Wednesday, September 27, 2006

frustration

Argh...blogging is far from perfect. I've been trying all day long to post pictures and a blog entry with no success. I've noticed that this happens from time to time. It still bothers me. You get wht you pay for, i guess.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Public Opinion

Two votes for a flickr site later, Our Hero decided to bow to peer pressure. He has finished the process of uploading the first three pictures. You can access them here.

Oh, and thanks for all the great birthday wishes and compliments on the party. It was such a success that I may even do it again sometime.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Photo site?

Someone asked me today if I have a Flickr photosite. I don't because I post photos here and on my travel blog. But I thought maybe I should ask you, my readers, what your opinion is. Should I set up a flickr site that allows you to see more of the photographs that I take? I like posting some photos here to break up the monochromy of this blog. But I could just as easily set up a site devoted specifically to pictures. I like to be able to write long captions or even incorporate photos into blog entries. But maybe you would rather I post the photos elsewhere so you don't have to wade through my endless yammering just ot see some new pictures from Iceland or of my family. The BIONerdics have their own flickr site and for those of you who haven't seen it, it's worth a look...even if you don't know them. They take some great photos. You can see them by clicking here.

Friday, September 22, 2006


Ingi and Hrönn. Nice photo, but I didn't take it.

Guðjón, but not My Guðjón

 
This is one of my newish friends. His name is Guðjón-he's called Gaui (which is pronounced Goyi in Iceland). He's a mellow quiet guy, but boy can he look scary when he wants to do so! I did not take this picture, either. Posted by Picasa

Do You Notice the Aroma?

Another day of perfect weather and no AUV with which to take the photographs I need for my project.  
Last night the year’s first frost formed on the plants in my yard.  I’ve always liked frost.  I remember walking to school when I was a kid and stopping to stoop down to look at the amazing patterns that for in the ice crystals on leaves and blades of grass.  Later in the winter, I could just move aside the curtain in the tiny single-pained window at the head of my bed to see frost swirls and inflorescences on the glass.  Today I pointed it out to my son and I hope that he paid attention to it as he was walking to school with his mother.  I’m a real “take time to stop and smell the roses” kind of guy.  Life goes by at such a pace most of the time that we finish a week still thinking it’s Monday.  Weeks pile up in a blur as we race to finish assignments and cook and clean and do all the things we supposedly have to do.  Then, all of a sudden we’re getting ready for the New Year’s Eve.  And where did the time go?  So, I try to take notice of the passage of time.  I certainly don’t notice every minute.  I do waste a lot of time.  But I think more often than most people, I stop to notice something along the way.  That’s part of what my inspiration for photography.  It’s strange though, that as I write about this idea of paying attention and trying to immortalize things in memory and photographs I’m forced to remember that I have no photographs of my friends from the university I attended in the States.  My friend Paul-who is about the only one with whom I am still in contact-is one of those people.   I don’t know of a single photograph in my collection of him.  
So, if I’m taking note of things around me, why not the people as well?  I have lots of memories of these people-the ones that really matter, anyway.  I remember countless hours of gaming with Paul and the others.  Those memories always put a smile on my face.  Those were really good times and I won’t forget them.  In the fantasy world in my mind, I still dream of meeting up with the whole crew-Joe, Bill, TJ and Paul-for one last gaming session sometime before we die…if we are, in fact, all still alive.  I once thought it would be fun to get together in our nursing home to relive some of the old day’s adventures and disturb all of the other old folks at the wrinkle farm.  But I know that won’t happen…and I’m not even sure that I would really want it to happen.  
I’m facing another birthday.  I’ll be 34 on Sunday.  I think that’s great.  I joke about being old and whatnot but the truth is that aside from my back hurting all the time because I’m too lazy to exercise the way I should I don’t feel much different than I did ten years ago.  I still feel like I have a long future ahead of me.  I understand more now than I did then, but I really feel healthy and young.  I like my life and I think part of that content that I feel is because I stop to notice things that bring small pieces of happiness.  Like the aroma of roses and the smiles of friends.

Friday, September 15, 2006

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Man's Contribution

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Lichens-Moss-Wood

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Shipwreck

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Staðarborg

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Upsidedown Lollipop

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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Change of Plans

Unfortunately, the trip to Norway I had planned is going to have to be cancelled.  My project-analyzing benthic communities using an AUV-requires good weather and the likelihood of getting good weather is constantly decreasing as winter draws near.  So, in order to be sure not to miss opportunities to go out to sea early in October I have to cancel my planned attendance of a 10-day seminar in Norway.  This is really a downer, but it’s a sacrifice I have to make to ensure that I’m doing my best to get the project under way.  
Today  I went with a friend out to look at the possibility of doing a smaller project analyzing the populations living in a mud flat near my home.  It turns out that the mud is far more coarse than I thought and we’ll have to rethink our plan.  But the good news is that we found two of the species that have been identifies as new to Iceland (although they are common in other areas of the ocean-isn’t global warming fun?).  One is a polychaete worm-your basic seaworm-that builds a little (8-10”) tube by cementing grains of sand or sediment together.  The other is a sand shrimp it’s a cute little bugger that sits in the sand at low tide and is easily filtered out with a fairly coarse filter.  

Monday, September 11, 2006

Thoughts in a Bog of Planning and Expectations

Have I been neglecting my adoring public?!  Don’t take it personally, I’ve just been thinking about other crap lately than writing.  One thing I’ve been doing lately is to try to find a boat and captain to take me and my submarine out onto the great green briny for a megabenthos photo shoot.  That entails calling all over the place to try to convince someone to sail 40 nautical miles southwest of Iceland for very little pay.  The real problem with this is that it would take probably a total of 12 hours to do what I need to do in perfect weather.  The weather lately is far from perfect.  I just had a peek at the forecast for today, tomorrow and Wednesday (the day we are trying to go out) and it does not look good.  Why does this part of the world have to be so danged windy?!  Wind means waves and waves mean we can’t go.  The captain I found was already somewhat taken aback when, after he’d agreed to do this for me, he looked at a map and saw how far out we need to go.  I’m at his mercy, now.  He’s the captain and says whether the weather is good enough for the voyage or not.  
So, that’s one thing that’s been consuming my thoughts lately.  The other thing-a more major one, I guess, is that the wife is pregnant again.  Yup, I know, the last time, it ended unfortunately and I had to let everyone know.  But this time everything looks to be going smoothly.  We saw that the little critter has two arms and two legs and is the right length for this stage of development.  We’re going for a retard test on Thursday.  That is, they now scan the image with an ultrasound and then measure the thickness of the occipital portion of the skull to see if an amniocentesis is necessary.  The thicker the skull, the more likelihood of Down’s Syndrome or some other brain defect.  I must say that childbirth is a form of torture I would gladly live out the rest of my life without witnessing again.  But I guess the reward makes it worth it.  So, I’ll be in the delivery room again in the end of March to hope that it will all be over as soon as possible.  Then, the 18 years of heavy responsibility start.  That’s the part that I can deal with.  

I went to my first political dinner two nights ago.  It was great fun.  Imagine, Our Hero, rubbing shoulders with the likes of the mayors of the local towns and sitting across the table from the congressman for our district!  Well, I guess it’s not so strange considering that the wife is on the board of selectmen.  I’d better get used to this; she really likes to get into politics with these guys.  We had a nice meal that started with skewers of lobster and scallops on a bed of risotto.  The main course was grilled lamb medallions with mashed sweet potatoes and five string beans (yeah, I counted!  I love string beans and was looking forward to a healthy portion, but instead I got five).  Dessert was a tooth-achingly sweet chocolate mousse tart with some kind of crunchy bottom on mango-ginger chutney with wild berry sauce.  Yellowtail cabernet sauvignon was free-flowing.  I turned down the cognac-which turned out to be a wise choice when I woke up the day after without any bodily reminders of the evening’s drink.  Though I like the taste of cognac, that Frog booze sits like two pounds of cement in the gut for a good 24 hours!  
But, I digress.  I get to thinking of food and suddenly, my mouth controls my brain-and, therefore, my thoughts-and suddenly it’s like I’m writing a review for Food and Wine magazine or something.

Other than those two things-the impending baby and the AUV project-my thoughts have been wandering very little of late.  
But I wonder, now that I’m thinking of something else, what’s the weather like in South Korea?  My friend Paul, the one who comments on this site, lives there and I wonder what life is like for him. He’s got a very cute daughter whom I’ve never met and a lovely wife who made me feel welcome from the first moment I met her.  They live there, in a city with a population larger than that of the country in which I live.  They eat really good food everyday (again with the food!).  They are surrounded by a language that is foreign to me.  They are exposed to a radically different experience of reality than I.  Fun to think about where people are and what they’re doing now.  It would be fun to be able to just fly off to visit on a whim.  But I think that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.