Feb 8 2020 - Quarantine Cruising

This is the Lantern Festival Day.  The full moon was out last night.  I experienced it when Baxter went to the greenhouse instead of outside in the night.  This is now a ritual for him.  He bangs on the window blinds in the bedroom, races off to the dining room for the exit, I pick him up and take him to the greenhouse where he has a basket and extensive view of everyone in the back garden.  I think there are also mice in the greenhouse, as sometimes he is reluctant to come out in the morning. The full moon through the curved glass ceiling is amazing.  It seems like a lantern with the diffusion caused by the slightly frosted glass.  And then there is the magic of shadows in the night.  There is one stunning picture of the lantern festival that is repeated over and over - so I screen clipped it for you. You can see that the posting was made on December 25th.  Without the presence of the coronavirus outbreak, it was a delightful article on the traditions of the New Year celebration.  The scenario changes so quickly:  There are more than 28,000 confirmed cases in China, with a worrying 15% daily growth. The sensational news is about a quarantined Norwegian cruise ship, Dream Cruises World Dream, with more than 3,600 passengers and crew onboard.  They will be isolated in their cabins for about 2 weeks - that will be a story told for a while.   Social media makes it possible to send out news and messages easily - these are things like people not getting meals, pictures of the miserable-looking meals, and concerning stories of a diabetic not getting any meals.  This meal theme makes sense, because people always come back from cruises boasting about food and meals. There's news that impacts all of us -the closing of factories - global automakers are the first to suspend operations.  The world supply chain is laid out clearly - the world's biggest maker of smartphone chips Qualcomm has sent out the alarm of interrupted supplies.  According to a study by the World Bank, a severe pandemic could cause economic losses equal to nearly 5% of global GDP, or more than $3 trillion. Losses from a weaker flu pandemic, such as the 2009 H1N1 virus, can still wipe 0.5% off global GDP.  But then - Wait!  Incoming news not surprisingly based on yesterday's topic:  The 2020 hourly rates of lawyers in Grimsby might surprise you!  (Sponsored: Top Lawyers/Sponsored Listings).  What's the picture?  A glass head with one of those 'lawyer/judge' wigs on it.  Continuing our Valentine's theme - our Valentine today comes from the Sarasota Ringling Museum display.

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Twitter Presents Mutiny on the Bounty

There was a cruise ship Mutiny on the Bounty via Twitter reported on the Weather Network on the weekend.  The ship had missed its fifth scheduled port of call in a two-week vacation to Iceland, Amsterdam, Norway and Ireland due to bad weather. This would be a scenario from hell.  Passengers board the cruise ship with the expectation of luxury and pampering that they consider they've paid for, and end up roughing it with the toilets out of order and confined to a floating hotel with few or no stops.  The staged protests with signs that said "Refund! Refund! Refund!" There have been far worse cruise ship experiences.  Perhaps the passenger twitter reports made this one distinct, along with the organized protests and angry confrontations sent out via twitter regularly. Guinness Book of Records doesn't have records for the worst vacations or cruise ship incidents.  It has the worst roads, longest journey by car, barefoot, wheelchair, all the continents, skateboard journeys, and so on. The usual strange variations on travel. To find out the worst cruise ship experiences/incidents, we go to one of the sensationalist articles - a good example is HERE. Today's picture is a close-up of a carved wooden sculpture in the RBG gardens.

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