Curious Lizard

As a fan and advocate of all things related to travel and history, it was wonderful to recently be able to sort through a collection of antique postcards in San Francisco. Many were of photographs from the time immediately surrounding the 1906 earthquake and fire. However it was the writing on the backs of the cards that I found most interesting. This included descriptions of the date and location of the photograph and a mixture of carefully scripted and hastily scrawled greetings to friends and loved ones. Each was a precious time capsule and part of the fabric that makes up our cultural legacy.

Looking at these postcards I thought about the debate over the teaching of reading and writing cursive script in our schools. Based on what I’ve read, the ability to read cursive is being lost. Without the ability to read cursive these postcards would be trash. It’s important for our personal and family histories to be able to read what has been written, and not just letters and journals penned by our great grandparents, but also the beautiful scripts written by our cultural ancestors. When I visited the National Archives in Washington DC, I was able to look at the Declaration of Independence and Constitution mere inches away. The aging parchment and pen strokes told me far more about the time and place they were written than a digital text copy ever could.

I think this familial and cultural continuity is something that is being lost in the debate. So, whatever else you do today, postcard, letter or journal, pick up a pen and write.

Curious Lizard

Time has a way of distorting our memories, some are remembered and embellished, often with wistful romance. Many other memories are pushed aside and forgotten until an object or chance encounter breathes new life into them. My memories of the space race included only those images seen repeatedly throughout the media. Until this visit, I had forgotten how exciting the Space Program could be. Maybe it’s because I had fallen into the pattern that so many others have when the novelty wore off and sending people into orbit became a relatively common occurrence. Shuttle missions were flying, satellites were being put into orbit and the space station was being built.

Beyond the incredible Hubble images, there seemed to be nothing to capture the imagination of we the people. Perhaps it’s because unlike other forms of exploration, space is inaccessible to all but a handful of highly trained individuals. If you live near a body of water, all it takes to be an explorer is an inexpensive pair of goggles. To explore hills and mountains it often takes no equipment at all, simply the will to make it to the top. Space on the other hand requires not only highly specialized training but the fearlessness to strap yourself into a seat atop a rocket with the explosive energy of a hydrogen bomb and be shot into the pitiless vacuum of space.

At the Kennedy Space Center technological marvel after marvel was revealed as we studied the various exhibits and toured the facility. Diagnostic ultrasound, portable x-ray devices, programable pacemakers, insulin pumps, microchips, robotics and virtual reality programs were among the technologies produced and refined as a direct result of the space program.

We were able to attend one of the tours of the famous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The VAB was last opened to the public at the end of the Apollo era and now that the shuttle program has ended, visitors are allowed into the building once again. It is the largest one story building in the world and was originally constructed for the assembly of the magnificent Saturn V moon rockets used in the Apollo program. The huge exterior bay doors are tall enough to allow a fully assembled 363 foot tall Saturn V rocket on it’s mobile launch platform to pass through. We were informed that the space shuttle Endeavour was being transformed from Orbiter to museum exhibit in one of the VAB bays and as we turned a corner, there it was. I was spellbound, for to come face to face with an actual spaceship was the stuff of dreams. Standing ten feet from the Endeavour I felt a sense of pride and just a little sadness for it’s loss.

Even more so than the shuttle, the crown jewel of manned space flight is the Saturn V moon rocket. The Saturn V Center was the actual launch center for the Apollo program. On display is one of the few remaining Saturn V rockets. It is lying on it’s side with it’s stages separated and engines exposed. It is massive and it is majestic and all I could think about was how wonderful it would be to put it together, stand it up and light the fuse.

The Saturn V is the most powerful rocket ever built and I have been told that had the Apollo program continued, we could have used this rocket to reach Mars by the early 1980′s. When the public lost interest and the Apollo program was cancelled in the 70′s, congress committed one the greatest acts of hubris in history. In order to ensure that their decision to cancel the Apollo program could not be undone by future congresses, they ordered all the tools used to manufacture the Saturn V rocket destroyed and the blueprints shredded.

On a more positive note, we did see the rocket gantry for the Space Launch System (SLS) that will eventually be used to carry the new Orion capsule, but It will be several years before the Orion is ready for testing, and then probably several more before it begins to take humans into space.

I wanted to share this beautiful double rainbow I saw while walking in the rain in San Juan!

Curious Lizard

The fog is thick here coming off the water in Nova Scotia. We’re supposed to be out on that water today and I can see from my vantage point that it’s going to be cold and damp, not unlike the fishing excursions I found myself on with my father and brother when we used to boat the rivers and levies of the California Delta. In those days, in the miserable dark, the fog was so thick that dad would be up on the fly bridge, I’d be standing next to dad and my brother would be out on the bow with a light on the look out for logs and rocks and other boats. That particular boat had one of those awful jet drives that were so loud and impossible to control at idling speeds. I think in all the times we went out on our late night fishing excursions we caught perhaps only two or three fish worth keeping. At least that’s the way I remember it. My brother and I had much better luck tying a piece of raw bacon to the end of a string and pulling up scores of crawfish in a quiet slough in the middle of the day.

We’re staying in a large antique filled house from another era. I’m told it didn’t have electricity until after World War II and the gas lighting fixtures are still attached to the walls of the third floor dormitories. The house sits on a finger of land that projects out into the Bay of Fundy where the tides further up the coast can be as large as fifty feet. Here they’re only about six feet but you can see how strong the currents are by the behavior of the sea weed and the way the current ripples around the rocky reefs.

Yesterday we drove up the coast to Digby and Annapolis Royal. A pleasant young gentleman in Digby gave us the quick tourist history of the town. It was named after a British Admiral who rescued British loyalists from “ethnic cleansing” by American revolutionaries during the war for independence. We were proudly shown one of the cannon manufactured by George III and used by the town folk to fire on American ships to protect their precious harbor.

In an effort to learn more about the town we wandered across the street into a used book store and ended up having a very spirited discussion with the proprietor on history, economics and the Wars of Southern Aggression, referring to the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

We continued up the coast and had lunch in Annapolis Royal. Although our intention was to visit the French and English forts we only had enough time to tour the tidal power plant. If we have time tomorrow I plan on going back and taking some video footage.

Aug 11, 2011-9Curious Lizard

Immortal, omniscient and omnipresent. That, you may say, is the domain of god. In the past that would have been a valid response but in the near future it will be the domain of the transcendent human. According to the work of Ray Kurweil, the rate at which the technology of information processing is increasing, the line between computer and human will blur and the two may merge into one augmented human and a globally networked humanity, all knowing and thanks to advances in microscopic medicine and gene therapies, eternal. Dr. Kurzweil refers to this as the Singularity.

In our stories of creation, the divine powers breathed life into man and provided him with his purpose. Food, fire, wisdom and prosperity were the gifts of the gods to be used by humans for their benefit. During the Age of Enlightenment, humans threw off the yoke of divine intervention and replaced it with the scientific method and humanism. With technology mankind has created for itself godlike powers and in a new Age of Enlightenment will throw off the yoke of its flawed humanity.

It is predicted that this new hybrid will represent as great a leap forward in human evolution as the leap from single cell to multicellular lifeforms. There will be no reason to resist hybridization. Those who do will be left behind. Microscopic computers the size of red blood cells will circulate throughout your body. They will alter your genetic code, monitor and modify basic biological functions according to a standardization by a third party. Will this third party own the modifications or will you own them? Your thoughts and emotions once integrated fully into the world wide web will be monitored at their most fundamental level. Who will own your thoughts and emotions? How will you know where “you” end and “other” begins? There is now a push to label genetically modified foods and rightly or wrongly, many people feel that these foods are inferior to foods that have not been altered. Will there be a similar push to label augmented humans? Perhaps non augmented humans will be labeled because they are perceived to be of inferior quality.

We are fortunate to live in a time when we can greatly enhance our quality of life, perhaps even lengthen it simply by choosing one food over another, with restricting our caloric intake and through regular exercise and meditation. We can also choose when we want to interact with the internet and when to turn it off and find a quiet place to read a book or watch the sunset. I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about the Singularity and transhumanism. I think Ray Kurzweil put his finger on it when he said “technology is like fire, it can heat your food and keep you warm but it can also burn down your village.”

The debate rages on, which is mightier, the pen or the keyboard? A flurry of recent articles has been lamenting the demise of handwriting and the inability of the internet generation to read and write cursive script. The arguments don’t simply center on which is the more efficient tool, rather the lines are being drawn over which method of placing ink to page or pixels to screen furthers the creative process, facilitates learning, offers long term benefit to brain development and acts to attenuate the threat of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

As narratives go, this one is straightforward. The pen or stylus has a long and storied history dating back to the cuneiform of the Sumerians and the Epic of Gilgamesh, Linear scripts of the early Greeks, Hebrew, Aramaic, Trajan’s Column and so forth through the italic, Spencerian and Palmer revolutions. Asian cultures have elevated the art of calligraphy to a spiritual practice that ultilizes the Four Treaures of Study consisting of the inkstick, inkstone, brush and paper.

The keyboard on the other hand is criticized as a mechanical process that splits the mental focus into two hands and attention between the keyboard and screen, and as a result the creative process is corrupted. According to this school of thought, the process of manually crafting a letter with the focal point of a single stylus upon the page is a more creative and intellectual process than learning to actuate a letter represented by a key upon a keyboard and that the look of one’s handwriting is a window into one’s character.

A recent article suggests that handwriting differs from keyboarding because is activates Broca’s speech area and two other locations of the brain on functional MRI. In China, brush calligraphy is being used as a treatment for attention deficit and moods disorders and a large study performed in Hong Kong has found that elderly persons who engaged in regular cognitive activities including both writing and keyboarding suffered significantly less age related dementia and cognitive decline. One of the outcomes of this research is that we now understand that we process the language of words and letters differently than we process symbolic logographic language. An early form of Chinese language called Kanji uses symbols to convey ideas rather than individual letters. The more modern system of writing that uses individual letters is called Kana. This is significant because it was found that individuals who suffered damage to their language center by a stroke were able to continue to communicate with Kanji but not Kana.

Proponents of handwriting argue that the focus necessary to form letters and words in the mind and produce them in a beautiful display on paper is a satisfying healthy practice. I agree. Handwriting is a wonderful satisfying way to communicate. One of my great joys is using fountain pens to take notes, prepare articles and narratives and to maintain my notebooks and journals.

Information from the scientific and health care communities doesn’t let us pick a winner between pens and keyboards. Both are effective methods of communication, both seem to help stave off the ravages of cognitive decline and both have produced brilliant works of art. As in all things, for there to be a benefit, you have to put in the time and the effort necessary for it make a difference.

It has been immortalized in poetry by Longfellow and was once a secret destination for celebreties. When Christy and myself were looking for an interesting day trip from Puerto Vallarta, somebody recommended San Blas. It was a place with a rich history and authentically old world Mexico. Driving to the sleepy seaside town from Puerto Vallarta took about three hours along smooth highway as well as rutted rural roads. At first San Blas reminds you of a town whose better days are well behind it, you might be tempted to drive by or simply visit the ruined cathedral and customs house on a hill overlooking the town. After speaking with the locals we realized that the condition of the town was primarily due to a series of devastating storms.

We elected to begin our exploration of San Blas by walking into the historic Hacienda Flamingo`s Hotel. This hotel is a beautiful landmark built in 1883 and filled with antiques arranged around a central courtyard and fountain. We spoke to the pleasant young woman at the reception desk about the town. During our conversation she gave us the name of a popular restaurant down the street. We walked down the block and around a construction crew to find Wala Wala restaurant. Our waitress was Paloma and we ordered a lunch of quesadillas, rice , vegetables, and chipotle chicken in a creamier sauce than the typical smokey tomato sauce we find in the States. The food was simply fantastic, much better than the tourist fare found in Puerto Vallarta and better than any taqueria I normally frequent in California.

Pedro, the proprietor of Wala Wala came over to chat with us about San Blas and local tourism and he highly recommended the three hour jungle cruise just outside town, especially if we wanted to see the native birds and alligators. Pedro also told us of a beautiful waterfall. Daylight was burning and we didn’t have enough time to tour and still make it back to Puerto Vallarta by nightfall so we elected to do the jungle cruise and see the waterfall on our next trip. Until then, this fun vintage video of San Blas will keep a smile on my face, and I hope yours as well.

Curious Lizard is so very pleased to feature a set photos taken by Christina Warren on her trip to the World Expo in China earlier this year. Christina is adept at using the High Dynamic Range photography technique to push the boundaries of composition and exposure. Enjoy.

I’ve spent the past two days making minor changes to this blog and adding several new photos to My Flickr Stream. There was a level of frustration with my previous Flickr widget that kept giving error messages. I think the new widget it pretty cool and easy to use.

I’m still traveling but had few minutes to post this:

I flew to Florida last Thursday 06/17/2010 and on the leg from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale we traveled over the site of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. This was unexpected but I did manage to take a couple of quick grab shots of the fires from the window of the plane as we passed overhead. The intensity of the fires was remarkable in the twilight and loud gasps came from everyone on board who was able to see them. From our perspective at 37,000 feet it appeared as if the brilliance of the flames was reflecting off the flotilla of surrounding ships.

These photos are straight out of my camera, no post processing.