Leaving Hilo I turn towards the shortest path home. It is also my favorite path by far. Not for me the twisting turns, small towns, and driving rains of the Hamakua coast road. I turn towards Saddle Road, to the pass between the enormous volcanoes of Hawaii.
Saddle Road seen as it was in 2007, before rebuildingThe road is smooth and fast now. The Saddle of legend and rental car prohibition is mostly gone, only fragments remain. While you can still drive bits of the old Saddle, they are no longer the main road, bypassed by the new highway.
Even before the road was re-built this was my favorite route to cross the island. The traffic is far heavier now, the new road no longer offers the challenges and dangers of the old road. Drivers no longer deterred by those dangers now use the new road to cross the island rather than driving around the northern belt road.
This little meadow is is only a couple acres. Along one side is a spring where crisp water seeps from the ground and marks the beginning of a creek. Along the top the last few hundred feet of the paved road ends at a junction of rougher roads that lead further into the forest.
The meadow at Grant’s Spring under northern starsAt the very center of the meadow a large snag stands alone, broken off twenty five feet above the ground, a tangle of limbs on all sides. This old snag is a dark sentinel in the night, almost unreal and a bit eerie in the gloom, it seems to move when you are not looking.
The clearing is surrounded by seventy foot high trees. Pine, fir, and larch are all represented in the dense forest that covers much of the ridgeline. This limits the view, blocking objects low on any horizon. The tall trees also provide a stage above which the stars rise and set, sometimes blinking brightly as they pass behind branches.
There are simply no lights, no substantial civilization for fifty miles in any direction. There are no distant domes of light visible on the horizon to remind one of Edison’s terrible invention. There is just the darkness and the stars above.
One of the necessary life skills in the islands is the ability to fix a slippah. Yes, I know the mainland calls this minimal footwear sandals or flip-flops, but here they are called slippers or slippahs.
A bit of heavy steel wire to repair a broken slipper strap clip.The usual failure is the clip that holds the strap into the sole,a simple plastic item subject to wear as you walk. You could say this is simple bad design, but it really does not fail often and slippahs are pretty cheap to start with.
Plus, it is easy to fix.
My wife can relate a dozen slippah fixing tricks from around the school where she works. Many of the kids wear them and teachers learn all the tricks to fixing them when they inevitably break. From putting a bread clip on the central knob, to using a paper clip to replace the little side clips.
In my case it is one of the plastic clips that has failed. I used some heavy wire a touch more substantial than a paper clip.
Ahead of our aircraft a crescent Moon is rising. Outside the window it is completely dark, a blackness broken only by the strobing anticollision lights across the wing and the rising Moon. Seattle is still hours away as we cross the Pacific, there are no city lights below to break the darkness.
Boarding Alaska flight 850 in KonaThe waning crescent phase is another reminder that the total solar eclipse I have been anticipating is very near, only a few days now. Not that I really need a reminder, the entire reason I am on this flight is to meet the Moon once more, to catch the moment when it blots out the Sun.
Somewhere below me in the cargo hold is the telescope mount, assembled from restored and hand made parts. In the luggage bin overhead is the telescope, the little refractor that is a prized posession. Through it I have watched and photographed eagles and whales, volcanic eruptions, and distant galaxies. At my feet is a pack with a few cameras in it, only five.
For over a decade I have awaited the coming of this event. A day that once seemed so remote draws swiftly near as a rising crescent Moon portends.
As I gazed up at a nearly full Moon this evening I realized that the countdown is quite short now. When that Moon is new again it will pass in front of the Sun to create a total solar eclipse.
The Moon one day short of full.This will be my first total solar eclipse in nearly four decades. Not since 1979 have I witnessed a total eclipse. Over those decades I have seen many partial eclipses, quite a few lunar eclipses, a few transits of Mercury, and one transit of Venus.
I have been anticipating and planning this trip for many years. It was after the transit of Venus in 2012 that I really turned my attention to the next major astro-event. Laying out plans to camp somewhere in Eastern Oregon where the viewing is likely to be excellent.
Hardly a week goes by without some little padded envelopes in my mailbox. 16×2 LCD character displays, 74HCT541 IC’s, 6mm encoders, some 10mm spirit levels, a couple more ESP-01 modules, and that is just this last month. Living on an island in the middle of the Pacific, there is no place I can buy electronic components. I must order everything.
Little Padded Envelopes from ChinaThose envelopes often arrive from places like Hong Kong and Shenzen, China. I find them on my desk where Deb just drops the latest little shipment from the other side of the planet.
The surreal part of this is that it is even conceivable that it would be cost effective to buy components from halfway around the globe like this. Not only is it affordable, but it is easy. It is easy to locate the correct components , it is easy to pay for the items, and it is easy to ship the parts across oceans.
Just a few years ago, buying products like this would have indeed been an insurmountable challenge, now it is routine. The internet and electronic storefronts like eBay that make shopping easy.
Electronic payment networks, notably PayPal, that make payment easy. And a global shipping network capable of getting those little padded envelopes to the correct location. For anyone familiar with history these networks are simply stunning in their capability, something inconceivable even a few decades ago.
Some would question the quality of components from China. You do need to be careful, but unlike cheap consumer goods, electronics components are usually quite acceptable in quality. I have had very little trouble ordering from Asia, the items perform as advertised.
I would probably not order from China if building life support equipment. For my littleelectronicsprojects the stuff works. Just check the seller’s ratings and record, then press ‘Buy it Now’.
A pile of RadioShack components purchased at the local closing sale.Our local RadioShack has survived several rounds of store closures as the chain has moved in and out of bankruptcy court. Time has finally run out for the store and it is liquidating the stock and will close by the end of the month.
I have commented on my view on RadioShack before. As an electronic hobbyist I have mixed feelings about RadioShack. In my younger years it was a decent place to buy electronic components. Some of the early computers I learned on were RadioShack products like the TRS-80 and Tandy 1000. I even worked as a RadioShack sales clerk one summer during high school.
Across the room from my desk is a large cabinet full of blueprints and sepia prints. Stacks of large prints that represent the original drawings from which the W. M. Keck Observatory was constructed. Floor plans, foundation plans, the structural steel of the telescope itself.
The original blueprints by which Keck Observatory was constructedThe prints are in many ways works of art. Often drawn by hand these old prints represent a lost skill, the art of the draughtsman from before computers irreversibly changed the profession. Impeccably neat lettering, an arcane menagerie of symbols, coded shading to represent different materials, it takes time just to learn to read these drawings properly.
Some carpenter years ago thought that two nails would be enough to hold the stairs up. They did, for a decade or two, but they would eventually fail when the stringer began to split around the nails.
Jacking the front stairs back into place for repair.The stairs did not collapse, no one was hurt. On the other hand they had sunk about an inch and felt decidedly unstable underfoot. Another weekend project!
Remove the old nails to free everything up. Use the 3.5 ton floor jack to push the stairs back into place. An aluminum plate and wood glue to splice together the split stringer. Quite a few new bolts, not nails, to hold everything together. A bit of 3/8″ threaded rod on the other stringer to secure it to a joist. I think everything is secure, solid underfoot again. I just need a little paint to cover over the new work.
One of the unexpected surprises I had when traveling in Nicaragua was the Coca-Cola. In a country where drinking the water was somewhat hazardous, bottled water and drinks were a good option. Not that this was much of a problem, Coca-Cola was sold everywhere, little street vendors always had a cooler of sodas. As anyone who knows me will tell you, my one dietary vice is Coke.
Mexican bottled Coca-Cola bought at Costco in HawaiiThe standard price was about 20 cordoba, about 70 cents in US dollars. In the little streetside shops I paid C$15 for a bottle, in tourist areas the price jumped to C$20, while the hotel in Managua wanted C$40. If you bought the glass bottles be sure to get the bottle back to the vendor, there is a deposit.
The reason the coke tasted better in Nicaragua was simple… The formula is mixed with cane sugar in place of the corn syrup used in the United States. The taste difference is remarkable and to my palate much improved by the difference. While traveling I found myself buying a bottle or two each day. Eventually it would be back to the US and back to corn syrup.
I did miss the coke I had found in Central America. In response to my frustrated complaint about Coca-Cola one day my wife informed me that you can buy the real stuff here on the island. What? She let me know that imported Coca-Cola was available at Costco. What?
To prove the point she brought some home. Sure enough… Coca-Cola bottled in the classic glass bottles and imported from Mexico. Reading the ingredients quickly reveals that the soda is made with cane sugar, not corn syrup. Even better, it tastes the same as the cola I bought in Nicaragua.
