In which I belabor metaphors to their breaking points

Eric asked:

Whence Wikipedia?

I thought about elaborating on that, but every other question I came up with started to show my own prejudices; I'll leave it more open-ended and give you a chance (if you'd like) to riff on the future of Wikipedia.

Whence Wikipedia?

I think about Wikipedia in terms of the Greek Fates (or, more accurately (and this will highlight just how much of a total loser roleplayer I am), the Garou Triat of Wyld, Weaver, and Wyrm). The one who spins new thread, the one who weaves the thread into useful fabric, and the one who clips excess thread. The editor who creates new articles on interesting topics they've found or adds new content to existing ones; the editor who formats them to standards, revises them, organizes them into categories, and finds citations for them; the editor who scrutinizes them for notability and deletes or redirects the unacceptable ones.

In the beginning there was mostly content creation. Then came the other two kinds of editors, and shortly thereafter there were admins and bureaucrats - editors who wove or clipped other editors rather than articles themselves. From anarchy there arose a massive tangled bureaucracy - which, having grown organically rather than along any kind of plan, looks to the average outsider like a Gordian knot.

Hence Wikipedia?

Well, it remains to be seen whether we can have a proper balance between the weavers and the cutters - a stable, long-lasting one. In the cosmology of the Garou, the Weaver went mad with her thread and ensnared the Wyrm, who also went mad with destruction, and because of the struggle between the two, the Wyld is dying out. On Wikipedia, all the arguments about notability, citations needed, issues of format, following of procedures and protocols and so forth are driving away the spinners.

Some of the spinners are simply surprised and confused to find structure where they expected chaos, while others have trouble wrapping their minds around the prevailing paradigm (that is, it's not about editors, it's about articles). Even aside from those, however, many would-be spinners (and some would-be weavers) take one look at the Gordian knot and just turn around and go away.

Can the bureaucracy be woven into a useful tapestry that helps more than it hinders? Or do we need a hero to come along with a sword? I don't know, but I lean toward the former much more than the latter.

How Now Wikipedia?

Editting for Wikipedia is a lot like making sandcastles. At any moment, a big wave might come by and revert your masterful work of art to a pile of sand.

On Ordering of Siblings

Michelle asked:

Also, from out of left field, I have a bet with myself that you're the
oldest kid in your family. As the oldest kid in my family, I see in
things you say, things that I do, particularly a sense of
responsibility for the rest of the family, regardless of whether they
appreciate it or not, and that sense of responsibility stretching out
into your professional life (I'm thinking in particular of your not
complaining about your pay rate. (Another of my good friends is also
an oldest sibling, and we've often complained about how our siblings
can still get away with murder. (laugh) )

Are you in fact the oldest of your siblings?

As it happens, yes. Not that you can tell by looking at us standing next to each other, as our heights are in reverse order. Also I look the youngest.

You might find it interesting to know, however, that within the family, I'm notorious for shirking all duty and responsibility expected of me by my sister and mother, much to their annoyance. If anyone is being dutifully responsible, it'd have to be my sister (middle child). Plus she's, uhh, bossy. Just like you. :)

On Roleplay, Characters and Writing

Eric asked:

4E: worst thing ever or merely pretty awful?

The last edition of Dungeons and Dragons I played was AD&D 2nd ed., and that was back in 1992. I have no idea. :) Those of you who have it (or are looking forward to receiving it) may feel free to argue about it, however.

Michelle asked:

What's your alignment?

True Neutral.

That was what I got the last time I took an Internet test about it. I agree that it's accurate, and I like where I am.

To tie it back in with the first question, I'll add that one of the many things I dislike about D&D is the alignment system. I find that it's too artificial and arbitrary to pigeonhole people into nine categories of morality, and it's quite contrary to my preferred styles of roleplaying.

Jeri asked:

In your history of role-playing, what's your favorite character you've ever played and why? Describe the character.

Oh man... only one??? I think I'll do three. :)

1. Haywood Jablomey, a VtM vampire character in the form of an 8 year old boy (a Malkavian, for those who know VtM). His original name was John Smith, but the guy who took him in after his turning decided that it was a boring name and changed it. Said guy had a bit of a dirty mind... Anyway, Haywood is cheerful, friendly, and really not very bright at all. He's also a kleptomaniac, but don't ever confront him about it because "I don't steal! Mommy says stealing is bad!" Instead, he just "finds" things. Not necessarily shiny things or expensive things either - he'll unintentionally take just about any random thing that's sitting out somewhere not bolted down. One time he stole all the AA batteries out of some guy's TV remotes, then when the party moved on to ransack the guy's office, he dumped the batteries and took all the paper clips, and then when the party moved into a restricted lab area where everyone had to wear Clean Room suits and he was too small, he used the paper clips to make the suit fit him.

Haywood was my favorite character during the early-mid-90s, back when most of my social life consisted of tabletop roleplaying and LARPs. He's easy to play because I don't have to keep track of anything complex going on, and I don't have to think fast or intelligently. (I can think intelligently but only very slowly.) He was a hit with most groups I played him in because he made for great comic relief. In general, Haywood works best when he's actually part of a troupe, and not just running around doing stuff by himself.

2. Thomas Cougar, another VtM vampire character (a Gangrel), who started out as a Florida Seminole. After his turning, he exiled himself from his people and spent about 80 years alone in the swamps, until his great-granddaughter came along looking into her personal history, and dragged him back out. He then became a doctor who while he practiced western medicine, also knew a ton about the uses of plants (especially the ones from the swamps he was in) for medicinal purposes.

I made him for a realtime chat game in 2002. It became a solo game, and we basically went nuts with it for nearly a year. She was my best friend, and it was what we did. That game was the focus whereby she dragged me out of the abyss I was in at the time.

Later on, when we started drifting apart (as all my friendships seem to after a while), and we weren't playing as often, I started looking for something to fill the time while waiting for the game to continue, and that's how I came to RPoL in the spring of 2003. I put Thomas into a game there, and she made a character for the same game, which was called VtM: Eternal Nights. Umm. How to put it. Let's just say that it lasted for nearly a year and that there was a lot of drama. It took a long, long time before I could play Thomas in anything else (and now he's a minor NPC in a game I help run).

Thomas was also the seed behind just about all of my fiction. I made him, my friend really liked him and kept asking questions about his past, so I made an extremely detailed past (more detailed than any backstory I'd ever written for any other character). Then I made a city around him for where he was from before the start of the game. And in that city there had to be other characters of course... who were doing things of their own... and getting in each other's ways.... (For those familiar with my RPoLian history, "Detroit" originally started out as a game set in the city I made for him.)

So, yeah. Thomas was (and is) pretty important to me. ;)

3. Rumen Radomir, also a vampire, but one from the Anitaverse as described by Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. He started out as a Hungarian monk in the Dark Ages who became the victim of an experiment on whether the purest of the pure (e.g. a monk) could avoid falling from grace if turned into a vampire - a test of faith. Since the answer is no, he was really mad about that and went on a rampage for a couple centuries revelling in monsterhood. After that he got better. He became friends with a necromancer during the 1400s, and the friend eventually became a human servant. Then a few centuries later (150 years before gamestart in modern times) the servant got killed by a vampire hunter. He got really mad about that and went on another rampage, until finally he calmed down about 50 years ago. He ended up in Sacramento, became the Master of the City's second after six years, and ... that's pretty much it actually because the game is dead now.

The game was set in 1990 in Sacramento, ran from late 2003 to mid-2007 on RPoL, covered all of two story days during that time, and got deleted three weeks ago due to inactivity. :( While it ran, it was by far the best freeform roleplaying play-by-post EV4R. All of my best writing was in that game, and it was the stepping stone between the roleplay writing I'd been doing (and steadily improving), and Nanowrimo 2004.

Rumen is now my top muse. He's very strong-willed and particular about me getting him down right. With as entertaining a past as he had, there are all sorts of stories I can write about him - and I've started to, trying to fill the void while waiting for the game to continue (which now it never will). Much of my past several months have been spent quietly worldbuilding for one of the bigger ones. In some ways he's a seed like Thomas. Same general fuzzy settings, except several centuries earlier in a different part of the world.

For short blurbs about some of my other favorites, there's my response to a meme back in 2006. For more about my trials and tribulations of fiction writing, I do have a blog for that over at Hobgoblin.net. That was my main blog where I wrote down actual bloglike material (stuff about daily life) before starting this one.

Global Warming Worldbuilding

From Jeri (via Eric):

I need some sort of event that will cause immediate global warming in the course of one summer/fall - to the point that it will not freeze come winter in the arctic and it will happen so fast it will surprise the world. What sort of event can you think of, outside of deus ex machina?

Umm. What kind of story is this? You could always blame it on space aliens with superior technology.

Barring that, basically you'd have to find a way to dump a whole lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A whole lot. Enough to overwhelm all the balances that are presently in place.

I used to have a book, Out of Thin Air by Peter Ward, that explained how the Mesozoic got to be as warm as it did. I no longer have it, so going entirely by memory here, but basically it was because all the accumulated plant detritus during the Carboniferous (which was called that for a reason...) suddenly released their stored carbon into the atmosphere. I think he said it was a really big fire.

So... maybe in your case, find a way to burn every single plant in the entire world?

I Got Nothing

Obviously I've not had much luck coming up with things to write about in here, for the better part of three months now, so I'm going to steal Eric's idea.

Anyone have any questions they want to ask me? :)

Vindication

One of the hallmarks of being a responsible moderator is that you never really know whether you're doing a good job. The second-guessing and self-critique is constant: am I being too harsh? am I being too lenient? is there a better way to approach the problem than what I'm doing? can I think of it in time to be effective? In the thick of the moment, when tempers run high from all directions and decisions must be made quickly with no time to think things through, when people you expected to count on for support and input during a difficult time instead turn on you, when even with people you can count on for support and input you still really stand alone: it's easy to fail.

Six months ago I tried, and stumbled, and failed, and wondered if I'd gotten any of it right. Three weeks ago I discovered just how much rage I still hold for how things turned out. One week ago I had cause to show the records to another moderator - one whom I highly respect and whose opinion I very much trust. She said:

"shit you're a lot more patient than I am."

Despite all the things that still remain unresolved, some peace of mind finally came. I wasn't harsh at all, and I did get it right in the end. And I think I can let go the worst of the rage now.

Recent Reading

I used to be a voracious reader in my youth. So much so that it interfered with my ability to get to school on time, my grades, and my (other) extracurricular activities. My parents learned quickly to not bother giving me any money, not even for emergencies, because I would spend it on books. They were never fond of my penchant for science fiction, claiming it was a frivolous waste of time when I should be reading classical literature or weighty philosophical matter (or doing homework). Once, my mother actually tore one of my books in half.

Then, at some point in grad school when I was reading tons of scientific papers all the time, I fell out of the habit of reading fiction. I no longer had days at a time to do nothing but read an entire book all at once. At the same time, reading became physically hard on me. No matter what position I sit or lie down in, some part of me gets stiff and sore - and by rotating through lots of different positions, my whole body ends up stiff and sore. It was like that in my youth, too, but I recovered faster back then. For a while I just read magazines instead (mainly Earth (RIP :( ), Discover, Smithsonian, and Science News), but eventually I stopped reading those, too.

Now I've been trying to ease back into reading. One of the writing groups I belong to started up a book reading challenge a year ago. Basically you declare how many you'll read that year, and then you list them as you finish each one. Last year I declared 12 (one per month seemed like a good way to ease back into reading when I hadn't read a thing for years) and ended up with 10:

1. Agent to the Stars - John Scalzi (sci fi)
2. Out of Thin Air - Peter Ward (science nonfic)
3. Memory of Running - Ron McLarty (mainstream fic)
4. The Paths of the Dead - Steve Brust (fantasy trilogy 1)
5. The Lord of Castle Black - Steve Brust (fantasy trilogy 2)
6. Sethra Lavode - Steve Brust (fantasy trilogy 3)
7. Core Performance - Mark Verstegen (nonfic exercise book)
8. Hellspark - Janet Kagan (sci fi)
9. Brokedown Palace - Steven Brust (fantasy)
10. Starcraft: Queen of Blades - Aaron Rosenberg (sci-fi)

This year I declared 12 again, and so far I have:

1. Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
2. Dzur by Steve Brust
3. Old Man's War by John Scalzi
4. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
5. Thud! by Terry Pratchett
6. Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

At the moment I'm working on Hogfather by Terry Pratchett and On Writing by Stephen King. Pratchett is going faster. ;)

The fact that I started visiting the local library helps; I have a deadline to read them by, and then if I'm going to the library anyway to return books I might as well get more... Their sci-fi/fantasy section is only four bookcases, but at my current snail's pace they should last me quite a while. Also, I've learned how to read only a chapter or two at a time. It's much easier to come up with the time for that than two whole days of doing nothing else.

Basil Flowers

My basil has gotten a lot taller in the past couple months. "Leggy" is probably a good way to describe them now. They do get full sun in the afternoons but apparently could use more than I can provide. Aside from longer stems and smaller leaves, they've also been flowering.

May 2

Jul 4

Basil flowers are tiny and white. They've decided not to all bloom at the same time on each stalk as I'd hoped, but to go a few at a time.

Now I'm wondering if I should be trimming the flower stalks off so they make more leaves....

Infrastructure

Infrastructure maintenance. Not terribly exciting to think about, especially when there are far sexier topics like war, gun control, global warming, universal health care, No Child Left Behind, illegal immigrants, etc. It's the daily teeth brushing aspects of having a structure that does something useful, like eating tasty food.

A structure only remains in good working order when all of its parts, down to the smallest ones, are also all in good working order. Infrastructure maintenance means repairing or replacing the parts that are broken, and resting or recuperating the parts that are human. It's a basic necessity that must be amply budgeted for - for if one neglects to put in the proper amount of time and money, if one treats it like a luxury that can be cut, sooner or later one will either wind up paying the entire accumulated cost at once (with compound interest), or one will no longer have the structure.

This applies to all sorts of things. Teeth. Roads. Labor. Public education. Health. Environment. Security. Nearly all of which are themselves parts of larger infrastructures.

Day Eight: Las Vegas Strip

(For those wondering how I ended up at Vegas on a Hawaii trip, let's just say that my mother is easily distracted by shiny objects.)

Las Vegas is best known for its casinos - but there are lots of other things to do there besides gamble. There are bunches of elaborate themed hotels all next to each other along ten blocks of the same street, known as "The Strip". Each hotel has its own set of attractions, the restaurants are outstanding, there are always a lot of great shows going on, everything is open extra-late, and best of all: all the parking is free. If one ignores the glitz, all of these things fit my idea of a great place to live (if only I could afford it).


view of the Stratosphere Hotel
from a 26th-floor Circus Circus hotel room window



two views of the Eiffel Tower in front of the Paris Hotel


the Excalibur Hotel


the Statue of Liberty outside New York New York Hotel


At Mandalay Bay, they have an aquarium called Shark Reef. There were indeed sharks in it, lots of different kinds, but they all swam too fast for my cheap automatic-everything camera, so here are some pictures of other fish I saw.

The trick to capturing aquarium fish on film is to use flash at an angle to the glass - otherwise the flash bounces back and glares everything out. (Not using flash results in blurry pictures.) (Possessing a better camera - one with manual focus - would've been an even better trick.)


Star Trek: The Experience at the Hilton basically consists of two immersive "shows" where the audience is given a part in the story. In one, we were a bunch of civilian lab guinea pigs participating in an experiment run by Voyager's doctor that got hijacked by the Borg, and in the other we were civilian travelers inadvertently beamed into the future - and then chased by Klingons. The transporter effect was the best part of the latter - it was totally real. One minute we were standing in a square blue-gray cargo bay, then it went pitch black and there was a whoosh of air, and then we were standing on a bunch of lit circles in a circular beige room. The walls, ceilings, and doors were all completely different. They also had the Enterprise-D bridge, and I badly wanted to go sit in the captain's chair - but we got hustled out of there too fast.

On the way to the shows, they had a small museum and an extremely detailed timeline listing everything that any key character had ever done. I spent a lot of time reading it. Outside the museum, there was a realistic Quark's Bar (I didn't try the food, just walked around in it) and a gift shop where I spent too much money on a blue TOS science officer's shirt that I probably won't ever wear. But I own a Spock shirt now! My life is complete!

eHow

A while back I pimped a friend of mine, who writes how-to-draw articles for eHow and earns a small but steady wad of cash every month from their ad-revenue-share program. As a homebound disabled guy, trickle incomes are helpful things to have.

Well, last week he was gathering new members who, if they clicked through on his referral link on their way to sign up, would get him more money. So I did. :) Now I too can earn a few cents here and there if people read my articles.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, I don't actually know how to do anything. This has become rather more apparent since I've been following the lives of other UCFers, who can make bowls, jam, jewelry, catnip blankets, humorous videos, cakes shaped like hot dogs, fancy flowers, chicken liver soups, and tall buildings. I mean, I can do things like extract earbones out of the braincases of small fish, or identify any postlarval Lutjanine snapper in the western Atlantic by counting their fin elements and observing pigmentation... but those aren't exactly must-have skills for very many people.

Anyone have any suggestions??

Workweek Nirvana

The traditional 40-hour workweek calls for 8 hours of work per day for five days - Mondays through Fridays.

I've heard that some Corporate Cubicle Land type places have started offering workweeks that allow three-day weekends every other week. It calls for 9 hours of work on Mondays through Thursdays, then 8 hours or 0 hours on alternating Fridays.

Then there's my plan. 10 hours per day on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesdays off. It doesn't sound all that palatable at first glance, especially to those accustomed to the traditional five day workweek, because who wants to work 10 hours per day when 8 hours is already too long?

But it's not like that at all. First, it actually isn't a five-day workweek. It's 2 two-day workweeks with two "weekends." What that means is, I don't suffer the weekly mini-burnout encapsulated by the "Thank God It's Friday!" concept. At all. There's no time for it to set in because each workweek is over after two days. Those two extra hours per day aren't even noticeable.

Aside from the mental breaks, I'm also not trying to figure out how to cram odd errands around town into the beginnings and ends (and in many peoples' cases lunches) of the workdays. Those errands happen because many places aren't open on weekends, which means they must be done during a workday - but I don't have that problem because I have a full day to take care of them all at once on Wednesdays.

In short, I get a LOT more work done while I'm at work because I'm focused on work. I'm not distracted by other things I need to do, and my mind stays well-rested. My employers get more bang for their buck. Everybody wins. :)

One Year

My blog is a year old today. I commemorate it (and renew my adherence to international blog law) with one of my favorite cat pictures from the Internet. :)

Butter Pecan

My father's favorite ice cream was butter pecan.

We used to make fun of him for it. No matter how many dazzling flavors there were to choose from (and as kids, we really liked dazzling flavors), butter pecan was all he ever wanted. He had found what he liked, there was no more need to look for anything else, and he was happy to eat the same thing for the rest of his life.

He was like that about food in general. It had to be bland, boring, and always the same. There were the vanilla cookies that he kept in the kitchen to snack on while he cooked, all during the restaurant years. There was the honey water - which is exactly like it sounds, honey mixed with water - which we drank instead of soda. If my mother was elsewhere for any length of time (and forgot to yell at him about it on her way out), we ate nothing but fried rice every day. Pizza was always pepperoni, sausage, and ham.

He did like spicy. Once he concocted something that combined red chili oil, yellow curry, and black pepper - and it was the spiciest thing he'd ever tasted. He didn't like vinegar or anything sour; we occasionally tested this by slipping him food with vinegar in it to see if he noticed ... he always did.

Every day he ate two eggs because when he was a boy, eggs were too expensive to ever have. Of course, back then tofu was cheap and common while nowadays it's considered gourmet. To him, tofu was comfort food.

Most people remember his egg rolls best. They were very big, filled with all sorts of good stuff, and they cannot be found in any other restaurant (I keep looking). They were delicious when drenched in what's now called "duck sauce." But he was most proud of his chicken broth. The way he made it, by boiling twice and dumping out the first batch to get rid of the frothy bits, it came out a delicate, clear yellow.

He died nearly fourteen years ago, on a day early in November. I remember everything about it, from the time I last saw him at dinner (he had a big bowl of spinach soup, with two eggs in it), coming home later that evening and finding him gone, finding out what happened at the hospital, seeing him again there, the funeral a few days later and a house full of his siblings who were laughing loudly and hysterically about everything in their grief. I remember it, and I let the day pass without acknowledgement.

Instead, I celebrate his life today, Father's Day, with a bowl of butter pecan.

Days Five and Six: History and Culture

Pearl Harbor has several memorials related to World War II.
* **
The USS Bowfin, a submarine launched on the one-year anniversary of the 1941 attack, is open to the public for audio-guided tours. Inside, it looks similar to a battleship except smaller and much, much narrower. (Note: my experience of battleship interiors consists entirely of the USS North Carolina - as viewed while walking through at high speed.) It's amazing how many people they managed to fit in it, not to mention the number of enormous torpedoes they stashed away front and back.
** **
Aside from the submarine itself, there is also a museum about subs in general, a park with lots of different kinds of torpedoes and the giant guns that shot them, and a small outdoor memorial to all the U.S. submarines and submariners that were lost during the war.
**
Submarine memorial with USS Missouri and USS Arizona memorials visible in the background


The USS Arizona is the main memorial people think of when it comes to Pearl Harbor memorials. It sank with over a thousand people still on board, and most of them are still there. The memorial was built over its midsection, and the flagpole is where the ship's flagpole was. Visits begin with a 20-minute documentary about the context of the ship's sinking, using all-original historical footage, which does an excellent job of setting the mood before the ferry ride to the memorial itself.
**
The inside feels open and peaceful. At the other end from the ferry landing, the names of everyone who died is inscribed on the back wall, from floor to ceiling. The part that really got me, though, was the small box to the left. On it were the names of all the survivors who had come back to be buried with their shipmates, the earliest in (I think) 1981 and the latest just a few years ago.
**

The USS Missouri was where the Japanese officially surrendered to the U.S. in 1945. It's right next to the USS Arizona. There is also a USS Oklahoma Memorial - a battleship that capsized during the attack with hundreds aboard, and the second largest number of casualties. Unfortunately, we didn't have our act together enough to visit either of those.

USS Missouri from the Arizona. The white buoy marks the end of the sunken ship.

---

The Polynesian Cultural Center, although the admission seems rather steep at first, is actually well worth the money. Tickets allow visitors to enter for up to three days, and include a free memento picture, snailshell necklaces (in lieu of fresh flower leis), guided tours of the whole park in a choice of languages, canoeing in their central canal, an IMAX movie about coral reefs, and bus transportation to and from nearby Laie.
*
View on the central canal running through the whole park

Each of the seven mini-villages represent a different Pacific island, with authentic buildings and cultural information explaining their shapes and purposes.
*
New Zealand is another name for Aotearoa.

There are music and dance lessons specific to each island. There is also a place for Easter Island.
*
Columns of coconuts in Samoa
*
These women were making grass hats.
*
Easter Island exhibit

The highlights, however, are all in the 20-25 minute afternoon shows. Six of the villages present them on different aspects of history and culture. I learned all about coconuts in Samoa, how ukeleles were invented in Hawaii, conch shells, drums and clapping in Tonga, quite a bit about the uses of different plants to make buildings, clothing, and/or food, and was starting to get a grasp on the subtle differences between kinds of dances at each island.
*
Then there was the evening show. As luau entertainment goes, it was pretty spectacular - especially the Samoan fire knife dancing. However, we'd just been to a smaller (and more expensive) luau a few days earlier, and it was a bit much right afterward. They also sell authentic luau food between the last of the afternoon shows and before the big main show, but we skipped out on it and ended up at McDonald's. (We should probably just have gone to the Polynesian Cultural Center the first time.)

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Beach of the Day
* *
Kailua Beach is on the east shore. We went there in search of fine white sand. It did turn out to be softer and lighter in color than some of the other beaches, but still isn't Florida calcium carbonate white. The waves were relatively gentle, and there was a wide flat island that looked close enough to walk to (but wasn't really).


* pictures taken by my mother
** pictures taken by my cousin Angela

Hair

Every two or three years, usually at the beginning of a summer, I get a haircut. About 15 inches get trimmed off, and most of it goes to Locks of Love - a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer or other hair-losing medical conditions.

After that, I do nothing. I wash it, I brush it when it gets long enough to need it, I use cheap ponytail holders. Otherwise I go about my business until it's time to do it again.

Day Four: A Crater

Diamond Head is Waikiki's most recognizable landmark. In the past it was used as a military sentry point - and there are old bunkers all along the top of the rim facing seaward. One such bunker is now a tourist destination, at the top of a brisk, steep hike from the middle of the crater, best done in the morning before heat and crowds appear.


inside of crater from near the top of the trail

a bunker at other end of the ridge from the lookout point

looking down the slope, southward

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The Bishop Museum is allegedly an excellent place to learn about Hawaiian history, culture, and natural history - but this is probably more true when the main exhibit hall isn't undergoing renovations. Most of the rest (five buildings and a courtyard with carnival rides) consists of interactive exhibits suitable for children, which isn't really worth the admission (full, even with renovations occurring) if the group is adult-only.

One of the interactive exhibits was a giant model of an active volcano. There were buttons to control the size of the eruption. The brochure made it sound really exciting, and so that was what we went to see. As with the rest, it probably is very exciting to children.

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Beach of the Day:

Waikiki Beach is artificially extra-wide with soft light-colored sand and gentle waves due to groynes. The water stays at 4-5 feet deep for quite a distance from shore, though eventually it becomes possible to trip on reef rock. It's surrounded by highrise hotels and about as interesting to swim in as a pool.


view of Diamond Head from concrete walk on the way to Waikiki Beach

view of Waikiki from top of Diamond Head

Waikiki Beach (photo by cousin Angela)

On the other side of the groyne, where there is no sand whatsoever and waves crash violently against the seawall under the concrete walk, it's possible to see lots of different kinds of fish.

Day Three: Swimming with the Fishes

On the third day, we attended a wedding. It was lovely, but it did mean we didn't go very many interesting places elsewhere on Oahu.

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Beach of the day:

Hanauma Bay is a shallow, protected bay that started out as a crater. Nowadays it's a great place for snorkeling or scuba diving, or even just standing there looking into the crystal clear water from above. The snorkel gear they rent out is excellent. The reef grows nearly right up to shore. We saw lots of different kinds of fish, and also an enormous black sea cucumber, which looked like a giant fat worm resting on the bottom.

Day Two: A Day of Scenery

Southeast Oahu is full of steep, sharply-ridged mountains right up against the sea. We drove on every major road running through there at some point during that day. The grandeur has California's coast beat any day, and my mother commented that there was no longer any need to do the famed Highway One scenic drive. For some reason the mountains remind me of Japan, even though I've never been there.

Nu'uanu Pali Lookout is a very tiny state park that consists mainly of the one lookout point. According to the signs, the valley being viewed was formed by a gigantic landslide, when half of a volcano fell into the sea.


Makai pier is a research pier. There was no indication what sort of research was done at the pier. Two small islands are visible from there - Manana, also called Rabbit, and Kaohikaipu.


Behind the pier, the mountains loom very ominously. They look like they're right there, probably because of how steep they are.

Some land juts out to the right of the pier.

The right picture is the same land jutting out, except from around the corner on the other side. The pier is visible beyond the part that juts out. This was viewed from near the Makapu'u lighthouse, which we didn't see because by the time we got there it was too dark to do any climbing.

Hawaii Kai is a fairly wealthy-looking residential area to the east of Honolulu. It has some very nice mountains in it.

A lookout point just past Hanauma Bay, next to Sandy Beach.

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Beach of the day:

Sandy Beach Park is between Hanauma Bay and Makapu'u Point. The waves aren't too tall but can be strong. I spent my time poking around in a bunch of rocks covered with algae, urchins, anemones, and other small creatures, and trying not to get dashed up against them when the water came in.

Day One: Between the Mountains

Dole has a pineapple plantation just north of Wahiawa on Oahu, Hawaii. They grow lots of different kinds of pineapples there.

There were some other interesting plants in the same garden, including Norfolk Island pine trees (my favorite tree) and a pineapple-like plant with tiny purple flowers.

They also have the world's largest maze, but it wasn't that interesting to photograph from the inside - just lots and lots of tall green hedges.

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Kukaniloko was once the birthplace of kings. At the center of Oahu, the mothers were carried in and never allowed to touch the ground. Drums announcing the birth could be heard anywhere on the entire island. Now it's a quiet copse of trees and boulders, right next to the highway but very hard to find (on purpose). The mountains to the east are said to resemble a pregnant woman lying on her back. It's holy ground. People still bring fruit offerings there.

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The Iolani Palace was where the last of Hawaii's royalty lived. It's a three-story mansion with a lot of history.

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Modern luaus aimed at tourists seem to be showcases of dances from several different Polynesian islands. The best known kind, with the fast-shaking hips, is actually Tahitian.

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Beach of the day:

This is somewhere on the North Shore, west of Waialua. We were actually trying to find Haleiwa but got lost. The rocks under the sand are black.


(Video, Iolani photo from my mother. Rest are mine.)

WiFi Commensalism

My home wifi is, and always will be, unlocked and open for anyone to use.

Why? Because sometimes when I travel - or sometimes if my home network is down, I need to borrow from others. Also, sometimes I enjoy hearing from friends when they travel, or their home networks are down.

And sometimes others might need to borrow from me.

Some would call it theft. The borrower is using something they didn't pay for, and if they want to use it they should pay for it themselves. But wifi isn't a zero-sum commodity. That someone else borrows mine takes nothing away from me. I still have the same service and pay the same monthly fee. I prefer to call it sharing.

Some pretty white flowers

There's a whole row of enormous hedges along one of the gravel roads on the campus where I work. Right now they're blooming. I have no idea what they are.



My office used to be in that white building. Back then it wasn't such a nice, gleaming white - it looked more like a dilapidated shed. Then one day they decided it'd be good to have it look less like an eyesore for when visiting dignitaries go by. This is probably the most scenic-looking version of it I've ever seen (including in person, while taking the picture).



As you may have noticed, my post rate has dropped precipitously in the last couple months. Unfortunately it's going to get worse. I'm probably not going to post again until the end of May.

There is no meaning OF life. Life IS the meaning.

Greta Christina rationalizes how to look at existence if Heaven is absent:

The fact that your lifespan is an infinitesimally tiny fragment in the life of the universe, and that there is, at the very least, a strong possibility that when you die, you disappear completely and forever, and that in five hundred years nobody will remember you and in five billion years the Earth will be boiled into the sun ... it can make everything you do, and everything anyone else does, seem meaningless, trivial to the point of absurdity.

The article goes on to talk about how change always results in loss (but not how change also results in new joy, except as an afterthought) and thinking about one's existence by detaching completely from the universe, to think of its timeline as a whole. Then at the end it says "but all of that's okay because you got to be alive."

What a depressing way to look at the universe. What a negative way to spin the same thing I would say, which is that the meaning of life is to live. But we are not individual motes of meaningless dust in a vast, uncaring universe. We are all connected to everything else, individual threads in a great tapestry, individual drops in a mighty stream. Each of us might be small, but we all matter. And meaning is found in each individual moment that we live.

There's a girl outside...

She wants to know if I can play with her. Can I make her go high on the swings? Make her go fast on the merry-go-round? Play tag? Hide and seek? And look, today she has a coloring book. Can I come to the park with them when her daddy comes home? Watch the ants? Look at the moon?

Her mother says she never listens about not talking to strangers. She boldly goes forth, fearless. In another time and place, she would grow up to be the village matriarch.

And suddenly I feel like making more freetime in my early afternoons.

My Lush, Expansive Garden Vol. 2: Sprouted Grocery Store Produce

Sprouted grocery store garlic, when I plant them, almost always send up four leaves, then die. When uprooted after the four leaves have died, there's usually a brand new protohead about the same size as the original clove, which I then eat as if it were a clove.

This time around I actually gave them a real pot with real drainage in the hopes they would do better. Unfortunately I also didn't bother to separate the individual cloves. I only found two protoheads. Next time I'll separate the cloves into separate pots and water a lot less.

I tried a sprouted onion before the garlic (same pot), but it never formed roots at all. It had probably sat too long in the fridge before I got around to planting it. I had great success with a sprouted potato one time but unfortunately it drowned in a heavy rainstorm - which was just as well, as their thick stems were all kinds of scary to my plants phobia. The one time I tried planting a sprouted carrot top, something ate all the leaves just as it started thriving.


Meanwhile, my chives are doing quite well. These also came from the grocery store, but as live plants in small pots with soil. They've reached the point where they'll suck up all the water I put into the bottom of the self-watering pot in a few minutes, which means it's time to give them a bigger pot again.

Yesterday I replaced the garlic with some grocery store basil. Hopefully these will do as well as the chives.