Madang - Ples Bilong Mi

A New Library of Articles

MadDog — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:35:36 +0000

For some time I have been thinking about collecting all of the magazine articles which I have written and making them available here on Madang – Ples Bilong Mi. Today, I got myself in gear to start the process. The work is slightly complicated and time consuming. First I have to scan the magazine pages into a compact PDF file. Then I have to get the first spread into an image file. Then I have to go through a process in WordPress that is ridiculously complicated. I want both the link and the thumbnail image to point to the same PDF file on my server in the USA. You would think that WordPress would make this easy. Maybe I took too many Stupid Pills last night when I started working on it.

The first article that I tried was Heart of the Hunter. from Niugini Blue magazine. You should be able to click on the link or the thumbnail image below to get a new window or tab. It may take a while for it to load, but if you have Adobe Reader on your computer, you can then read the article. The file is about a megabyte, so be patient.

Since that one seemed to work after two hours of fiddling, I decided to add a couple of more while I was on a roll.

This is about diving at Planet Rock. a location about which you have seen many posts if you are a regular reader.

Though it is one of our favourite locations, it is a little farther out and if the sea is rough it can be an unpleasant experience.

The last one for today is The Green Dragon. This is the B-25 Mitchell bomber near Wongat Island.
I hope to find a neater way of doing this. I plan to have a section in the sidebar for Articles, but I haven’t figured out how to get the PDF files over there. It should be child’s play.

Unfortunately, I’m no longer a child.

Funky Art

MadDog — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:51:38 +0000

Yesterday, Trevor Hattersley came around to my office with a flash drive containing some pictures which he and Karen got at The Henley Festival at Henley on Thames in jolly old England. Trev wanted to see if I could fix some exposure problems and generally doll the images up. As usual, I said no worries, as long as I could use them for fish relief on Madang – Ples Bilong Mi.

But first, let me show you last evening’s sunset:

The glow of the ship’s lights on the right is a nice balance to the fiery cloud tops on the left in the Southern sky.

Apparently one can’t get into The Henley Festival without a coat and tie. I still do own one tie, though I haven’t worn it for at least a decade. It’s one of those skinny ones from the mid ’60s. The colour is a dark, reddish maroon. I could probably still tie a Windsor knot, with a little practice, but where am I going to wear it? I’m saving it for when I die. I want to lie in state in my Lt. Dangle short jeans, a black Harley Davidson t-shirt and my skinny tie around my neck tied with a bit, fat Windsor knot. Anyway, here are Karen and Trevor looking like a fashion model who has brought her sheep dog along to the party:

Trevor will give me some lip over that remark, because my hair is possibly even longer than his. I never thought that Trev really looked like the person that he is until he let his hair grow out and let it go a little wild.

Also at the party was Claire Hodgkinson, who was bridesmaid at Karen and Trevor’s wedding. Trevor told me that the pebble encrusted pony in this shot was going for £200,000 (or maybe it was £20,000, I’m not sure). That’s a lot of bread for something that’s going to end up in the attic gathering dust after a couple of decades:

The festival include an incredible variety of entertainments. There are bands and famous solo artists of all sorts, artworks scattered about, fashion contests and fireworks, to mention just a few distractions.

Since whimsy is my thing, I am particularly attracted to this Wire Woman. However, I don’t care much for the chair:

The problem is that she takes up too much space. Unless you had a house the size of Bill Gates’, where would you put her? It’s not like you can hang her on the wall. I suppose that you could create a conversation nook where friends could sit around with you and make witty, unkind remarks about her as if she weren’t there. One thing that you would definitely want to do is to keep her well clear of electrical outlets.

The entire event came within a hair’s breadth of a tragic end when poor Trev, wine glass in hand, was viciously attacked by this Stainless Steel Horse:

Fortunately, Trev had had the presence of mind to shake his head violently and roar. The horse mistook him for a lion in disguise and fled the scene. I’d love to go to The Henley Festival some day to soak up some culture. But I’d have to borrow some clothes.

To knock this one off and get to work, I’ll finish up with this ultra-funky image conglomerated by our Guest Shot artist Lindsay Smith:

It’s a bizarre amalgamation of a bit of my own Dubious Art (a headlamp of our Nissan Navara) with a sketch of me in my Cherokee braids, Space Cowboys sunglasses and black fedora hat.

I don’t know what to make of it. It’s a little scary.

No Sunrise

MadDog — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:44:03 +0000

Of course, I don’t mean that literally. The sun did come up this morning. The resulting light show was very subdued, but it had a power of its own, so it seemed worth capturing. Ordinarily, this gloomy display would urge me into a similar mood. I seem strangely unaffected by it today, though I know that Eunie will complain, “It reminds me of winter.”

After yesterday’s Marathon of babel, my word machine is in recovery mode. Today will be Madang – Ples Bilong Mi Lite. I ran through a few images from the last week and came up with these.

As I was driving past the location of the Arcade fire some time ago I snapped this shot:

The remains of the building are gradually disappearing. If left long enough there will be no expense for removing it. Gradually, bit by bit, every scrap of it will be carried off.

If you look just to the right of the remains of the Arcade in the image above, you will see a vacant lot. That is the former location of the Chemcare pharmacy. After the fire, over a period of months, the lot was picked clean. Here is a shot of our old friend Greg O’Keefe looking a bit glum as his workplace goes up in smoke:

We’ll see how long it takes to have two vacant lots in a row.

On Sunday morning I went over to the beautiful grounds of The Madang Lodge and Restaurant to shoot some family portraits for our friends Jimm and Heidi. They have been absent from Madang for a while, so I’m including this shot so that their friends can see that the family is well and enjoying a visit to Madang:

Getting Keyen to pose is not unlike herding cats. In principle it should work, but in practice . . .

While at The Lodge, I got this nice shot of the Finisterre Mountains across Astrolabe Bay with the swimming pool in the foreground:

The Lodge is one of my favourite spots to get images of friends. The garden is immaculate and a riot of colours.

Reflections

MadDog — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:02:45 +0000

Sometimes I just want to write, to let it flow. One of the things that has to be taken into account when one keeps such a personal disclosure of one’s life open to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the web is that not everybody wants to read the same material. Most of my posts are about things which I feel might be of general interest to a large audience. I try to use the same approach which I would use if I were sitting down to write a magazine article. Foremost in my mind is, “Don’t put them into a deep slumber.” Well, this one might be a slumber number for some, but that’s okay.

I have had some thoughts ruminating in my mind for some time. They have digested now and I’m nourished enough by them to have the chutzpa to put them forth for judgement. So, in no particular order, here they are, some Reflections:

The World – This shot is a bridge in Florence. I chose this series of thirteen photos more or less at random because they gave me images upon which to focus. I’m a very visual person. Images help me to put my thoughts in order. I’ve been blessed by a life situation which has made it possible for me to travel to a great many places. The scenery changes. Some of it is breathtaking, some desolate, even hopeless. What does not change, however, is that most of it is filled with people. The amazing thing about people is that most of them are very much the same. We all have largely the same concerns. Nearly all of us have the same basic values. In every place I have visited I have seen those who were reflections of myself. This is not ego talking here. It is empathy. If all of us are so fundamentally the same, how can there be such strife? As the King said in Anna and the King of Siam, it is “A puzzlement.”

Me – This could not be a MadDog post without, in some way, featuring MadDog. Everybody knows that “blogging” (BLOG – oh, how I hate that nasty four-letter Anglo-Saxon word) is simply an exercise of ego. At least I’m honest about it. Who am I? I don’t have a clue. All that I can know is that I am the sum of everything I have ever thought, done, or hoped for. There is good and bad there in each category. I think that there are few of us who do not wish to be loved and respected. Yet we sometimes act in ways that do not generate those emotions in those with whom we interact. I like to say that I have no regrets in life. This is a lie that I tell myself. Regrets? I have many. Why do we so often act in ways that are not truly in our own self interest. Possibly it is because we don’t understand what truly is beneficial to that end. I do not believe that human beings are naturally perverse. I believe that we are filled with a capacity for love that we simply cannot comprehend. I believe that we are easily confused by what life seems to offer. We see the lies as truth and are seduced by them. Maybe we will grow out of this in a few thousand generations.

Friends – If there’s one thing (probably one of the few things) that I’ve really learned about life it is that relationships are all that ultimately matter. Good fortune, the trappings of the material life, health and even life itself come and go in ways that puzzle us. The only things that we can really control are our relationships. We can treasure them, nurture them and make them blossom and flourish. There is nothing else in life over which we have so much control. Therefore, we must be good stewards of them. All else is like grass. (I can’t take credit for that one. It’s a Biblical reference, slightly out of context.)

That’s my good friend Ian Dosser there examining a particularly fine brew. We seldom see each other these days, but friendship knows no distance or time.

Nature – Nature, which was formerly called, in more gentle times, “Natural History”, but has largely been consumed by the word “science” has always been a comfortable subject for me, though I did not have the patience and discipline to do the math. Yes, I’m a failed scientist. How I got through a university degree in Computer Science is a study of minor miracles. Without the constant tutoring of my old friend Daryoush Khalladeh I would have never gotten through the Calculus. I forgot it all as soon as I passed the course. How, as a person of faith, can I find ease and confirmation in science? Well, it’s simple. I believe in a very, very big God. Nothing that I believe has to be true simply because I believe it. Nothing that I disbelieve must be false simply because I can’t swallow it. I’m “seeing through a glass darkly.” Nature, for me is a reflection of something so big, so profound, so otherly, that it can only remind us of how much we don’t know. This is the great adventure, the great quest for truth about our world.

Family – Having been estranged from my parents for decades and having virtually no relationship with my brother, the very notion of family never acquired its proper dimension in my mind. Eunie’s clan became my surrogate family and I was adopted by them. After reconciling with my parents, I began to realise all that I had missed. There’s an old saying, “You can choose your friends, but you’re stuck with your family”. While true, it is not an excuse for cheating yourself out of the benefits of family. I should have tried harder to be tolerant when I felt rejection. I should have been less prideful. I should have taken the lessons I learned from Eunie’s family and applied them to the situation with my own. It’s sad that I did not do better. At the same time, I’m sad that much of the family seemed as dysfunctional as I. So much sadness . . . This is the last image I have of my father.

For nearly half of my life, while I’ve lived in Madang, my friends have been my family. If a group of friends who are geographically isolated from their biological families can get into this mode of thinking, it can be very rewarding. We love and care for each other as a family. The difference is that we chose each other!

Animals – The relationship which we humans enjoy with animals seems one of the most magical things in life. The interactions with and the emotions I feel concerning my dog, Sheba, are inexplicable. When I’m riding a well-trained horse I feel a shared experience that escapes my ability to describe it. I know that these emotions are well beyond the thinking abilities of dogs or horses. They are simply reacting in ways which are a result of their conditioning. They also have the genetic codes built into them by thousands of generations of breeding to react to us in ways which please us. They really have no choice. Therefore is is our responsibility to be kind to them and respect their nature. In a very real sense they are our creation. They are human-designed artificial animals. They are, if you will, our children.

Fun – What can I say? What would life be with the simple pleasure of play? Often an image speaks better than I can. Here Is my wife, Eunie, surprising our good friend Trevor Hatterrsley with a turn-around shoulder rub. Trevor is famous for his shoulder rubs. Note the hat. It is the same hat that is featured on my noggin in the side bar. Sometimes we have Silly Hat parties. Everyone is required to bring a silly hat or choose one from our growing collection. Enough said.

Moderation – The older I get, the more I think that excesses of nearly every kind, except those regarding love and kindness, are probably bad for me. We have so many gifts from which to choose. All of the good tangible things in life are available to us fortunate ones who live lives of relative comfort and financial security. Learning to partake of this plenty in ways that do not ultimately reduce the quality of my life has sometimes provided hard lessons for me. Another aspect of this is moderation of thought. My first impulse, upon seeing this image was to speak of the balance between optimism and pessimism – the old “half-empty half-full” quandary. This is yet another aspect of moderation. My attitude concerning how life is treating me needs to be balanced between hope and despair. I spent most of my life swinging wildly between the two. I’m blessed now that the swings are less jarring, less disruptive.

Beauty – Ah, beauty. It is no accident that the word came to mind when my eyes were scanning about 2,000 images while I was considering my thoughts for this post. Karen Simmons is a good friend, a lovely lady and the wife of Trevor Hattersley. I had the pleasure of presiding as the Celebrant at their wedding. It was one of the happiest days of my life. This image, though technically imperfect, is one of my all-time favourites and illustrates one small aspect of my concept of beauty. I can’t possibly explain all of the things that fit into the ideal of beauty for me. Certainly, much of the natural world is beautiful. Humans are beautiful – the human form has been celebrated as a focus of beauty since cave men carved Venus figures from stone. As a believer, it is only natural that I find the human form beautiful. Surely the “image of God” creation is not to be taken literally, but why should not the physical form reflect some tiny hint of the magnificence of the maker?

Home – The concept of home is another which came to me late in life. When I was a child, we lived in a house. When school was over for the day, we came “home”. However, to me the concept was ephemeral. I had no attachment to any particular place. Indianapolis, when I was growing up, was a hideous, coal-stinking, socially desolate place. It was highly segregated and racial tensions simmered always just under the lid. Coming to Madang nearly three decades ago modified my concept of home. I have a genuine attachment to a place. Madang feels like home, smells like home, tastes like home. Home is where my woman is. Home is where my friends are. Home is where my nest is made.

Tolerance – If I could pick one trait to erase from the human character, or at least tone it way down, it would be intolerance. I make no secret of my beliefs as a Christian. However, I don’t shove them down your throat either. It may seem odd that I chose this image of a fat-bellied, smiling Buddha half seen through the window of a Vietnamese restaurant in Honolulu with reflections of a hair salon across the hall to illustrate my premise. My babbling on about the evils of intolerance and the suffering which it causes would be not only pointless, but boring. Look at the world around us. How much grief is caused simply because we can’t stand the idea that somebody else has a different view of life or different opinion about some issue than our own? What if we could simply respect each other and focus on the issues on which we agree? The more we can find in common with each other, the easier it becomes to reason concerning our differences.

Everlasting Love – Yes, kiddies, it does exist. I could not possibly wrap up this pathetically sentimental collection of random thoughts without including this image. Keeping love alive for decades is sometimes hard work. But the payoff . . . Wow! There is simply no way you can appreciate the value of it when you’re starting out. Learning so many skills takes a while. Giving in when you know you are right. Forgiving mistakes that break your heart. Accepting forgiveness when you feel you don’t deserve it. Remembering that kindness and love are living, growing things which need constant nourishment. Learning to share, in the depths of the soul, the joys and the despairs of your mate. Much of this does not come naturally to the human heart. It is learned behaviour.

To this list I would add a healthy dose of grim determination. Sometimes the only thing that helps is to remember that a promise is a promise. There is a certain dignity and satisfaction that comes from deciding that you are simply not going to give up. No matter what. Not ever.

And that’s when you know that you are really in love.

A New Fish

MadDog — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:42:42 +0000

Yesterday I took a long overdue holiday from journaling daily. I let my compulsion go and worked on other things. A family portrait session for friends took up most of the morning. I came back and worked on some editing projects in the afternoon, fully intending to read for a while and maybe take a nap. The nap would follow naturally after about fifteen minutes of reading. Neither the reading or the nap eventuated. I ended up working on images for our friend Ush’s article for Niugini Blue called A New Fish. Ush came over to the house and we edited her text and Photoshopped images for the article.

One of the images was from Saturday’s dive on The Henry Leith near Wongat Island. Here is Ush half-way down in the cargo hold:

I asked Ush to write a short article about her experiences while completing her PADI Open Water Diver course. This course covers all the training and knowledge required to allow one to dive safely down to eighteen metres.

The dive on The Henry Leith was Ush’s second dive since finishing the course. I was happy to see that she had been well instructed. She did very well on the dive. I did note that she was fascinated by this Trumpetfish (Aulostomus chinensis):

It and a friend are almost always hanging around the bow area of the Henry. They are very shy. I was lucky to get the shot above when the fish was moving from one bit of cover to another.

They are nearly a half-metre long, so it’s impossible to get fine details in one shot. You have to take a picture of the head:

As you can see, it has a very unusual mouth.

Then you shoot the tail:

The tail is just an unusual as the head.

The Henry Leith is covered with life. This is a large sponge with colonies of coral on each side:

One could probably complete a Doctoral degree by describing the life on this one wreck. I’ve been photographing it for almost twenty-five years and I still find new thing on every dive.

There are some familiar friends, however. This Golden Damsel (Amblyglyphidodon aureus) has been haning around just aft of the cargo hold for several years:

Every time I stop to photograph it, it tries to bite me, sometimes successfully. The red stain on my fingers is not blood. Blood appears green underwater. The colour comes from touching bits of corroded iron while I steady myself for taking shots.

Ordinary Saturday

MadDog — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:02:32 +0000

No Saturday is genuinely ordinary. One never knows what to expect. This one started out with a cheery red sunrise. When I see colour coming in through our front windows I run for my camera. The one thing that I know, regardless of the quality of the colour, is that I’m looking at a brand-new sunrise which nobody else has ever seen before. That’s a pretty cool way to start out the day. Here is a zoomed in shot of the sun rising over Madang town across the harbour from our house:

The close-up view is almost too intense.

Here is a shot of eleven frames stitched together. I covers about 180°:

From about 06:00 to 09:00 I usually work on my post for Saturday. So, after I did these sunrises, I went to work looking for some images. I ran out of time before I could put anything together which wasn’t so discombobulated that it would make you nauseous. Therefore, between the image above and the next one, a half day of diving will have passed.

It is now much later, about 16:00. I’m tired, but before I take a nap, I’ll show you some of our enjoyments of the day.

On the beach at Wongat Island there were a bunch of young boys collecting green coconuts and stripping off the husks. Since we were thirsty for the delicious, sweet fluid inside them, we offered to buy a few from them. While the rest of the boys were scampering up coconut trees to kick a few more down, one boy built a high-jump rig, which you can see at the water’s edge. He repeatedly ran screaming down the beach and jumped over the pole into the water:

In the shot above, he has tired of this entertainment and three of the boys are bringing our kulau (green coconuts) to us.

Here you can see one of the boys handing up a kulau to George. We scrounged together seven Kina to give to the boys. They were extremely happy about that:

We did our dive on The Henry Leith, a 34 metre coastal freighter which started life as a steamer and ended up as a dive attraction. We have all enjoyed many wonderful dives there. You can find dozens of images by clicking on “henry leith” or “The Henry Leith” in the Tags section of the sidebar.

The visibility is never great at this site. Here is a shot which I have not cleaned up at all. I’ve corrected the colour, but have made no effort to remove all of the speckles which obscure visibility. It gives you a very realistic vision of exactly what you would see if you came down with us:

Anything made of iron attracts a lot of life, since the ocean is relatively iron poor. The presence of iron in the water stimulates life.

Speaking of life, this Divericate Tree Coral (Gendronephthya roxasia) is indeed alive, but it look more like an astonishingly beautiful glass artwork:

If you click to enlarge, you’ll see what I mean. A glass artisan who could create something this delicate and beautiful would be world famous. I’d guess it would take years to to it.

Diving with me on Saturday were Geneviève Tremblay and Ushtana Antia. Here you can see Geneviève looking at me with Ush hovering in the background like a guardian angel bestowing a blessing:

We enjoyed many more interesting sights today on The Henry Leith, but now it’s time for a nap.

Flowermania

MadDog — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:20:38 +0000

Today it’s all about flowers, none of which I know the names of, unless you accept “lily” in a generic sense. I know that two of these species have been identified in comments by readers. This is exasperating. I can’t remember the species names so I can’t enter them in the search box to find them. There are now 875 posts here on Madang – Ples Bilong Mi, so it’s impossible to search through them to find the one which had the comment which identified the flower. I’m going to have to figure out a system to go back and tag these reader identifications so that I can find them. This is getting complicated!

I’ll start off Flowermania with this “Crazy White Star Plant”. I’m sure that there is a word for “flower lovers” – something which ends in “philia”, but I can’t find that either. Did I take my stupid pills twice this morning? I can’t remember. Anyway, this is a cool image to click on to see the interesting little bee with his pollen holsters filled with the tasty orange stuff:

You can see an image of the whole plant in Crazy White Star Plant.

Here is one that hasn’t appeared here before, because this is the first successful image which I’ve managed:

Some flower petals are so intensely pigmented that the dynamic range of the camera sensors gets saturated with that certain colour before anything else gets a good dose of light. At least that’s what I think is happening. In an image of such a flower you will see no detail in these oversaturated areas unless you are very careful with your initial exposure and you pay close attention to what you are doing in Photoshop. Getting any detail at all in the red petals of this flower had me trying every trick I know.

This is another flower which I know that some reader has identified, but I can’t find the reference. I think it’s got the word “glory” in it someplace:

They grow in clusters, as you can see here.

This is a single new blossom:

You can see the stamens arrayed out in a six-point star and the pistil sticking out to the right as if it doesn’t know where it’s supposed to go. I suspect that this is an insect pollinated flower.

Here is a blossom a few days old:

If you click to enlarge, you can barely see the developing ovary at the bottom end of the downcurving stem, just behind stamen which is extending down to the right of the flower stem.

I can’t do a post on flowers without including our orange lilies:

As I was wandering around in the garden I found this one leaning up against the trunk of one of our banana trees. It struck me as a very nice composition. Since it cost me nothing, I take it with gratitude.

I was so inspired by this composition of unlikely partners that I felt that familiar compulsion to turn it into fake art. This one is definitely worth clicking on to blow it up:

It came up beautifully using the Poster Edges filter in Photoshop on the full sized image.

I’m not going to do anything as satisfying as that for the rest of the day, I’m sure. So, since today is a holiday and I’m off work and it’s noon (okay, 11:00), I’m going for a beer.

Have an enjoyable Remembrance Day!

It’s Not My Fault

MadDog — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:21:45 +0000

Are there any more dreaded words which must, sooner or later, escape our lips than, “Honey, I wrecked the car.” That’s a rhetorical question. You don’t have to answer it. I admit that I have done worse things, but car wrecks are so mundane. They really shouldn’t even be counted, eh? At least when yesterday’s wreck occurred, Eunie was with me to witness that It’s Not My Fault.

It started like this: Eunie hasn’t been feeling too good for a while (more about that another time – no serious problem), so I drove her to see “Tinpis” (Tok Pisin for tinned fish, a staple of PNG diet), A. K. A. Dr. John Mackerell, probably one of the few people in town who is trusted by everyone, because he knows all of our secrets. He’d make a perfect CÏA Station Chief if somebody else didn’t already have that job.* Anyway, Eunie was with me, so she can testify that It’s Not My Fault.

First I’ll show you the horrid results of the wreck – a brand-new Nissan Navara with a serious pucker in its bum:

But, It’s Not My Fault.

This is the culprit. In front of the doctor’s office, having no marking of any kind, stands in the middle of the parking lot this ugly steel power pole. Dr. Makerell assures me that it has been hit by from fifty to one hundred people. This does not count drunks who are, oddly enough, the ones most likely to miss it, as I shall explain. I’m sure that by simply examining this image you will agree that It’s Not My Fault:

Note that the pedestrian is giving the pole a wide berth. Drunks don’t hit it because drunks only run into what they are looking at. Since this pole is effectively invisible, it is of no concern to the inebriated.

I understand your scepticism. “So, why is It Not Your Fault?” you may be asking. Well, this morning I went back to the scene of the incident to get images which will prove beyond any smidgen of doubt that It’s Not My Fault. I put my Navara back in precisely the same position as it was yesterday morning, leaned over my shoulder and snapped this shot of what I saw out of the back window:

What do you see? I’ll tell you what you see. You see the middle support of the “hang on for your life” frame above the bed of the truck. It’s meant to tie cargo to or for fearless types who like to stand in the back of the truck with their hair flying in the breeze. As you can clearly see, this is a Nissan design flaw and makes the case ironclad that It’s Not My Fault. What you don’t see is the offensive power pole hiding behind it. Also, the rear window is dirty. The combination of rain and dusty roads has obscured vision. Am I in charge of the weather now? No. This is a consequence of natural events. It’s Not My Fault.

I hear you saying, “Nudnick! You didn’t check your rear-view mirror, already.” Oh, but that is very, very wrong. I examined it most carefully. I even have this image as evidence. Do you see anything that looks like a power pole?

I thought not. More evidence that It’s Not My Fault.

The vinegar in the wound comes from the further irony that this is probably the only PNG Power pole in town that has not been painted bright red with a Digicel logo on it. Is it my bad that the crumb-bums at Digicel chose not to bother with this one? Certainly not. It’s Not My Fault.

And, how about PNG Power? It is my understanding that they have been petitioned upon many occasions to do something about this menace. Have they responded to the pleas of the public? Please, give me a break.

No, there is blame aplenty to go around here without me shouldering any of it. Tinpis should have warned me about the murderous pole. Eunie was sitting right there beside me. What? Is she blind? PNG Power put the stinking thing right there where people are most likely to hit it. Then the Digicel dopes didn’t paint it red. Nature messed up my back window which had already been obscured by a serious, possibly fatal design flaw by The Nissan Motor Company.

This is all so very unfair. Now who’s going to have to pay for this mess? The true culprits? No, me! And It’s Not My Fault!

* For as long as I can remember it has been an item of intense speculation and amusement in Madang concerning who or what organization might be spying on us. The very concept is profoundly silly and comical. All one has to do is Google PNG in the CÏA Factbook to see how little interest this infamous organisation has in our pitiful little corner of Paradise. Still, it is a hot topic of conversation. We are critically short of entertainment here. Who might be the current “CÏA Madang Station Chief” is always good for a few laughs.

It’s More Than Purple

MadDog — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:26:24 +0000

Today is a mixed bag. What else is new. Consistency is for those with the patience to organise things. You should see my office. Fortunately, I sleep with the boss (Don’t panic. My wife, Eunie, is my boss at the office . . . okay, forget the office thing . . . she’s my boss.) so I don’t get called on the carpet for having a messy office. Nobody ever comes into the IT Dungeon anyway unless they want something. Therefore, by common sense reasoning, requests that begin with “Whoah, what a mess . . .” are not likely to produce satisfactory results.

I say today’s offering is a mixed bag because it includes a couple of “trophy” shots and some others which could appeal only to fish geeks. By the way I am not a fish geek. I am a fish connoisseur.

The Black Saddled Toby (Canthigaster valentini) has got to be one of cutest little fishies on the planet:

This is one of the trophy shots. I have few images of this fish which come even close to this one. I’d call it a specimen shot. Just about everything you need to know, short of dissecting this fish, is in the image. This makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

Some might think of me as an amateur scientist. While this is oh, so true, (at least the amateur part) my feelings about what I present to you here in my images of the magic of Mother Ocean are more akin to art. Sure, I give you the taxonomic names, when I’m reasonably sure of them. The truth is, aside from the fact that I love the way that Latin rolls off the tongue, I don’t care much about that. What I really care about is combining my life-long love of photography with the adventure of discovery of new (to me) visions of nature and new ways of visualising them.

For instance. This beautiful colony of Bubble Coral (Plerogyra sinosa) seems to me ethereal. I can’t judge how it comes to be. I can’t fathom the mystery of how something that looks like this has a reasoned place in the scheme of things. To me it seems magical:Of course, this is not very scientific thought. As empiricists, we’re supposed to ignore such mystical ruminations. Yet, I can’t escape the idea that when a scientist loses a sense of wonder and ceases to be weighed down by the ponderous yoke of how much we don’t know, any true discoveries will be happenstance. When deliberate seeking beyond the “facts” is abandoned, nothing new will learned. We don’t even know how much we don’t know. Facts lead to more facts. But only seekers find new truths.

UPDATE: I’m taking the unusual step of bringing a comment from my excellent Facebook friend Steven Goodheart into the post as an update, because it is so apropos:

Your thoughts reminded me of these words of the great naturalist, Loren Eiseley,

“In the end, science as we know it has two basic types of practitioners. One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail’s eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle, to intangibles not worth troubling one’s head about.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But, there is a place for the fervent geek. Witness this very ordinary and wildly uninteresting image of three Sevenstripe Cardinalfish (Apogon novemfasciatus):

I guarantee that it will win no prizes. The fish are just a little blurry. Indeed, I had a couple of choices, based on the image, of what to call them. However, I did see them with my eyes and I have seen them hundreds of times. They are just difficult to photograph, because they are tiny and restless. I take a geek’s pleasure knowing that I finally have an image of them. One more fish to check off the endless list. One more tiny model car. One more baseball card. One more comic book. One more Star Trek doll. (Actually, I don’t think that the collectors like it when you call them dolls.)

You get the idea.

Ah, but on to the trophy shots. This is the magnificent (not to be used lightly) Purple Anthea (Pseudanthias tuka):

As any fool can see, it’s not just purple. It’s got a lot of different colours. In natural light (these were taken by flash) it looks more blue. Nevertheless, you can’t miss them. They glow like neon lights. They also have a funny beak-like nose which makes me think of Jimmy Durante.

By the way, here is Jimmy Durante:

See what I mean?

Okay, it’s a stretch, I admit. Anyway here is another trophy shot of P. tuka:

And with that, I am running on empty.

Adios.

The Vain Varicosa

MadDog — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:37:18 +0000

Dont’ try to figure out the title of the post yet. It’s so stupid that you will simply waste your time. I’ll get to it.

Busy, busy, busy. When I went out this morning I was wondering how I was going to cram in all the things that I “had to do” before clocking out. One of them was to take this picture of a sunrise, a very peculiar one:

Frustrated with the violet hue (which, by the way, I saw with my own eyes, but can’t explain), I spent far too much time trying to get rid of it and then decided to leave it, because that’s the way it was. It is not a very good idea to fool with Mother Nature, even when she seems to be fooling with you.

But, getting back to “things I have to get done today”, I really need an attitude adjustment. There are categories:

That which must be done to maintain life (eat, get a little exercise, don’t offend any mobsters, etc.)
That which one must do to keep one’s job or jobs (should be obvious to you unless you are about to be sacked)
That which you would like to do just to show that you’re pulling your load (help with the housework, wash the car, mow the lawn, etc.)
That which you need to do in order to maintain some level of personal satisfaction (this too, you probably already have figured out)

The problem is putting them all into some kind of balance. I still haven’t gotten a handle on that. I probably never will.

So, since this is something which I do to maintain some level of personal satisfaction, I’m going to blow off some of the more essential tasks and show you the source of the ridiculous title of this post. It is a nudibranch, specifically a Phyllidia varicosa, of which you have seen many specimens before:

The title is a stupid pun combining the species name, varicosa, and vain, which we all understand (“You’re so vain – da da da da da da da.”) with varicose veins and don’t ask me why that popped into my mind. So having established what kind of a day it’s going to be, let’s get on with the rest of it.

By the way, I am calling that P. varicosa image a perfect specimen shot. If anybody wants to argue that, then put up your dukes and show that you did better. I’m laying the matter to rest until I get (or I am challenged with) a better one. That’s another brag down for the day. How many do I have left? I’ve lost count already.

Here’s a nice, symmetrical shot of a Fan Coral and a Feather star:

No, I’m not going to say a lot about it. It’ speaks for itself. Let it talk for a few seconds. Pop it up and have a look. Hear anything?

Me neither.

A little gaggle of Shadowfin Soldierfish (Myripristis adusta) were swimming through the notch leading to the catamaran. Having plenty of air and not much else to do, I took a picture of them:

Think of that shot as part of my continuing efforts to demonstrate that not everything under the sea is as exciting and beautiful as you see it on TV.

This is a bit better. These little devils are usually almost impossible to shoot well. The Blackspotted Puffer (Arothron nigropunctatus) is a shy, shy fish:

This is probably the best shot which I have ever gotten of the fat little puppy-like swimmers.

Then, a few metres away, I found another one ducking in and out of a hole:

Another good puffer shot. When you’re hot, you’re hot!

Looking back up at that list, I think that I have to get to work now.