With only three days left before we stumble off to Honolulu, The Mainland, and Canada, and it’s Good Friday, and I want to go out for a dive this afternoon, and this cursed rain is bucketing . . . I’m feeling a little down. Don’t you feel sorry for me? Sniff, sniff . . .

Okay, I’m over it now. That feels better.

Here’s a rainy day picture for you:

Rain or not, I’m a creature of habit and an habitual nester. I hate leaving my cozy home in Madang to venture out into the great whatever. However, I get to see Hans and Tamara (son and daughter-in-law). I’ll also get to remind my granddaughters Philippa Jayne and Audrey Rose that they have a grandpa. It’s been four years since I’ve seen them.

I can see out the window that the sky is lightening, so maybe the day will improve.

Though we’ll be traveling, I’m determined to try to put something vaguely amusing here every day. I’m sure we’ll see things that tickle my whimsy bone. I’ll pass them along to you.

Please, if you have news and/or pictures of interest to our readers, email the information to me and I will post it.

Madang readers – I’ll be back on 4 June with Eunie returning on 4 July. Others scattered around the world, keep in touch. I’m not dying. I’m just going to America for a little while.

In the meantime – Keep the faith, baby!

It seems my childhood heroes are, one by one, tripping off to the next world. As a kid, science and science fiction possibly kept me sane (this has yet to be determined). Nothing else seemed to be interesting or make much sense. The SF greats, Arthur C. Clark among them, kept me off the streets (mostly). To me, imagination was the secret of life, the universe, and everything.

The impeccably appropriate drawing above is by Jeff Lemire.

Clark was famous for so many things that you wonder how the guy found time for all that thinking. Most would remember him for his work with director Stanley Kubrick on 2001 – A Space Odyessy.” It was a memorable film that stretched the limits of cinema. It was released in the spring of 1968. I distinctly remember being completely blown-away by it. Oddly enough, the book wasn’t finished until the following year.

I remember, in the early days of computers, when something went mysteriously and ominously awry, someone would say, “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”

He is also known for the introduction to the public of the concept of using satellites in orbit for communications – certainly a cornerstone of modern civilization.

I liked his irreverent attitude towards science. This is nicely illustrated by “Clark’s Three Laws”:

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

The last is, of course, the most well remembered.

So, I bid adieu to Mr. Clark and wish him well in his future life.

On Sunday, the 16th of March, we had a great family happening up at Blueblood. It seems a small mob of Cassell kids were in need of Christening.  Having the appropriate garb close at hand, Eunice and I trekked up the coast for the festivities.

Here we have (right to left) Daniel Cassell, Godfather to Charlotte Kate Cassell, James Cassell, Godfather to Nina Sue Cassell, William John Cassell, Jaculin Cassell (mother of the children), Charlotte Kate Cassell, Ben Cassell (father of the children), Nina Sue Cassell, and Mary-Jane Cassell, Godmother to Nina Sue Cassell. I’m on the far left.

Here’s Eunice and Di Cassell during the Christening. Di is holding her granddaughter, Natasha. Eunice is reading a poem written by Vanessa and Steve Ballard, Godparents to Nina and Charlotte.

Here’s the some of the Cassell Clan with me after the Christening.

I couldn’t pass up this one of Grandpa Mike (Pa) and grandson William.

The usual mob of suspects were also present.  Here’s Ken McArthur looking so fine as he shows off his magnificent Pig Torture Device. What a clever mechanic. It all depends on an old washing machine motor.

Master Porcine Chef Trevor Hattersley was up at 4:00 AM with Pascal Michon to get the pig feeling nice and toasty warm.

Our special guest, Porky, was so knackered by the time lunch came around that we decided to let him rest for a while with a good, cheap cigar and a beer.  CHEERS!

Eunie and I want to thank Clan Cassell for the honour of participating in this wonderful family celebration of life.

To make it easier to send to a friend something that you might find interesting on Madang – Ples Bilong Mi, I’ve added a ShareThis icon at the end of each aritcle.  It looks like this:

Click on it and a small box will pop up in which you will have the option of either sending the link to the aritcle to a friend whose email address you fill in on the SEND tab (along with a message you can compose) or you can submit the aritcle to a wide variety of social bookmarking sites. I’d say that most folks would use just the SEND option to quickly email the article to a friend. (You might have to select the “Email” item from the “Using:” pull-down list.) However, if you’re into the big-deal social bookmarking thingie, then the ShareThis button makes it very easy.

When you’ve finished, click the “Done” button or the “Close” button at the top of the small  pop-up and Bob’s your uncle.

Apologies to those of you who never heard of him, but I must pay tribute to a guy who made my childhood a bit more tolerable.

When we were kids one of our rare treats was to go to the drive-in theater. Way back then (hundreds of years ago), Dean Martin, straight-man and crooner, and Jerry Lewis, funny guy, were teamed up and were making a tonne of money shooting silly/romantic movies. I wasn’t much interested in the ‘mushy’ stuff’, but there’s nothing that can make a kid howl with laughter quicker than an adult acting like a fool (try it sometime and see). My wife to this day swears that she secretly wished that Jerry Lewis was her father.

Jerry Lewis was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Jewish parents Rachel “Rae”, who played the piano for the radio station WOR and performed musical arrangements, and Danny Levitch, a master of ceremonies and vaudeville performer. His birth name is usually reported as Joseph Levitch, though Shawn Levy’s biography, “King of Comedy”, claims this is untrue and that Lewis’ name at birth was Jerome Levitch. Lewis started performing at the age of five and by the age of fifteen developed his Record Act, in which he mimed lyrics of operatic and popular songs to a phonograph. (okay, so I ripped this paragraph from Wikipedia – sue me)

Though most would consider his humor over-the-top today, he was one of the great comedy-masters of the early cold war era. Though we were scared out of our wits by the bomb, he gave us respite in humor.  The only site I could find that looked ‘official’ was this one: (yes, I ripped the logo, but it’s my homage to the man to display it here) 

Happy birthday, Mr. Lewis. And many happy returns.

It’s Saturday morning, so I’m off for a dive. I don’t have much time for composition, so I’ll just show you some pictures. (with apologies to those who have seen them a hundred times already)

I like the Hawkfishes. Unlike some other families, there’s not an ugly one in the bunch. (Click on a picture to see a bigger version.)

This is the Arc-Eye Hawkfish (Paracirrhites arcatus). The common name comes from the arc-shaped marking over the eyes.

Here’s a Freckled Hawkfish (Paracirrhites fosteri). They start out as youngsters with just a few freckles and get more and more as they age (hmmm . . . that seems to be the way my old body is turning out)

Ah yes, the rare (except on the Henry Leith) Longnose Hawkfish (Oxycirrhites typus). Anybody want to venture a guess where it got it’s name. I’d be tempted to call it the Jimmy Durante Hawkfish, but nobody under 60 would get the connection. Richard Jones took this picture with my camera.

Here’s the Pixy Hawkfish (Cirrhitichthys oxycephalus). The name just makes me giggle.  Imagine a pixy hawk – let alone a pixy hawk fish. What a mish-mash of words.

And, as so often happens when you think you know what you are looking at, along comes a fish you thought you knew, but it’s a completely different color. This is the Red Variation of the Pixy Hawkfish.

Okay, that’s enough for today. I hear thunder in the distance, so the dive may be off . . . nevermind.

When the earth quivers and bounces we take notice. You know that strange half-panic, half-amused state in which you’re waiting…waiting to see how bad it’s going to get? Body tensed for flight, senses finely tuned. I know that when I’m sitting in my lounge watching my furniture being randomly rearranged, I don’t expend a lot of effort wondering about the science of it. I’m only looking to see how far the coffee table in front of me moves so that I can decide if I’m going to flee from the house.

But later – after it’s over. Have you ever wondered exactly what causes all that commotion? When the earth rocks and rolls, it’s of no small interest to me what causes it – not that I can do much about it. Oh, by the way, like many Madang residents, I can look out my front door and clearly see one of the most potentially dangerous volcanoes on the planet: Kar Kar Island. And it’s close enough to erase my existence if it’s of a mind to do so.

These two books, Krakatoa (primarily about the 1883 eruption which was the most powerful in recorded history) and A Crack in the Edge of the World (mainly about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) will answer all your questions and show you a good time while doing so. Never more will you yawn knowingly and say something like, “Ah yes, those subduction zones. They should do something about them.” Terms like tectonic plates and strike-slip faults will no longer be irritating when some know-it-all throws them out for the enlightenment of ordinary dullards like us.

Simon Winchester has given us a couple of books that will both entertain greatly and solve the puzzle of why earthquakes and volcanoes happen at all. More interesting is why they happen so very much more often in certain places. They are, in short, a sound read in seismology and geology for the layperson. The science is delivered in clear and simple terms and is always tied to the events and the stories of people somehow connected to them.

Thanks to my friend and fellow diver, Michael Wolfe, for lending them to me.