Category: Musings

Now you see it, now you don’t!

Bermeja (Mexican Gulf) – anyone seen my island?

There’s a wonderful story in last week-end’s The Sunday Times, a British newspaper, written by Matthew Campbell concerning the loss of an important island that has been used previously to define the limits of Mexico’s maritime

Old map with Bermeja
Old map with Bermeja

border (read oil!).  Here’s an extract:

The mystery has come to haunt Mexico as unrelentingly as one of its beloved soap operas: where is Bermeja, an island off the Yucatan coast that appears to have vanished without trace?

The disappearance of Bermeja is no laughing matter – it would allow Mexico to extend its maritime border some 55 miles further north, helping it to fight off what it sees as American encroachment on its claims to potentially vast oil reserves in the Mexican Gulf.

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Jimena – reflections

It’s the little things that seem to stick

This is the first time in my life where a major natural disaster has happened around me, so to speak.  Now some 2 days later, here are some reflections.  The small stories have so much more power to affect one.

Jimena 1That knowing that hundreds of homes here in San Carlos and in nearby Guaymas have been flooded out doesn’t have such a powerful affect as seeing an individual’s possessions spread out in the sun.

People of all sorts and backgrounds love to spread rumours. There seems to be a human need to be the spreader of new information, even if it is far from correct.  Just about anything that one wanted to know, or even more importantly needed to know, had to be very carefully sieved. Better to find out yourself because the chances are that whomsoever is saying this or that has got their facts wrong.  Amazingly, some of the worst gossip was coming from people who weren’t even in the area!

That knowing that we had 28 inches of rain fall wasn’t as powerful as seeing our neighbour’s swimming pool fill up from

Empty - Full in 30 hours
Empty - Full in 30 hours

empty!

The electricity workers were marvellous.  They came in from far and wide and worked all Jimena 3the daylight hours available.  It made me realise that, ultimately, we don’t accord sufficient money and status to the guys who keep the electricity flowing and too much status and money to those that have jobs that would cease instantly in a world without electricity, clean water and public sewerage systems.

The small acts of generosity were powerfully touching!  Charlie and Tracy had a large leg of lamb that wasn’t going to keep without a functioning freezer.  So they cooked it up and invited three other couples to share it.  Thanks guys!

Jimena 5Within hours of the rain ceasing on the 3rd (Thursday) and people started venturing out and about, either to find provisions or just to stare open-mouthed at the effect of Nature, some poor sod had his car catch fire.  You really had to feel sorry for him – this was not a great time!

And on a very personal note, Jean worked with me in mopping up rain water from 2am on Wednesday 2nd (the height of the storm) and still managed to serve a beautiful hot meal of tasty baked chicken legs in the evening.  She is a special lady.

Jean hair-washing
Jean hair-washing

By Paul Handover

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M’mmmm – Let me think about this!

The pluses and minuses of skydiving.

This looks great. Cameraman is Paul Lewis.

And here’s that Paul Lewis again.  Having a really, really lucky day!

Funny, there is a saying amongst us (amateur) pilots.  Why would anyone want to throw themselves out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane!

Exactly!

By Paul Handover

UK Postcode TDCU 1ZZ

Where the capital city is called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas

My great buddy of 30 years, Dan, Californian born and bred, recently emailed me saying that he had spent a fascinating hour reading the website of Tristan da Cunha.  Most British people will have some odd recollection about this very remote community living in the South Atlantic because the islands are part of the United Kingdom. TDCU 1ZZ is, in fact, the UK postcode for Tristan da Cunha.

The settlement on Tristan
The settlement on Tristan

This is not a place which has a habit of making main-stream news! Indeed, one could not imagine a more distant part of the planet. Well you won’t imagine a more distant place. Tristan da Cunha is the most remotely inhabited archipelago on Planet Earth. Indeed, only one island, Tristan, is inhabited and, according to the website there are just 264 British citizens there today.

Earlier it was mentioned that most British will have some vague recollection of Tristan.  More likely, that will be those British who were born before, say, 1950.

Why?

Continue reading “UK Postcode TDCU 1ZZ” →

Johnathan Wilson Lewis – another thinker.

Fourier approaches to the theory of volume holography.

Anyone who takes a doctorate with the above subject title has to have a well-functioning brain.  I know John.  He does.

John Lewis, as I have always known him until reading his Blog, and I met a good many years ago when we both were members of a private flying group that operated a Socata (French) TB20, G BPAS.

TB20 G-BPAS
TB20 G-BPAS

It was based at Exeter in Devon, SW England.  Both of us were/are private pilots.

We flew together on many an occasion and it was clear from the start that John approached everything in life from, well in his own words, “…. motivated by an interest in what things are, how they work and how they are used.”  Say no more!

Well, as luck would have it, the joys of social networking brought us back in touch recently and we had a jolly good chin-wag.  With a bonus.

Read more about John Lewis

Just pause a while

Patrick’s landscapes are breath-taking.

Isla Mujeres, near Cancun, Mexico. Reproduced with permission. Copyright (c) 2009 Patrick Smith, all rights reserved
Isla Mujeres, near Cancun, Mexico. Reproduced with permission. Copyright (c) 2009 Patrick Smith, all rights reserved

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes

but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

By Paul Handover

A little later than I would have wished!

Jon Lavin.

You will see from the Hello World post at the head of Learning from Dogs that the idea of integrity being a topic for wider discussion arose a while ago.  Busy lives (and a big misunderstanding about Blogging!) put off us doing something until Paul got the Blog under way in July, this year.

I still have, thank goodness, plenty of work demands on my time and a busy family life but, at last, will be finding time to explore the importance of integrity.

As I say in About this Blog, I had noticed that businesses that were operating largely with integrity, tended to be happier places, got better results and it was possible to develop levels of awareness within teams that enabled them to work together far more effectively. Levels of self-awareness are important because they allow people to develop closer business relationships with everyone internal and external and this leads to increased levels of trust.

By Jon Lavin

More on that Vulcan

Vulcan XH558 and Red Arrows, Dawlish, Devon, England, August 20th 2009

A few weeks ago, a Post featured the Avro Vulcan, a Cold War nuclear bomber returned to flying condition.  Well here it is again, with friends.

Dawlish is a lovely, typical sea-side town in the county of Devon in the SW of England.  It is less than 15 miles away from Totnes in Devon which, for many years, was my local town.

Dawlish
Dawlish

The weather in Dawlish can be delightful – sometimes!

But the setting is perfect for an air show.

Read more about the Dawlish Airshow

Health care.

Being healthier seems too obvious!

Not being either a US Citizen or even a resident takes away my right to contribute an opinion.  The matter is entirely a domestic one for those living in the USA.

But my life-long Californian buddy, Dan, recently sent me an article published in the Wall Street Journal on the 12th August.  The article was written by John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. so this isn’t an impartial perspective.  (And see an important foot-note at the end of this Post)

But the last part of the article is good common sense, as you can read:

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The stuff of life?

The amino acid glycine is found on a comet.

There’s a fascinating article on Reuters, published on the 18th.  It is that scientists have finally proved that an amino

Comet Wild 2 from 147 miles away
Comet Wild 2

acid found on a comet is extraterrestrial in origin and, therefore, supports the theory that life came to Planet Earth from the stars.

Microscopic traces of glycine were discovered in a sample of particles retrieved from the tail of comet Wild 2 by the NASA spacecraft Stardust deep in the solar system some 242 million miles (390 million km) from Earth, in January 2004.

Samples of gas and dust collected on a small dish lined with a super-fluffy material called aerogel were returned to Earth two years later in a canister that detached from the spacecraft and landed by parachute in the Utah desert.

There’s a fuller and more scientific description of the NASA Stardust spacecraft mission here. That site is well worth a visit if you are in the slightest way interested in space.

Comet Wild 2 from 147 miles away!
Comet Wild 2 from 147 miles away!

Stardust completed its 2.88 billion mile round-trip journey to a comet and back, bringing comet and interstellar dust particles back to Earth on January 15, 2006.

So when you next look into the eyes of your loved one,

and see starlight there,

it may not be entirely a romantic notion!

By Paul Handover