I have, as usual, enjoyed a holiday season of over-indulgence: too much travel, too much spending, and too much eating. So, as a matter of tidying up, I might as well gather up a few random crumbs so I can figure out where the year went. Here are seven items:<\/p>\n
1)<\/strong> One hallmark of the year was the tourism-oriented construction and the visitor activity on Saipan. Next year, of course, promises to be an eventful one on the tourism front. Guam, meanwhile, is topping its records for tourism arrivals. The year 2016 isn\u2019t over yet, of course, but in 2015 of every four visitors to the Mariana islands, three went to Guam. Anyway, stay tuned: Tourism is going to be a lively topic next year.<\/p>\n 2)<\/strong> On May 6 in this space, I noted that of the 1,000 Gates Millennium Scholars selected nationwide for the year, 11 of them were from the CNMI. Gates Millennium scholarships provide very generous college funding. Just as I was chilling our champagne in preparation for New Year\u2019s Eve, I got an email from one of the CNMI\u2019s 2016 Gates Millennium Scholars. This particular scholar reported earning a 4.0 grade point average for the first college term. It\u2019s nice to see a good story getting even better, so I\u2019ll offer a toast to all of our Gates Millennium Scholars.<\/p>\n 3)<\/strong> As the annual routine of holiday catching-up propagated through my circle of friends, I noticed a trend that has continued for a long time now: The ones who are doing the best are either self-employed professionals or are business owners. The line between those two realms is, admittedly, a little bit blurry. But what I remember clearly is that when I left college the corporate realm was considered the primary option for employment. Now, at least among the people I know, it\u2019s not. <\/p>\n 4)<\/strong> Here\u2019s an update to my Nov. 11 column, \u201cOld man and the MP3,\u201d in which I lamented the loss of my SanDisk Clip Sport MP3 player. I am now happy to report that the replacements I ordered are working as well as the original one. <\/p>\n Since everything I like gets discontinued, I was surprised that this model has remained on the market at all. After all, it\u2019s not something flashy and trendy. It just does its job with inconspicuous competence. <\/p>\n Now that I\u2019m back up and running in the audio department, I\u2019ll note that one of life\u2019s great pleasures is listening to recordings of old-time radio shows. My favorite series is \u201cYours Truly, Johnny Dollar,\u201d which aired between 1949 and 1962. Heck, I wasn\u2019t even born back then, but, thankfully, the audio has lived on. <\/p>\n 5)<\/strong> When it comes to old-time pleasures, there\u2019s nothing more distinguished than Scotch whisky. Me, I don\u2019t like anything stronger than beer. But I\u2019m apparently the exception, and 2016 was the year by which everybody I know has been won over by Scotch. <\/p>\n You might envision a Scotch aficionado as a paunchy, red-faced old gent who wears Harris Tweed jackets. But even my wife, who is 100 percent Filipina, has become a single-malt snob.<\/p>\n I ordered a book on Scotch just so I can feign enthusiasm when everybody else is talking about it. I intend to share this information with you next year just in case you need it. And then, after you bamboozle the Scotch drinkers well enough to keep them at bay, you and I can retire to our beach chairs for some cold brews and pretzels.<\/p>\n 6)<\/strong> Speaking of books, in August, author Tom Wolfe released another book, this one titled The Kingdom of Speech, which is about human speech and evolution. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll get around to reading it, but I was happy to see that Mr. Wolfe, who is 85, is still behind the keyboard.<\/p>\n Wolfe\u2019s first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, came out in 1965. My pals and I discovered Wolfe in the 1970s, mostly via our parents\u2019 bookshelves. Wolfe was a big influence on many aspiring writers, as was his contemporary, Hunter S. Thompson, who passed away in 2005. <\/p>\n 7)<\/strong> Just to keep myself occupied as the New Year settles in, I\u2019ve decided to dedicate a computer as a desktop flight simulator. I just bought the computer, a refurbished Lenovo with Windows 7. Thus far I think I can take a basic cut at this project for under $350. I can already see a lot of temptations to improve things, all of which would come at a price, of course. Anyway, first things first; I\u2019m still awaiting the arrival of the software I\u2019ll be using. The software is called X-Plane 10. If the project works reasonably well and for a reasonable cost, I might report on it next year. <\/p>\n So, with an eye toward 2017, I\u2019ll await the popping of the corks. Then I\u2019ll offer a few polite toasts, pour the bubbly stuff into the sink when nobody\u2019s watching, and get myself a doggone beer. You did bring the pretzels, right? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have, as usual, enjoyed a holiday season of over-indulgence: too much travel, too much…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,11324,51,4471],"class_list":["post-243527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-gates-millennium-scholars","tag-guam","tag-new-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}