation.  Let me simplify it with a rough fact that the average male will produce around 500 billion sperms in a lifetime.  Every female is born with around 2 million eggs.  Each combination of an egg and sperm produces a totally different human being.  Thus, there was one chance in a quintillion of me being born, which is one in 10 to the 18th power.  This is a best case scenario, for what were the odds of my father and mother even hooking up.  Each of you is here with this same probability.  That photo to the left came from FX Studios.  Watch the video, with music, no less.  But this was not my most enjoyable day because I was too young to appreciate this miracle.

Google AI provides various mathematical odds of being born, and they range from 1 in 400 trillion, to 1 in 400 quadrillion, to 1 in 10 to the 268,500 power.  In short, your being born is pretty much a miracle, and so very much should be a primary highlight of your life.  Then add that I was born in Hawaii, which became a state of the USA, for birth in Africa would not have been ideal.

That could have been IMPORTANT, not ENJOYABLE, for I can't remember anything that happened when I was born.  But life's highlights include both.  Chronologically, after birth:

  • Four years at Stanford University, gave me the confidence that influenced the rest of my life.  Graduated in June of 1962.
  • Eight years in the Hawaii sugar industry were awful, but I did meet my wife, and we were married in December of 1962.  With us is plantation manger Bill Baldwin, who shared an office with me when we both later worked in the U.S. Senate.
  • The company I worked for was C. Brewer, the oldest in Hawaii.  They sent me to Louisiana State University because it had the only sugar program in the world, even paying my salary the first year I was there.  I also had a full fellowship, and my wife worked as a Registered Nurse, so we did well financially too.  Living in Louisiana was wonderful.  We did not experience any racial discrimination.
  • Graduated in 1972 with a PhD in biochemical engineering, and was hired at the University of Hawaii.  
    • I worked for 27 years and retired in 1999.
    • I remained on campus doing not much, but retained an office with free parking (because I had emeritus status), and 27 years later, still have an office on the Manoa Campus.  I'll soon need to meet with the director and return this room because universities are always short of space.
  • I have dozens of highlights while in academia, for we are allowed a lot of freedom.
    • Made Full Professor and Director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, which through competition, became the Department of Energy's Hydrogen Research Center (with the Florida Solar Energy Center), Department of Interior's Marine Minerals Center (with the University of Mississippi) and National Science Foundation's Marine BioProducts Engineering Center (with Cal Berkeley).
    • Worked one summer at the NASA Ames Research Center near Stanford on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  Free to golf at leisure,  lived on campus and took a wine tasting course.
    • Two summers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Laser Fusion, while living in an apartment adjacent to the wine fields of Wente Brothers.
    • Worked three years for Senator Spark Spark Matsunaga in DC, where I drafted original legislation for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and Hydrogen.  Living in the eastern part of the USA opened up a whole lot of territory for exploration and enjoyment.
    • Helped found the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, which led the national program in converting biomass into biofuels, and was the first organization to build an open-cycle ocean thermal energy conversion, at the Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology site on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Both projects were valued at $25 million, and the OTEC effort was partly financed by the Japanese government.  Here is one story that led to the Blue Revolution.  Click on the following for more information.

      • Had a lunch at Quadri with truffles in each dish, even dessert.
      • Somehow got a seat for a tribute to Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons by the San Marcos Chamber Orchestra, in the theater where Vivaldi wrote part of this piece.
    • Spent two six-month sabbaticals in Tokyo, Japan.
  • Written several books.

  • One day, golfed at St. Andrews, then the next at Carnoustie.  
  • My wife, Pearl, passed away 17 years ago.
    • Wrote an article for The Huffington Post, Gratitude...Not Grief, that day.
    • In a way, she gave me a final phase of my life to enjoy.
    • More recently, now have a travel partner, our first trip being to France seven years ago.  If you're interested in the details, in reverse chronological order.

To close, last night, the Saturday Night Live version of Defense Secretary Hegseth welcoming the USS Abraham Lincoln home to San Diego. followed by Secretary of Health RFK Jr.

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