Something's fishy

I'm currently en-route to Kodiak AK to work on a video for a new client, the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust. The background information has been enlightening so far. This group advocates for commercial fishermen... or I should say "fishers" as the gender delineation is troublesome in this industry too. The ASFT doesn't advocate for just any commercial fishers, they focus on the smaller business. It seems that the quotas that have been put in place to protect certain species from over fishing might actually ... in some cases ... create a problem for the fish population. It certainly has an impact on the small fishers, and in many cases have actually put people out of business.

And not for the reasons you might think. Its not because of the restrictions for taking fish... its very involved. And my job is to communicate that involvement to the rest of the world.

I'll write more about it as I learn about the trials and tribulations of the small commercial fisher here in Alaska. But for now, as I wait for my flight from Anchorage to Kodiak, I'll leave one example of how these quotas have made life tough for the little guy.

There are companies, big ones that wish to increase their take of certain species. Take king crab for example. A large company might buy control of the processing of crabs. Once they have enough influence of those activities on shore, they can set the prices for the catch of the day. So a fisher may come in with a big haul, only to find that the processor, owned by a large company with fishing vessels of their own - making them a competitor, has lowered the price per pound.  So imagine showing up with tons of crab that is worth much less than the day before... or the price for next week.  Now remember the small fisher has an annual quota. He can only catch so much crab.  Selling it at a low price guarantees he will go out of business.... so when nobody is looking, he protects his interest and his family's livelihood and illegally dumps the catch. Killing the crabs and protecting his quota for a better day.  Aka "cutting your losses".

After a while the big business will offer to buy the fisherman's quota and they will own and control even more of the market.

Now so far I'm jut telling you what I read and certainly only one side of the story. Still.... interesting place this.  Its not what you think that's for sure. At least my impressions of Alaska change Every time I talk with someone up here.

I'll be here for several weeks. Kodiak, Yakutat and then Sitka. I'll be in touch.

Envy-wear

My Dodge Durango is a four wheel drive. It's got, you  know... ground clearance. In my mind it's invincible. It should be able to go anywhere. But yesterday up on Donner Summit I began to question my own mind.

I was filming a new line of backpacks with my client/talent for the day, Jason Hairston, founder and CEO of Kuiu (Pronounced "koo-you" and named after an Alaskan Island). They make hunting gear. And I'm not talking about the stuff you might buy in Walmart. Kuiu makes envy-wear. Everything about what Jason designs wreaks quality. Jason's a hunter. He's been doing it for a long time, and his kind of hunting, with his kind of gear... well let's just say it's like one of those movies where people do things that should kill them, but they never seem to die.

"Yeah I remember our first photo shoot with the last company I started..." Jason told me as my Durango eased up over this berm, something grinding, rolling and groaning earthquake-like under my feet. "We were in the middle of nowhere to film at golden hour (end of the day) and the four wheel drive we were in sunk up to the doors in the mud..." He went on to tell me that they found some good-ol-boy who claimed he could pull anything out of anywhere for "four hundert bucks". And at 2am they were on their way.

I think that's when the questions started to form.

I know for sure, that's when I put the Durango in LOW LOCK, and started watching more closely for mud.

The road was not technically a dirt road. It's better described as a "boulder road". The years of rain that have rutted this thing had moved most of the dirt away and left rocks. Big rocks. The kind that make you think of Fred Flintstone's bowling ball.

It looked like it was going to be a perfect day for filming envy-wear in the wild. There was drizzling rain, fog and, snow above the tree line where we were heading. It's May and there's snow. Ever since flying the Phantom quadcopter in Central America, I have thought of it as the ultimate production tool for extreme conditions. So yesterday, I hired a Phantom pilot, a guy named Syris, to accompany us. At the base of the boulder road, I invited Syris to abandon his Prius and climb in with us. He preferred to drive. Behind us.

My berm grinding exposed new obstacles for Syris, so eventually he found a cozy little bramble just off the road and rode the rest of the way up with us.

I just checked Google Earth and found that we stopped at around 7,300'. The wet snow still falling, fog in the distance, and to my relief, no mud. The slope of this particular part of the sierras was spotted here and there with pine trees. There was new growth of short grasses under the snow that had just fallen that night. And then... buck brush, which looks like an Acacia carpet. Thorns about an inch long and a tangle of branches all between ankle and chest level.

The footage from the air was spectacular. The Phantom flew in the snow flurries with only an occasional lens-glob. I am a big believer in Rain-X and so it tended to clear quickly with the wind from the props. Both Syris and I were impressed at how quickly we burned through batteries. The cold could possibly have had something to do with it, but I think also, the thinner air up there got us less bang for the buck, the props spinning harder with less to push against. Note to self: more batteries, and the ability to charge them from the cigarette lighter.

The last shot of the day was going to be along a ridge near the summit of that particular crag, with the only visible trail leading to what seemed to be nowhere. So we bushwhacked it up the ridge. Every step was a battle as I carried tripod and camera and hung up on thorns hidden by the new snow. My pants were soaked. My boots (a new pair of Keens) performed flawlessly. Syris and I took a brutal lower route while Jason headed straight up the ridge.

I found a spot that had some line of sight to the patch of snow where Jason would hike across while we prepared to film, first from the Phantom, then the old fashioned way, with the sticks and lens. Because there was no landing spot, Syris fired up the drone in one hand while holding the controller in the other, a trick I'd only pondered but never tried. Up the Phantom went. I prepared to cue Jason with a wild gesture from about 200 yards away. The drone closed the gap between us. It's shot was to be flown above the thickest tangle of buck brush from the halfway point between Syris and Jason.

Suddenly the Phantom began to spin and wobble. As it went around I could see the telltale red light that indicates a low battery. Syris toggled wildly on the controls. We were both waist deep in snow and thorns and branches. I could only think, "He's GOT to get that thing back here or it's lost..." And that was about the time the battery gave up and it dropped itself into the buck brush with the sound of a weed whacker, and all became silent.

Poor Syris, slugged it out that whole way, it seems for a lovely walk through some brutal terrain. He never complained once, I'd hire him any time. He did recover the Phantom with its custom wood props, which I now see make for a very smooth image, and it appears to be in perfect condition. It survived to fly another day.

I peeled off the final shot, and a few others as we walked down to the Durango and loaded up. The snow turned to drizzle, the fog pulled back to reveal massive peaks all around us and Donner Lake below us. I was soaked to the bone. I looked over at Jason in his enviably dry Kuiu, high tech fabric  clothes. All moisture magically wicked into thin air. He looked fresh and perky after carrying a fully loaded Kuiu pack (that hangs from a carbon fiber frame and weighs almost nothing). I guess that's what you learn after doing things like sinking your vehicle up to the doors in mud. This is a guy that believes in what he makes... and I suppose makes what he believes. He explained later that's why he does it, the rush of designing stuff that works and hearing about it from customers.
Reviewing the shots, and it was all worth it. I got exactly what I was looking for in the footage. There are no sweeping scenics in this one, it's gritty and close and feels authentically adventuresome. Tomorrow I'll be in the studio with the line of packs and one of the best apparel photographers in the country with brilliant stylists. The contrast of the two shoots should make for a really interesting piece. Which is the idea, after all.

More than anything today as I clean up my gear and prep for tomorrow, I realize what it is to have clients like Jason who relish the journey as much, maybe more, than the destination. Once we're wrapped, I'll throw the link from the Kuiu site up here to make public the final piece.

DJI Phantom

While the entire known production universe had its eyes on Las Vegas for NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) conference, I was actually IN production with Exploration Nation in Central America. I got a text from my friend Richard Jackson on the NAB show floor that said, "this place is crawling with drones". He knew I was flying one of the cool new aerial production tools in the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan rain forests.

I also flew the DJI Phantom over water, up a waterfall, under jungle canopy and into a tree filled with oriole nests that hung like 7' long weed teardrops. Pictured above is executive producer, Pete Monfre in the front of the boat with Franklin, our Rio Indio guide. I'm on the right with the remote trying to get the Phantom back into Pete's hands after a successful sortie where we filmed aerials of Rio Indio Lodge.

Since there was no place to take off or land, Pete had to hold it over his head and hope that I could bring it back into his hands for a landing. For the record, it was a flawless flight, just saying... ok, well, to be honest, I did have the help of satellites. The Phantom aligns itself with GPS and so I can't take all the credit for bringing it home safely.

The first thing I noticed about flying the Phantom was that it's not as hard as it looks.The controls make a lot of sense, up, down, go left, go right, go forward or back. And then there's the left to right pans. It easily carries a GoPro camera and that's what makes the flying tricky. Not only was I flying the drone out over the water, I was also trying to aim a camera by using the helicopter's positions as my tripod head, if you will. Filming adds a whole new intensity to the task.

The GoPro shoots a nice wide angle, and so my imprecise aim was somewhat forgiving.

I learned to fly the DJI Phantom in a less than a day. I have decided to write up a series of articles about my experience as a "preditor" filmmaker flying the Phantom  I'm also going to continue using this great little tool for upcoming productions. I have a shoot in the Sierras this coming week where I will attempt to fly it to feature hunting equipment manufactured by my new client Kuiu. We will be in high elevation near Donner Pass where the trees become sparse and the air is thin and unpredictable.

Later in May, I will be taking the Phantom to Alaska to film large commercial fishing vessels, once again from the water. Only, it won't be a peaceful river like the Nicaragua scene above, but on the open ocean. Weather and waves are unpredictable of course, I can't guarantee a safe landing.

After flying in the rainforest, I am confident that the DJI Phantom quadcopter with my GoPro2 will be up to the task.

More to come, stay tuned...

Flying Fish

The boat was sporting a 60hp outboard motor. The long, narrow design didn't appear to be what you'd take outside of some fresh water river. But we did. From The Rio Indio Lodge, it was about a two minute ride to the sea. And by the sea, I mean, to the breakers. Big breakers. We were hauling into the Caribbean.

Our guide's name was Franklin. His grandfather came from Jamaica. So did his father. They came to Nicaragua because it was a land of opportunity. For them, the possibility of relocating their Jamaican family to a place where there was the potential of jobs and land was the draw. But it was a hard life. Now Franklin says he is living his dream. His office is the sea. His desk is a motor boat. His clients are Rio Indio's clients. They are aligned in purpose, and that is to ensure their guests have the time of their lives while they experience something unforgettable. And that was why I was on Franklin's boat.

Dr. Lopez, the lodge's founder and director ultima, made arrangements for me to take the time to go fishing for tarpon. I like fishing. I mean I don't watch fishing shows on TV nor wear a Bassmaster T-shirt. But I like the thought of fooling something scaly into swallowing something fatal so I can wrestle it into a something like a boat. So primal. But then again, as Stephen Wright says, "There's a fine line between fishing... and standing on the shore looking stupid." Point taken.

The engine pushed hard against the surge that was coming in at what I would guess was about a 5' swell. Not huge, but... it WAS breaking on the river mouth and we were heading straight into it. The boat, probably around 30' long began to fly. The bow launched up into the air as we shoved our way through the breaking surf and with fully half the vessel sliding down the backside of the wave, we crashed down with a massive splash into the trough. At the bottom, looking up the face of yet another cresting wave, it reminded me of being on a dirtbike when I was a kid, full throttle up a hill that would have taken 3 minutes to walk up. And over we crashed again. And again. Until we were out beyond the break and at the leading edge of the sand reef.

That's when Franklin handed rods to Timon and me and we bounced our jigs in the murky water in the hope that a tarpon would come by, hungry and stupid enough to take the lame-looking fish-alike thing with hooks all over it. Meanwhile Franklin and the boat driver caught live bait with other lures. They called them "sardines" but I think that is just their way of saying, "bait".

Once we had some live bait on the hook it wasn't long before all hell broke loose. Throughout the afternoon, I never landed a tarpon, to my dismay. But I did hook up on three of them. The largest one Franklin had ever caught was 158lbs for a tournament. He won an outboard motor, but donated it to a nearby village. The first fish on my line was attached to a hanger-sized hook that was tied to a 100lb test leader, tied to zipline-strength monofilament and eventually to my reel. The 100lb test leader is what broke. It was a BIG fish.

Later in the day, I actually had one on for about 3 minutes. Imagine trying to fly a 747 with kite string. That's what this was like. The boat is gently rocking in the warm Caribbean sun, on the warm Caribbean sea. I was almost asleep. Then the sound of 1,000 cicadas erupted from my hands as the line shot out of the reel impossibly fast. Zzzzzzzzzz..... Heart racing, I nearly fell out of my seat as I looked at Franklin who was laughing and saying "let it run, mon". What??? Like I have any choice in the matter? This was my latest exercise in feeling out of control. I was tempted to just throw the rod and reel in the water and beg Franklin to take us back to the bar.

Let it run???? Mon???? I started tightening the drag on the reel. Franklin yells, "don't reel it mon." Great idea, actually, why would I want something that fast and that pissed off anywhere near the boat. Just as I look up to where the zipline-strength monofilament was escaping at the speed of sound into the Caribbean, something caught my eye. Out of the water, just off to the left, this... thing, a fat, shiny torpedo, launched into the air. My brain cranked the whole thing down and almost in slow-motion, I saw a bright slivery tarpon, about the size of a refrigerator launch into the air. Up. Up. Past eye level, it was at least 8' in the air. My line went slack. The fish slams into the water. The cicadas start up again... ZZzzzzzzz, "let heem run mon, let heem run, hahahaha". This is chaos and wild and insane.

Two more jumps and I was now determined to get a closer look at the refrigerator fish. And that was when my line went slack for good. "Nooooo!!!!" I was out of breath, tingling, wide-eyed and ready to do it again. Which I did. But I never got one close enough for a photo opportunity.

These tarpon are all catch and release, Rio Indio practices very conservation-minded fishing whenever possible. Now I have something to look forward to. This is sort of the off season for tarpon. Franklin tells me that in the fall, October, November, the horizon will suddenly turn white as the massive school approaches the boat. They come like a storm, leaping out of the water and splashing down. "You just drop your line, mon, you catch tarpon, oh yeah..." I hope to see it one day. If so, I'll put my tray table and seat back in its full, upright and locked position, and hang on tight as the big silvery finned monster runs away with my line... mon.

The rare "candy cutter" ants of Central America...

These ants were acting just like leaf-cutter ants but were using their smarts to carry away a candy wrapper... I guess because it was sweet... or maybe they needed new curtains...

Here are some images I made while in Nicaragua

 I think this is some kind of egret

 The Jesus Christ Lizard

 An alpha male howler monkey stands guard as the others nap, mid-afternoon

 He rarely took his eyes off of me

 Strawberry poison dart frog

 White faced monkey

White faced monkey, waiting his turn for a banana

 A tapir

 Rhinoscerous beetle (5" long)

Rhino beetle on the palm tree

River of dreams.... downstream

On board the final leg of my trip home. Here are some more recollections of the trip along the river between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, in no particular order.

There are vultures in the bank. Flocks of them. They stand around a carcass or what's left of one, like workers waiting at Home Depot for their day's work. The rib cage of whatever fell there for the last time rises in such perfect symmetry on the otherwise chaotic shoreline that it could be a scale model of the Sydney Opera House. Only, this is the architecture of death.

My headphones pound the rhythms of Paul Simon into my head as the boat abruptly comes up short. Our driver has pulled back hard on the two throttles. As I look forward, I see people piling to one side of the boat. I'm missing something. And, as it turns out the something is about 12 feet long and covered in body armour, a crocodile.  The thing looks like a sand sculpture, or more accurately a mud sculpture. Cameras click like the strafing sounds we used to make as kids to emulate machine gun fire. It is motionless. Someone shouts, the closed eyes stay closed. Our driver maneuvers the boat closer. I remember some vague shadow of some documentary probably narrated by Sir David Attenborough, whom I have been imitating all week, about crocodiles sensing water vibration. So I stupidly put my hand in the water and splash frantically. It is motionless still. Someone asks if its dead and I propose aloud that its sides are not moving with its respiration. Rob, one of the doctors tells us that these things breathe by moving their livers rather than using a diaphragm.  Its not giving us any clues other than the fact it isn't bloated or particularly smelly.  And I ponder, for a moment how stealthy this intellectually lightweight reptile is. Minutes go by and just as we are getting bored something annoys the thing enough that it lifts its massive head and turns to face us, and eventually slips into the water with hardly a sound. A magnificent killing machine.

The boat lurches and one of the engines screams as though it is running in mid air. And that's because it is. Our driver goes to the back of the boat, I ask, 'esta bien?' He nonchalantly answers 'si'. He was lying. We keep going but he's clearly not happy. My thoughts of a warm shower at the Wyndham, our supposed destination, vanish.   Houses continue to go past. We are making headway, but just barely. Stairs trundle down to the river, all unique, but each with only subtle differences. I notice them, though I could never describe them. Suddenly we are aiming at one of the random stairways, at the top of it stands a man and a young boy. We dock at the base of his stairs and I realize that our driver knows this random man on this otherwise unmarked stairway is actually a boat mechanic. What luck. We are boarded by two or three men who tinker a while... the engine running in mid air has become stuck in the up position, which won't do at all. Looking at the mud near the dock I see a quick, lanky bright green lizard. It is skipping along almost like its not touching the ground at all. A basilisk lizard, aka Jesus Christ lizard because it can literally run on the surface of water. I climb the stairs in the hopes that the wooden shack I see with the red spray paint that reads 'no fumar' (no smoking) is a toilet. Its not. But at the top of the stairs I see one next to a small general store there. By the time I return, the boat is fixed and we are on our way.

Rain. It is a rainforest after all. Sheets of it are streaming down. The boat is a longboat which means it is incredibly narrow, I would guess it is fifty feet long, with two seats on one side and one on another. The entire length is covered by a roof. The sides are open with rolled up vinyl panels that are meant to protect us from the rain.  Trouble is, as we've been told, we can't only drop one panel here or one there. Its aerodynamically impossible without ripping the panels off at full speed. One of those all or nothing designs. We opt to leave them open and live with the blowing rain, it is only water. I secretly wonder after experiencing the impossibly damp air that refuses to dry wet clothing. Mildew is what I'm  thinking. As abruptly as it started, it stops. The river water is glass again.

A massive beast of a machine on the water is tied to the bank. It looks like something described in an apocalyptic story. A huge drill bit, spiraled jaws twist to a point. It is a dredge. The  men that normally grind and pump the sludge that is the river bottom are not dredging today. They are painting. The beast.  There is no accounting for tastes so they use the ghastly combination of hot pink and lime green. Of course. Just the colors I would have picked for the aquatic Antichrist.

A ringed kingfisher flies by carrying a fish, making its already abnormally large head look even more abnormal.

There are children swimming in the water everywhere. There are crocodiles swimming in the water too, only we can't see nor hear them.  I see a rope swing hanging down from a branch. It has a wooden seat that hovers motionless over the still water. I wonder if I've seen this in a Far Side comic, did the crocodiles hang it?

I'm barefoot as I sit side ways on the boat, almost lulled to sleep. I can't bring myself to shut my eyes however. What will I miss? The air is hot and damp when the boat crawls to a near stop as we thread the needle of a toppled tree in the middle of the river. Its roots tower over us. The engines are tilted up so the props flip the surface, beating the river like a marangue. Once we start moving again, the welcome breeze tricks us into believing there really is such a thing as autumn.

Two parrots, bright green bullets, shoot across the river and explode into a tree on the other side. These kinds of parrots  never seem to glide. It's like they are always late for something. Perhaps green parrots are great procrastinators.

Mike, the dentist that has come to pull rotting Rama Indian teeth, and I see a ridge of spine in the water. It curves left to right and leads to the broad head of a small crocodile. Just below the surface, its tail ends about an inch offshore of a sandbar. The stepping stones to a road less traveled, or traveled by creatures that tell no tales.

There is a kind of tree there that has shoots that descend from the branches to the water. Maybe its a kind of mangrove. I don't know but I wonder as I look at them if there is one in some part of the rainforest that has made an entire wall of shoots all the way down...

Final approach now to Sacramento. While the air will make me believe in autumn again I will miss the sensory buffet that borders the river there. The humidity is stifling, but you get used to it.  Its not an easy life, but it is beautiful. Next time I go there I want to move more slowly. I think I missed too much on this trip, being work, it was tied to the client's deadlines. I'm grateful for the gift of it still. It was one of the more rewarding productions I've been part of. Maybe the lesson in it was just that, move more slowly wherever I am. Or at least slowly enough to really see what is right in front of me.

River of dreams

It was almost seven hours from loading our gear in the rain at the Rio Indio Lodge in southern Nicaragua to lunch at the port in Costs Rica. 

The longboat had two large engines on it. Both of them were in constant motion up and down with the depth of the river. And that is part of the reason for the long ride. It can go by in four hours if the river is high and the current is in your favor. Also helps to not have mechanical failure or administrative issues at any of the approximately five checkpoints not including the two border offices, one for Nicaragua and one for Costa Rica. Fortunately for us, our administrative issues were nill, thanks to the preparations of Dr. Alfredo Lopez from the Rio Indio lodge. Dr. Lopez is good, but he can't do anything about the shallow water. And that's what kept us from moving along at a four hour clip. The water in many sections of the river was shallow enough to walk across.

All along the way, the hours passed with plenty to look at. If I'd ever wanted the jungle cruise at Disneyland to last longer - and I've never wished that by the way - it would have been a lot like this. Every direction at any given minute has something to see, and often, I was seeing something for the first time. 

Here are some things I saw, in no particular order, I'll just recall them as they come....

Large gangly cows make their way along the shore on a trail I cannot see for the knee high grasses that grow on the bank. As the boat slips along in the otherwise rippleless  water like a teaspoon cuts through cream, the backdrop of palm trees and dirt brown huts with thatch roofs move on the long-lens plane of the Z-axis of my line of sight. A small boy stands just in front of them.  He is the same color as the huts. He is holding a stick with a piece of string on it and from time to time he twirls the string. He waves and our boat erupts into a parade wave as he breaks into a run along the shore in an attempt to keep up.

Howler monkeys in the tree canopy overhead hear our motors and try to drown us out with their moaning laments that start loud and slowly drop away into individual grunting barks. They succeed for a moment and I think that I can't hear the boat I'm riding in.

Green, everywhere. Everything is green. If I blur my vision, I see green streaks that become lines along the shore. Stripes that are all one color but many shades like an artists study of that one element of the rainbow. It is hardly monotonous.

A cable stretches across the river spanning most of what would be the length of a football field.  The cable was put there to keep electricity and communications moving from one home or village to the next. But the probably half inch diameter line is also a bridge.  Monkeys can't swim the rapid current but I saw one walking on all fours ... paw over paw .... on the top of the wire. Every third or fourth step was a slip but the agile howler monkey caught himself and continued all the way across. It was better then cirque du soliel. I thought about crossing the broad, by comparison, footbridge at Rios Tropicales only a week before and how even with two hands on the cables running along each side and my feet on solid boards, I was nowhere near what you might call confident.

A black bird flies across the river in front of us, cutting a path across our bow. As it drives up and away from us into the tree that is its destination, it fans a tail so bright and yellow that it almost hurts my eyes. Landing, the tail closes and it returns again to anonimity, a black shadow amidst the branches.

A woman is washing her family's clothes. By hand. She stands on the bottom rung of the wood stairs that are the same color as the mud they hang over. She has buckets and piles of colored cloth that are doubtless the wardrobe of the typical indigenous people that are her people.  On one side of the dock is a banana plant. On the other is a rope tied between two trees that will hold the wet clothes against the sunlight that is their only hope of drying in the damp air. It is morning light and there is a haze along the river that is a silver mirror path that leads us on. The haze is smoke from the cooking fires in the homes that are not much more than a thatch roof and upright poles... there is little privacy, the insects move easily in and out of the dwellings,  look closely and you'll see the indigenous version of a bug Zapper, they encourage spiders to make their webs along the eaves to trap what insects they can.

More green. Everything is green unless it is dirt. Give even the dirt time and it will become green as well.  The ferns and grasses and trees and anything else that grows will, eventually, grow there. Only give it time.

Hundreds of dugout canoes line the bank, two or three in front of every home. 

A canoe is in the water ahead. As we approach, we see two occupants. A small child and a woman, probably the child's mother. The woman is paddling with the hand carved oar, first on one side. Then the other. We, the boat of people from the country that travels by car, all wave. The woman smiles and waves back.

I am about to board my flight and will continue writing another time.  For now, I need to go back, somewhat reluctantly, I must admit, to the land of cars.  I will write more later.

Gate 9 is calling for pre boards.

Big Fish

They're huge. The fish. At Rio Indio Lodge the fishing is good.  Great actually. This Nicaraguan oasis was built on the Indian River (Rio Indio) through the vision of Dr. Alfredo Lopez. Dr. Lopez, a Costa Rican physician and businessman saw the potential of what could be done, not just for tourism, but also for the local tribe of indigenous people in this part of Nicaragua, the Rama. This incredible lodge is in the southern tip of Nicaragua, just over the northern border of Costa Rica.  Walking into the lobby after a four to six hour longboat ride up the beautiful jungle lined Indian River is like dropping into a dream. The lodge was built in the Rio Maíz National Park, adjacent to Rama villages.
The walkways are elevated, Swiss Family Robinson style in the event of high water and to create a perfect view into the rainforest. Its like being at a five-star tree fort.
And the fish.  Are huge. Check this out...  http://www.therioindiolodge.com/activities/sport-fishing.html.  We are here to film for the Exploration Nation project, but the other guests here are sports fishermen that go out every day with the guides Dr. Lopez and his business partners have retained to take fishermen to the hot spots along the river, and out into the Caribbean. They've come back with huge, I mean Labrador retriever sized fish. These guys know their stuff, they are Rama. This is a world class stretch of river for tarpon. We've seen them offload massive snapper, jack and snook.  They served it up here at the lodge, their chef Johnny showed me how its done. The snapper was so big it would never fit in my oven at home. Johnny baked it first then put a rub on it and grilled it, serving the whole fish on a table that appeared to sag under the weight of it. Every section of that fish was white creamy mild and most of all ... fresh. I have not wanted for anything in terms of quality of food on this trip, and that has been true of Rio Indio Lodge.
It would be a great place to go for a vacation sometime, the jungles here having doubled as my office, its been hot sweaty work punctuated by great food and a comfortable bed. Every now and then, we catch an eyeful of a basilisk lizard or poison dart frog, white faced monkeys or the rarely seen, but often heard howler monkeys.  I'm not complaining but it would be a great thing to come here and relax a little.
Dr. Lopez is always present it seems.  He has been treating the Rama since he first came here for diseases and triage. He's a kind soul. Today we will travel to a Rama village with a team of doctors from the US that have flown in to provide a clinic. Our days work on Thursday was to visit the local shaman ... a medicine man. He is ancient, and, his knowledge of the rainforest is unmatched. He is also the last if his kind.  Our interview with this quiet holy man was very ,moving actually. Say what you will about jungle medicine, Narcisso, the shaman, has held cancer at bay, cured malaria, and managed diabetes using only the plants and resources he finds in the rainforest. He has no need of a smart phone, I get the feeling his response to most questions would be, "there's a plant for that". I might be more skeptical were I not on the shoot with two medical professionals, one of whom is an ER doc in Texas, and a third expert on jungle survival - Sam Kaufman of The Human Path, (www.thehumanpath.com), a survival school I hope to attend in the future. Sam was even wide-eyed as Narcisso described the tip of the iceberg of what he knows about simple and complex cures and preventative medicine.
The Rama, the guides and shaman, the cooks, those that this wonderful lodge has employed and helped through Dr. Lopez's efforts, live in this mutual symbiosis with the visitors and business partners of Rio Indio Lodge.  The fish are huge. But I think even for the fishermen, its not just about the fish. Its about living somewhere exotic if only for a few days and leaving the demands of whatever it is that complicates your life for a while. I'm hoping this place is hard to forget. 

The Howl of the Wild

They are howler monkeys. In this post I am just going to link to a video I made yesterday morning from the screened in porch of my cabin.  The microphone on my tablet isn't as good as I'd like, but listen closely and you'll hear them.

Pura Vida

They say it all the time the Costa Ricans do. Its the celebratory unofficial greeting I think. One of them told me it means "the great life!" Another said it was the same thing as the Africans saying "hakuna matata". Which I guess is the same thing, Australians would say "no worries" the Costa Ricans mean it, at least the ones I've met. The say it with gusto.
Its not an easy life. But of course its more like the wish for one. And they wish it on each other and on us. The burrows that pull the banana carts at the banana plantation we visited get along well. The workers there are paid a wage for each evidence of a pruned tip of the flower during that phase of the growing process. They make a living but will by no means realize their dreams this way. There are so many jobs but its hardly what moat Americans would consider the good life. Like so many places I've seen around the world they seem happy enough and some we've met on this trip have truly celebrated the pura vida.
Yesterday we were at the Rios Tropicales eco lodge and farm ... Rafa, the lodge owner, a visionary and inspiring Costa Rican that built the lodge met us at the top of our gruelling hike out from the river gorge. We were filming along the way and stopped several times to look at bats in the nook of a tree or to gently view a fer-de-lance viper that was so nearly invisible as it sat coiled on open ground that it took me five full minutes to see what everyone was pointing at. "No, left of the gray stick...just up from the brown leaf, look its right there."  Finally it came into view. So deadly I was told, that to be bitten by one would mean not leaving the mountain. Each step after that and I was thinking it took me that long to see one in the open. What about the countless unseen snakes that were only a bite away? They can strike something like two times their body length. They don't go looking for trouble though, and the key is to stay on the trail. Cutting switchbacks makes a mess of a good trail, and if snakes keep a hiker on the beaten path where reptiles rarely set up shop, that's good enough for me. Up at the top of that climb was where Rafa was waiting.
He keeps buying jungle to protect it and farm land to convert it back to jungle. He was gracious and generous with his time as well as sharing his lodge and staff with us. Rafa is not out to horde the good life to himself, but to make Costa Rica the place where everyone enjoys pura vida as the rainforest is put back to what it was. There is enough agricultural land still working in other areas of Costa Rica and so when Rafa buys land that isn't being farmed any longer he is creating economy where farmers have moved on leaving a razed terrain behind. Rafa knows and is not bashful about describing what is at stake. Its not some tree hugger mythology he embraces. Its the grassland dust bowl effect he is striving to avoid. Not that there is anything to fear in the same sense of the American dust bowl since drought seems a long way off from this place. Because the areas that were rainforest are now grazing land at best, there is no way for a forest to return on its own. So Rafa looks for areas that would benefit from certain kinds of plants...
Bamboo along a stretch will provide fast growing and harvestable products to build with. The early presence of the bamboo helps the other replanted trees to survive, this one near a water source,  a stand of this species on a hill top and underbrush over there. Eventually it returns to a full fledged rain forest. He pointed to the hill we walked up ... an ancient jungle, then to an area far more immature ... a twenty year old reforestation project. It looked the same only, slightly... shorter. Then in anther direction and he says, "I just bought that one and we have begun the early stages of planting."
He jokes, "my wife buys new shoes, I buy more jungles. Pura vida!". Its very impressive. We walked down to the talapia pond. They feed them cilantro. There is another area where mules and horses are allowed to graze because it fertilizes the ground and keeps the weeds from overtaking the saplings that have become tall enough to not be eaten as well. That area is along a river bed and the presence of the animals and forest has returned a watershed to what was lost during the slash and burn ranching decades ago.  Rafa points to a mound, "that is a species of leaf cutter ants, we need them during these first three years.". Pura vida, for now its a good life for the little green sailboat looking insects.  They trail each other all day long with cuts of flat greens to bring back to the hive. There they grow a kind of fungus on the leaves for their own food, apparently one of the only creatures besides man to grow its own food.
Walking backwards, I was filming as our hosts chat casually with Rafa about carbon and Ricardo Molina, our Costa Rican sound man, not a small man, steps, also backward into soaking wet mud up to his knees. He extracted one foot, shouting, "mi zapato"--- my shoe. It was there in the hole but he was left wearing only a sock. The rest of the day was squishy, but he did not disappoint us, as he laughed histericaly and when we finally got him cleaned up he turned to me and said ... haha, pura vida   
Now I'm aboard a longboat on the six hour ride upriver to Rio Indio lodge in Nicaragua  for the next segment. We've already seen three crocodiles. They are the true top of this food chain. And by the looks of them I don't think they've missed many meals.
A good life indeed.

Rios Tropicales

I am at Rios Tropicales. - www.riostropicales.com.  This eco lodge sits on the something that starts with a "P" river. We came here by boat, well actually, by white water raft. It is beyond beautiful. This was my first white water trip and it was a rush. We embarked at a point in the road well above Horquetas and Rio Frio at the meeting point above the river in a squalor town we transferred our gear to a large trailer that was being pulled by a tractor. Literally a farm tractor that took us down the road that our river guide, Chino, called a .. class four road. And it was. The 20 minutes down the steep grade took us to the loading point where we got into the rafts and began the ten kilometer ride down one of the most beautiful rivers on earth. It was spectacular.
We, all of us, pulled and pushed our paddles against the river over large rocks and bump and tumbled into huge ones all in an attempt to avoid the enormous ones. And that was how we came to this place, Rios Tropicales.
The eco lodge is made up of spectacular cabins and rooms. The floors are crafted from river stone and the furnishings are upscale. As I write this with all my screened windows open I hear the sound of the river all around me. Its as though I am on the bank of the river. I happen to be approximately a hundred feet up from the water, but the huge rapids that run in front of the lodge .. I'm in room 1... make an incredibly loud noise. And that is punctuated by crickets and buzzing chirping jungle insects. I've never been anyplace like this before.
When we pulled our rafts onto the shore and unloaded we could hear howler monkeys in the distance. I'm told that we will likely hear them again in the morning.
Today after our rafting experience, the show hosts, our three 12 year holds, rappelled down a waterfall. We walked across a suspension bridge that tipped and twisted as we walked across. I flew the helicopter drone up the face of the waterfall to capture part of the experience from a very different angle. It was the hardest flying I'd done yet. The waterfall made a difficult to maneuver updraft as it crashed into the pool of water below. Never mind that there was no place to take off or land. Loren held it over his head as he balance on the edge of the pool. Above the falls was a thick canopy of jungle. One wrong move and the flight would be over. The helicopter couldn't find the satellites for its GPS assist so I flew the mission completely on my own. After filming the climbers I returned the drone to Loren's reach where he put up his hand and caught it. I flew it twice and got some great footage.
Time for bed. I get up at 5:30 to film the lodge from the other side of the bridge. Again ... with the helicopter.
So for now I will let the river lull me to sleep.

- note- this entry was written last night as I drifted off to sleep with the something-that-starts-with-a-"p" river outside my windows. There was no internet at the lodge. I will write again in the morning. I'm too exhausted now that we are back at the Sun Sun. We leave early in the morning for Nicaragua. The reason for the rushed departure is unusually low water in the river we are traveling on. We apparently need to get there before dark as there are crocodiles in the water and they don't recommend spending the night on the water with them. Its normally a 4-hour boat ride. No telling what it will be tomorrow.
This morning after my early flight filming the Rios Tropicales we hiked up a 900 vertical foot climb to the top of the ridge. The path was clear but the jungle surrounding it was hot, humid and unforgiving. We came across poisonous snakes, thousands of leaf cutter ants and bullet ants that are so venomous that five bites will send you to the hospital. Not to worry though. Its not like they hunt you down. They keep to themselves and unless you go looking for them, you'll never know they were there. Its true that more people go to the hospital gagging on a chicken bone than for anything having to do with accidental encounters with wildlife. Get over it.  The one we saw was over an inch long. An ant.  Look at a ruler, an inch is a lot for an ant. We also came across a 100' tall tree loaded with long teardrop shaped nests of a large beautiful oriole. I couldn't resist and flew over the tree with the helicopter and filmed the nests up close. It was incredibly fun.
OK. Off to bed and let's hope there is internet in Nicaragua. I will write more from the Sun Sun and again on the boat ride up to Rio Indio.

Sun Sun

That's where I'm staying. Sun Sun Lodge, or Hotel.... or something. I can't really tell, because here in Costa Rica, up here in the hills, it's all jungle. But even though it's the sun sun.... we didn't see the sun all day.
The rooms at the Sun Sun Whatever are ok. Hot showers. Tile floors. Some of the rooms are Log Cabin styled, which means the rooms are divided one from another by logs. And mortar. But not a whole lot else. Right now, in the room next door, there is a lot of talking loudly in Spanish into a cell phone, in an effort to scream into he bad cell service and to drown out the very loud television ... also blaring in Spanish.
On the other side of the other wall of my room is our DP (director of photography). I can carry on a conversation from my room with Loren without even raising my voice. In fact I just said to him, "That's not me watching Spanish television". He replied, "no? but was that you yelling into your cell phone in Spanish?" In other words, he can hear the people TWO doors down perfectly. I'm not kidding I've slept in tents that were more sound proof.
Today I flew a helicopter. Well. It's a small one that carries a small GoPro camera. It's also known as a "drone". It was incredibly cool. I am, I think, the official drone pilot here on the shoot. I'll be flying these cool high establishing shots of the three hosts of the program as  they continue  on their adventure here in Costa Rica and on to Nicaragua. Our hosts are 12 year old kids from Texas. Two girls, Haley and Emma along with the primary host, Enzo Monfre. They are great kids that act just like 12 year olds, but with really good manners and high IQ's. They are sharp as tacks. The drone will be flying in a banana plantation tomorrow. Among the banana plants. Not banana trees, as the Dole executives reminded us today. Bananas don't grow on trees. Bet you didn't know that. They are technically "herbs". They grow on banana .... ummmm .... plants.
Ay nononono..... that's what I'm hearing now next door. I wonder what that means.
In a few days we're going to go to stay at Rios Tropicales. It's another Lodge or Hotel or whatever but WAY more into the jungle. I've been told we'll be greeted every morning by howler monkeys. Apparently at the Rios Tropicales Whatever, they come through in a .... what....???? Herd??? Whatever it is, a gang.... of howler monkeys come through the trees and though they aren't large animals, there is apparently a good reason they are called "howler" monkeys. We heard a toucan today, by the way, but that was a pleasant sound. Never saw it.
So now it's bed time here at the Sun Sun Whatever and I'm not tired, nor can I hear myself think. I'll be dreaming in Spanish. It's a great adventure so far. Looking forward to the big herb yellow fruity thingies.
Buenas Noches.
Luis

Going south

In just over a week, I will be heading south for 12 days. Pete, the producer for Enzoology/Exploration Nation called me when his "preditor" (the word, spelled with an 'i' commonly used now a days for producer-editor) up and quit.

It seems the job was too frightening for the poor guy. He declined the offer to work in the jungles of Costa Rica, (he lives there) and Nicaragua filming the journey of three twelve-year old kids as they explore agriculture, reforestation, rain forest medicine and survival skills. So he phoned up Pete, voiced his concern and bowed out.

It won't be all popsicles and lollypops, that's for sure. My chief role will be to produce a short daily live feed that will be shown in hundreds of classrooms around the US via video stream. We will be in the jungle so to complicate things  we will use a satellite phone uplink powered by a solar cell and streamed by a laptop...all carried in a backpack. 

Last jungle I saw was too overgrown to let much sunlight in, and this being a rainforest would predict, well, rain. So, what tree canopy doesn't stop us, perhaps cloud cover and rainwater will. Now I understand what shook up the last guy. This ain't my first rodeo, however, and it beats sitting around wishing for work. Besides the impossible task of broadcasting live programming on time and without glitches, I will also assume other preditor roles and film or assist others on the team with their tasks.

In the end the "Exploration Nation" (XN) team will come home with many hours of footage and enough content to support several hectares of curriculum for any number of publishers including Discovery Education. It will be some long hours of editing for Pete and his post production team if we all do our jobs right.

Earlier this year with the growing realization that I have less and less to lose, I said "yes" to the challenge of this trek through the rainforest. And I still feel that way, maybe more so. The option of sitting around waiting for everything to line up perfectly... or on my own terms ... isn't any longer an alternative. I will leave that kind of living to the overly-cautious. I'm, in the end, grateful that Pete's former preditor chose the safer route as it opened a door to live dangerously. And I'm not talking about malaria, denge fever, fresh water parasites that penetrate your skin or monsoons. The greater challenge is to inspire US classrooms to tweet their questions back to us live. If we survive that kind of creative challenge, I'll have really done something difficult. Attention spans being what they are.

The greatest danger of all though is the life so safely lived that all risk has been avoided. God bless you if that is you. I think its  a death from a sort of... occupational leprosy, a kind of unfeeling or a death of the soul. So hopefully I will be heading north on the 16th as scheduled after a wild ride with Pete and his team. With less to lose, coming back isn't the point. Living in the moment, is. 

I'll be writing along the way, even if it means pushing a post through the satellite phone from time to time,presuming we can find a satellite. 

Adios

The Big Time

The other day I was talking with Tynan as he and Mei An got themselves organized to go to Disneyland. They are in the school's marching band and both play clarinet. Well Tynan plays clarinet. Mei An mostly holds hers and when nobody's looking she will whisper Tynan's name in a raspy anxious tone until he looks around. Upon making eye contact, she sticks out her tongue at him. That's what she calls, "playing clarinet". Anyway they are at this very moment in southern CA, may God bless the chaperones, at Disneyland. 

Disneyland is genius of course because when those 6th graders grow up and become parents they will all be bringing their kids to Disneyland too. They will say... "You know kids, I used to play in the Disneyland band, yup, marched right down Main Street and played for thousands of people..."  It's like the perfect way to give kids a sampler - put them in the show. 

So I said to Tynan, "it looks like you guys are going to be playing on Main Street"... He got all starry eyed. Like, waiting for the tooth fairy starry eyed, or, night before Christmas starry eyed. And said, "you know... there are going to be THOUSANDS (dragging the word out) of people watching us...." I know that Disneyland has between 65,000 and 100,000 patrons in the park each day. I knew the head of Disney security and sitting in his office in the backlot one day, I saw the counter. They get so much money that they weigh it instead of counting it. (true). So Tynan's right, there will be a lot of people there, someone correctly told him that there will be thousands of people there. But, he thinks the Disney's (someone akin to the Wizard of Oz with a big lever somewhere in the mechanistic bowels of the park), will pull the lever and stop all the rides when the Lyman Gilmore band comes marching down the street. He thinks they're going to BE the famous Disneyland electric parade!

In his 12 year old mind, he sees throngs of people throwing confetti and cheering as the band plays "Funky Town" flawlessly as if for the first time, a world premiere. They will want his autograph. The thousands of people will hold up lighters and cell phones until the band snaps to and plays the encore the throng demands... then eventually, the park will spin back up as the Wizard pushes the lever to "go" and the famous band will go on rides for the rest of the day, signing autographs for other visitors and getting their pictures taken with Goofy (because Goofy requests it).

So what occurred to me the other day as I was thinking about this was wars. Fighting and bickering over this and that. If the countries that declare war on each other would stop and think to themselves, "hey, if we try to get people to like us and invite them to come at an early age for free and be part of the parade, they'll want to come back and spend money and tell their friends that we're ok..." 

Unfortunately, that's not how it is. More often than not, countries play the same game Mei An does. They try to get some attention and just as all eyes are on them, they stick out their tongues, (figuratively speaking). They do mean things to intimidate and swagger rather than use good marketing, kindness and smart demographically proven tactics to win the world over.

I don't know how Tynan will handle being home after all that stardom. There'll be no livin' with him. I'm envisioning the speech one day, that I doubt I'll be alive to hear... about how Tynan's famous band went big time in 2013.

Recipe for Sicilian Margarita Pizza...

Ok, here's that recipe some of you have asked for... enjoy:

Ok, the recipe for Sicilian Pizza...

This will make two pretty good sized pizzas...

Pasta (what we Americans call "dough")
4 Cups of Flour
Water (Hard to say how much, I use enough to make the dough the "right" consistency)
1 tbsp dry yeast
Pinch of salt

Sauce
1 Can tomato sauce
Oregano
Salt
3 - 4 coarsely chopped cloves of garlic (per pizza)
Olive oil.

Topping
Grated Mozzarella Cheese
Sliced Tomatoes
Fresh Basil.

Stir the yeast into a cup of warm water. Let it sit for a few minutes. A pinch of sugar makes the yeast happy.

In a large mixing bowl, make a big dent in the flour and pour the yeast and water into the flour. Begin to mix and knead. Have two or three cups of water ready to add to the pasta. As you fold the pasta, keep adding water until you get a solid doughball that isn't too sticky. It should be just a bit tacky, but you don't want it too wet. Keep adding flour if you've put in too much water and you'll have it just right.

Dust the pasta with flour.

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rise one hour. (Should be in a warm spot, either in the sun or warm the oven up to 170 and kill the temp.)

Remove the pasta, dust with flour and fold over on itself. Kneed it out and turn on a 90 degree angle, dust it and fold it over. Repeat this 9 times. (You're creating a layered effect so when you make your pizza, the heat from the oven will bake the layers out into bubbles, ideally.)

Preheat the oven to 425

PASTA
Cut your pasta in half (one half for each pizza).

Now begin by making your pasta in a sphere. Press it down and outward. It will try to stretch back as you do so pushing your fingers into the pasta to create a "golf ball" pocked mark effect is helpful. Dust with flour and turn it over and keep working at it.

Eventually you'll have a thin layer of pasta. The goal is to be about the thickness of your basic flour tortilla.  The final pasta should be completely covered with craters from your fingers. Carefully transfer the pasta (I dust it, fold it over half, twice and immediately unfold it) on a stone or cookie sheet that has been dusted with flour or cornmeal.

SAUCE
This is important. Drip olive oil all over the pizza and cover it completely (this keeps the moisture from the tomato sauce from soaking into the pasta). Once the oil is smoothed out, shake a good couple teaspoons of salt all over the pasta.

Fill a ladle with tomato sauce and spread evenly, then using the back of the ladle, smooth out the tomato sauce so it covers the pasta. Keep adding until you get the amount desired.

Add coarsely chopped garlic to taste.

Add oregano, dust the sauce so it's evenly distributed. I use quite a bit of oregano.

TOPPING
At this point, I add the fresh basil. Use whole leaves and cover more than half of the pizza. (Putting the basil on the top of the pizza results in dry crumbly basil after baking.)

Cover the sauce with fresh grated mozzarella cheese.

Add tomato slices to cover most of the pizza.

Add a bit more salt.

Sprinkle olive oil on top of pizza.

Parmesan cheese to taste if desired.

BAKE 15-20 min

Bake the pizza at 425.

I usually turn the pizza once or twice along the way. You're looking for the pizza to brown up on top without burning the cheese. The goal is to have a crackery base under the pizza, crispy but not burned. This is thin crust so you the pizza slice will not support its own weight, but you do want it baked golden brown. Patience is the key, as well as positioning the pizza low in the oven.

Remove the pizza when you're convinced you've got a nice crispy pasta and have managed to avoid burning the cheese on top...

Slice and serve.

Sicilian love

I'm not Sicilian. I know a few. They're, all of them, wonderful. One lived here at our house for a year. Vincenzo. Even though I grew up making pizza at the restaurant my family owned, I hadn't really had pizza.

This past week, my father-in-law landed himself in the hospital, four + hour drive from here. So after getting Melinda on her way to see him, possibly for the last time, I began to take stock of what there was to feed the kids.

Ever since Vincenzo, or Vice' (pronounced "Vee-shay") showed me the secret to making margarita pizza, I've built memories for myself and others through the thin crust, the tomato sauce with garlic and oregano, fresh tomatoes and the mozzarella cheese with fresh basil.

I'd been telling my wife for weeks that it would be good to go see her dad. Sometimes I have these premonitions, or maybe I'm just a pessimist and think the end is near far too often. The day before we got the call from the hospital I was pressing again telling her, "I think you really should go see him, he's not been well". Then her brother called.

Meals are always around when there's trouble it seems. Most families have experienced meals brought in by others when there's an illness or death. And maybe that's why I decided on the pizza. I've love watching someone sink into the melted mozzarella and fresh tomatoes, basil and olive oil and seeing the change come over them. It's comfort food. It's Sicilian love. And now it's a memory I often cherish. Perhaps the most satisfying phone call I've received was from a friend who only had a month to live, as it turned out. She'd called to request the pizza "once more before I die"... Around a month later the cancer took her. I will never forget eating with her.

Food sometimes has a way of turning around a lost or failing relationship. And maybe the memory of the pizza or the broiled salted asparagus, the curried shrimp or blended piña colada is enough to begin to recall what was lost. Perhaps the connection that was made once can be made again and a little good food can bring everyone back to their senses.

For my kids, I just wanted to make another memory, because their memories are just as important as what I told my wife about connecting with her dad and brothers. Those to whom we say "I love you" are high priority. So I went beyond the margarita pizza and added mushrooms and grilled chicken. I want them to remember it beyond dessert. They heated the leftovers up the next morning for breakfast, actually. Very satisfying as their chef.

Hopefully my father in law will be ok, of course we all wish he wasn't dealing with nurses and IV's. Most likely the food is nutritious but ... well let's just say if he gets out of there alive he'll probably not have fond memories of the onion broth they call soup.

Here's a picture of the pizza I served up the other night. Margarita pizza is easy to make. Hit me with an email if you'd like the recipe.

Ciao!

Louigie

Nothing is changed, everything is different.

And suddenly the whole world was different.

It wasn't the first time something like this happened to me. It's sort of like waking up after a long day of international travel - the kind of to-the-bone-exhausting travel where a twenty hour flight and a few hours in a hotel leaves me literally lost when I wake up that first morning. Instantly... the whole world is different.

Today, I received an email with a Word doc attachment, a strategy white paper it was. I printed it out and began scanning for words that might make me want to read it. So, upon reaching the bottom of the first of four pages, I, no kidding, put my finger on the last paragraph and swiped upward. Nothing happened, it was paper!!!

I up-swiped a printed document. My brain woke up in a foreign place. To make things worse, my first reaction when the toner didn't move was, "what the heck....?" As if I should reboot the recycled printer paper.

I've been rewired. It actually took a few seconds for me to laugh about it. I recently wrote something out with a ball-point pen and after reversing the "i-before-e" thing for the thousandth time, I was perturbed that the note didn't spell check itself and auto-correct. I thought about backspacing and deleting. I've reached out and touched a TV screen to make a DVD play. I caught myself on the way to the radio dial in the car to bookmark a song that was playing on FM.

My devices are defining me. On the rare occasion that I take a check, I "deposit" it with my phone's camera. Recently I left a meeting that I'd navigated to with a mobile GPS. It occurred to me that if my phone battery sputtered out during the meeting, I would have been utterly lost due to my fly-by-wire arrival. I honestly had no clue where I was; getting there was a mixture of staying on the road while my phone literally talked me in to the meeting to within two minutes and six feet of perfect accuracy.

My tablet tells me how to dress for the weather it's constantly watching and proudly boasting about. At dinner the other night an argument broke out over how a 5-star restaurant's menu would list a gourmet recipe for rabbit. When Wikipedia and Google both fell down on the job, my demand for instant truth drove me to an old school technology - I called my dad on the phone and texted my brother to get the answer.

My expectation that everything I ever watched on television as a kid is only two clicks away on YouTube was absolutely crushed when I couldn't find "Pope Brad" from Michael Nesmith's collection of short, whacky films. What's the world coming to???

I used to think these little glowing screens and lick-able icons were a marvel of usefulness. The truth is, I can't get them out of my head. The real disappointment earlier tonight wasn't that my paper wouldn't swipe, it was that I'd forgotten momentarily how to turn a page. So in this new world in which I find myself, nothing is changed really... but everything is different.

 -- END --

Its a jungle in there

"I am not your slave" I said to the dog that stood whining outside my front door. Which wasn't true. The ridiculous mix between jack-russell terrier and bijan frieze only has to whimper near the door and somebody, a human, stops what they are doing and let's the dog in or out. Maybe the thought of the dog relieving itself on the carpet is enough to keep me on a short leash.  The animal is only outside in the cold for three minutes before its clawing and crying at the door again. Annoying, sharp cries, they are. High pitched and shaking for added effect. The dog has me trained. I am in fact its slave.

The cat I didn't want was trying t get into the dishwasher.  I stepped on it by accident for the tenth time in its already decrementing nine lives. In all, its a fine cat, except that it's never satisfied. The assigned bowl of cat food isn't empty, the cat just wants the scraps of the dishwasher. This house is too small to be a zoo. 

One of the 27 chickens was lost today. An escape that cost my daughter several hours of her elective Saturday looking for it. I perceive it as a waste of time, but when you're 12, what could be more fun than trying to recover a recalcitrant bird. The thing flew into the brambles which drove the yellow lab nearly into a frenzy as every gene in its body went into retriever mode. At last notice, it's still lost and will probably freeze through the night. 

The lab is a piece of work as well. She has a condition. The unfairness of it won't leave me alone. The disease sends her into convulsions when she runs too hard. I think there is even a name for it. Exercise Induced Collapse. Looks like a seizure to me. Recently, she fell into some bushes all locked up and eyes rolled back, and a stick punctured her scalp. That was a six hundred dollar cure at the vet, including the anesthesia and the drain tubes that remained for many weeks. 

We have special needs pets. One of the chickens when not even a day out of the egg, had been left for dead by the hen that brooded over it. I think it actually did die, but Mei An gave it mouth to beak resuscitation and it has lived ever since. It too has seizures. Just when you think it dead, its eyes blink and it's back to wandering in search of bugs. The cat is orally fixated with a strong ongoing nursing preference for polar fleece. 

We feed them on their terms. We let them in or out at their whim, I considered cutting a doggie door into one of the doors but I just can't bring myself to actually act on the notion of a private entrance for the throng of sub-human life forms that clutter my halls. Instead I numb my mind to the gross interruptions that are meant to be here for my pleasure. Slave or indentured servant ... either one is a notch or two down from where I thought I'd be. 

Books are magical

Why haven't I been reading every day of my life?

I never really read anything but textbook assignments all the way through school. And when I did read something, my lack of patience and undiagnosed A.D.D. was what kept me more interested in movies, I suppose, than committing to reading an actual book. But lately, I've been reading again. And I'm starting to get panicky if I don't have that time at the end of the day to escape into a book.

I just finished two books by Orson Scott Card. The first one, Pastwatch, is subtitled "The redemption of Christopher Columbus". Card is most well known for the Ender's Game series, which I read a few years back. He's such a good writer that it doesn't matter the topic, he nails the reader page after page. This latest one, Enchantment, is a different spin on the story of Sleeping Beauty. Card had to really do his homework on the book as it is steeped in the scholarly character, Ivan, who is one of the few speakers of a dead Slavic language allegedly spoken by the cursed beauty and her community. Ivan gets to experience a scholar's dream by entering the fairy tale and coming face to face with the likes of Baba Yaga, history's most infamous witch.

I'm reminded again that fiction is the only thing that connects me to reality. I just can't read non-fiction for long, which is why I think, I was such a lousy student. I was buried, like most students, in non-fiction textbooks. Which is like eating predigested nutrition bars for every meal. After a while it seems to make more sense to skip a lot of meals rather than submit yourself to "what's good for you".

It's a nice feeling to have this escape into reality though. It's a great place to be able to find food and drink for the soul. I have a much better understanding of Orson Scott Card's research to reproduce a version of what "could" have been the pre-Russian village of Taina. The thought that a king ruled alongside his people, leading them both into war as well as leading them into harvest and laboring at their side to prepare to have food through the harsh winters.

And that's the point of fiction I suppose. Coming into the election, it's interesting to note the differences of a courageous leader that takes to the battlefield wearing his own sword, and one that spends most of his last elected year trying to convince the people that he's worthy of another four years. This is a non-partisan comment, for all elected officials on either side of the proverbial aisle makes the same mistake. I found the idea in fiction though, not by observing this or that incorruptible contemporary government or system. The power of mythology is really the narrative we need most in these alien days.

History has a way... they say, of repeating itself. May it be the case. I hope I live to see the day when the power of an influential person in my life is not forced upon me because I'm one of the voting masses. Rather would it come by intimacy and my own inability to resist the winsome and honorable courage of someone that wants to do the right thing. It's never simple, and often fraught with mistakes, fairy tales do have a way of glamorizing the ideal. A good story well told, however takes us through the journey of that hero in the best of times and the worst of times.

As Baba Yaga cannibalizes her victims and plucks out their eyes to make potions and spells, it's clear that there is nothing tantalizing about evil. Yet evils we must endure. We are all in a story... many stories actually. We, all of us have the rights and responsibilities to live them the best we can, and to rise above our own mundane textbook lives. I for one, will be picking up more fiction so that the truth of the stories I'm living have some bearing. Non-fiction is meant for instruction manuals and recipes at dinnertime. May the rest be myths and legends to encourage whomever comes after us to continue to do the rightest things they can. Complete with mistakes and setbacks. There is magic in the book itself, because the story has the power to conjure and seduce the mind. A most dangerous, and welcome companion for whatever's left of my own journey to the end.