Great Photos by a Great Robot

Best space photos by....a robot!

Compilation by René Volpi

In Space Probe Photography, Size Matters -- We've been floored by the beauty of Hubble's images of the cosmos, we've been dazzled by ground-based observations, but what about the robotic probes that go where humans fear to tread?

A space probe is defined as an unmanned mission that escapes Earth's gravitational pull and it just so happens that many of these solar system explorers have some impressive camera equipment on board. It turns out that their photography skills are excellent too.

Let's take a look at some of the best robotic photographers that have given us unparalleled views of our solar system over the last 10 years...

Image: The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera in the lab shortly before being attached to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently orbiting the Red Planet (NASA).

Where One Man Made One Small Step -- Orbiting at a low mapping altitude of 30 miles, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took some very high resolution snapshots of what remains of the Apollo 11 mission on the lunar surface. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history in 1969, but it wasn't until 2009 that we had the technology to image the landing site.

Image: The remains of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) on the Moon's surface. The long shadow of the LM's landing gear is evident in the center of the image (NASA).

Earth Rising -- Japan's SELenological and ENgineering Explorer "Kaguya" (SELENE) was intentionally crashed into the lunar surface on June 10, 2009 after a highly successful 20-month-long mission. Kaguya took some incredibly detailed imagery, but it will probably be best known for photographing the Earth rising above the lunar landscape.

Image credit: JAXA/NHK.

A Mercury Delight -- NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) probe made its first flyby of the innermost planet in 2008, over 30 years since the last mission to the little world. The spacecraft completed a second flyby the same year and a third in September 2009. These flybys help the probe slow down. In 2011 it will have quenched its speed enough to go into orbit around Mercury, beginning a year-long mission.

Image credit: NASA.

The Martian Voyeur -- Webcams aren't only good for video conferences and spying on celebrity meltdowns, it turns out the inexpensive cameras can be used on board satellites orbiting other planets, too.

On board ESA's Mars Express is the The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC), a very basic instrument that had only one use: to verify whether the UK's Beagle 2 Mars lander separated successfully in 2003. (Unfortunately, although the VMC captured the final moments of the lander in one piece, it was never heard of again.)

With its one job complete, the VMC remained switched off until 2007 when ESA mission control decided to see if it was still working. Although it's not a scientific instrument, it has become "The Mars Webcam," keeping a constant watch over the Red Planet.

Image credit: ESA.

The Martian Marathon Roller -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers touched down on the regolith in 2004. Since then the pair keep on surprising their controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Calif. by operating for longer than expected, uncovering mysterious clues about the alien world and taking outstanding panoramic photographs of the landscape.

Rover Opportunity has been more fortunate than the beached Spirit, and the wheeled robot's mission has become a marathon (as of Nov. 2009, Opportunity had notched up nearly 12 miles). On its travels, Opportunity admires its own tread marks extending across the Martian plains, stopping off at points of interest.

Image credit: NASA/JPL

Stuck in the Sand, But Enjoying the View -- On the other side of Mars, Opportunity's twin rover Spirit is stuck in a sand trap within Gusev Crater. Before getting stuck, Spirit had lost the use of one of its wheels and it was suffering bouts of memory loss. But it's not all bad news.

While stuck, Spirit has been carrying out limited science activities, uncovering evidence for ancient water under its wheels.

Image: Sunrise on Mars as witnessed by Mars Rover Spirit (NASA/JPL)

Phoenix Rises to the Occasion -- The Phoenix Mars Lander captivated the world when it landed in the Martian arctic in 2008. The NASA mission surpassed all expectations, culminating in a two month mission extension and confirmation of water ice in the soil. Although it was confined to one location, Phoenix also gathered an impressive gallery of Red Planet photos.

Although it's a long-shot, mission scientists are now hopeful that they might be able to revive the robot after it thaws from the Martian winter in January 2010.

Image: A Phoenix self-portrait taken with the lander's panoramic camera (NASA/UA)

Looking Out for its Robotic Buddies -- The HiRISE camera (pictured top) has revolutionized our knowledge of the Martian surface. Orbiting on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), HiRISE has been watching Mars to a resolving power of a few centimeters.

HiRISE has captured dynamic geological events (such as avalanches), picked out rolling boulders, spotted weather events and enhanced the detail in the planet's surface to a power that often matches Earth-orbiting spy satellites. It has also provided an ever-watchful eye over Phoenix and the Mars Rovers, providing an over-the-horizon snapshot whenever needed.

Image: Victoria Crater as imaged by HiRISE. At approximately 10 o'clock (in the upper left-hand corner of the crater edge), a tiny spot can be seen. This is Opportunity exploring the location in 2006 (NASA/HiRISE).

A Sneak Peek -- In 2007, controllers for the New Horizons Pluto mission tried out the probe's camera to capture some unprecedented views of the Jovian system. New Horizons has another five years to go until its historic Pluto flyby, but if the images of Jupiter and volcanic moon Io are anything to go by, the photographs of the outermost reaches of the solar system will be nothing less than spectacular.

Image credit: NASA/JHU/APL

In Saturn's Shadow -- The plutonium powered Cassini-Huygens spacecraft began exploring Saturn and its moons in 2004 and it will continue to do so beyond 2010. As the probe's mission was extended through the Saturnian equinox -- when the gas giant's tilt lines its equator up with the sun -- it was re-named "Cassini Equinox" in 2008.

Image: Cassini passed into Saturn's shadow for 12 hours in January 2009. A dazzling show of previously unknown outer rings became obvious (NASA).

The Descent -- Before Cassini could start its lone exploration of the Saturn system, the ESA Huygens probe needed to be detached. On Jan. 14, 2005, Huygens' big day had arrived; the probe was descending through the moon Titan's atmosphere, sampling as it went.

On the underside of the atmospheric probe a fisheye lens captured a surreal view of the alien landscape below the parachuting robot. The landing site and surrounding hydrocarbon-laced landscape were photographed in the wide angle lens.

Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Dirty Snowball Bombing -- On July 4, 2005, NASA's Deep Impact probe watched its 815-lb refrigerator-sized impactor slam into the surface of Comet 9P/Tempel's nucleus. The probe captured the resulting flash and debris plume so scientists could analyze the composition of the interior of a comet.

Interestingly, the so-called "dirty snowball" interior had far less water ice and more dust than expected.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A Problematic Sample -- The Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft reached near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa in September 2005 in an attempt to grab a sample of dirt from its surface and return it to Earth for analysis.

This ambitious mission successfully landed on the small 500-meter-long asteroid but failed to collect any samples. However, it is hoped that some of the asteroid dust drifted into the sample chamber, so the chamber was sealed shut. Hayabusa also managed to capture some very intimate photographs of the rocky body. The probe is currently journeying back to Earth, hopefully arriving by June 2010.

Image credit: JAXA

Our Nearest Star -- Floating in a region of gravitational stability between the Earth and the sun is a two ton solar observatory that has been staring at our nearest star more-or-less uninterrupted since 1996.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) provides scientists with live data from the sun's bubbling surface, helping with space weather prediction models and advanced warning of incoming coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

The sun is also a stellar laboratory, helping physicists understand how other stars behave and interact with planetary bodies such as the Earth.

Image: A SoHO image of the sun's chromosphere (NASA/ESA)

Two Can Be Better Than One -- In 2006, twin space probes blasted into space to begin a unique campaign of solar observing. NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) consists of one space probe orbiting the sun in front of the Earth, while the other lags behind Earth's orbit.

STEREO-A and STEREO-B have been working in tandem to capture stereoscopic (3D) images of solar phenomena such as CMEs, solar flares and coronal loops.

Image: In 2007, STEREO-B watched as the moon transited the sun's disk (NASA)

By Ian O'Neill. Special thanks to Patrick M. and Louis Suarato.

Pooff !!!....and it's gone

Disputed island disappears into sea

by Rene Volpi from an Associated Press Article

NEW DELHI (AP) - For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone.

New Moore Island, in the Sunderbans, has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.

Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.

Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) annually, he said.

Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well, Hazra said.

"We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water," he said.

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18 percent of Bangladesh's coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 2050 as projected by some climate models.

India and Bangladesh both claimed the empty New Moore Island, which is about 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) long and 3 kilometers (1.5 miles) wide. Bangladesh referred to the island as South Talpatti.

There were no permanent structures on New Moore, but India sent some paramilitary soldiers to its rocky shores in 1981 to hoist its national flag.

The demarcation of the maritime boundary — and who controls the remaining islands — remains an open issue between the two South Asian neighbors, despite the disappearance of New Moore, said an official in India's foreign ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on international disputes.

                                                               ~0~

Ok, guys...that's a great one. It really makes you think about peoples' nature. Why would you be fighting to get, say, your house back together after it was swallowed by an earthquake and totally destroyed?. Please enlighten me with your comments below.

René

The Internet World (part 1)

INFO-GRAPHICS CHARTS 

Posted by Rene Volpi via  Annie Colbert to Holy Kaw!

Time to fill your noggin with a slew of interesting tidbits about the internet, courtesy of a fun infographic by Focus.com. Now the next time one of your buddies asks, “Hey, what’s going on with the internet?,” you will know all the answers. You’re welcome.

Full graphic at Focus.

All the top tech news.

30 Photos That Changed The World (or did it?)

Thirty Photos That Changed the World

 April 30th, 2010  by René Volpi

Ok. It's true...A good photograph makes a point; a great one serves as a statement about culture, life, and everything that’s happening outside the image’s frame. Photos have been inspiring people and showing them the truth for centuries now, so it’s hard to narrow the list of influential images to just 30, but here are some of the photos that have changed the world:

1. General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon; Eddie Adams, 1968
AP photographer Eddie Adams captured this shot of a South Vietnamese general executing a Viet Cong officer in the Tet Offensive, and it became one of the most iconic shots of the Vietnam War. Sadly, Adams would come to lament the damage the Pulitzer-winning photo did to Nguyen and his family, claiming that the man had killed a “so-called bad guy” and been demonized by people who didn’t understand the scope of the situation.

2. Migrant Mother; Dorothea Lange, 1936
This image of a working woman who had just sold her cars tires to feed her seven children came to represent the Depression and the Dust Bowl in the popular imagination.

3. Kent State; John Paul Filo, 1970
The Kent State protest in Ohio at the news that President Nixon was sending troops into Cambodia drew the presence of the Ohio National Guard, who turned on the crowd and fired, killing four. The horrible image of a young woman crying in anger over the dead body of a student won a Pulitzer Prize for John Filo. The event inspired Neil Young to write the protest song “Ohio.”

4. Tianenmen Square; Jeff Widener, 1989
Shooting the Chinese protests for the Associated Press, Jeff Widener captured this shot of “the unknown rebel” standing in front of a line of tanks. The man was shortly led away and never seen again, but his act of nonviolent protest was a vital moment in world history.

5. Galloping Horse; Eadweard Muybridge, 1878
This series of 12 photos was a biological landmark because it proved that there is indeed a point in a horse’s stride when all its hooves leave the ground.

6. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Massery; Will Counts, 1957
Elizabeth Eckford was one of the first black students admitted to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. This photo shows her grueling walk to class while being shouted at by white student Hazel Massery. Although Massery would later express regret for her actions, the photo showed the nation and the world the heated strife in the Southern United States.

7. How Life Begins; Lennart Nilsson, 1965
Lennart Nilsson began taking pictures of developing fetuses with an endoscope in 1957, and the 1965 publication of his photos in Life Magazine was a breakthrough in showing people where we all came from.

8. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima; Joe Rosenthal, 1945
One of the most indelible images of World War II as well as a Pulitzer winner, this photo of U.S. Marines raising their flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima is widely used as a tribute to American heroism. Of the six men in the shot, three died in the battle. The image was used to create the USMC War Memorial near Arlingtong National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

9. Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston; AP, 1965
The rematch between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston remains controversial because of the way Liston went down halfway through the first round, seemingly out of nowhere. This shot of Ali standing over his prey became one of the many iconic shots of the man known as “the greatest.”

10. The Hindenburg disaster; UPI, 1937
The stirring image of the Hindenburg zeppelin going down in flames helped galvanize public opinion on the dangers of airships and end their era once and for all.

11. Earthrise; William Anders, 1968
Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders snapped this shot of the Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon as he and Frank Borman orbited the Moon. The shot changed the way we think of our planet and its place in the cosmos.

12. President Johnson Sworn In Aboard Air Force One; Cecil W. Stoughton, 1963
Cecil Stoughton was President Kennedy’s photographer, and he captured this heartbreaking image of Jackie Kennedy standing with the newly sworn-in President Johnson mere hours after Kennedy was shot.

13. V-J Day in Times Square; Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945
No image said more about the relief Americans felt at the end of World War II than this classic image of a sailor sweeping a nurse into his arms for a kiss when hearing the war had ended.

14. The Abu Ghraib scandal; 2004
The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was the site of multiple counts of prisoner torture and abuse, which became news when this and other photos showing American soldiers mistreating prisoners surfaced. They changed the course of public opinion for many people.

15. Hurricane Katrina aftermath; 2005
This stunning image of an abandoned home in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina reminded people how badly the city of New Orleans had suffered through one of the biggest natural disasters in American history.

16. Wounded Soldier at Home; Eugene Richards, 2008
Eugene Richards’ “War Is Personal” documents the human cost of the Iraq War, as seen in this photo of a soldier who survived a brutal attack that took part of his head.

17. The 9/11 attacks; New York Times, 2001
There are many haunting images of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but this one of a person standing in a gaping hole of wreckage, with no exit or hope of rescue, is one of the most wrenching.

18. Birmingham beatings; Charles Moore, 1963
Birmingham, Alabama, was one of the focal points of the civil rights movement, and black residents and protestors faced near-constant torment as they struggled for equality. This image of young people being assaulted with a fire hose showed the lengths their attackers would go to in order to fight the changing tides.

19. The Terror of War; Huynh Cong Ut, 1973
A naked girl runs with a group of other children after the napalm bombing of a Vietnamese village. She survived by removing her clothes. This was one of the many award-winning images that brought the atrocity of the war into Americans’ homes.

20. “Dewey Defeats Truman”; 1948
Perhaps the most famous incorrect headline in history, the Chicago Tribune printed early editions of that day’s issue saying that Harry Truman had lost the presidential election in order to make their deadlines. Their Washington correspondent, as well as conventional wisdom, assumed Truman would lose. However, Truman pulled ahead and won, making the papers inaccurate and leading to this classic image of a newly minted president showing the dangers of sloppy journalism.

21. Lynching; Lawrence Beitler, 1930
Thousands of whites descended on an Indiana park to hang a pair of black men accused of raping a white woman. The image is a shocking reminder of how recently something like this could happen in the U.S.

22. Omaha Beach; Robert Capa, 1944
One of the few surviving images from D-Day, Robert Capa’s haunting, blurry image was a brief glimpse for many people into a world of war they might not otherwise understand.

23. Burning Monk; Malcolm W. Browne, 1963
Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire to protest the government’s persecution of Buddhists, and the resulting photo captured millions of people’s attention.

24. Man Walks on the Moon; Neil Armstrong, 1969
Neil Armstrong snapped this image of fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first human trip to land on the Moon. It became a testament to American innovation and dedication.

25. Afghan Girl; Steve McCurry, 1984
Known only as the Afghan girl — her real identity unknown until she was rediscovered in 2002 — Sharbat Gula’s face became one of the most iconic National Geographic covers of all time, and a symbol of the struggle of refugees everywhere.

26. Abbey Road cover; Iain Macmillan, 1969
The final album recorded by The Beatles before their breakup, the cover of Abbey Road featured a shot of the four men crossing the road almost in lock-step, except for Paul McCartney, whose off-balance stride spurred the urban legend that he was dead.

27. Martin Luther King, Jr.; 1963
Martin Luther King, Jr. raised his arms as he addressed the crowd in his “I Have a Dream” speech in August 1963. His performance there, and the subsequent photos of the crowds and his address, were a turning point in the blossoming civil rights movement.

28. “Tear down this wall”; 1987
Speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, President Reagan bluntly exhorted Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” It was the beginning of the end, as the wall would fall in 1989. The site of Reagan in front of the gate is a key one in 20th century history.

29. Federal Dead on the Field of Battle of First Day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Mathew Brady, 1863
One of the earliest war photographs, this sobering look at the war ravaging America remains one of the most important war images of all time.

30. Tetons and the Snake River; Ansel Adams, 1942
Ansel Adams is a legend among photographers, and his 1942 “Tetons and the Snake River” is a prime example of the stark nature photography that he elevated to fine art. It was also one of the 115 pictures embedded on the golden record and sent on the Voyager spacecraft. The picture also fueled an environmental protection movement that lasts to this day.

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The Sweet Life of Mexico

Mexico In A Dog’s Eyes

Posted today, April 26th.

Photo:

Smells good. Smells like sausage. No, wait wait wait – not just sausage, chorizo. Yes, mmm, chorizo with eggs, mmmm, those soft creamy eggs with the tang of that red sausage, meaty, creamy, wrapped in a warm tortilla.
Ow! Damn. And she’s yanking me again. Always in such a rush at this hour, ready to start the jog up the steps and onto the hill. I’m already breathing hard, looking at her expectantly, and at the same time keeping an eye out for the stray cats that dot these stairs, thin and bony and mean as hell but oh so delightful to chase up fences if I get a chance. She doesn’t like it, though, because then the señoras with tough white braids and brooms come out and give her those stern glances.
The air here in this mountain valley is fresh and strong, with character and depth and presence. It smells like cool, soft pine needles and sweet flowers, the big pink and orange flowers that look like loosely pursed lips and have the goofy tassles in the middle. Between the leaps up the stairs I also distinguish the faint stink of exhaust from city buses, the smoke of cooking fires, and the flat, warm, grainy scent of tortillas puffing up on the clay grills they callcomales.
We make our rounds on the Fortin, up the steep mountain path fringed with herbs – fennel, thyme, and rosemary – and then back down and around the dirt road, kicking up little poofs of that ubiquitous terracotta dust, taking in the wide-rimmed bowl of bristling city beneath us. I take glorious flying leaps at the birds and almost get a gecko.
At 8 the sun here starts to pound from the sky like an opera singer going full force, and I have to steal moments in patches of shade when I get a chance. The light comes barreling down out of that cocky blue sky all pride and confidence and fills the landscape with great triangles and squares and heaps of itself, creeping in beneath tree branches and blasting walls with high notes.
We go to the market. Here I smell furiously, as much as I can as I’m dragged along towards the juice stand. There’s the sharp ticklish smell of cherry tomatoes, the intense perfume of mint and basil, the vague, earthy scents of squash flowers and zucchinis. The blackberries practically sock me in the nose, fat and fresh and reeking of cloying sweetness. The mangos are a balm, plush and lovely, their scent gentle and soft like a blanket.
I wait while she gets her juice. It’s green and blurry, full of stuff. I think there are raisins and pecans in there, and spinach. She sips it from the bag while we walk home. Traffic clots in the streets and cars honk and occasionally people gape out their windows at me and I gape back and secretly chuckle. She chuckles too. A man whistles nearby and I turn sharply to look at him. Knock it off, buddy. He does.
Kids in school uniforms come in loose knots up the sidewalk, estorbando as they say in Spanish (blocking the way, but there’s really no translation. Estorbando conveys a different kind of blocking, one born of the type of lingering and eventually-getting-there behavior they don’t really have in the U.S). The girls are pretty with long wavy hair and black Mary Janes, and they laugh. Their white shirts are wrinkled and haphazardly worn over plaited skirts. They eat chips out of a bag. The boys make ridiculous sounds, like monkeys or wild pigs, trying to impress them. They have dark hair whose waves they try to suppress with gel.  It mostly doesn’t work.
The sounds make me want to paw at my ears: the gas truck, its clanging chains and bells to alert the neighbors to its presence, the Agua Super Agua, Agua Super Agua, Agua Super Agua through the bullhorn of the water truck again and again, the rickety pick-ups and chugging VW bugs and old motos all taking a tope (speedbump) at the same time. The church bells’ sad sing-song.


I’m grateful when we round the corner to our cobblestone, dead-end street and head uphill. I give a glance or two back, catch the sprawling grid of narrow streets, the colored buildings, the distant bulk of mountains turning purple under the morning’s bright light, and I think I can almost make out the plumes of meat-flavored steam from taco stands. Sigh. I wish. Maybe tomorrow she’ll let me have one. Today, I’ll settle for a few sips of water and a nap at her feet.

My Dad, the Greatest.

My Dad and I hit the road on many occasions when, even thought the trip was for some kind of business he needed to attend to, he made sure we'd spend quality time together for one very important reason: to get to know one another. It's somehow strange, almost as if he already knew that once I started traveling on my own, we weren't going to ever again have the chance to really get to know each other. So for a while, beginning when I was 14, we started to drive for thousands of miles to places that I've never even heard of but of which he, of course, knew their entire history. Everybody called him "Lolo". He was a practical man, no dogmatism there whatsoever. He was like those kind of folks that you've probably seen before. No nonsense; what you see is what you get.

Still, the man was as solid as a rock, an old timer, you could say. He wasn't an adventurer per se, but I knew that fire raged within the man himself. He knew World History like the palm of his hand and for someone who had never seen the inside of a college, he was very well versed on most topics, world events and current affairs. He was what you might want to call a human encyclopedia.

A great conversationalist you would feel very comfortable talking to him, because he was the kind of man who made you feel important, interesting, and worthy. He was also great at math, quick as lighting with a solution that normally would take several minutes and a calculator for most people to come up with the correct answer. He was very proud of that but he also made sure he didn't come through pedantish; it wasn't in him to show off, or to be outlandish, opting instead for humble deliverance, and straight out ethical correctness. A classy man by all definitions, he loved to engage in philosophical premises and he would combine his past lived experiences with a pragmatic view (at times a bit cynical) of life itself and his own shortcomings. We were absolute opposites and that would provoke debate between us, but since he always had more common sense that I ever wished to achieve, his methods would always prevail and the results were unsurprisingly one-sided. That's the way I learned, going against the best and losing even my socks in the process.

But Lolo always had a kind word for me, like one occasion when he confessed to me that --deep inside-- he wished he was a little bit more like me, although (after careful examination he said this) he probably would have regretted it in full. I believe that he saw in me all the things he was lacking, call them virtues if you will, namely; spontaneity, wildness, artistic tendencies, and an insatiable taste for the unknown. That is my Dad, thick as a brick, and yet just as solid. He really surprised me when he proposed that we go camping together. I could not believe it. My Dad in the wild? Might as well scout Planet Mars! Still, I wasn't about to let that opportunity slip through my fingers. I got so hyped that I was packed before Dad could finished his sentence. Of course, neither of us knew anything about the wild or the great outdoors for that matter. We knew there were very hungry predators out there. The closest I'd ever gotten to an animal was when my Mom took me to the pet store to get a pet rabbit. And my dog, "Juanita". That was my entire animal experience. But it was a phenomenal idea, and I couldn't wait to leave. Dad was making all kinds of preparations, reading maps and choosing trails, etc, etc, etc. The trip was gonna last for a week, then we would spend the last weekend in a hotel, freshen up, lick our wounds, if any, and head back. Everyday I pressed him to depart earlier, but no, he had to check the weather channel, he wanted to get parking permits, he wanted to know about that particular zone's criminal activities. He didn't think we had enough batteries, nor had we enough insect repellents. Then he wanted to know about insurance. That one did it...

"Dad, Dad,"  I said, annoyingly.

"I'm on the phone, wait," he replied calmly.

After a short pause, we starting defending our points. I told him that he's going overboard with all these preparations and he's ruining the trip, which it was supposed to be --after all-- an adventure. Now he's getting condescending.

"Willie" (he nicknamed me that), "you don't know anything; we could be facing problems if we don't prepare for this correctly."

I quickly retorted, "That's right, Dad, we will make corrections as we go along, that's the beauty of it all!!"

I continued, "Remember when you told me that you wished you'd be a little bit like me sometimes? Remember when you said 'I wish I could be a little bit more spontaneous,' like me? What happened to that desire?" 

"Willie", he said sternly. "there are two ways we can do this: We can go ahead and make provisions to minimize future problems that might or might not occur, or. . . we could always watch a documentary about camping", and then he winks at me.

At this point I realize further resistance would be futile. I leave the room, the house, the town, slamming every door I find on my war path.

I remember clearly back in those days, when things that I dreamed of being one way, turned out completely the opposite; my world just collapsed. Patience was never my strong suit and left me with an empty feeling, some kind of void that nothing could really replace and a bad taste in my mouth. I remember reading, however, something once that stayed with me throughout the times. It was the fact that human beings can and will adapt to almost anything. These trying times were a good moment to put that thought into practice. I chilled my head, came to terms with what I could not change and buried the hatchet.

I also ended up giving my Dad the credit that he deserved. He was right trying to protect us. During our camping trip we were attack by "killer" bees (I say killers because they were really trying to murder us), we were bitten and persecuted by legions of wasps, snakes in a bad mood were ready to strike from inside our boots, not one or two, but six combined, an avalanche of huge deadly rocks missed us by seconds, and for the final straw we managed to get a mama bear believing we could be supper, not a bad alternative to flying salmons as dinner. By far, that was our most dangerous encounter with the monsters of the wild. I have never run so fast in my life, nor did Dad, completely disregarding the noise making option. It turned out mama bear wasn't even chasing us, but we panicked anyway and sought refuge in an old abandoned train station with the most repulsive stench that I've ever come across in my life!  Name of the station?  "Gardenias". 

We laughed so hard, it's possible that with the eerie echoes produced by such noisy laughter, we ended up being the threat for whatever animals happen to be around. By the time we left the station, the silence was king.

We decided to keep the story personal, it would be part of the bond. It would became our anecdote, our secret, our triumph. And it would be the last trip we took together. 

Lolo, my beloved Dad, passed away March 17th 2010. He was 89 years old.

The Amazon Trails

We were living in the jungle, practically. Our everyday friends were monkeys, an amazing array of birds of every color imaginable and well, of course, the caimans. Humidity was very high, so we were always sweating. Whenever we looked at a map, we would get static at how much ground we have covered and yet, how much more was yet to be.

They were probably ---now in retrospect--- the best times, the best years of my young adult life. We managed with what we had, which was the very basics. A sleeping bag for each of us, a backpack, mosquito repellents, malaria pills, and plenty of water.

I tried to keep a diary, but the pages got so mixed up, I didn't even know in what sequence they would have belonged to. Still, we needed to put something down in writing, the entire experience was absolutely unique. The countries we "visited" were sometimes a total surprise to us, going from some Papiamento-speaking nation to outright English or Spanish. What do you mean we crossed the border? Well, we had...

Still, the Amazon was our kingdom, from the Iguazú Falls to the Matto Grosso to Belem du Pará, that was all we saw for what it seemed like years rolling over and over and over again. We did have a fantastic time. I remember one particular time in French Guyana we stopped at some small town named Kroukú which it turned out to be one of many spacial stations France had all over the coast. The children of the scientists were all--- the majority anyway--- spoiled brats that had way too much time on their hands and whatever came their way from some other place, they would find it the greatest thing next to pot smoking. So, when we got there, we suddenly got the attention---a much needed one indeed---of all the young girls that just loved us. I mean they just couldn't have enough, even to the point of fighting among themselves for our company, finding in our accents the best thing in the entire world. As anybody could imagine, we were literally in Rome. And we acted like emperors. They let us have anything we could possibly want. They would buy us clothes, feed us, take us places and invited us to have dinner at their parents' houses that were just as fascinated and curious as their lovely daughters. Needless to say, I was having the time of my life. If there is such a thing as Paradise, that was it. No doubt in my mind whatsoever. Why would I want to leave a place like that? It certainly didn't look as if we were ever going to over-extend our welcome, but we knew better. After all, we could always take the same route back if that were to happen. It didn't. I never found out one way or another but I really believe that some of us left our genes behind, it was a time for procreation, and our hormones and stamina were at the order of the day. Today, it could be nice if that fact came to light. at least for the sake of knowing.

But we needed to keep going; the world was waiting, and we didn't want to be too rude...

EMP Attack, could this really happen?

EMP Attack Would Decimate America
Monday, 05 Apr 2010 08:58 AM
By: Ronald Kessler

America is totally unprepared for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that would set civilization back to the 1800s, Dr. William Graham, who was chairman of the bipartisan congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack, tells Newsmax.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes in the atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast would fry microchips, which are at the heart of electronic devices, throughout North America.

In a rare interview, Graham, who was Ronald Reagan’s science adviser, predicts the vast majority of Americans would die from starvation or disease or would freeze to death. Yet he says that while the military is largely protected from an EMP attack, the government has done virtually nothing to address the effects of such an attack on the civilian sector.

Without that infrastructure, the military would find it difficult to operate as well. Since microchips control vehicles, trains, and airplanes, most would become inoperable.

No one could get to work.

An EMP attack “could not only take down power grids, which are fragile anyway in this country, and telecommunications networks, and financial networks, and traffic controls and many other things, but in addition, there is a very close interrelationship among those national infrastructure capabilities,” Graham says.

“So, for example, we need telecommunications to re-establish the power network, and we need the power network to keep telecommunications going for more than a few hours. And we need the financial network to continue to operate to maintain the economy, we need the transportation system, roads, street lights, control systems, to operate just to get people to the failed power, telecommunication and other systems,” he adds.


Life after an EMP attack “would probably be something that you might imagine life to be like around the late 1800s but with several times the population we had in those days, and without the ability of the country to support and sustain all those people,” Graham says. “They wouldn’t have power. Food supplies would be greatly taken out by the lack of transportation, telecommunication, power for refrigeration and so on.”

Yet life would be far more primitive than even that because in the 1800s, Americans had food from their own farms and police who rode on horseback.

“We don’t have as many horses, and we tend to depend on radios for communication now, that again need power,” Graham notes. “Radios themselves tend to be vulnerable to this if they’re not designed with protection from EMP in mind, because they’re connected to antennas. Anything that looks like an antenna can pick up the EMP signal and conduct it to the electronics, causing it to fail.”

Most computers would become inoperable, Graham says.

“Most computers are connected to things that either are antennas or look like antennas,” he says. “Even a mouse cable looks like an antenna to an electromagnetic signal. Certainly power lines, telecommunication lines, all act as antennas to pick up EMP signals and check them in the computers. And we have done tests with computers, and EMP tends to burn out the computer circuits.”

Stock and banking transactions would also be wiped out.

“Most financial records are stored electronically. ATMs, which depend upon both power and telecommunications, would not be available; banks, which try to back up records but in general aren’t strongly aware of the EMP problem, would face the problem of unprotected storage and computer systems,” Graham says. “And so it’s very likely that financial and stock brokerage records would at a minimum not be accessible and might not be available at all.”

An EMP attack could be launched by a country such as North Korea or Iran or by terrorists, Graham says. A severe geomagnetic storm — which will definitely occur one day — could cause nearly as much damage.
“The intelligent way to address this is to look at all of these threats and to develop a protection against all of them, not just against one at a time,” Graham observes.

Unlike protection against a nuclear blast, shielding to protect against EMP is a relative bargain. As noted in the Newsmax story "EMP Attack Could Wipe Out U.S.," the 300 transformers that are critical to the power grid could be protected for $200 million to $400 million.

Yet so far, neither power companies nor banks, stock brokerage firms, nor other industries have seen fit to shield their facilities against an EMP strike.

“In talking to the various commercial organizations, they have said, "’Look, it’s not our job to protect the country against a nuclear attack,’” Graham says. “’It’s our job to have the country operate under normal conditions. It’s the military’s job to protect the country in a nuclear attack.’”

Just as the U.S. was unprepared for the 9/11 attack, so is it unprepared for an EMP attack that would be millions of times more devastating.

“Having been confirmed into three different government positions by the Senate, I have some experience in dealing with the bureaucracy,” Graham says. “Bureaucrats never like to deal with a problem before it happens the first time. It’s much easier to ignore a problem that might happen, until it happens.”

The blame rests with both Democrats and Republicans.

“It was a failure in the last administration; it’s a failure in this administration,” Graham notes. “No one has been given the job of marshaling our capabilities — governmental, private, and military — to prepare for this problem.”