I have some nice sunrise shots for you today, some a little out of the ordinary, and I am going to whine a little. There’s nothing like whining to a large audience to make one feel better. First, a sunrise. When I first started processing this one, I wondered what happened to the trees on the other side of the harbour. Then I remembered that there was a line of towering cumulus way off on the horizon. It took a little bit of fiddling to separate them from the black shadows of the town:

Two months ago today I wrote about losing my sense of smell, a condition called anosmia. I’d love to report that it has come back, because I miss smelling Eunie’s perfume in the morning. It has  come back, sort of. But the way it has come back is not useful at all. My anosmia has now transmogrified into its grimmer cousin, phantosmia, smelling things which don’t exist.

Let me pep this up with another sunrise. This one is the widest panorama which I have ever done, I think. It was seventeen exposures. The original file is 27,000 pixels wide. I’ve put this one up on the server at 4,000 pixels, so it might be amusing to click on it:

Phantosmia is characterised by olfactory hallucinations, involving smelling odors that are not derived from any physical stimulus. In my case, from my first moment of consciousness in the morning until I fall asleep at night, I smell smoke.

It would not be so bad if it were the aroma of a comfy forest campfire or a yummy barbecue. I only wish. No, it is a nasty trash-fire, a refuse dump set aflame. It’s not nice at all. And, it is strong. If you were caught in a breeze wafting this odor to you, you would move away smartly.

Here is my neighour’s haus win  (a little thatched roof with a platform under it) in the morning sun:

You can see Sheba, our mutt, over at the right.

As you can imagine, this is not only unpleasant and inconvenient, but it could be hazardous as well. If I smell smoke all of the time, how can I detect a fire which might endanger me? Moreover, I can smell nothing but  smoke. Got a gas leak, don’t count on me to warn you. We’ll all blow up if you wait for me to offer, “Hey, I smell gas.”

Here’s one of my “lucky” shots. It would be a pretty ordinary shot of Kar Kar Island  volcano in the sunrise if it were not for the two canoes:

I was using a fairly low shutter speed here, so there is a bit of motion blur in the arms of the canoeists.

The prognosis for any kind of anosmia isn’t particularly encouraging. There are many treatments suggested on the web, but none promise consistent or significant improvement. Most information indicates that, if there is no improvement within a year, the condition is probably permanent. I’m not looking forward to smelling smoke the rest of my life.

Here is another version of the super-wide sunrise above:

I’m going to try to see an ear, nose and throat doctor while I’m in Australia later this year to see what he has to say. From what I’ve read, the fact that I’m smelling something  now may indicate that my normal sense of smell may return. There may be some re-wiring going on and it’s simply not worked out yet.

Of all of the health problems that I might  have at my age, I suppose that I should be grateful that smelling smoke is the worst of them.

Hey, do you smell smoke?

Today I shall begin with the beginning and end with the end and skip all of the boring stuff in the middle. I’m talking about my work day, of course. I usually awake between 05:00 and 05:30 and try to get the computer turned on and start working before Eunie rises at 06:00 for her breakfast and an hour of reading. I have to keep running to the front door if there is anything interesting developing in the sky to catch the ten minute window for a decent sunrise.

This morning the sky looked chaotic. I was hoping it was not a portent of the day to come:I had a little hurry-up in the house to catch up with Eunie, who was eager to get into town for her aquarobics on a sunny morning.

I did have to pause in the front yard for this image of Kar Kar Island  sticking its dangerous head up over the horizon. I hope this baby never blows:Nothing untoward happened on the way to town, no drunks staggering out in front of the car, nobody throwing rocks at our new Nissan Navara (more to come on that later).

I had to turn off on Coronation Drive for a quick shot over Astrolabe Bay  including Coconut Point:It seems that the sky was out to impress me. It was doing a fairly good job.

Just before the Coastwatchers Monument, I got another blast of beauty:Okay, now I was set for the day. Time to focus on work for a while.

Now I skip over the boring part.

Since Eunie is helping out at the Madang Lodge and Restaurant for a while, we needed to stop there for a while on the way home. I always take advantage of this time to browse on the orchids. They are delicious:

The ones above remind me of the mating displays of some of the birds of paradise. They spread their wings and vibrate their tails. Hey, that just gave me an idea for a new dance craze. “Yeah, baby! Do da Bird o’ Paradise! Spread yo’ wings an’ vibrate yo’ tail!” Never mind. It’s nearly noon. My blood sugar is getting low. I feel dizzy.

This one is called, “Come on, Baby. Let’s do the Twist”:No, that won’t work. Somebody already took that one, Chubby Checker, to be exact.

This is the kind that we would buy for the girls when I was in high-school if we wanted to encourage them to feel generous after the dance:Which was always!  Dweebs and nerds bought wrist corsages for their dates, because they were too shy to pin one on the bosom.

I preferred the full-pinning ceremony.

I have some very amusing images from two dear friends who are guest shooters today and a couple of shots of my own. I very much enjoy featuring images from friends. I hope that I’ve given enough encouragement to readers to send me images which have spoken to them. If not, I’m issuing the invitation once again. I started this as a source of eclectic amusement and information. There is much here about Madang and our lives and interests. However, our many readers have much to contribute also. The more participation that we have, the more interesting Madang – Ples Bilong Mi  will become.

Our first shot today comes from our Hamilton, Ontario friend, Ron Barrons. Ron said that his wife treated him to a visit to Niagara Falls recently. One can only speculate what prompted that generosity. Anyway, Ron captured this stunning image of the falls through the window of their hotel room:Now, I don’t want to take anything away from the beauty of this picture. Great job, Ron. Makes me drool. However, I’m picturing Brenda’s face as Ron fiddles with his tripod and his f-stops and his shutter speed while she re-thinks the whole idea. Ron, I can only pray that you did not ask her to carry your tripod. Women hate  that! There’s an old photographers’ joke that goes like this:  A life-long English amateur photographer dies. At his funeral his wife is overheard to say, “Ah, well, it’s a pity he’s gone, but at least I don’t have to carry his bloody tripod any more.”

Here’s a lovely shot from the lovely Tracey Lee. It’s a waterspout shot at Honiara in 2006:There’s some pretty furious action there at the base. We had another waterspout from Trevor Hattersley just the other day. Nice one, Tracey!

And, now that we’ve disposed of the title of this post, we’ll move on to this crisp shot of Old Fort Niagara again by Ron Barrons:Fort Niagara is the oldest surviving building in the Great Lakes area, having been erected in 1726. It is also the oldest continuously occupied military site in North America. This looks like a long telephoto shot to me. I got images of parts of the fort area from the same spot with my Olympus SP-590UZ the last time I was up there. I nearly froze my bum off.

This morning the southern sky was wonderfully back lighting Kar Kar Island.  I had to get up on the top of the roof of my truck to get this shot. It would have been better from the top of my house, but I was to wobbly at that time of the morning for ladders:Whenever there is a lot of news about volcanoes, such as the current fracas in Iceland, we all cast wary eyes toward Kar Kar Island. It’s listed as one of the most potentially dangerous volcanoes in the world and it by no means dormant. It rumbles and smoked regularly. There was a recent report that it has erupted, but that turned out to be a false alarm.

Last for today, but my no means least, are the Two Eunice Messersmiths:The larger model on the left is my gorgeous wife. The little one in the middle is also Eunice Messersmith. Her mom, Maureen, was raised in our house by her mom, Juli who has been our haus meri  and general manager of the house for over twenty years. Juli is sort of like a daughter to us, so Little Eunice Messersmith is like a great-granddaughter. Juli came into the office to show us Little Eunice’s birth certificate, a document which few Papua New Guineans even possess. It says right there that her name is Eunice Messersmith. Go figure!

I like her very stylish pink shades. She’s gonna be trouble!

I spent a major part of my “Communication Time” today working with Eunie on a post for our Messersmith News site, which she has a very difficult time updating, mainly because her job is a lot more important than mine and she has a corner office with windows. I hide back in the IT dungeon, so my time is a little more, uh . . . flexible. As long as I keep things perking along, nobody seems to care much what I’m doing. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Anyway, pop on over to Madang – My New Home Town for a little sweetness and love. The whole purpose of this post is to lure you over there, so don’t disappoint. The rest of this is a product of a mis-spent youth.

Since I was pressed for quality time to produce something that would blow your mind, I had time only to blow my own. I shot four image on the way to work this morning and that’s all that I had to work with. So, I decided to let what passes for my mind to wander to those forbidden places my ancestors used to visit while experimenting with pre-industrial chemistry. Five solid hours of Steely Dan have aided the process.

In case you’re puzzled, this one is titled Tripping Out at Coconut Point:I can easily imagine flying at supersonic speed to this very spot and landing on my bare feet on the mossy rocks like a droplet of water flicked from the tail of a passing mermaid. Am I getting through to you?

A violent wave of vertigo from my superglue-filled inner ears caused me to stumble and I was blessed with this vision of a tiny, glowing rock garden at my feet:I took its picture. It said, “Dacă-mi dai de apă, eu va iubesc.”, which is, of course, what any sweet little rock garden would say. Unfortunately, I had none available, so I had to sorrowfully decline.

Even before I left the house this morning I had the G11 out and was letting it exercise its muscles. This one is called Freaky Kar Kar:Some day that baby is going to blow. I just hope I’m looking straight at it with my camera in my hand when it does. I’ll be one of the most posthumously famous photographers in all of history if my camera survives. You can just see the top of it lurking over on the right side of the image.

I finally pulled out all of the stops and produced Funky Foreshore:It has been sublimely massaged with various filters, shadings and secret MadDog incantations to within an inch of its life. It’s panting from exhaustion.

It’s a victim of tough love.

Everybody is bored hearing how busy I am. Hey, I’m  bored with it! We’re working frantically this week to get the new network rolled out and all of the computers switched over to it. When it’s done, I’ll be able to get back to what passes for normal. I’ve been in a state for the last few months. The old system went back to Windows 2000 Server for Domain Controllers and had been upgraded, patched, hacked, glued together and thrown into a mix-o-matic with a bunch of Linux monstrosities that were supposed to be “enhancements”. Never again!

The new system has dual Windows Server 3008 R2 Domain Controllers and all workstations will be running Windows 7. Most of it is working already and it is sweet, sweet, sweet. I just have three mission-critical machines to move over to the new network. Then we have to get the big network printers switched over, do a little prettying up of bits and pieces and we’re done.

Then I have to get cracking writing some magazine articles and arrange for some bush walks to gather new material. I also plan to ride the Harley more. I’ve only been on it a couple of times in the last few months.

Today, to amuse ourselves, I have a few miscellaneous images that tickled my eyeballs over the last couple of weeks. I’ll start with an unusual view of a nice red hibiscus blossom:

Those water drops caught my eye from twenty metres away. I never pass up a chance to shoot drops. I love the way that they reflect the light. You can see some interesting reflections if you click to enlarge.

Here’s another of my ongoing series of “crazy foliage” shots:Sometime when I was a child I was brainwashed, probably by a gym teacher who was assigned to teach science – a common enough occurrence in the U S of A – that plants are green. Despite intense therapy, I’ve not gotten past this crippling mental defect. Plants here are all kinds of nutsy colours and it is deeply disturbing.

The shots above came from Blueblood as did this one of a man hurrying home during a brief rain shower:You can see the base of the huge Kar Kar Island  volcano at the right side of the frame. Click to enlarge and you can see the rain drops hitting the water and even a few streaks of rain drops against the darkness of the canoe. I took all of these shots with my new Canon G11.

You’ve seen the flower of the Sensitive Plant or Tickle-Me Plant (Mimosa pudica)  here before:

This is the nicest shot that I have of it. I attribute that to the increased dynamic range of the G11. It seems to capture many more tones of colour and brightness than the G10, as it should, given the massive changes to the sensor.

Here is another familiar to regular readers. It’s my favourite spider:This fellow was distinctly grumpy on the dull day when I shot him. They usually try to hide by crawling around on the opposite side of the flower. This guy turned to face me and raised his front legs in a menacing display of aggression. I have to admit that I didn’t feel greatly menaced, but I didn’t mention it to him.

Oh, yeah, back to water drops:This is one of my favourite water drop shots. I have others that are sharper, flashier, more colourful, blah, blah, blah. This one, however, makes me feel very relaxed and mellow. I’m strongly affected emotionally by images, always have been. I think that is why I love photography so much. When I look at my favourite images, I feel good.

I love sharing those good vibes with you. I hope you dig it too.

It’s another one of those days when my Superpower of Story-Telling is failing me. Yes, I am a Superhero. I try to keep it a secret, because my Superpower is so useless to humanity that I’m ashamed to reveal it, let alone my true identity. I guess I’ve “outed” myself now. Oh well, It’s no big deal anyway. My Superpower only works on one or two people at a time. It’s not very spectacular. The general effect is to put people to sleep within a minute or so. Therefore it is of no use in emergencies. People generally awaken as soon as I relent and complain of mild headaches. They usually remember, at that point, that they are late for an important meeting and depart post-haste. It’s a peculiar Superpower, I admit. Now the world knows. I am Astonishingly Boring Storyman.

So, today I’ll keep it short, since I’m sure that many of you don’t have time for a brief nap followed by a puzzling period of disorientation.

I walked over to the market this morning to see if I could find some nice red bananas. I love ‘em. It looked as if the place was abandoned. I found some red bananas, but I’d neglected to bring any money. So, I took this panorama shot instead:

It did nothing to subdue my craving for red bananas.

Something in my brain went “pop” and I smelled an odd smell and suddenly I was entranced with the concept of turning perfectly good images into “old photos”. I started with this shot of Miss Rankin  when Tony and Lorraine had just purchased her:

They were toying with the idea of renaming the ship Moonlighting,  but decided against that, as it is widely thought to be bad luck to rename a ship. It would be pretty tempting if you had purchased a ship named The Crapper.  Anyway, I’d call my “old photo” job a failure. All I did was turn it into monochrome, apply a sepia tone filter and add some random noise.

I did discover that it’s much better if you start with a bad photo. This was an image of Kar Kar Island  taken from the little bridge across from Memorial Lutheran Church. That’s Sir Peter Barter’s boat Kalibobo Spirit  on the right:

It was a very grey day, so the image wasn’t interesting even after I toiled over it for ten minutes. My efforts to give it the “old photo” look were somewhat more successful. You can get filters for Photoshop that make it more effective. They add coffee stains, scratches and fold marks and even splotches where tape has been removed.

As I walked to the hotel a few days ago I noted this exceptionally hairy tree. Many trees here have aerial roots. This one is taking the practice to ridiculous lengths (here I go with the puns again – hey, it’s part of my Superpower – I have no control over it):

Two things intrigued me about this hairy tree. (I’m easily intrigued.) First, there is the colour of the aerial roots. I can’t remember seeing red ones before. The other thing is that someone, probably with a lot of time on his hands, has lifted a mass of them up and tied them into a knot, something that would not enter even my  mind. Whoever did this, my hat’s off to you. It’s wonderfully whimsical.

A few years ago we had a young lady named Twila Schofield working at our office for a little while. She is a very talented artist and specialises in most amusing caricatures. She did this one of me and my darlin’ Eunie:

I’ve had it hanging on the wall of my office for years.

To finish up this witless conglomeration of time-wasting tomfoolery I present to you The Rocket Cloud:

No, in case you’re misled, it has absolutely nothing to do with a rocket. I have observed many, many fine clouds. Nevertheless, I have never seen a towering cumulus cloud rise so quickly. There was no need for imagination to see it blasting up into the sky like the might fist of the God of Clouds punching its way up into heaven. Even from the moving boat, we could see it rising. It was magnificent.

In a modest sort of way.

Once again, I’m left dead for a theme. Succumbing to writer’s block is not something to be enjoyed. It’s not part of my game to simply throw out a bunch of images with no comment. However, today the words are getting stuck somewhere. Maybe I can shake a few loose. It’s a sure formula for gibberish.

We’ll start with the standard ‘my house’ sunrise:

Hmmmm . . . That wasn’t so bad. Let’s move along.

This is a bit more interesting. On the way to the office a couple of days ago there was a fellow paddling up the coast in his canoe just off of Coronation Drive:At the far right, on the horizon, you can see the tail end of the Huon Peninsula  and the last of the Finisterre Mountains.  The towering cumulus clouds that you can see below the overcast are probably much more than 100 kilometres in the distance.

Now, here is a shot that I really enjoy. On our way back from Blueblood on Christmas Day, Kar Kar Island  was looking very splendid and mysterious:I caught Mike Cassell’s boat Felmara flying up the coast toward Madang with the island looming in the background about fifty clicks away. It makes a rather dramatic image.

Here is the standard Coconut Point sunrise, which you have seen here many times before:

I’m puzzled by the dark streak in the sky. It was persistent, pronounced and quite straight. We do not see aircraft condensation trails here in the tropics, or at least we rarely see them. I cannot remember seeing one in all the years that I’ve lived in Madang. My guess is that it’s a combination of factors. First, we are not under any heavily travelled routes. Another thing is that the air above us is generally too warm to form lasting condensation trails except at extreme altitudes. My best guess is that the dark line is a shadow of an invisible trail of condensation between the sun and the high layer of clouds.

Hey, it’s just a guess.

Here is something that I don’t think that you’ve seen before on Madang – Ples Bilong Mi  – an image of Bag Bag Island:It is further away from Madang than Kar Kar Island  and considerably less mountainous. I had a lot of trouble with the colour of the island itself. It was far too blue. While trying to get it right, I ran out of time. It looks a little odd – like a pile of dust, not like an island.

Finally, here is an image that gives me a chuckle:It’s not a particularly good image; the Orangefinned Anemonefish is out of focus, as is my hand. However it does bring to mind the friendly, feisty anemonefish of The Eel Garden  near Pig Island.  I have done hundreds of dives in this small area and I know every knob of coral and every fish. I do not understand the behaviour of these anemonefish, but it amuses me greatly. They seem to know me!  Yes, I know that is absurd, but there is something  odd going on. At several specific and consistent anemones, the fish will come up and rub against my fingers and nip at them. The nipping I get. Many anemonefishes do this. They are absolutely fearless, as if nipping at a giant predator would drive it away!

These, however, seem to ‘enjoy’ rubbing gently against my fingertips. It’s positively disconcerting. If they weren’t so cute, it would be a little creepy. In the shot above, I was attempting to get a record of the behaviour. As it turns out, it’s easier contemplated than accomplished. You may be amused to see another of the Damselfish family (as are the Anemonefishes) nipping away at my hand.