Outside of my home state of Washington, the city I've been to the most times is Las Vegas. I don't even think it's a contest. Thanks to my volunteer work, I was in Vegas three or four times a year for nearly a decade. And had been several times before that as well.

Visiting Sin City with a group of friends is about the best there is. There's so much to do as a group in Vegas that you can't help but have fun. I have many, many fond memories of visiting with a group of people and just having a blast day and night.

But it's a different story when you're there alone.

As somebody who's traveled the world quite alot alone, I can honestly say that Las Vegas may very well be the lonliest city on earth when you're there by yourself. A world of experiences is at your doorstep, but it's not much fun when there's nobody there to share it with you. Fortunately I had my work to distract me. I would never go to Vegas on my own for no reason. Vegas doesn't work that way.

And today it was announced that Hard Rock International purchased The Mirage hotel.

The Mirage used to be one of my favorite Vegas hotels... but the last couple times I was put up there it wasn't so great. Selling it off to the Hard Rock isn't terribly surprising. MGM has been focusing more attention on The Park, and unloading it for a cool billion is a good deal for them (they have PLENTY of other properties in Vegas). Also? It's no secret that Hard Rock has been trying to secure a Strip location after closing down their old off-strip hotel. Hopefully they do something interesting with it. I am so tired of the mediocre renovations with minimal theming and effort. This should be THE signature Hard Rock Hotel property. And with enough money poured into it, it certainly can be! FLOOD IT WITH MEMORABILIA! STOP WITH THE SHITTY SPARSE MEMORABILIA LOOK! NOBODY WANTS IT!

Maybe if COVID has let up enough that I'm comfortable traveling again, I'll have to take a trip back to the city I love to hate to check another Hard Rock property off my list.

Hopefully with friends, but maybe on my own.

If there's one thing I learned from volunteering there, it's how to survive in the lonliest city on earth by myself.

When I went though my Facebook feed this morning, I saw that a Hard Rock Cafe had opened Yerevan. A wave of sadness hit me as I remembered my former life of travel. I've always wanted to visit Armenia, and five years ago I'd just add Yerevan to my list of places I want to go and try to make it happen on my next trip to Europe. Now I seriously wonder if I'll ever visit Europe... or much of anywhere... ever again.

A part of it is COVID.

A part of it is not missing hours on a plane and waiting in airports.

A part of it is not wanting to leave my cats.

A part of it is just my being tired.

But... boy did I love seeing the world. I miss it so badly that it hurts sometimes. I get nostalgic, look through my thousands of travel photos, and am ready to book a flight so I can get back to the life I had.

In the past two years I've had one trip to Maui for a funeral. I currently have no plans to go anywhere else.

But I can dream, can't I?

My heat is still on, so things are toasty here at Blogography... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• AWWWWW! You guys... YOU GUYS...

Derpy puppies are the best puppies.

   
• Darwinism! Fuck your 12 years of med school... Dr. Google is my god now!

I just feel bad that the kids are at the mercy of this stupid shit. But... I suppose if they are just going to continue propagating it to newer generations, it might be for the best? It sickens me that anti-science has become so prevalent and dangerous that these kind of thoughts go through my head, but here we are. What the fuck has become of us?

   
• Fury! I didn't just dislike the Shazam! movie... I loathed the fucking thing. It was categorically awful from start to finish. Now, thanks to DC Comics' "FanDome" event there was a look at the sequel...

Honestly? I had zero intent on watching the thing... even when it came out on video. But then they cast Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as the villains? NOW I AM FORCED TO WATCH, DANGIT! Hopefully i doesn't suck as hard as the first one.

   
• Cuntry! Not only do I know all of these countries, I’ve been to all of them except Chile. But I did get close when I visited Argentina on the way to Antarctica, you condescending fuck...

The entire channel is filled with "If you don't get these, you're American" TikToks... and it's like... look... I get it. Americans are largely ignorant of the world outside our borders. But constantly harping on this ceases to make it funny... it just makes you a fucking dick.

   
• The BATman! BWAH HA HA HAAAAA!! ZOMFG! They went over the top… and not in a good way. Maybe it’s the way the trailer is cut together, but this looks fucking embarrassing...

Apparently the Nolan Dark Night Trilogy is still safe as the defining cinematic Batman. Oh well. I guess I’ll know for sure once I’ve seen it.

   
• DOG SENSE! Jesus. It’s just... why. If you disagree with policy, DON’T FLY. It’s not fucking rocket science. Though apparently it is for assholes like this...

Please just get the COVID you’re dying to get, then pick up your Darwin Award already. I’m so sick of this shit.

   
• Ending on a Happy Note! Boy... Yes Theory is back and I somehow missed it! This is pretty great...

=sigh= I miss travel. The world is full of such wonders.

   
And now I'm off again...

My personal hero is Steve Jobs.

He died 10 years ago today. I still remember when I found out he had passed. I had been out snorkeling at a reef in the glorious waters of Fiji...

Dolphins were all around the boat as we headed back to shore...

It was a wonderful moment in my life. Then, as we came back into cellular range, I heard my iPhone beep that I had a text message. I ignored it because I didn't want to have an interruption of this perfect day. I loaded up my gear and trudged back to shore. For the entire walk back through warm waters as my feet gooshed into the mud below, my mind was distracted by the message notification. At the time I didn't get texts very often. Usually when I got a text it was bad news...

So when I got to shore I was torn. Do I look at it or do I keep ignoring it? I pulled my iPhone from a waterproof pouch and saw that the text was from my brother. So now I had to read it. My brother never texted me, and the thought that something had happened to my parents or grandparents made avoiding it impossible. The text was four words: Steve Jobs has died...

I was absolutely crushed. I worshipped the guy, and the irony that I found out about his death on a device he had a hand in creating was not lost on me. But instead of being sad, I decided to appreciate the beauty in the world around me, just as Steve Jobs did. Since I was in Fiji, this was not difficult, even though it started raining like it had the day before...

When I flew back to Sydney, there were flowers piled in front of the Apple Store. THAT'S when I broke down...

It was a gut-wrenching moment knowing that I'd never see him on stage delighting everybody with his "One More Thing" or hear new stories of his antics at Apple and out in the world. My life had been made more interesting with Steve Jobs in it. Now that he was gone, I knew there would be a hole there. And it's still there a decade later. I miss you, Steve...

An interesting aside here... Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011. But I was in Fiji, which was in the future because of the time zone change. Which means I always remember the date as October 6th, 2011... so for me, Steve Jobs had one more day on this earth.

If you go to Apple's website right now, there's a nice tribute movie to Steve Jobs and a statement from the Jobs family that's worth a read.

UPDATE: The video has been posted to YouTube...

The other day I needed some information off of an old computer. A computer I don't think I've turned it on in two or three years. When it sprang to life, I noted that I had some unpublished blog posts. Some of them were old versions of things I eventually published. Other posts were just abandoned completely for some reason.

Take, for example, this one...

After the "I suppose" there's nothing. I have no clue where I was going with this.

Which could be why I dumped it?

I would still dearly love to visit India, but who knows if the world will ever open up again. Could be that it's just pandemics from here on out.

In which case I'm sure glad that I was lucky enough to see what I got to see of the world when I saw it.

Well that was brief.

But better brief than not at all, I guess? I'll wait and see if I ended up with COVID before making my final verdict.

Last night I said goodbye to my friends and hopped an Über for the 45-minute drive to the airport. I arrived in plenty of time for dinner at Burger King, which looked very different from previous times I've been here. THANKS, COVID!

I ended up eating outside on a park bench in a deserted-looking airport...

After dinner, I still had a little under two hours to kill...

Note that my PRE-CLEAR Hawaii band was still intact after a week!

Very happy to have been upgraded to First Class...

I thought that I would be able to get some sleep on the flight to Seattle, but not really! A measely one hour and eighteen minutes! I would have rather not slept at all, because now I was half-awake waiting for my next flight in three hours...

I guess the good news is that Apple Watch thinks that my sleep was 100% efficient!

The first thing I did after taking the train to the Main Terminal was check Apple's Find My... app to see if my suitcase made it (I tucked an AirTag inside). And, yay, there it is, still with the plane back at the North Satellite...

Eventually my suitcase caught up with me... though Apple's Find My... had all my crap spread out all over the place. My phone was the only thing actually shown to be with me. My Apple Watch was on the runway, my MacBook Pro was across the lobby, and my iPad was the next gate down in the hallway...

All that was left was a 25 minute drive home, where my cats came anxiously running to greet me...

And there you have it. My first trip in nearly two years is in the bag.

Absolutely no idea when my next one might be. If the anti-vaxers and anti-maskers have it their way, the answer could very well be another two years.

Or never.

Wah! Tonight I have to leave!

Time flies when you're not at home. I guarantee that if I were home that it would be Monday right now. Oh well. Trying to stay positive over having most of a whole day remaining before climbing in a metal tube and being hurled across the Pacific Ocean.

This morning started off very early because we had a morning snorkel at Molokini. But it was even earlier for me because I had to get up and pack first so I could get my crap transferred to my friends' room before we leave.

And here we are at the ass-crack of dawn... leaving...

Molokini (which you can see in the distance there, 1/3 in from the right) is a place I've been many, many times. It was where much of my SCUBA certification course happened. Since I am flying tomorrow (and nobody with me dives) I was snorkeling along with everybody else. Which isn't bad. Molokini is kinda a sunken crater (but not really) which is somewhat shallow and had good visibility. So you can see fish even though you're not down with them.

Alas, my underwater camera is over a decade old, so it doesn't take very good photos, most of them ending up blurry beyond all recognition. Plus... the display stopped working half-way through, so I was shooting blind most of the time...

From there it was breakfast at my favorite spot on the island. It's Banana-Macadamia French Toast at the Kihei Caffe, baby!

After that? I did a little side-trip for some research on a project I'll be working on soon.

After that? Time for a nap.

Then off to the airport. Waaaaaaah!

This morning I hadn't gotten as much sleep as I had wanted... again... but now that my days are running short, I decided to wake up and walk the beachfront anyway. It's nice in the mornings when there's only a couple people around...

Today was when the proof-of-vaccination requirement went into effect in Maui County. We decided to take advantage of it by heading into Lahaina for luch at Cheese Burger in Paradise. Turns out we needn't have worried. Like everywhere else, restaurants had taken out every-other-table for a 50% cap... plus we got a window-front table...

I brought my mom along to Hawaii a number of times on my work trips because it didn't cost me anything. Cheese Burger in Paradise was one of her favorite places in Maui, so we went there multiple times...

I guess it's nice to eat there now since I have such fond memories of the place... but it's also rough, as you can imagine, since she's not there.

Lahaina was lovely, as usual...

Another day down. And only one more day left.

Trying to find open-air activities which minimize the risk of contracting COVID are fairly easy in Hawaii. Most of the activities that we enjoy are outdoors here.

Tonight that included a sunset booze cruise which was both outdoors and with excellent air-flow to keep COVID flowing away from you.

Bonus? A rainbow!

And... wait... is that a DOUBLE RAINBOW?!?

Plenty of ships tucked in for the night as we headed out...

The sun gave us some beautiful buttery skies with rain falling to the South near Kihei...

And then, just like that, the sun was done setting...

And it was time to get off the boat...

There are certainly worse ways to spend a socially-distanced eveneing.

Other than the plane rides back and forth which, in themselves, are actually fairly safe considering that everybody is masked except to eat and the air recirculation is top-notch, this trip is relatively low-risk. The beach is wide open with fresh air circulating in the wind, and Hawaii is taking COVID seriously. Eateries and shops are at 50% capacity and, in a couple days, you'll even have to provide proof of vaccination in order to step foot in a restaurant.

Tonight we had dinner at Mick Fleetwood's restaurant on the rooftop which was socially-distanced, open-air, and quite nice...

It seemed an acceptable risk.

As was ordering a salad, despite the number of salmonella outbreaks that keep happening with our lettuce supply.