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WEEK 38 2011

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Saturday 24 September 2011
Saturday - I had thought I had renewed my domain some time ago, and was a bit upset to get a 1-day-before-expiration notice earlier in the week. I called the registrar I was using, and tried to figure out what had happened. I didn't have much luck, the young woman on the other end of the call was clearly just a receptionist, and couldn't seem to put me in in touch with more knowledgeable staff. It was also a horrible connection - it sounded as though she was in the middle of Africa or something. So, irritated, I just went through the whole online registration again. This time, luckily, it took, and I got all sort of invoices and receipts from Amhosting. Still, what happened that first time?


Book #107 was Reamde, by Neal Stephenson. Like all of Stephenson's stuff it was well written and well paced, if rather long. About the time you start expecting the book to wrap up you realize you are only about 1/3 of the way through... This was mostly an action/adventure novel, set in the present, not really one of his Sci-Fi novels, but an excellent read none-the-less. Russian mafia, Chinese hackers, Islamic terrorists, American survivalists, MI-6 and video gamers and more. Recommended. Think of a highbrow Clive Cussler.


Speaking of Cussler, I watched a special on the CSA H.L. Hunley, just the other day. This show was recorded this year, and was very interesting, providing a lot of new information. A bit grisly when they go into the forensics done on the bodies (bones), at least to me. The show seems to suggest, tentatively, that there may have been rifle damage done to her conning tower during the attack on the USS Housatonic, and that this damage in conjunction with weather/sea conditions caused her eventual loss. But the positions of the bodies inside the vessel suggest no struggle or fighting to get out, which is strange - in her previous two floodings there were certain signs of attempted escapes.

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When I say "speaking of Cussler"...they didn't. There is apparently a huge fight about who first "found" the Hunley, Cussler's group in 1995 or E. Lee Spence in 1970. She was only a football field length from the (known) wreck of the Housatonic that Spence found in 1970, and he eventually published a map of the Hunley's location that was only off by about 150 feet, just a few months prior to Cussler's uncovering of the wreck. I suppose the show producer's didn't want to wade into the "Who really found the Hunley?" fray, the show was more about "what happened?" to her.

Friday 23 September 2011
Friday - Book #104 was The Brendan Voyage, by Tim Severin. In the mid 1970's Tim Severin and friends sailed from Ireland to Iceland, and the next summer from Iceland to the shores of Newfoundland in an Irish currach, a boat constructed of sewn ox hides over a wooden frame. The idea was to re-create the trip of St. Brendan as recounted in the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, The Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot, ca. 500AD. They re-created the currach as best they could, using the skills of the existing small-currach builders, and of various old-time craftsmen. Indeed Severin refers repeatedly to Brendan Luck, of what they needed suddenly appearing at just the right moment, whether it be the remaining family in England of ox-hide tanners doing things the way they were done 1500 years ago, or of help/experts/knowledge. Indeed, one of the first occurences of Brendan Luck is when, after a fruitless search for pictures of old style currach rigging, Severin is walking through a library and see's a book mis-shelved, spine in. He pull's it out on a whim, to reshelve properly, and discovers it has exactly the illustrations he was looking for.

brendan
The Brendan under sail.

On using leather thongs:
I soon found that it was vital to soak the thongs in sea water beforehand, stretch them, and then tie the lashings while the leather was still wet. Otherwise the thongs did not grip. Unfortunately, tying knots in slippery wet thongs was like joining two snakes. The thongs simply slid apart. One hilarious Sunday morning I was testing a new type of knot in the garage, and had tied the thong to a ring built in the floor. I was heaving away with all my might, when suddenly the thong slipped, and I went hurtling backward out of the garage door onto the pavement. There I tripped and fell flat on my back waving a wet thong in the air, right in the path of the village congregation back from church. "That's what education does for you," someone muttered.

As a voyage it was a big success - the boat could not work to windward w/o a keel, but by taking the northerly route they were able to sail downwind to the Faeroe's, Iceland, Greenland, and finally the New World. They survived storms, an embayment against the ice pack, and weeks at sea with no modern comforts.

Indeed, they found (on the second leg of the journey) that the medieval foods and materials very often were better than the modern stuff. Modern materials were nice, but if you broke a piece of fiberglass or steel it was unrepairable - but ash, oak and ox hides were easily repaired. And if salt water got into your modern dehydrated stash of food it became an inedible mush, while salt water sluiced onto hard cheese and sausage had no effect at all.

First part of the voyage:
By far the worst were the dehydrated items which promptly soaked up water, swelled and burst, leaving a putrid mess. Only the tinned items survived, and because we had not had time to varnish them over, labels had been washed off, so we had a guessing game for a hunters casserole.

Second part of the voyage:
Our diet, too, had been altered. After the previous season's trouble with the dehydrated foods ruined by sea water leakage, I had decided to revert to a more medieval diet. We discarded the bulk of the dehydrated stores, and in its place loaded smoked sausage, smoked beef, and salt pork which a Polish meat curer had prepared specially for me in London over the winter, together with a large supply of hazelnuts, oat cereal, and a splendid truckle of cheddar cheese. These were the foods the Irish monks would have eaten a, and I decided to take them too, not for authenticity, but simply because they were the best food for the job. Oat cereal was what Trondur called "good work food" and the smoked and salt meats were to meet every requirement of the voyage. We found it did not matter if they were swamped by a wave or soaked by rain.

Very impressive trip, and a good read. This is the first of my Phoebe books, read sitting outside under a tree near his plot. These books are to be upbeat and cheerful books, and this was a good start.


Book #105 was The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown, by Paul Malmont. This was a novel using the wartime experiences of some famous Sci-Fi writers as its basis. It doesn't really come off. Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov, L. Ron Hubbard and others make appearances in a tale revolving around the possibility of discovering a secret weapon discovered by Nicola Tesla. I learned a bit about the early days of science-fiction-dom, but can't really recommend the book.

The title refers to the three "big" magazines of the time, Astounding Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, and Unknown.


Book #106 was The Lost Gate, by Orson Scott Card. Card is an excellent writer, but the book really doesn't fit in any well defined category. It's not quite "Young Adult" and it's not quite mature enough to be adult fantasy/sci-fi. Essentially the protagonist, Danny, discovers he has the ability to open "gates" between locations on Earth and some sort of alternate world - think of the movie "Jumper" of a couple years ago. But there are people with other powers and abilities, including someone who destroys Gate Mages as soon as they become too powerful. But is that someone actually acting for good or evil? Card writes a moral tale alongside the adventure story - depicting the moral corruption and rot that can set in when a person or group begins to believe they are "better' than others.

Neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring, recommended none-the-less.

Thursday 22 September 2011

Thursday - I got a nice card from my friend Tim, and his family, with condolences about Phoebe. Very cute notes from his daughters.


Well, I watched (sort of) the Republican debate. It was rather boring, no real insights into the people. It's really down to two, Perry and Romney, and Perry seems not quite ready for prime time. The other guys have some good ideas, but I think they're kidding themselves if they think they've a shot. Then again, Obama was a surprise. I guess it's still a horse race, with a couple of front runners.


I watched the season premier of Big Bang Theory. Kind of dry, actually. The dialog was clever, but rather stilted. I'm not sure if they've new writers, or if they told them explicitly "no new plot elements!", but it was kind of a rehash of old jokes and settings.

The premier of The Mentalist was a bit more interesting. So, that wasn't Red John that got killed at the end of last season, but rather a decoy. I suspected as much. They've never come out and said it, but clearly Patrick Jane's opponent, the evil Red John, is a mentalist like himself. Maybe better? But this is season 3 or 4 of the same story arc, I'm not sure how much longer they can keep the hackneyed evil super villain thing going.


The neighbor's were having a wake for their son, who passed away a few weeks ago. He was only 30, but had had cancer at 12, and his remission finally gave way at the age of 30. Talking to his dad the other day he said that Christopher knew it was just a matter of time and tried to live life at 100%.

Wednesday 21 August 2011

Wednesday  -

Tuesday 20 August 2011

Tuesday -

Monday 19 August 2011

Monday -

Sunday 18 August 2011

Sunday - Still feeling pretty low.


I've read a lot of books over the last couple of weeks, I'll have to bestir myself and write them down.


There was a fire in the hills nearby, but after a very smoky afternoon it cleared, so they probably put it out. I didn't see anything on the internet about it.


Picture of the Week
Carquinez Straits from pier in Martinez, CA
Photo Notes: Sundown over Carquinez Straits from pier at Martinez, Ca.

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