Blue Planet Journey

  People cruise (or choose to avoid cruses) for a variety of reasons. Caroline started cruising a lot because she started working on the ships! In 2018, before she retired due to the impacts of Covid-19 on the industry, she wrote  about her experience for a local newspaper: In 2017, I had the opportunity to check off a bucket list item by living and working on a luxury cruise liner for 14 weeks. This experience was thrilling, amazing and inspiring. In late July, I boarded the Celebrity Eclipse , a 2,800-passenger vessel sailing out of Southampton, England. I took care of dialysis patients, people who had lost kidney function and needed a machine to clean their blood and take off excess fluid. Dialysis at Sea, a company based in Florida, provided the equipment allowing dialysis patients to travel the world just like everyone else. I sailed on seven separate cruises, with itineraries that included Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Can...

Patrons at Papa Murphy's pizza shop unconcerned about transmitting covid-19 to the workers and other customers. Governor Herbert’s color-coded health guidance system now has Box Elder, Cache, and Rich Counties in the “yellow” or low risk phase. We know this comes as a relief to many, because it means we “flattened the curve” and avoided overwhelming our local health care system with sick COVID-19 patients. Utah's health guidance system This outcome came at a terrible cost for many individuals and businesses. Our routines were uprooted, people lost their incomes, businesses suffered major losses, and travel plans were postponed. And people have suffered. This week, we exceeded 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been over 1,700,000 cases, with over 8,800 in Utah. Some cases involved hospitalization, but most people have stayed home with fever or chills, a cough, shortness of breath or difficulty brea...

A United flight this week from Maui to Chicago, on a wide-body Boeing 777-200 .  The lack of passengers is rather obvious.  Both Caroline and I had an entire row - both side and middle seats - to ourselves.  At the time I write this, the coronavirus Covid-19 continues its march around the globe. I've written previously  about my experience flying to Hawaii after 2 Caribbean cruises with thousands of passengers, including dozens (I assume) from China, and when arriving at HNL, I was "lyfted" home with nary a question on February 3. Later that week, I wrote to Dr. Bruce Anderson, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health, after attending a briefing at the Manoa Neighborhood Board meeting: "As I listened to your presentation, I reflected that 3 days earlier, I had returned from a Caribbean cruise, with numerous people on board from Asian counties. Yet there was no question for me when I entered Hawaii. Perhaps the agricultural form that all visitors and...

Has it ever been this bad?  I mean, I've complained about the Hanauma Bay Exotic Animal Park, but yesterday was a whopper. The number one question asked by visitors was, "What was that long, brown 'rodent' running around?"  And they were asking the question because those Asian mongoose were SO DAMN VISIBLE!!!  They were constantly running back and forth across the sidewalks, the beach, and the lawn, going from hedge to hedge as they stalked their favorite prey, either the garbage can or some unsuspecting visitor's bag of food.  I counted 6 visiting the garbage cans in front of the education kiosk, with up to 3 at a time in the cans (overall, I'd say I observed 12).  Oh, and if you want to start a new TV show, have it be about the reactions of people approaching a trash can and having a mongoose or a cat explode out of it. According to the website maintained by the Hawaii Invasive Species Council , "It is against Hawaii State law for any ...