The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

Gassed up, we drive down through Death Valley heading down to Sweet Water Canyon where we will head off into the Badlands. The scenery is majestic.

Where is your sting?

Indiana Jones hat

The big crunch comes at the turn off into Sweet Water Valley, the fractured trail up to the Geologist’s Cabin, because the gate is closed and locked. I know this place from old. There is a wash just beyond the gate, which in rainy weather is uncrossable and so cuts the road. https://spikekalashnikov.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/xmas-on-the-road/

We drive around the gate and down to the wash, as we thought, it is totally crossable.

You must be kidding

So, here we start the real stuff, as we batter the Tacoma up the rocky, sandy, desert trail, which is sprinkled with abandoned mines.

James is very good at this kind of thing.

This is a talc mine. James did not know what Talcum powder was. When did Talc disappear?

We continue up the mountain without accident, as wild mules, ancestors abandoned by prospectors, er a long time ago, detachedly look on.

Burro!

Anyway, we finally get to the cabin after some 600 miles of travel only to find it is occupied by other travelers. It is a bit like Scott arriving at the South Pole only to find that Amundsen is already there.

Are we downhearted? No!

Oh well, we head off into the desert to camp. I tell you, if you like camping then Butte Valley has to be one of the best places – amazing views, perfect sites and that sort of thing.

Our campsite.

View from camp

Perfect camping.

We start cooking

Tri tip and roast potatoes

James carves ju ju doll

Happiness and joy

We sleep out, looking up at an astounding sky packed with stars. At 3:00 it starts to rain, so we scamper into the flat bed of the truck and slumber on in the freshest of air.

So, James and I head out to Death Valley. The goal is to stay in the exceptional  Geologist’s Cabin. https://spikekalashnikov.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/cabin-fever/

Tacoma loaded, we blast over to Sacramento and then take 50 over the Sierras. Up through the pines into the snow with a deep blue sky above, we go.

Over the Sierras

Down the other side to hit 395 and then cruise all the way down the other side of the Sierras. It is a beautiful  day and we have huge snow covered mountains to the right and desert to the left. One of the great drives.

We try to drive up to Bodie https://spikekalashnikov.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/lashed-by-tempests-of-lust-and-passion/ but the main access road is closed because of snow but I know a back way and we drive around back trials, gleeful at having beaten the man until, well on the way up, the road is blocked by impassable concrete blocks. Rats!

Hard to think that the road is blocked by snow. I mean we are wearing Tshirts.

However we take at tramp around Mono Lake, which is amazing.

James at Mono Lake.

Mono Lake 

We have no plan other than drive down towards Death Valley until we get fed up. It is getting dark and we are getting vaguely fed up as we gallop into Big Pine. The town looked quiet, indeed  strangely quiet. We stop at a motel and ask if they have a room. It takes us a surprisingly long time to notice the candle burning on the counter. They cannot rent us a room because there is no electricity.

Strange experience a U.S. town with no power – McDonalds with no golden arches, no street lights, all gas stations closed, everything closed.

We have no option but to keep driving. It is pitch black as we roar up the 40 miles to Panamint Springs, there is no light anywhere. There is a total blackout over this part of California.  We  finally see lights ahead. It is Panamint Springs, a gas station, restaurant and camp site on the edge of Death Valley.  Their power comes from generators. We camp.

Dawn at Panamint Springs

Up and off but we do not buy gas as it is much cheaper 40 miles away in Stovepipe Wells down in the valley. Beautiful drive into Death Valley descending from 6000ft to sea level with massive vistas at least the size of  Belgium. Regretfully, there is no power in Stovepipe Springs and so no gas. Fundamental rule of desert adventure is to set off into the backcountry with as much gas as possible so we turn around and head back to Panamint Springs.

Glug, glug, glug at Panamint.

Hmmm, strange start.

There is tremendous pleasure derived from living in Japan and in the USA, but this does come at a bureaucratic price. I have been in California for over a week and the mainstay of my activities is ensuring that all my documentation is in order.

I go to the Social Security office to see if the money I paid in when I worked at Stanford plus the 16 years I have been paying US tax gives me any kind of pension or Medicare.

The answer is no, by the way. The experience however is salutary. I am there half an hour before it opens amid a crowd of people with needs greater than mine.

There but for fortune.

I have to file my US taxes and I track down a wonderful Russian lady, Elena, who says she is happy to do it for me. She is lots of fun and seems in no way daunted by the complexities of US tax on a Japanese salary. I have to fill in lots of forms.

I have to have my car smogged. California has very strict emission controls and before you change car ownership or anything like that the car has to pass a smog test. The Tacoma fails! Not because of dirty emission syndrome but because the removal of the battery last weekend zeroes out some internal record lost deep in the electronic wilderness of the car. I have to drive it for a couple of hundred miles to reset this thing. I do not understand.

I also get the brakes checked.

San Francisco has excellent public transport and I have to get a bus pass know as Clipper. More forms.

Another smog test – she passes. I am now armed to go to the DMV to have the title changed to my name. It was under Ben’s name for a reason I cannot remember.

Visiting the DMV is not fun, especially the Fell street office, which although very close to the house, is the busiest in San Francisco.

I fortify myself with natural beauty.  This is just outside the DMV and the statue is of  President McKinley, whose parents were born in Kintyre.

I wait in line outside for 2 hours

.

Luckily it is a beautiful day.

I wait inside for another hour.

When I finally get to speak to the man, he tells me that I have filled in the wrong forms. I should have filled in Family Transfer forms. For a moment I think he is going to tell me to go back and start again, but no, he grins and helps me through the whole procedure. Thank you DMV man.

I have also had to do a lot of banking adjustments.

As I say being legal, running apartments and cars in two countries comes at a price.

Last Saturday was the first Graduation Ceremony at OIST and it capped my contribution to the university. It was a moving event for me. I came to OIST in January 2011 and there was not much here; a couple of hundred employees, little administrative set up, no rules or regulations,  no students, no accreditation as a university, no communication strategy etc etc; but  huge ambition and energy.

7 years later, we have an extraordinary campus that is expanding rapidly, are recognized as one of the world’s leading research universities , on Saturday we graduated our first class of students.  Yay!

I has been a rare privilege to have been able to contribute. Thank you Japan, thank you Okinawa, thank you all my amazing colleagues at OIST.

Steve Chu

Graduate stuff

Lots of selfie fun

Read Sophie’s excellent story.

https://www.oist.jp/news-center/news/2018/2/27/celebrating-oist%E2%80%99s-very-first-graduates-graduation-ceremony-2017

We organize a Gala Concert to celebrate Jonathan’s years as President.

Yay

The concept is to have lots of different pieces including ones from each of the countries from which the students who will graduate tomorrow, come. In between music, people get up and pay tribute to Jonathan. It works well.

The real thing

Cecilia Lu is an amazing person. She is a neuroscientist at the university and also a concert pianist. She assembles a group of amazingly talented musicians from Japan and Taiwan.

Cecilia plays a duet.

There are two Irish graduates and Hokulani, the university orchestra, play Carolan’s Concerto in their honor.

Very talented bunch

I try to keep up.

All in all a great evening in a packed auditorium.

Left to right; Julia speaker, Jonathan star, Renee star, Cecilia performer, Keshav speaker, Me performer, Ankur speaker.

After the festivities, of which more later, I set off on Sunday to San Francisco. First leg is Okinawa to Narita. It is an unusual flight as the passengers are a mix of young US military and Nobel prizewinners returning from the Graduation Ceremony.

Half way to Tokyo, I realize that I have left my flute at home. This plunges me into gloom as I was looking forward to playing a lot in California. I am amazed how forgetful I can be. We get to Narita and something happens to me that has never happened to me before. As I get on the bus to the terminal, a very polite young marine gets up from his seat and says, “Here you are Sir, there’s a seat for you right here.” He clearly sees me as a very old man. Troubling.

I arrive at SFO and wait for James to pick me up in the truck. However, after some confusion I get a text saying the truck’s battery is flat and I will have to find my own way home. During this wait my much beloved Google Timbuktu bag is on the sidewalk.  I then go over to the shuttle stop and in no time at all I am en route to SF.

Just as we are entering downtown I get this cold clammy feeling. Where is my bag? It was strange as I suddenly became aware that my bag was not with me. Perhaps the driver, the estimable Alejandro, had  put it in the back with my suitcase.  He stops in the middle of traffic, scoots round the back to look and comes back shaking his head.

I have left my bag containing laptop, IPad, house keys and all kinds of documents somewhere in the airport. I had no idea where.

The bag itself has sentimental value as Larry Page gave it to me in 2006

How can I be so forgetful? I have to consult a Gerontologist.  Who is going to hand in a nice bag full of Mac goodies? Gey few. I am feeling pretty bad when Alejandro phones back to the pick up station, turns around and grins,”They have your bag!”

Despair to elation over a very short time. Alejandro says, “Look man, I will go back to the airport and on my next trip into the city I will drop the bag off at your place. Would that work?”

Alejandro – mention him in your prayers.

Sure enough, a couple of hours later he brings me my bag. This is what is known as a life affirming experience.

I check my email and there is a message from Officer Lucas, SFO Police, very politely informing that my bag had been found and I should not worry.  He had found a business card in the bag and had mailed my OIST address.  Thank you Officer Lucas. I then get a Facebook message from the wonderful Laura, who had spent six months at OIST as a Science Writing Fellow. “So they recently paged a Neil Calder over the intercom at SFO… I thought it can’t be you since you’d be in Japan for the grad ceremony. But how many Neil Calders are flying through SFO?”  Amazing, she just happened to be in the airport when they started paging me.

Long strange trip.

Comfort food.

Asked yesterday what I did not like about Japan, I had to think hard. I could only come up with:

1. ATMs close at 6:00pm
2. Post Offices and Banks closed at the weekend
3. Way, way too much packaging, especially plastic bags.

On the last point there is one behavior  in Japan that I have not seen in other countries, of which I totally approve. If you buy any product that comes in a plastic spray bottle, for example, kitchen cleaner, or in a plunger type plastic container, for example shower soap, then you buy a refill rather than the whole container over again.

See what I mean

This probably happens in all countries now.  I like it.

This is what my friend Kiyuna san told me this morning. How true.

We were going through the parts list for the overhaul of the engine. He is a lot of fun and seems determined not to waste money by buying new parts when the existing ones can be restored.

This is his workshop

Starter motor, whose death I had taken for granted. He has been soaking it in magic potion for a week and seems confident of resurrection.

Same thing for the alternator

Anyway, I am going to the States on Sunday after the Graduation. I will be away for a month. Kiyuna san says no problem, give me some money for parts and  the engine probably fixed when you get back. I sign over my life savings.

I have also finished cleaning and generally sprucing up the tank.

Smearing on nice thick coat of sealant.

Pretty tank

I find a tin of lamp oil made from boiled down blubber. I cannot wait to see if my lamps work.

Lamp oil.  How many whales died under the lash for that small tin?

It lights

Looks beautiful

I can now dream of long evenings at anchor in tropical bays, the cabin aglow with gentle oil lamp light, drinking cold beer to the serenade of fruit bat howls.

You know how it is.

So, I have to print a document but do not have a printer. I do not want to buy a printer because I am very poor and you only use them once in a month of Sundays. Naoko tells me what to do. You go to a web site, establish an email and user name. Then you can upload the documents you want to print to this site. The site has an English version.

What you see when you upload a document.

You then go to your nearest Combini. Combini are an amazing Japanese tradition, they are stores that sell virtually everything and they stay open 24/7. The are all over the place and offer an incredible range of services, stamps, bill pay, hot meals, cold meals, of course as soon as you walk in all the staff look up and shout “Thank you for coming, welcome!” The big ones in Okinawa are Lawson and Family Mart.

Thank you Lawson

Anyway you go to the amazing printer device. Hit “English” and you are guided through the steps. There is a number associated with your upload that has been sent to you by email. This you enter, put in 20 yen per page and hit print. Whammo, here are your documents.  It is so easy.

The amazing device.

So maybe this service has been available in all countries for decades but it is new to me and I am very grateful.

I also have to pay my gas bill, which for some reason is not possible at the Combini. but they tell me that I can do so at the bank which is a block away.

Again this is all done by a machine. This time there are no English instructions so a delightful young woman comes and walks me through it. Such fun.

Look at this! A new apartment block beside my own.

During construction the building is wrapped in fabric that disguises its nature. Today it is unveiled,

Sunset tonight

I lunch with Jonathan and Renee, who are here for the Graduation Ceremony. Next I go for a ramble down by the sea in front of where I live. It is a truly wonderful day, bright sunny and not too hot. Okinawa has a strong ancestor worship tradition and families have their individual tombs. The area in which I live is tomb rich.

Low tide unfortunately. This islet is normal set in a silver – actually turquoise – sea. This is just in front of my apartment.

IPhones are so cool

These I believe to be very old and I think abandoned.

This again is on an islet 50 meters from the shore

These are pretty flowers

Likewise

Anyway enough of this soft stuff. Yesterday I had a long talk with Sato san. He is a wonderful man who has spent many years setting up rigging for racing yachts and  is held in great respect around the boatyard.   He is also a stern taskmaster. He insists that I take off all the ancient sealant that is stuck to the underside of the gunwhale trim and  varnish. This turns out to be very difficult as the ancient sealant, sometimes very thick, is fast to the wood  and my little scraper has not much effect. Sato san then produces a real scraper.

Wow

It smashes off all the residual sealant in no time at all. I then ask him about removing the old antifouling paint. Again he says use the scraper.

This took a minute.

The right tool for the job. Sato san lends it to me and seems deeply unconcerned about getting it back. This is very Okinawan.