delta_november

delta_november @ 2009-12-30T20:36:00

2009-12-30T07:36:15Z

I have been instructed, on implied threat of domicilary arson, to post pictures. Here they are. When I have time I will attempt to back-fill with words.

Our Christmas dinner, courtesy of hotel room service.

Roadsign madness. Yes, the train track really does run right through the middle of the roundabout. It's an uncontrolled level crossing.

A famous sheep-eating kea. Nasty little things!

The Fox Glacier, seen from the side.

On the glacier. Steps are cut daily with ice picks. We were wearing half-crampons, and wielding alpenstocks.

Me. This picture was not posed. I quite like it.

% Feelings are important. So is laundry. %

2009-12-28T07:18:25Z

In Fox Glacier. Tomorrow at 0750 we begin to climb it. Should be fun. 14 years ago I did the Frans Joseph Glacier which is just down the road.

Mt Cook and Mt Tasman dominate the skyline, but we have low cloud such that you wouldn't realize we were in the mountains. Every once in a while there's a little window that pops open to reveal snow caps. In a way it's nice, as it makes you appreciate each little bit of the scene on its own.

Laundry is done. It's the usual travelling maneuver of wearing as little as possible while doing laundry, such that the maximum number of things are washed.

% I've got electric light, and I've got second sight %

2009-12-27T07:26:23Z

Reefton has somewhat redeemed itself. At dinner tonight RUN-DMC was on the stereo, and our server was a perky goth.

I've been doing a little reading about the latest air travel security theater. My flight back passes through LAX, so I expect to experience this in its full foolishness. Exciting!

delta_november @ 2009-12-27T17:31:00

2009-12-27T04:31:56Z

Tonight finds out heroes in Reefton. This town is proud to have been the first with electricity south of the equator. From then on, it all seems to have been down-hill. It's fundamentally a mining town with no working mine. The hostel is serviceable, but damp-smelling and cramped. There's a young lady on the main street who is trying so very hard to be Amanda Fucking Palmer.

Yesterday was Renford, which was very pleasant indeed. Vinyards look pretty so long as you don't have to do any manual labour in them. On the way out we passed through Nelson which is also nice. It has a gellato place which reminds me of home. It also has some formal Japanese gardens which try very hard but don't hold a candle to Hamilton.

Tomorrow we head out to Fox Glacier for two nights. Glaciers and rainforests -- two great tastes now in one package! We have a half-day guided hike on the glacier booked, and will likely wander through the forests on our own. And laundry, because it's getting towards that time.

delta_november @ 2009-12-25T21:13:00

2009-12-25T08:13:14Z

The best things in life are free. We've made two wonderful free discoveries in the past few days. The first is Hamilton Gardens. This is a massive garden complex, with very well maintained themed gardens. http://www.hamiltongardens.co.nz/ You could happily spend a day here.

The second is the Te Papa museum in Wellington. http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/pages/default.aspx This is the museum with the famous colossal squid. It also has a heart-breakingly beautiful marae.

Shown above is a Christmas tree decked out in tiny colossal squid. It's Christmas Evening here on the far side of the dateline. For many of you it's just beginning. Have a good one! And watch out for the squid...

delta_november @ 2009-12-23T08:02:00

2009-12-22T19:02:31Z

For niqdanger , the Land Rover report. So far in North Island New Zealand I've seen two series Rovers. One was a 109" station wagon at the side of the road not far from Mitimiti. This is pretty close to the middle of nowhere, and is almost certainly a farm truck. The second was more interesting. Riding the ferry north from Rawene we see a Series 3 88" on the far side of the harbour towing a big boat on a trailer. As the ferry gets closer to the landing the Rover starts backing down the slip -- the same one that our ferry is about to dock at. The boat is launched. At this point I'm thinking that if the driver's buddy hops takes the boat out right now they might just avert disaster. But no, the driver is alone. He launches the boat, then hops into the Rover and drives it up the slip. Then runs back down to the water like a madman, hops into the boat, and frantically attempts to start the engine. It finally sputters to life, and clears the slip before the ferry can crush it. I'm not really a nautical cove, but I would guess the boat was 15'. It had a rack of tiny anchors along one side. I assume it was something akin to a lobster boat, and that there was some species of trap attached to each anchor that he intended to plant out in the harbour. So he may repeat this operation every tide. It was interesting to see a Series being used professionally. I wonder if that's the cure for shipfitter's disease, having your livelihood depend on the truck running each day.

% And that's how I get my tail %

2009-12-22T05:31:17Z

Maori mermaids. This is the doorway over the ware runanga (meeting house) at Waitangi. We had an excellent breakfast this morning at the cafe in Kohukohu, then drove to Waitangi, then Auckland. A long drive was made much longer by an accident that closed the major highway forcing us onto an alternate.

Tonight we will head out into town to get a nice dinner that does not include a meat pie. Thai, possibly. The plan for tomorrow is to drive to Taupo and soak in some geothermal hot springs. Then Thursday we drive to Wellington. On Christmas we rest, and possibly find somebody to cook us turkey.

Edit:
I now know a little more about Maori symbology. The webbed feet may in fact not represent fantastic sea creatures, but instead represent generations yet-unborn. So this could be interpreted as a hope for fertile daughters who will continue the family into the future.

delta_november @ 2009-12-21T21:27:00

2009-12-21T08:27:40Z

Finally, some thinking beyond "Here's what I had for lunch today."

When we introduce those we love to anything (or equally anyone) that we love, there is risk. The outcome that we hope for is that they share in this wonderful thing, we grow closer, and and we feel validated in our tastes.

It doesn't always work like that. I've been at The Treehouse for the past couple days with Dr. and Mr. MN. We came here because as a 19 year-old backpacker it was a beautiful place. As I wrote in a letter then, it was Rivendale. But it is clearly not everbody's cup of tea. There are other guests here. Sometimes they smoke on the balconies. Food sometimes goes missing from the shared refrigerator in the kitchen. It is a hostel, with all that that carries.

Sadly this cannot be undone. I cannot unvisit this place for a second time and keep my earlier memories pristine. To live, and to love, is to risk.

delta_november @ 2009-12-21T10:13:00

2009-12-20T21:13:07Z

For cszego , the waterfall:

I regret that there was no swimming. The pool at the bottom looked a few feet deep. A luxurious bath, but not really swimmable.

delta_november @ 2009-12-20T22:02:00

2009-12-20T09:02:12Z

Today, a day trip out of The Treehouse. The roads here are crazy. They are two lane maximum, often dropping to one lane shared between both directions at bridges and washouts. The forest comes right to the edge of the road, and so tight turns have very little visibility. I've been driving around 60 kph, white-knuckle. The speed limit is 100 kph. Madness!

Today's expeditions included the world's largest Kauri trees, a beautiful waterfall and associated pool that would have been perfect for nymph infestation, and a beach littered with huge spherical concretion boulders. It's been all very educational and improving, but hard work. Tomorrow will be dedicated to sloth, I think. Reading and lazing, punctuated by a lunch-time trip to the bright lights of Kohukohu for a fry-up.

On Tuesday we will leave the Northlands and head south. Details are unclear, but we will spend Christmas day in Wellington and cross the Cook Strait on the ferry early on Boxing Day.

delta_november @ 2009-12-20T07:38:00

2009-12-19T18:38:26Z

Twelve months ago I posted this: http://delta-november.livejournal.com/100595.html. I had no idea at the time that this morning I would wake up there.

Lemons are ripening on the trees. Bees are buzzing (I hadn't remembered the hives from before). Sheep and ducks and roosters are making their own appropriate noises. All is well.

Cultural observations

2009-12-18T19:10:42Z

It's 0800 on Saturday, and we're packing up in preparation for a drive to the fleshpots of Kohukohu (*). Groceries have been bought, including a podule of UHT milk for tomorrow's breakfast. I feel like I'm right out of Cryptonomicon.

The hostel has little packages of Marmite next to the jam and peanut butter on the breakfast buffet. This is civilized! Also, stores here sell hair-care products for non-mutants. In Canada every shampoo seems to advertise for "dry hair" or "coloured hair" or whatever. Here I have a bottle labeled "For Normal Hair."

Soon I will be out of Auckland into the mangrove swamps and orchards of the north, and hope to have more profound observations on the universe than "Consumer products are somewhat different here, but Wendy's still has a Baconator promotion. And Coca-cola is made with sugar cane instead of corn syrup."

(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohukohu,_New_Zealand
It was my favourite place on Earth when I was 19. I hope it hasn't changed.

Auckland

2009-12-18T02:17:28Z

I got on the first plane at 1400 on Wednesday. I stepped off the last plane at 0600 on Friday. It's now 1500, I've just taken a shower, and humanity is slowly restoring itself.

Travel went well, if unavoidably long. We took the shuttle bus downtown, dropped our bags at our lodgings (Aspen House) and wandered off to the Auckland museum to kill time. The museum was interesting, even if I'm not in the best state to absorb right now. There was a natural history gallery presenting the traditional Maori taxonomy. Just as they have oral tradition of human family trees going back to the first canoes, so they have oral traditions of relationships between living things. Kauri trees and sperm whales are closely related in the family of big things.

At 1400 we could finally check into our room. The plan is to take a bit of a nap, and then shop for supplies and find some supper. Tomorrow we get the car and hit the road. The left side of the road. Yielding to oncoming traffic that is turning right when we want to turn left. It'll be glorious.

5 hours down, 14 to go!

2009-12-17T02:02:26Z

Made it from YYZ to YVR. Boarding now for the big one...

Proust again

2009-12-08T05:13:02Z

For my sins, I have started the third and final volume of Proust. For me, reading Proust is an introspective process. Marcel thinks a thought, and spends dozens of pages expounding upon it. There's no way to brush past it; the reader is forced to consider the thought too. I find myself asking "What do I think about this? Have I thought this thought before?"

At the moment I'm at the start of The Prisoner. For those who haven't read it, allow me to briefly summarize Proust in its relevant details. Marcel is a sickly boy of independent means. He is sent for a season to the seaside town of Balbec. He spends his first few weeks admiring a group of girls playing on the beach. He imagines what it might be like to talk to them, to play with them, but they seem so far beyond his reach.

Events pass (slowly!), he becomes one of the group, and he takes Albertine as his lover. Then, worried that she is sleeping with everybody else, he takes her with him to Paris where she knows nobody and he can better control her life. Then he spends a lot of time musing about how Albertine was most desirable when she was unknown, and of no interest now that he knows all about her.

I am not Marcel, of course, and I am grateful for it. Marcel's actions in trying to control Albertine are despicable. But I do find some parallels to my life. In particular, there were two times when I have been metaphorically on that beach in Balbec: alone, in a new place, gazing off at the beautiful popular people. These were the first weeks of high school, and the first weeks of my university undergraduate. My Albertines were JR and LP respectively. I distinctly remember thinking of both "She's popular, beautiful, and she doesn't even know I exist." [I was a teenager. I never reached Marcel levels of self-pity, but we all come close.]

Now, decades later, JR and LP are both my dear friends and are mentioned from time to time in this journal. And the final Proustian parallel is that they have almost completely removed themselves from the contexts in which I first admired them. Their cliques are gone and forgotten, and of the two or three friends that they have kept from that setting I am one. I have not jealously removed them, but nevertheless they have left their Balbecs for a metaphorical Paris.

% It's been five years since third age began %

2009-11-08T04:49:47Z

This evening jo_etal and I finished watching Babylon 5. It's taken us about a year to plug through a total of 110 episodes. It's not perfect, but I'm very glad that we did it. I much prefer this sort of thing to trying to watch a series in realtime as it comes out.

I'm not sure what might be next. I have a crazy desire to watch Lexx from beginning to end, but I know that you can never go back...

[A wonderful quote from the Lexx Wikipedia page:
Not originally produced for a US network, the series features more sexual innuendo and nudity than audiences in the United States are generally accustomed to seeing in non-premium programming.]

delta_november @ 2009-10-31T12:20:00

2009-10-31T16:23:29Z

I'm very tempted to drop by WindyCon this year. If I fly in on Saturday morning and back on Monday morning (not ideal times, but acceptable) I can get flights for $79 each way.

I believe that netmouse and ctrlalttabby may be coming. Anybody else I know who will be there?

Free morning in Vancouver

2009-10-10T12:35:12Z

It's 0530 local, and I'm awake and dressed. My flight back to Toronto leaves at 1330, which doesn't leave much time to do anything civilized. And so I'm off to climb Grouse Mountain instead. I'm not optimally prepared. My only footwear is a pair of worn-out Doc Martin shoes. Could be better, but I'm sure it could be much worse. If I survive I'll post my time :-).

Edit: Now at YVR, using their terribly slow free WiFi. My Grouse Grind time is 70 minutes. Not wonderful, but not terrible either. If I did it more I'd get the pacing better. I did a lot of sprint-and-rest, and I think slow-and-steady is a better route.

I still have 2 hours before my flight. Time to find some lunch!

Books I have read

2009-10-04T18:33:53Z

I have just finished reading an interesting series of novels:

The Cornelius Quartet by Michael Moorcock, purchased used. This consists of:
- The Final Programme
- A Cure for Cancer (which I had read last summer, and did not re-read)
- The English Assassin
- The Condition of Muzak
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, a gift from KD
Anathem by Neal Stephenson, courtesy of leftofcool 's gift
Transition by Iain M. Banks, thanks again to leftofcool

It's an interesting arc. Little Brother is, for me, a very personal book. It echoes my late teens when I ran with the Cypherpunks, porting crypto to new platforms, fighting shadowy forces, and generally saving the world. The other three novels are various takes on the Multiverse.

Everything that Moorcock writes revolves around the Multiverse. In essence he has only one story, and his career has been to write subtle variations on that. Some dismiss him for that, but I respect it. It echoes other variation-stories, such as the mummer's plays.

Anathem is a hard sci-fi look at quantum parallel worlds. Well, mostly hard sci-fi. The very act of transition between worlds is glossed over. I can get behind that too -- anything Stephenson said on the subject would just be technobabble so why bother. But transition is a monumental undertaking, and occurs only once in the book.

Transition, on the other hand, concerns a society that moves between worlds frequently. In Banks' tradition it's also extremely nasty in places. Not a book to read before bed. Where A Song of Stone looked at the significance of consent in sexual violence, Transition explores the similarities between gentle sex and torture. In both, one individual takes care to induce certain sensations in another. They often claim to be selfless in these acts, unconcerned with personal gratification or disgust. But how often is this true?

In the first sentence of Transition, the narrator announces his or her unreliability. There are elements of the book that are inconsistent. The question then, is what is true? Are some inconsistencies the fault of the narrator, or is the whole tale a confabulation?

First, I'm confused by flitting. Here a person moves to another world by taking over the consciousness of a body already in it. Their own body is left a mindless husk while away. So there is general conservation of bodies between worlds. Small items can be brought during the transition by those sufficiently talented. But then we have scenes where the characters have transitioned to lifeless post-apocalyptic worlds. Who's bodies are they inhabiting?

Then, there is Septus, the drug that enables flitting. In anatomy, a "septum" is tissue dividing one space from another. "Septus" is then a fitting name for a drug that allows the membrane between worlds to be penetrated. The origin of Septus is left mysterious in the book. But Adrian, in his ode to cocaine, mentions as one of the potential drawbacks that the long-term user can lose their nasal septum as well as become paranoid. Coincidence? Or did patient 8262 simply do too much cocaine and imagine the rest of the story?

Happy news

2009-10-03T04:15:42Z

It's been a bit of a day, with subcontractor cost overruns suddenly destroying my vacation budget. This makes me sad. But there is happy news. For those of you who know her: JMN is now Dr. JMN! Her thesis defense was this morning, and it was accepted with zero corrections. So hooray!

delta_november @ 2009-09-26T18:34:00

2009-09-26T22:35:06Z

I have to say, Phobos-Grunt wins my best spacecraft name award for the decade.

Nuit Blanche

2009-09-20T00:57:38Z

Nuit Blanche is Saturday, October 3. Who's with me?

delta_november @ 2009-09-05T22:15:00

2009-09-06T02:23:11Z

Today I'm reading Stephenson's Anathem. This passage spoke to me:

"An Atlanian Liaison." Named after a Decenarian fraa of the Seventeenth Century A.R. who saw his true love for ten days every ten years and spent the rest of the time writing poems to her and sneaking them out of the math. They were really fine poems, carved in stone some places.

-- Anathem, p. 69 of the paperback edition.

In many ways this is an excellent metaphor for my life. So many of the people that I care about are far away, or are close but difficult to meet. And so I see them for a few days each year, and in the meantime write a whole lot of (not very poetic) emails. I carve no stone, but I will often machine shiny metal for these people.

delta_november @ 2009-09-04T17:22:00

2009-09-04T21:24:04Z

They made a movie of this? I must see it!

I recently finished reading the Cornelius Quartet. It's quite a trip. I would acuse it of ripping off Gravity's Rainbow, except that it was written first...

Where did it all go wrong?

2009-09-01T05:33:11Z

It is 1:30 AM, and I am at work. I expect to be here for another hour.

This is ridiculous. I'd be well within my means to go sit on a beach and not work another day in my life. So why am I here?