Peeks, Pokes, and Pointers!

One afternoon in Tasmania, I remember stopping and thinking to myself,

"This is what it used to be like, back home. The trees are cacophonous with birdsong. The ground is electric with bugs. The rivers are jostling with life. You can't take three straight steps without blundering into the path of some new animal. Back home, the ground has been paved silent, the rivers have been fished empty, the trees echo, and you could walk all day without seeing a creature that isn't wearing clothes or blundering around in a domesticated fog."

Oakland has its appeal, and for all the danger and grime I actually enjoy living here. But I hear stories about bears wandering along the shores of San Francisco Bay and I have trouble picturing it. They were all long gone before I was even born, and it never even occurred to me that they had been there.

It makes me wonder. How much more can we lose, from generation to generation, and forget about, before we actually start to suffer, irrevocably, from the cumulative loss? Eventually we will reach a point where we will live our entire lives without ever seeing animals other than pets and livestock. The very idea of animals surviving independent of humans will seem absurd, since all the independence was bred out of them years ago.

What will we miss? Can it be described?

I woke up after uneven intervals of sleep, packed up pretty efficiently, and was off by about 7:10am. I was worried I might be late, but I drafted just behind a large bicyclist, while a third cyclist drafted behind me, tucking me into a cushion of roiling air that greatly reduced my energy expenditure. I covered four quick miles this way, and gave a friendly nod to the cyclists as I turned off their route at a stoplight.

From there it was only a couple more miles to the terminal, where I took an elevator to the second floor and bought a last-minute ticket. My eyes felt strangely sore and tired, so I changed shirts and washed up in the nearby bathroom. The car exhaust perhaps? Pollen?



To board, I rode around in a loop through the end of the pier and back, past a long line of cars.



I left my bike just inside the gate.



Away we go!!!



Onboard the ferry, I went through the cafeteria line and bought a fountain soda, since in Australia they are all flavored with cane sugar. This makes them a unique treat for an American, for whom all sodas, canned or otherwise, are made with high-fructose corn syrup. Corn isn't heavily subsidized elsewhere in the world, so it's just as economical to use cane sugar here. Hooray!

Of course, a few sips in, and I began to get that vague fuzzy-headed glycemic reaction I always get from soda nowadays. ... So most of it went into the trash can.



What shall I rap about to-day? Ah yes, the lovely oceangoing experience aboard the Spirit of Tasmania! Thank you, rap angel!



Nobby's Nuts. How cheeky. The second I saw this I thought of Lt. Cprl. J.W. "Nobby" DeNobbes Esq. I hear the advertising used to contain the phrase "Nibble Nobby's nuts!"



Nothing to do on board except write, think, read, nap, and walk around. On, and shop. In the boat gift shop I bought myself a Tasmania hat, to compliment my Alaska hat.

Watching the people walk around, I have some bizarre thoughts. Many of them would be impolite if I voiced them.

For example, on the enclosed landing between two decks, I noticed a large plastic sign standing upright against the far wall. At the base of the sign was a gap, through which the floor was visible. In this narrow stretch of floor between the sign and the wall, a man had laid down beneath a sleeping bag. He was tall, dressed in cheap rugged clothing, tanned, and in good shape, and appeared to be in his mid-30's. He also clearly had not bathed for a while. Curled across him, also beneath the sleeping bag, was a young woman, in her mid 20's, dressed the same way and looking just as unkempt. Her head was on his chest and she had one leg thrown over his. The man and the women were both attempting to sleep.

Watching them, my mind went in many directions at once.
"They must be on a low-cost adventure. I wonder how many countries they've been through?"
"Why are they asleep? It's ten in the morning on a Friday."
"Wow, it appears their only footwear is flip-flops."

"They must not be from around here - they're actually embracing. So far Australian society has shown to be unapproving of public affection. I bet Kashy is right. I bet the San Francisco Bay Area is the most touch-friendly English-speaking region on Earth."

"I bet the woman is deeply attached to the man, and sees him as a free spirit and a rebel and a protector all at once. I wonder if she'll still be with him in five years, when he's exactly the same as he is now but 40 years old, and she's still in her 20's? Probably not. Funny how from the outside, it seems like many relationships appear to just be temporary mutual exploitation. They're a lot of things to each other but primarily, the woman gets a tourguide, and the man gets pussy. Go ahead, call me a cynic. I'm not condemning it, exactly. I'm just observing it."

"I wonder if they are bothered by being that dirty, or if they're just used to it by now."
"I wonder if they paid to board."

This all took about 15 seconds to think as I stared at them from the foot of the stairs to the next floor. Probably the only thought I could speak aloud and not be stared at for is the first one.

Other thoughts:

I should have brought a kilt. That would be amusing to ride around on a bike with, as well as amusing to lounge around on this ferry boat with.

My laptop is one of about fifty opened on this deck alone. Most of the other laptops are dinky little netbooks, and are being used to play movies. I've seen two iPads so far. The prized spots around the ship are the tables next to electrical sockets. There are no "official" charging stations so you need to wander around until you spot a free socket. Almost all of these are manned by serious-looking geeks, hacking and occasionally looking up like meerkats on alert.

I have three days in Tasmania, and I really wish I had my camping gear and my recumbent so I had enough room to carry it. Or perhaps better, a local friend I could share residency with. I got very lucky meeting Celia ... she saved me a huge amount of money, and eliminated a massive amount of confusion. Just picking me up at the airport she saved me a sixty-dollar cab ride.

And then, on an upper deck, staring out to sea, getting way cerebral:

Here's a question you can learn something by asking yourself. What does it profit you to be who you are?

Literature is full of stories about passionate heroes who are driven to accomplish glorious feats, or die in a blaze of defiance. People love to hear about these characters, sure, but I wonder how many of these tales exist because writers like to write about them. Put another way, I wonder how much of history is preserved simply because it impresses writers, and how much is lost and plowed under and untold because no writer saw a personal profit to it.

If the answer is "a lot", then what should one do with that information? Add more skepticism to history? Live to impress writers?

I say: Look for an alternate way to define your life, as an adult. Step out of the frameworks offered by stories, and out of the hamster wheel of ever-increasing qualifications and wants and cut a middle path. Because life will definitely end up either too short, or too long, to neatly encapsulate your goals.

Wise-sounding people all around you will proclaim that "the journey is the reward," and quietly believe that the lesson of their advice is to trick yourself into enjoying the same work you would otherwise pursue in misery. They see it as self-deception.

I think a better way of phrasing that advice is, "find a journey that is rewarding." Or as Chairman Mao put it: "Work hard; make progress every day."

Boy, it sure is true what my sister said. Wherever I go, I bring myself along with me.



Here's a trip. You are looking at this picture on your computer. The picture was sent to you from a repository somewhere in a midwestern data center. The picture was taken by my digital camera on a ferry boat between Tasmania and Australia. In the picture is a television receiving a satellite feed. The feed is of a local news channel, which is currently showing a weather report. The graphic in the weather report was given to the news channel by a weather station, which generated it on a computer. The computer used data gathered from thousands of instruments and probes all over the continent of Australia, as well as at least one satellite in space. I typed this caption about half an hour after I took the picture, on the upper deck of the ferry boat. Hours after that I, I combined the caption and the photo in Aperture and then sent it to Flickr via the internet connection at my hotel room in Tasmania. And here it is. Just think of all the hundreds of details and steps I left out!



A first view of Tasmania from the deck. Or, as the little kid standing next to me said, "Look mummy! Is Taz Main Nun Nan! Taz Main Nun Nan Nan Nan Num Naaan!"



The coastal town of Devonport.



One of the crew, guiding the boat up the river delta.



From the port it was only a short ride over the river to my motel.



45 bucks a night, at the Formby Hotel. Spartan but serviceable.

This is the Melbourne Night Market. The primary attractions are greasy food and clever t-shirts.



Nice to see gangs of motorbike riders on this side of the Earth too. They look a bit cleaner and nicer than their American counterparts.



Check out those huge boxes of vegetable oil. Make way for greasy food!



... And clever t-shirts!



My mission, as given to me by the locals, was to attend the Night Market and procure a sausage-inna-bun. At first I thought I was out of luck...



... But then I found a booth with plenty for sale.



Sitting on the ground chomping food is apparently a Night Market tradition.



The evening's entertainment was a klezmer/gypsy band hailing from Russia.



... Accompanied by a wedding dance.

Today's excursion: The Melbourne General Cemetery.



There's a good chunk of history here.



... As well as a good chunk of creepy!



One Halloween, when I was a kid, I was given a maze to color in at school. It was a graveyard in the woods, with the tombstones leaning crazily around, and ghosts and skeletons capering. I decided I would draw my own version of the maze, by tracing shapes out of it, one at a time, onto a new piece of paper. As I went I became enthralled with the idea of a graveyard maze that stretched to infinity - an endless recombination of the same few elements, and the real trick was, it was a three-dimensional place, and if you stood in any spot and took a flat photograph of what you saw, the photograph would make a two-dimensional maze, with an entrance and an exit.

Walking around here brought back that memory, and that idea.



"The Werewolf", by Angela Carter, describes graveyards as "those bleak and touching townships of the dead."



Spiders are SRS BSNS here, too.



I don't know what happened to Tom Askew or his parents, but I suspect they were lost at sea.



The Jewish quarter.



Buried here, we find three of the four people who headed the first Western expedition to cross the continent of Australia.



Walter Lindrum was the founder and first president of the Sportsmen's Association of Australia. The grave is cleverly designed - the pockets in the "pool table" have tiny holes in them so the table doesn't fill with water.



As part of my Australia adventure, I decided to eat as the Australians eat. I decided that this meant eating lots of fish and chips. Sea Salt served their fish thickly battered, and made the chips nice and crispy for me, even though soggy chips are more traditional.

(Note: I decided I had to stop being vegan in November, when my symptoms were extremely bad. I've still strongly de-emphasized dairy, and I refuse to drink milk. My symptoms have improved in the last month. I may try for vegan again at some point, since I suspect the improvement was for unrelated reasons.)



I'm a bike nerd, and I thought this bike was nifty, so here you go!

The customs process was easy. Two officials asked me to open my bike box so they could inspect the bike tires for dangerous types of soil, and I complied.

Celia met me at the passenger exit zone. I used a handcart to pull the box over to her car, and had a minor brainmelt when I saw that the steering wheel was on the right-hand side. From there I was in a state of constant wonder, watching all the cars around me, driving on the left. "I'm in Australia!!" I kept exclaiming.

Celia laughed, and told some stories about her own travels abroad. She drove me through a maze of streets and highways to her apartment complex.



Then, she led the way while I hauled the bike box up to her living room, and cracked it open. Everything looked great! While reassembling the bike I discovered that the rear wheel had a broken spoke, so Celia and I walked a few blocks down to a bike shop and I dropped the wheel off for repairs. Then we walked further, to a phone store, to get a SIM for the iPad. They didn't sell them. Bah! So, undaunted, we caught the bus across the street to downtown Melbourne, and got a one-month 4GB SIM at a different shop. They needed an Australia-local ID and credit card for it, and Celia agreed to provide it, which was extremely nice I thought!

Then we went walking around. Celia took me to an awesome underground comic book and collectible shop, then to a lovely chocolate shop, then we stopped and watched a nifty street musician sing a few songs with his electric blues guitar. We took the tram back uptown to the apartment, and Celia helped me get established in her spare room. Then we went walking to a thai restaurant. I was amused to discover that westernized thai food on this side of the planet tastes just the same. Celia and I had great conversation and walked home late.

All in all, it was a wonderful first day in Melbourne, thanks in huge part to Celia. She rocks!!!



This is what a muni card looks like.



The next several days were a blur, of short exploratory bike trips, visits from Celia's friends, ("come over and meet the feral American I have trapped in my house!"), samplings of the local food and shops, and hanging out with Celia. I had some initial disorientation from jetlag, and this was replaced by a more general disorientation at being in a totally novel environment and cut off from everyone I knew. Eventually that wore off, and interestingly, what helped the most were the times when I was out exploring the city on my bike. I became keenly aware of how the bicycle, and all the gear on it, were intimately familiar to me, like a horse to its rider. Sometimes, after placing the kickstand and preparing to walk around, I would pat the bicycle on the seat before walking away, like saying "good job" a beloved animal.

Locals were extremely friendly, to me and to each other.  Men smiled and winked and nodded and gave double-thumbs-up, even when conducting business transactions.  The typical way to end a conversation was "no worries". All this ebullience made me feel like I was behaving rudely by not grinning ear to ear. I guess I'm not as outgoing as I thought I was! My dress style is perfect though - shaved head and t-shirt is typical for men here. We're all going for the Jason Statham look.

Everywhere I rode I saw a profusion of hearty pale-skinned women, many with red hair, and I found it difficult to avoid staring sometimes.  Usually I am a subtle ogler, unlike, say, my housemate Matt, but several times, walking downtown, I had to stop what I was doing and crane my neck as someone passed by.  It's a bit ironic having all these redheads living their lives in Australian seasons.  Celia herself is a pale redhead, and on intense days she walks around with a parasol to avoid being burned to toast by the summer sun.



What a bargain!!!



Melbourne - and the surrounding towns it has absorbed - are host to some enchanting brickwork. Check out those decorations along the upper facade. They're very common, and a bit evocative of a mausoleum, and with my California-biased eyes I couldn't help thinking that in an earthquake, these brick buildings would become just that: A giant mausoleum. But Melbourne is right in the middle of a huge tectonic plate, so, no worries.



A house of this build, on a piece of property this narrow, will cost you about three hundred thousand dollars here. This is more than Oakland but less than San Jose and much less than San Francisco. The general cost of living is higher in this region as well - food and equipment are both slightly more expensive than I find in California, which makes sense. On the other hand, wages are more balanced here. A teacher here makes between 35 and 65 thousand dollars a year, based on experience. A teacher in the US makes between 20 and 55 thousand a year, based on region and experience (Worst: Montana. Best: California.) (Source.) So, in effect, housing prices are a smaller portion of total income here. In all my riding around I did not pass through any region nearly as dangerous or degraded as Oakland. People will shout and rant but no one looked like they might actually try and kill me if I put a foot wrong (like I have felt multiple times in Oakland).

For some crazy reason I still enjoy living in Oakland.



A Melbourne alleyway leading to a roundabout.



Celia made her locally famous Lemon Delicious for a dinner party. Yum!



Here Celia checks out a map on the iPad.



Passing the iPad around the table. We all agreed to call it the Magic Book, as a nod to Diamond Age and Neal Stephenson, because "iPad" still sounds embarrassing.



Friends for dinner!



Celia and I.



Chomping sandwiches. The poor kid was chomped by mosquitoes earlier in the week, but was in a good mood.

Still in Carlsbad, I bought some tools to round out my kit, then began to work on the bike. I listened to Terry Pratchett's "Wee Free Men" as an audiobook, and carefully considered each step as I went, fully intending to take all day long with this one task. I felt like a retiree restoring a classic car in his garage.

I removed the front rack and set it apart since it would not be going to Australia. Then I repositioned the front headlight, and removed the seat post, the rear rack, both pedals, and both wheels.



In Carlsbad my luggage went from stage 2 to stage 3: I packed up most of the items I would not be needing in Australia into my first backpack, and my Mom agreed to ship them north to Oakland for me. The passport and other documents had been mailed to Carlsbad, so I unwrapped all that, and sent some of it to Oakland and placed the rest in my backpack. I also unwrapped a new pair of shoes, and left my old pair and my ski jacket (used to stroll around looking for Santa) in Carlsbad. Then I unwrapped the box that held my bicycle shipping container, and assembled it slowly in the living room. This travel business is complicated!



At long last I found a configuration that got the entire bike into the box. Everything except the wheels goes on this first layer, then a plastic separator goes on top, then the wheels.



Up in the Simi Valley, my luggage went to stage 4: I split the contents of my suitcase, and packed one half into the bike box, and the other half into my backpack. Now my gear for Australia was contained in a single carry-on backpack, and a single checked oversize box. If the airline managed to lose my box, I would lose my bike and my laundry, but everything else would be safe. The trip could still be a success.



Here's me, freshly shaved, on the morning of the trip.