Dare to think big

This week I’ve been scanning some old slides that I keep in an old box got off an O’Neil jobsite. The box caught my attention this time around because of the CompUSA tag on it (as that old dog among tech retailers announced this week it’s going out of business). But there’s more. The box originally housed a backup tape drive — the “Jumbo 250″ — circa 1993. 250 Gigabytes, you might ask? Try decimating that number by — well, by a tenth. That’s right: 250 MEGA bytes — a data-devouring black hole of metallic-coated, inexhaustible potential . “My god,” we must have thought in those simpler, smaller times.  “There’s no way in hell we’ll ever fill it…”

Round Top Drive open for business!

After 21 months, 2 murders, numerous delays, cost overruns, and untold lost hours in detouring the long way around the mountain, the closed stretch of Round Top Drive has finally (!) reopened to through traffic. It’s been so long since the road blocks went up that I had to think hard about why the road closed in the first place. (Oh yeah, all that rain we got back in the spring of 2005…)

It was weird riding the Tantalus-Round Top loop, as I — like so many other cyclists — had become so accustomed to simply turning around and doubling back. Yipee!

Ghosts of former shipmates

While trawling around YouTube I came across this short clip of my ship, the U.S.S. Deyo (which now rests at the bottom of the Atlantic after having been decommissioned and sunk as a target by a younger vessel). This is the only video of Deyo I’ve ever seen; I certainly did not have a camcorder back in those days. There’s not much to see, actually: a couple of guys hosing down the fantail — yes, battling ice with water — and burning trash. (In my day we just threw it over the side…) The video was shot in Norway, 1995, so it’s possible there were still people I knew on-board at that time, but doubtful.

What’s more interesting is what happened after I left a brief comment. Not more than a day later I was contacted by LT(jg) Tompkins, a quiet but very likable guy who often felt more at ease chatting with the enlisteds than his own officer bretheren. The message was brief: remember me?, what are you up to?, this is what I’m doing, and that’s about it. Nothing special, but then YouTube isn’t exactly the place for rekindling old friendships.

You know, it’s funny: ten years ago I nearly gave up hope of ever reconnecting with any of my former shipmates (except Casey, of course). Then, as the Internet gradually became a part of our daily existence — yes, remember that? — I was actually found first (I think) by a couple of buddies from OD (my division: Operations / Deck).

It probably comes as no surprise that the virtual reunion was anti-climatic. Living and working on-board ship with someone creates true “had to be there”-type relationships: there’s often little to sustain them outside of the immediate context. Paco had found God somewhere along the way (which, in his case, probably saved his life) and for a while sent me a stream of “touched” email messages that gradually dried up altogether. Maybe he got the hint when I stopped replying. Frazee was still Frazee. Good guys, both of them; we just had our time and place on board a very special ship that now, fittingly, will never again be touched by human hands. I suppose Casey and I were lucky in that we worked to create new lives and stories together once our time on Deyo came to an end. It’s just a shame that we don’t get talk more these days, but that’s as much my fault as anyone’s.

Now, I’d better get that reply out to Lt. Tompkins, let him know that every thing’s OK over here.

Tim Biskup

I’ve recently become a big fan of Tim Biskup’s pop-surrealist visions. A lot of his stuff — this poster especially — reminds me of the Magic Kingdom attraction posters which line the entrance tunnel to Main Street U.S.A. There’s more good stuff for your viewing pleasure on his website.

(Some clever faux-Disney attraction posters…)

The end of an era

Even since last month, when Steve suddenly announced his resignation as the Director of HELP (Hawaii English Language Program — the place where I’ve taught and invested a heck-of-a-lot-of myself in over the past three-and-a-half years) things around work have been a little unsettled. None of us can fault Steve for wanting to take up a new post at Leeward Community College (better pay, more freedom, increased travel opportunities), but he was the heart and soul of HELP, and the best boss that most of us have had or will ever have. He earned our trust by trusting in our own abilities to do what we were hired to do, and by not playing politics. Getting on Steve’s bad side was never advisable, that’s for sure, but you’d also find no better advocate.

Perhaps what I’m going to miss most, though, is just having someone to speak frankly with and bounce new ideas off of. Steve is fairly open-minded, and over the years he’s given me a lot of freedom to try things a more cautious person would not have been willing to risk. Partly as a result, under Steve’s watch HELP has become a rather special place. Small, somewhat dilapidated, but special nonetheless. It’ll be interesting to see how things change in the wake of his departure.

On a more personal note, Steve’s leaving coincides with (or perhaps has precipitated) my own transitioning away from HELP. Now that I’m finished with classes at UH, I’ll only be working on a part-time, emergency-hire basis while I pick up other gigs around town. Perhaps it’s just as well, too, since I need to start concentrating more on my own thing. All things must pass. Change is good. Right?

We all wish you well, boss; it’s not going to be the same without you.

“SCTV now begins its programming day…”

I see that YouTube now has some videos posted from season 6 of SCTV (though there’s no guarantee how long they’ll remain there). From 1983–1984, the final season of SCTV aired on Cinemax and went by (the rather awkward) “SCTV Channel”. Being that we were Cinemax subscribers at the time, my brother and I got into the show and taped a bunch of episodes (on Betamax tapes, no less). A healthy chunk of our inside jokes and cultural-references come from bits taken from these episodes, so it’s been fun watching them again. I don’t know if this season will ever see release on DVD or not, so for now this might be your best bet.

As an aside, I love the VCR tracking lines that show up on the vids. Feels just like I’m back home on the couch with that clunky remote in my hand. (link)

Scots bearing gifts

Yumi has become good friends with a Scottish couple who travel to Hawaii every year and always stay at the Princess Kaiulani. They’ve even taken to bringing her gifts. The other day Yumi brought home this tartan-clad date book for 2008 and a Scottish Highlands calendar. Yumi told me that she always has to ask the gentleman to repeat himself in order to understand, but being the proud Scot he is, he doesn’t seem to mind — even going so far as to joke that she should have married a Scot

There’s a hole / in my life

I just borrowed “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” from the library because I’d realized — after it came up around Thanksgiving on the local morning news — that I’d never seen it. Now, I have a pretty sharp memory when it comes to the release dates of songs and movies from the 80’s, but there’s roughly a six-month gap in my knowledge from around the time I was deployed overseas in the Navy. It’s not a complete void, but when I come across an unfamiliar film or song from the late 80’s, I can be fairly certain it came out sometime between September 1987 and March 1988.

(“Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” was released in 1987, by the way; I’m assuming around Thanksgiving.)

Pop-up pulp

These are wonderful. Photographer Thomas Allen creates graphic pop-up illustrations from the cover art of classic pulp thrillers, with each element still attached to its original book. A collection of Allen’s work is now available in a new book, Uncovered. I just love them.

(link to images of Allen’s work at Joseph Bellow Gallery; link to more images at Foley Gallery )

New World “Mash”

This one’s for all the solo jammers out there.

Last summer I came across a killer vid of some guy drumming along to Rush’s “New World Man” in his garage or basement. That find led to several others, and while they’re interesting to watch on their own, ever since I’ve been wanting to make a good thing even better by mashing them together into a single video. Well, this morning I finally got around to editing it. While the result is less than perfect, I had a lot of fun making it (and fun is what I needed at the time).

I found several other clips that would have worked nicely but I had to draw the line somewhere, so I just went with the original four I’d downloaded. This could be really habit forming… (link)