Photos

Pictures from my trip to England have been added to my travel blog.

Impetus to Freedom

One of the reasons I like to keep this blog is that it’s a place for me to reflect on my life.  Some people I know think that I’m strange for wanting to publish my thoughts and feelings on the internet for anyone to read.  But in a way, it’s helpful to get occasional feedback from a variety of people.  This is one of those instances.  I want to write another posting about my realizations of the importance of two specific relationships from my past.  Contrary to what you may think when you read this type of post here in my little corner of the world I’m not writing this out of a longing for things to be as they were or for a replacement for what I have now.  I am completely happy in my life now as it is and I don’t regret much of anything in my past.  
Most of the time, when I think of my life my friends come into my thoughts because, as I’ve said before, everyone I get close to manages to teach me something or shape me in some way.  Since I feel good about who I am now I think fondly of those who helped me get here.  I’ve written about friends that I’ve had and that’s not caused much scandal.  But today might prove otherwise; we shall see.
I got to thinking about two of the romantic relationships I’ve had the day before yesterday.  I committed the crime of watching what I consider to be a terribly romantic movie and that set my mind spinning.  The movie was “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” and starring in it are Jim Carey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and Tom Wilkinson.  In case you haven’t seen it, the movie focuses on a painfully introverted lonely guy who meets an extremely extroverted seemingly self-confident woman (I’m sure that at least one of my readers can see where this is going at this point).  They get along well at first but eventually break up.  Then the title credits roll and the movie starts.  Joel (Jim Carey) is a lonely and quiet man just going about his day.  He’s on his way to work or wherever he goes everyday on the train when he’s suddenly gripped by the notion that he should go out to Montauk-the end of the line on the train. When he gets there he runs into a fascinating young woman with bright blue hair.  To make a long story short, after they break up, she has her memories of him selectively erased from her mind and then he does the same to her.  But while he’s going through the procedure he changes his mind and then there is a race through his mind where he is trying to hide her somewhere that the men doing the erasing cannot find her.  I know it sounds weird, but it really does work well in the movie.
But the movie was just impetus for my later musings.  The girl made me think of Laurie and Terry.  I’ll start with Terry because that’s a shorter story.  The woman in the movie was showing Joel how to break free from his own limitations and how to enjoy that freedom.  One of the reasons she made me think of Terry is simply that she dyed her hair such bright shades as Terry did from time to time.  But the relationship between the characters of the movie also made me think of Terry because by being with her, I learned how to take control of my own freedom.  For the most part, I overcame my tendency to hand over all control of my fate to someone else.  I had done that before her time and again and I lost a few friends because of it.  But the fact that in the end she turned out to be definitely not who I wanted to be with forced me to think more about myself.  I’m not saying that she was a bad person.  In fact, I liked her personality and such, but I didn’t feel that she was a person who I wanted to hold on to any longer.  When we broke up I felt a freedom that I had never previously known.
Here I have to turn my attention to Laurie.  Laurie is one of the most influential people in my history.  I met her at a time when I was living outside of my safe little hometown for the first time.  I was at Bridgewater State College-100 miles from mommy-and I had gone through one year of school.  I’d started to really come out of my shell and was looking for a guide to take my hand and pull me out the rest of the way.  Laurie turned out to be that guide.  I spoke to her first because of her purple hair-hence part of the parallel with the movie.  I saw her and I thought, “There’s someone I HAVE to talk to!”  Boy am I glad I did.  Even today she remains a good friend on whom I know I can trust to see me for who I am and to respect me.  She took me to Boston for my first trip trough the subway without any parental guidance.  She took me to an underground gothic dance club called Man Ray and to a funky restaurant called the Middle East (for some damn fine falafel!).  My relationship with her was intense from the start and we clicked together very well.  She showed me what freedom feels like and that it could be felt with another person.  She introduced me to all kinds of interesting people.  She opened doors in my mind that have never closed and are the basis for my perception of my personal freedom.  I learned through her that even though one is not completely balanced inside, freedom exists.  I’m still trying to learn that lesson.  I’ve always let my emotions get the better of me.  But in my relationship with her, it was possible to let it out and then laugh.  We talked a lot.  I remember one day in particular walking for hours in a park-I believe it was in Easton-talking about something that she’d experienced which had a dramatic emotional effect on her.  Before I met Laurie most of the girls I’d known were the safe variety.  They had never been utterly consumed by their emotions the way Laurie and I have.  Now, a decade later, when we talk it’s the same as it was then.  
Right now, as I sit here typing, I know that on the other side of the country (on vacation, visiting her family) is the woman with whom I will live until I die.  Some people would say that such a thought violates this personal freedom that I’ve been ranting about for the last two pages.  But the freedom that comes from finding the person who will love and respect you and will allow you to be yourself is a far more wonderful freedom than I could imagine having alone.  For one thing, if not for my wife being so diligent to make money, I would not be in school.  I’m living out a life-long dream that I could never before afford.  Having a wife who respects my desires helps me to achieve what I want.  Furthermore, her willingness to work with me so we can both find happiness and success together releases me from restrictions in a way that makes my autonomy far more enjoyable.  So this freedom that Laurie awakened in me and Terry forced me to rely upon remains a constant driving force in what I do and how I live and I owe them a debt of gratitude for their part in forming who I am.

Things I Did in England

The days of summer are speeding passed.  I just realized it’s Friday.  Today I cleaned up a bit and then I oiled the table I recently got.  It looks pretty good.  
But the reason I decided to post today is that I wanted to write down some of my thoughts about England.  Outside the symposium, I also got to go to the Portsmouth ship yards for a tour of the Victory.  This famous ship was commanded by a man by the name of Nelson.  Under his command, this ship was responsible for the victory of the battle at Trafalgar against a combined French and Spanish fleet.  It was really quite a ship.  The story told of the battle and the death of Nelson are dramatic and best told by someone who knows the history better than I. There was only one sail remaining after the famous water battle and it lies now on display in the Victory Museum.  That evening, we had a lovely dinner on the HMS Warrior, the first iron hulled navy ship of her class.  She also combined steam power and sail power.  The chimneys for the steam could be hinged down onto the deck and the massive screw was pulled up into the captain’s quarters when sailing was desirable.  
There were a few things I’d heard about England before I traveled there.  Two of them turned out to be just untrue:
          1. Not everyone in England has bad teeth.  Sure, some people do, but for the most
              part most of the people I came in contact with had pretty decent choppers.
          2. The women are ugly.  I found that many of the men are handsome and many of
              the women quite attractive.  Coupled with this is today’s fashion.  Many
              women in England show a lot of skin, I think.  But maybe that perception is
              skewed by the fact that it’s generally too cold to show any here.  The fashions
              for men are geared more toward simple comfort and practicality.  That, to me, is
              far more becoming for men than some tight uncomfortable synthetic fabric (as is
              the fashion here in Iceland) or a business suit.  
There were other things that I found to be completely true:
          1. The English don’t complain.  Several times I ended up in a long line that was
               taking forever and nobody grumbled or voiced complaint.  In fact, when I was
               at the London Aquarium the emergency warning system went off and everyone
               had to file out of there.  Now, first, not even a little panic occurred-despite the
               bombings last year.  Secondly, since the aquarium is organized such that as you
               travel further into the museum you continue to spiral down underground the
               escape route was one long staircase after another.  Nobody complained-except
               the American military man who was there with his wife and kids.  The whole
               affair was over in a few minutes because everyone filed calmly out of the
               building.  
          2. English food is terrible.  I tried the breakfast the first day of the symposium even
               though I could see right away that the scrambled eggs came out of a box of  
               dried egg flakes.  As a rule, eggs should only be eaten when they are freshly
               cracked and come from the back end of a chicken.  I’ve tried guillemot
               (svartfugl) eggs and they are terrible!  Anyway, The eggs were better than the
               sausage.  I didn’t know it was possible to make sausage taste so bad.  I almost
               threw up upon touch it to my tongue.  The “bacon” was like shoe leather with
               bacon grease rubbed on it.  Oh, and of course, the toast was cold.  There were a
               few other times when I had to eat English food due to functions connected to the
               symposium.  None of it was any good.  
However, I did have some great food as well.  The food on board the HMS Warrior was delicious.  All of the Indian food I had in England was quite tasty-especially the korma that was on the buffet at the restaurant Posh (Port Out Starboard Home).  But there was one dish that really blew me away.  One of the days that I was in London by myself I went up to Soho and wandered the streets looking for some grub.  At first, I found nothing but touristy sidewalk cafes.  I was looking for something especially good due to the fact that the stipend for food that was calculated before we went was higher than it should have been.  I happened upon a place called Zaytouna (at 45 Frith Street, in case you’re there and want a good meal).  This small Moroccan restaurant somehow filled me with promise of delicious food.  So I went in and opened the menu.  One dish immediately jumped out and said, “Order me!”  It was a dish of baked sea bass served with an aubergine salad.  Now, I’ve eaten a lot of fish in my days.  I’ve had some particularly memorable dishes (monkfish, sole, salmon, and a few others).  But the sea bass at this restaurant was definitely the best fish I’ve had.  The blend of spices awakened my taste buds before the fork had reached my mouth.  The aroma of the meal filled my head and made me imagine being in a sunny place overlooking the sea.  Maybe I’m going a bit over board.  But the meal could not have been better-unless my dear wife had been sitting across from me enjoying it with me.
I mentioned that I went to the London Aquarium.  Although it’s very small by American standards, it’s not a bad aquarium.  The habitats are well designed and maintained.  There is some innovation in the way some of them are presented and they have a touch tank with three species of skate.  I didn’t get to the marine invertebrate exhibit because of the forced evacuation of the museum, so I don’t know if they have another touch tank down there with other critters.  Another problem is that many of the labels on the tanks are not correct or incomplete.  One was labeled as having some kind of frogfish (only the biology nerds will know what that is!) but the only fish in the tank were two scorpion fish.  Other tanks had some of the fish listed properly but not all of the fish described.
Another trip brought me to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum through Hyde Park.  Of course, this trip allowed me the opportunity to listen to some of the speakers at Speaker’s Corner.  That was a treat.  One of them was a Muslim ranting about the sale of death by the West through the production and sale of guns to dictators.  Another was a guy with no grasp of reality in regards to the current state of equality of the sexes.  He was saying that women are inferior to men, blah blah blah.  Then, there was the guy with the horns.  He simply made no sense and the only thing that I could understand of all that I listened to is that he has converted 33 people to his new religion.  As I was leaving a fourth man stood up and started reading from the Book of Job.  I don’t know where he was going with that.  I wandered then across the dead grass toward the shade of the trees on the far side of the park.  I was headed toward the Natural History Museum.  But first I was looking for the bird sanctuary that is supposedly in the park.  I never found it.  But I did see a couple of guys practicing some form of martial art in the shade and a very very old man sitting on a bench just watching life go on around him.  When I got to the Serpentine-a body of water in Hyde Park-I watched the birds and the kids feeding the birds.  It reminded me of my son.  He, like most little kids, really enjoys coming into contact with animals.  I found British birds in London and Southampton to be elusive critters, of the most part and only managed to spot two species I haven’t seen before despite the fact that I could hear them.  
In the museum, I had a lot of fun poking around at the exhibits.  It was terribly hot in there, but I managed to see just about all of the museum before I was too uncomfortable.  It was getting late and I hadn’t had anything to eat.  I went out and found some fast food and then headed over to the Science Museum.  I only had time for an Imax movie on sharks because I was flying out that evening and I was too tired from all the walking to wander the museum.  
Then I headed home.  

England

Jörundur was right.  He told me that if I attended the 11th Deep-sea Biology Symposium in Southampton, England I would be hooked on deep-sea biology.  I found a very stimulating and entertaining crowd of scientists and students at the symposium.  I heard fantastic lectures, mediocre lectures, and bad lectures.  Many of the talks and posters were very interesting and informative.  Some were about research that is similar to what I will be doing for the foreseeable future.  I feel that I made first contact with many people whom I will see again and with whom I shall maintain correspondence.  It was exciting to see professionals working their magic.  There were so many there who know so much about the deep-sea and it was a real joy to see them giving advise and discussion current research as well as past experiences.  There was a lot of discussion of innovations in technology that facilitate research that would never have been possible only a few decades ago.  People came to this conference from all over the globe.  I met Russians, Germans, Frenchmen, Taiwanese, Japanese, Italians, Greeks, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, Brazilians, Norwegians, Belgians, Swedes, Danes, Portuguese, and, of course, Indians (I’m probably forgetting someone’s country).  It was fantastic to be immersed in the atmosphere of varied culture and languages/accents.  I enjoy the diversity of people as much as I do that of the natural world.  
I know that many of my readers are not biologists, so I’m going to keep this brief.  I just wanted to say thank you for the good times and great ideas if you attended the symposium with me.  Photos from my week in England will be posted sometime soon on my travel blog.

My Little Sister

My sister Melody and her boyfriend Sati have been on some great adventures over the last few years. But seeing the video journal they are depositing weekly on their site makes me think that I would really love to be with them. You can click here to see the journals. They're out in the southwest of the US going down into the smallest canyons they can find. If you're reading this, Mel and Sati (on one of your stops in a town), have a great trip!

The Annual Fishing Trip

The annual fishing trip went pretty well.  We go every year to the same place because of the costs of renting the huts and buying permission to fish are so low.  This year, I won the trophy for longest fish.  Atli Víðar’s biggest brown trout was probably heavier than my longest fish and was quite a respectable catch but he doesn’t think that he should get the award for biggest fish considering that he’s maker and presenter of the award.  
A few notes before I begin my fishing stories.  First, I want to say that Dagmar’s little prank on Kata was naughty.  She should be ashamed of herself and apologize to her daughter.  Second, I saw my first white tailed eagle.  It was quite a large and beautiful bird.  There was a pair of skuas chasing it when I saw it and then it flew off in the direction of some mountains.  Third, the weather was not so bad, although there were only a few times when the wind stopped.  
I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, as always.  I love going out there where the only sounds are those of nature and the people with whom I travel.  I feel lucky to have found a family into which I fit relatively well.  My sisters- and brothers-in-law are fun to be with and their differences add spice to the conversations that flow throughout the day.  I haven’t seen some of the relatives much in the last two years because they live on he other side of the country and I haven’t been there for quite some time.  It was especially glad to see Pétur and Kristjana’s baby Olga Snærós.  She’s very cute and obviously has a lot of personality.  
However, most of my time up there on the northern tip was spent walking around by myself and casting out into crystal clear water in the hopes of finding brown trout.  Many were found.  I went with Atli, Benna, and Atli Dagur on Thursday night from Akureyri up to Hraun and then straight out to the water.  We fished just about all night.  In the morning, there were four fish on my stringer (two of which will be eaten tonight) and Atli had managed to haul in three or four as well.  He fishes with worms and therefore catches a lot more char than I do with my spoon.  I think that Atli Dagur’s lack of patience stands in the way of his ability to catch fish.  But he’s still young.  Anyway, then se went up and slept for a few hours.  After that I went out again to try to catch some more.  I caught two small (roughly a pound each) brown trout in a pond where two years ago I caught a 6 pounder.  In that trip, Atli pulled in a nice 4 pounder.  Then it was back to the hut for some grub and a bit of shut-eye.  Then the rest of the army pulled in.  In all, we are 20 and when all are together in the hut, it’s pretty crowded.  Anyway, we talked for a little while then two sisters and their families went over to the other hut to sleep he night away.  I went out for a little more fishing and caught a few small ones before going to bed.  Saturday morning there was a short trip out to fish in the morning and then a birthday party for my son where favorite gifts were the toy light sabers that the two boys got.  After the party, I went out to try out the rubber raft Pétur brought.  I drifted across the pond and caught nothing.  Then I decided to try the pond on top of the mountain.  I fished pretty well there last year.  I think the very few people bother to go up there because it’s a long walk from all directions.  So, that means that the fish are free to grow as big as they can for as long as they want.  This time, the first of two arctic char that I caught up there was the longest fish caught by anyone on the trip.  I actually didn’t measure its length but it was just under 4 pounds and was pretty skinny.  I would say that it was about 22” long.  It put up a pretty good fight considering that it was a char-they don’t put up much of a fight.
The last night of the trip, we decided to hitch a ride with the son of the guy who owns the land up to a lake where we fished well last year.  On the way up he pointed out several ponds along the way where he said there were fish.  For some reason, one of them seemed to me to be most likely to hold large fish and I decided that I’d walk back so that I could hit it on the way the next morning.  As it turns out, fishing was terrible in the pond to which we went.  I began the walk back to the cabin at about 5:00 and within an hour I was standing at the shore of the pond I had decided to fish.  It seems that walking to the pond would take as long as hitching a ride.  Anyway, this pond was deep, but very small.  It suddenly didn’t hold much promise for me and I wasn’t really paying attention as I walked along the bank.  All of a sudden a large brown trout shot out from under the bank ahead of me and raced off into the weeds.  I stopped and started casting.  There were so many weeds that I had to hold the spoon on the surface to keep it above the undergrowth.  I was casting as I was continuing my walk around the pond.  When a second huge brown trout shot out from under the bank, I started really concentrating my casting on spots that looked likely.  After a couple of casts along he shore ahead of me, I sent the spinner out toward the opposite bank.  As soon as I started retrieving it I saw a churning in the water that looked like there was a scuba diver down there.  A wake a few inches high raced up behind my spinner and then the strongest hit I remember feeling confirmed what my eyes were telling me:  I had found the fish I’ve been looking for since that fateful day on Lake Champlain when Melody’s idea of “hit it on the head with the paddle” cost me the biggest fish I’d ever fished.  Anyway, back to Iceland...I fought this fish for about 15-20 minutes and it was finally getting tired enough that I was getting it closer to shore.  I was up to my knees in the very cold water so that I’d be more likely to get the net under at least part of its body.  But it had one trick left.  It dove straight down into the clay at the bottom and wrapped itself around a rock.  Every time I’ve seen a fish do this, the spinner has gotten tripped up on the stone or log or weeds or whatever and the fish gets away.  This was no exception.  Now, I know that you are thinking that this is just a typical fish that got away story, but I promise, this one is completely true.  That fish had a tail about 8” wide and was at least 10 pounds.  I believe that I was just out-matched with my light tackle.  I think I did everything as well as anyone could have with what I had with me.  But the fish beat me in this instance.  I stood in awe for a long time after the line snapped.  That fish was so impressive I was close to being glad that I had not killed it.  It was magnificent, for lack of a better word.  But, I vowed to myself that I would not fish another body of water up there until I landed that fish.  That will be a great day and there will be a picture of it posted here...look for it next July.