Author Archives: RDoug

About RDoug

Published author, amateur photographer, amateur astronomer, expert bridge player, gourmet cook and wine connoisseur, handguns, extensively traveled.

May 11, 2020 · 5:35 am

Circumnavigating Australia — Starting in Sydney

Sydney Harbor Bridge, “The Coathanger”

Today I begin a new series that was almost a year in the making. In March, 2019, Ursula and I arrived into Sydney, Australia, for a two-month odyssey that would take us to New Zealand, various destinations along the east and north coasts of Australia, and Singapore. From Singapore we boarded a flight back to Auckland, New Zealand, and boarded another cruise ship back to Los Angeles.

Sydney reflections

We returned to Sydney in February of this year, after our brief stay on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands (that six-part series begins at this link). This return to Sydney was for another set of voyages that would take us on a circumnavigation of the entire Australian continent, and another trip across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand before returning to Sydney for the flight home.

Sydney Tower at the Westfield Sydney shopping center

From Sydney we barely made it back to the U.S. in time. We arrived into Los Angeles on March 16 after a flight that departed Sydney and connected in Auckland. New Zealand had just days before shut down because of the COVID-19 outbreak, and we were worried we’d be placed into quarantine upon arrival, but people connecting to international flights were exempted as long as they stayed within the secure area in the international terminal.

Cruising past the Sydney Opera House

The world changed between the time we arrived into Sydney on February 7 and the day we departed for the U.S. on March 16. And while our back-to-back voyages were quite enjoyable, news from home and around the world cast a hint of gloom upon the passengers. Our excursion to Bali left us stranded offshore, and the only reason our Royal Caribbean ship Radiance of the Seas went there was to satisfy Australian tax requirements before we could return to the west coast of Australia. Our cruises the preceding year held none of the drama and uncertainty of these voyages.

Cruising past the Sydney Opera House

So, why am I combining two trips to Australia and New Zealand that were taken 11 months apart? First of all, the weather. Our 2020 trip to Sydney and other parts of Australia were met with torrential rainfall that precluded any worthwhile photography. Another is that we visited several different destinations. Additionally, in those ports that were duplicated on the two trips, we often went on a different excursion. Thus, combining these two trips will give you a better idea of what to expect when cruising around this area of Oceania.

We’ll start this week with Sydney, the city with the largest population in Australia. In March, 2019, the weather was extraordinary, so most of this week’s photos will date from that trip. This past February we witnessed rains the likes of which I’ve never before witnessed during our many previous trips to Sydney. But that was a good thing, as those days-long rains extinguished the horrendous 2019-2020 Australian bushfires that decimated much of eastern Australia in the months before we arrived.

7 December 2019 satellite imagery overlaid (red areas) with bushfire areas (Wikipedia)

Let’s get started today with two iconic Sydney structures. First up is the Sydney Opera House:

Sydney Opera House

Those broad, sweeping white roof shells represent the sails of old time sailing ships. The precast concrete shells are in turn encased in over 1,000,000 tiles laid in an intricate pattern. Here’s a closeup view:

Sydney Opera House tiles

The other famed piece of Sydney skyline is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But don’t let the locals hear you call it that. To them it’s “The Coathanger”, for obvious reasons:

Sydney Harbor Bridge, “The Coathanger”

Feeling a bit adventurous? Then why not walk atop The Coathanger? Think I’m joking? Nope. There’s actually a tour for that, and it’s for people much less afraid of heights than am I:

Tourists walking the arch on “The Coathanger”

On Wednesday we’ll take in the more conventional sight around Sydney.

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Filed under Photography, R. Doug Wicker, travel, vacation

Tagged as Australia, photography, R. Doug Wicker, Radiance of the Seas, Sydney, travel, travel photography, vacation

May 10, 2020 · 2:34 pm

Let’s Implement “Willful Ignorance and Stupidity Hours” at the Grocery Store

Social distancing markers at Safeway in Arlington, VA — WAMU / Tyrone Turner

We have in this country a sizable population who choose willful ignorance over science and medical expertise. You know the ones. They’re your Uncle Jack, who gets his “news” from the likes of Sean Hannity, Fox “News”, OANN, Breitbart, and the like. Uncle Jack thinks he knows more than people with medical degrees and experts in epidemiology. Uncle Jack is that guy who posted to your Facebook timeline a link to Plandemic, a thoroughly discredited anti-vaxxer conspiracy “documentary” starring an equally thoroughly discredited Judy Mikovits. Because of all these “news” sources, Uncle Jack believes his rights are being violated by social distancing and mask requirements.

Alas, Uncle Jack is so historically illiterate that he doesn’t know that he’s on the losing end of this argument. Uncle Jack has never heard of Mary Mallon, who in an earlier time refused to quit infecting people with deadly typhoid fever because her “right” to work in kitchens was being violated. “Typhoid Mary” wound up dying in quarantine as a result. That quarantine was her second, and she spent the last 23 years of her life locked away on a small island in New York City’s East River.

So, no, Uncle Jack, you do not have a Constitutional right to endanger people with your willful ignorance and stupidity. That was established back around the turn of the last century.

But what are we to do with the Uncle Jacks among us today? Those who feel their right to cough directly onto you in the bread aisle far outweighs your right to live, or not be permanently disabled with complications such as decreased lung capacity, kidney failure, liver damage, and heart disease as a result of barely surviving COVID-19?

Well, there is a simple solution to that. We already have “Senior Hours” at the local grocery store, and national chains such as Costco now require masks, even though some employees are being executed for enforcing that restriction. Still others are being gunned down because the Uncle Jacks of the world must use carry-out via the drive-through window rather than have a sit-down Big Mac and fries in the dining area at the local McDonald’s. But I digress. We’re here for solutions, not headlines. And here it is:

Welcome to “Willful Ignorance and Stupidity Hours” at the local Walmart. Just as seniors can have the grocery store to themselves in the early morning hours, let us consider turning over these same stores to these future Darwin Awards nominees in late evenings. Let these self-absorbed “Constitutional rights experts” who never heard of Mary Mallon use the same stores, say between 11:00 p.m. and midnight on Wednesdays. Let them run willy-nilly around the store coughing and sneezing upon one another without a multilayer cotton nose-and-mouth barrier, while standing eighteen inches apart and yucking it up among themselves about how they’re, “Owning the libtards,” or whatever.

Right about now you’re thinking, “But what about the employees though?”

We can fix that as well. Since employees would now be risking life and limb (or functioning internal organs, as it were), they would be volunteers. They would also receive hazardous duty incentive pay, which would be paid for by those who now have the “freedom” to run around the store contaminating one another during “Willful Ignorance and Stupidity Hours”. I’m thinking a 50%-to-100% upcharge added onto their individual bills. This upcharge would be distributed at the end of the shift among cashiers, stockers, and the cleaning crew now tasked with decontaminating the store before Senior Hours begin in the morning. Increase that upcharge to 200% and the store might even be able to cover the medical costs of any employees going into ICU.

I like to think of this as a win-win. The smart ones among us get to survive, and without long-term disabilities. The willfully ignorant Plandemic fans among us get to drain the shallow end of the gene pool, thus making the world a much better place for the rest of us.