Ari's Planet

"Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." -- Joseph Campbell The Hero With a Thousand Faces p25.

Members of Congress refuse to impeach President Bush or VP Cheney. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich has been trying to move impeachment forward. Only a small number of representatives have shown support for impeachment. I find it intolerable that other members of Congress have refused to act on impeachment, including my current representative, Barney Frank, and my former representative David Price. I have written to both Frank and Price and told them I would oppose their reelection should they fail to act to impeach. They have both replied that they will not impeach. I propose to create a web site where people can indicate that they will not vote for a representative due to his or her failure to act on impeachment. The number of people indicating their position will be available to the public and, more importantly, to the representatives, so that they can directly see a lower-bound on how many people will no longer vote for them due to their failure to impeach.

I've uploaded a bunch more photos from Abel Tasman NP, Cape Foulwind, Marlborough Sound, Nelson Lakes, Punakaiki, Tongariro, Wellington,

My knee is hurting, so I decided to hang out in NZ until it is back in decent shape. This meant canceling my flight on Qantas, leaving me with a NZ$100 credit to get me out of the country. This whole buy the return ticket before coming to the country shtick that NZ forces the airlines to comply with is really annoying, as I would not have purchased a return ticket if it was not required, and would not have had to deal with this cancelation fee.

Once, these hills were covered in giants. They moved through the air, lifted by rarely seen wings full of color, until the ground sucked at their softened flesh. Warmth gave them their new life, slow with the rising and setting of the sun, they watched the constellations circle, burst into fire and die out, they grew their muscles and came to hold in crooks of outstretched arms flowers offered to the light, reaching beyond the dark land below, swallowed in mist.

A bird sings, unhinged, or so I impute to it meanings it does not posses. Brown fern leaves drape tree trunks. All is covered in green moss. Fern trees rise in midstory, beach filter cloudy light of late fall. Chip, chip, chip--fast and slow, birds and rain, unhinged. Into a painting of Gondwana that hung on childhood walls. At any moment a shaggy moa will emerge into the world from which it vanished, into the lost world, a dinosaur will crash through the ferns.

Clouds move, dissipate, I do not recognize the return walk. These plants were here, but this burnt piece of wood, charred in a volcanic eruption, that peak covered in snow?

NZ is great, definitely recommended. If you're from an English-speaking country it doesn't give you as big a cultural difference from the Pakeha (European) descent, but the Maori give a different perspective, and even the Pakeha have their own differences. Mainly it's the landscape that is amazing. My knee started acting up so I wasn't able to hike Tongariro, just did some shorter day hikes (where short means 17 km going "god damn knee... ooh, look at that mountain... ow, stupid hurting kn... holy cow that's totally amaz ouch" you get the picture).

A few tips I've picked up along the way for getting around NZ. Traveling here is about as easy as it gets. They put clean toilets everywhere, there's even a space-age closet with an automatic door in Taupo. There are basic services--food, gas, lodging--practically in the smallest little spot. I did learn a tiny bit.

Guidebooks

The land melts. Polar ice caps shrink, icebergs calve off of great sheets of ice. In the mountains of New Zealand, I drive up access roads to glaciers. These are no ordinary glaciers, they are at a convenient lattitude, easily accessed. They can be seen from the sea nearby, though they sit in mountains. Along the road are signs "the glacier was here in 1750", "here in 1932", the road keeps going. Eventually you reach the glacier. There is a delay. It takes some 5 years for a change in snowfall at the head of these glaciers to be reflected in a change in their terminal faces.

Here's a story, without names or references and probably mangled, since I don't have the book with me, but it's sweet and doesn't involve burning giant lizards, beating up the sun, or combusting all your enemies.

Internet here is pricey so I don't do much, hence just a quick update. My van is great, fun to drive around NZ but a bit pricey since gas is up to over NZ$2/L, which is around US$6.5/gal. They wouldn't rent me a kayak by Abel Tasman NP since I was only one person, so that sucks. I did the Milford Track back in Fiordland but my knee is bugging me so I'm taking it easy and hope it gets better soon so I can do more tramping (NZ for hiking).

More pictures from New Zealand are online, from all sorts of places--everything up to yesterday. I'm heading up to Abel Tasman NP area, but found a decent Internet shop in a video store of all places. Makes me want to watch movies, too bad my van doesn't have a DVD player.

Curio Bay A few more pictures of fossil trees and penguins.
Fiordland Amazing place of rain and mountains and green.

I've uploaded pictures from Singapore and Australia, including from the Overland Track.

Ok, I was just about to submit a long explanation when Firefox shitfaced my post and lost it. Goddamn Firefox. Anyway, the long and short of it is Queenstown is boring and should be avoided unless you want to jump out of or off of things or hang out in bars and eat fatty foods. And never, ever, ever, never, write more than 3 sentences in Firefox.

In Fiordland, rain falls as its own clear liquid, diamonds of all sizes, pure and translucent, until it touches the land for which it yearns--then it becomes green. Fiordland is dark and grey, the colors of hard rock and water mist, because the air is too light to hold either, and they both condense, while the underlying core of the earth is too dense for them, so that they are held suspended within the eyes of the beholder. What is not white, or black, or grey, is green.

This post describes my workflow to handle digital images and how I publish them on my web site while on the road. My camera has shot about 35,000 images, nearly all of which have been taken on my trip which started in August of 2007 (it is now May 2008).

Equipment and software needed

Digital camera, flash memory, spare batteries
External USB disk, 2.5", and USB cable
Portable 2.5" disk drive that can copy cards directly
Good card reader with USB cable
USB flash stick with portable software (see below) and notes

Planning to go on Milford Track on Monday for four days, so mon/tue/wed/thu. they *make* you carry (rent) an emergency locator beacon which you turn on if you think you're going to die and it's picked
up by a satelite and they send helicopters or whatever, or maybe dolphins or grey cats. Fiordland is totally awesomely incredible. I have imagined nothing like it, and that after seeing a documentary years ago that made me dream of it and all those movies with big mountains and whatnot. You can't turn your head without holding your breath. For instance:

Swam by the cruise ship. It's incredible here.