Blue Planet Journey

Playing our ukuleles on the intact Renaissance-era city wall surrounding Lucca, Italy.   Ci ty wall surrounding Lucca , Italy. One of the joys in playing the ukulele is that, because of its size, you can take it with you when you travel. So far, airlines have been good about allowing us to bring our ukuleles on board, placing them in the overhead compartments. We use soft cases, so the space used is a bit more flexible than when using a hard case, although we have to be careful that they don't get smashed when a heavy roll-away is thrown in the same compartment. Caroline started playing the ukulele soon after the Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down in 2020.  I started playing the guitar again, to accompany her, but a few months later I picked up her uke and I was hooked. Wesley started soon after, followed by Mignon. Caroline begins to play the uke, March 2020. Initially, I accompanied Caroline on the rhythm guitar. By December, Caroline, Wesley, and I were all playing. In ...

In 2003, a jaguar was suspected of terrorizing residents of the Olinda area, Maui. Photo of a jaguar attacking a cayman in the Pantanal, Brazil, by Frank Schoen. Copyright: https://www.123rf.com/profile_djambi1969 . Used with permission.      In 2003, I was sitting in a Starbucks across from the Honolulu Zoo in Waikiki, reading the Honolulu Advertiser , when I came across an article about the sighting of a large, cat-like creature on Maui. I don't have that initial article, but I did find an archived copy of an article from Hawaii News Now on the topic: Wildlife officials are planning to intensify efforts today to capture a large catlike animal spotted in the lower Olinda area of Upcountry Maui. A search team sent out yesterday found evidence the animal does exist. They discovered tree trunks with deep scratch marks and a number of doves that appeared to be killed by a catlike paw. Wildlife experts plan to bait an existing trap today and add four more traps. Officials s...