Such is the modern way...

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my recent life changes - this doesn't come under the category of "travels" but it has certainly been an adventure, and it will have a huge impact on future travels. One year ago this week I took a leave of absence from my medical device development work at www.vapore.com - we had just completed a radical new product for the market, everything was looking up, but there can be a period in the process where you have to wait for the customer to do his job of introducing it to the public (and then allowing the product to sell itself, based on its merits). Great time to take a needed break (new product development is hell at the end) and management was extremely fond of not having to pay me. I went to Guatemala, learned Spanish, practiced stoving (its not intuitive it turns out - see my technical blog for details), and even taught sewing classes (yet another blog, of mine, and an odd story - I don't really know how to sew!).

The very day before I returned I found that it was felt that more "technology" was no longer needed in the organization - and it has not had any more since then either. Young companies without a product on the market officially don't have a demonstrable worth (real worth is based on present and projected sales) so any promised sales are worth a fortune. Vapore now has a product (http://www.pari.com/hydrate) and it is a beautiful one meeting all customer specifications and then some. but stock in Vapore is now worthless - if only because the company no longer has technical vision or leadership.

Kick ass, then just before rewards are due... - get used to it mate. The product won a 2006 R&D 100 award, once I later wrote the application (http://www.rdmag.com/pdf/rd100/RD79_RD100_matsmetal.pdf) - one of the one hundred best new technology products of 2007. So I have somewhat sworn off corporate culture until the right new company comes along and consult on global manufacturing - too many experiences with no appreciation for the technical people, who tend to deliver the innovation. The SF Bay area is filled with the coolest technical jobs possible - environmental, solar electric, high tech materials, more biotech, and such - when you need work.

"Travel with a purpose" was I goal I set back in Laos, when I found adventure tourism - as hard as I tried to live close to the local people and to travel as slowly as possible - to be somewhat hollow. Its not that the people in underdeveloped nations needed my help - hell, they seem to be the happiest people I know, just without many choices - but, as a scientist, there were things that I could perhaps do to make their lives a little richer (or more secure, or something), AND those accomplishments would be enriching rewards for me. Even humanitarianism is selfish business! I'm a good scientist, I like to travel, working with new friends is a great thing, and wouldn't it be great to work outdoors all the time?

The rest of the story is that I think I now aspire to be a "technical humanitarian" (apparently a new phrase for the language), and particularly I chose stoving (the process of designing for and introducing improved cook stoves to the 2-3 billion people who live now with smoky and inefficient ones) and try to make advances by experimenting, writing (http://improvedstoves.blogspot.com/), networking, and such. And Engineers Without Borders (EWB - http://www.ewb-sfp.org/) is a decent way to get exposed to all kinds of other technical humanitarianism goals - clean water, decent housing, good health, food security, renewable energy, etc. - I helped start the Appropriate Technology Design Team so that we could take in new projects that could survive on their own sooner (http://ewbappropriatetechnology4.blogspot.com/).

Eventually I'll be able to tell if this change helped (and be a little less bitter - this post will then self destruct and disappear)... party on Garth!

After all, how bad can it be? Now I do get to work in more interesting places, on projects that are just as technical (but perhaps not as challenging - but the anthropology/cultural change aspect is turning out to be hell), help people, work outside, possibly assist in stimulating significant change, I enjoy working with the people who have some of the same life interests that I do, and so on. But no stock options are offered.

En Guatemala!

Too much Spanish! Why didn´t someone make me learn a useful language when I was young and able to learn easily! I think I have been in Guatemala now for about 3.5 weeks, but have not bothered to keep track - all I know is that my command of the language is improving VERY slowly, I am doomed to at least a few more weeks of classes (luckily I am in the country for 10 weeks), and Antigua is a pleasant enough place to learn Spanish. Actually I have only had 9 days of instruction - Scott and Betty descended on me and we went into a manic 10 days of traveling and family activities (Betty is from around Guatemala City and has an extended family the size of several U.S. states). More on all that later... better to get a few random colorful photos on line in case anyone looks here for something new.

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Photos Before Blogging Was Big

Blogging is a relatively recent phenomena, and it may not last long (who has extra time to read all this stuff?), and lots of photos were taken before blogs alowed us to post so many to the web. Sure they are in Yahoo photo albumns and such (http://photos.yahoo.com/csellers42) but blogs are just a little bit better at reliving the experience. So here I'll post some of the best photos from my pre-blog time - I lived in ruralish China for 2 years (2002-2004) then I travelled around Asia for another year. Some of these photos found their way into email travelogues (a clumsy method) and others have never been shown - does anyone care though? In order to post photos you seem to have to tell a story - my village was Wuqing (aka Yancun), about halfway between Beijing and Tianjin (both huge cities of +10 million, each about an hour away). It seemed that no one spoke English there, even though everyone had 8 years of English in school; just no oral English practice. Learning even a Chinese word a day would make you competent after as year or two, but life is much harder than that - Mandarin is the hardest thing that you will ever have to learn.

But what an experience! China at the point where it became a global entity, when donkeys were banished from the streets and capitalism was everywhere. I never saw evidence of Communism, and people thrived by selling everything that they could. There were small problems because the competition was warped (what if everyone sold the same thing...) but it will work itself out. Americans think that Chinese factories are geared toward exports, but actually they struggle to keep up with local demand; 1.3 billion people require lots of stuff.

Prices/wages are certainly low there, but so is the cost of living - I never saw people in need, and they appear happier than we are; people value family most, and that's what is most important to them. Individualism is not a priority - traveling alone internationally, like I did, is their worst nighmare.

From there I went on the road for a year - traveling slowly from Bali to Kathmandu was my goal. Bali is not all I would have wanted it to be (the recent terrorist bombing there was on their mind too much), but it was a glorious place; perfect rice field terraces and a fanstastic culture more than made up for everything. Art is a way of life, and the living couldn't be easier. Two months was all they would let me stay, but I could have stayed in the Gili Islands (off the island of Lombok) forever - where all the cats have crooked tails. There they forgot to discover motorized vehicles, and hallucinogenic mushrooms are are way of life. I had bronchitis but could still dive on reefs and chase sea turtles - and there is just enough beer and email to survive.

Onwards to Singapore (one of the most beautiful places I know - despite all the regulations) and then I ambled slowly up the length of Malaysia. Tioman Island had the best giant clams I have ever seen, and huge dragons enough to satisfy me for a lifetime. Maybe the best place I have ever visited was the Perhentian Islands, off Kota Bahru - someone forgot to put them in the guidebooks so few visit there. You move about via boat taxis and the social scene couldn't be better. Don't go there!

Of course Thailand is one of my favorite places - I can't tell you how much time I spent there, mostly because I was kicked out of China every few weeks to get a new visa. Bangkok was my favorite city long before I got there - modern, overwhelming, primitive, colorful, exciting and more. It has great buses, a subway, river taxis, perfect street life, the best markets, and an occasional emerald buddha. Life is easy there, and the country is small enough so that you can be in the mountainous north one day (Chaing Mai) and the tropical south (Phang Na and Phuket) the next - via long overnight trains.

From Bangkok I lept to Kathmandu - and that is a subject of a previous blog posting...

Very High in the John Muir Wilderness

This is the eastern side of California's Sierra Nevada mountains - the backside of Yosemite National Park, where life is a little drier and a lot steeper it seems. Inyo County (where lies the town of Bishop, CA) is the home of both the highest point in the U.S. (Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 ft or 4,421 meters) and also the lowest point in the U.S. (in Death Valley, at 86 meters below sea level). A land of extremes. The stretch of U.S. Highway 395 that runs through here is one of the prettiest that I have seen - the air is clearer and the peaks more jagged (and close), and the sheer vertical gain more... snow visible all year long.

This view of the area above the vanadium mine at Pine Creek was my first in depth exploration of the area - the Forest Service delayed my entrance into the wilderness area where I wanted to go so I headed up into the nearest interesting looking place; this amazing stuff was visible off of the highway! I found an old vanadium mine and went in illegally – just majestic! Then I went to a meadow that was set aside since water came out of the ground there – barefoot when an unknown snake almost (meaning: it didn’t) attack me and the lush grass and trees almost made me a rabid environmentalist once more – water in the desert is sacred, and should not be the realm of cows.

I was in the neighborhood because distant friend was having a 2 week party at 11,500 ft, and I wanted to meet all the strangers that would be there – mostly artists and their ilk, my kind of people. What a hike in! Only a few thousand feet vertical (starting at 9,000 ft) but too many miles with a heavy pack – a 2 pound jicama, 5 liters of wine, oyster mushrooms (the fresh basil had since wilted way too much, so I threw it away), Mexican chocolate, and other weighty delicacies. Just vague/blurry photocopied photos to lead me to the massively off trail camp. WAY above tree line; just boulders, lakes, wildflowers, and stunning peaks looming overhead – I have conducted extreme parties in the past, but this topped them all. We squatted in a beautiful camp at the top of the world, just us and the still snow capped peaks – and a million mosquitoes during several parts of the day. People and dogs suffered, but it was just pain – no more. There was a great kitchen and good food, and the rising full moon over the mock campfire was incredible. Mark was the host and Skandar led a terrific medicine circle – I became the Muskox and all was fine with the world. 16 hours later I was on the path back out – not good (I’ll allocate more time next year), but definitely good enough; new friends are worth more than a fortune.

Hiking hard and fast out, the wildflowers were just incredible – late summer to us is just barely spring in the high country, where the flowers crank beyond belief (even to those of us who are somewhat colorblind) – and it was hard to try to proceed towards work when its so great, and Bishop are the ancient Bristlecone pines), but it’s a very the hike and the drive are so long. It seemed like a perfect place to live (across the valley from long way out there. I zoomed through Yosemite, through the hot dry Central Valley of California (vegetable bowel of the U.S.), and was relieved to finally reach the cool clime of the bay area; my home. What a glimpse of how diverse California is!

Fire Arts Festival 2006

Summer in the Bay Area is when the minds and hands of creative people turn towards Burning Man projects - the celebration of all things strange, fiery, and artistic held out in the Nevada desert every year. A month or so before it, The Crucible holds their Fire Arts Festival to showcase upcoming Burning Man exhibits, and anything else that generally qualifies as "fire art" - fire breathing and swallowing, fire dancing, sculpture, dangerous carnival games, high voltage exhibitions, hydrocarbon powered anything, things of neon and el wire and LEDs, roaring jet engines, other stuff destined for BM like observation towers and fire or electric amusements.
This year I was in charge of one of the bars - not bartending just hustling to make sure everything went smoothly. It was an amazing event, as always - like a county fair (huge, filled with people and things for them to ooh and aah at, food and drink to spend on, trinkets to buy, and lots of ways to participate. Photos are tough because there are absolutely no lights except the flames from the sculptures, so some shots are from setting up and taking down - more trouble than a carnival because of the size and complexity of the pieces. Yes, a flash can give a clearer picture, but I wanted the colors and the movement of the flames. It is too much for me to describe each photo (does it matter?), so I'll just include say a few words here and there and you figure out which photos I am describing...There are a whole host of "organizations" (a poor term, but what is the one for proto-anarchists?) in the area that are focussed on fire art - many are workshops for making flaming metal sculptures (THERM, Flaming Lotus Girls, NIMBY, and the Crucible and such), and then plenty of individual artists that do it in other ways(Orion Fredericks, Sunbrothers). Nothing remotely commercial is ever in this event (Dupont, for the electric el wire?) - microbrews, crazy urban food, and the absence of mainstream is the look and feel; the worst part is the Porta-Potties (sorry for the brand reference), and they seem to be a necessity. The costumes are outlandish, people wear electric stuff, multicultural as hell, all ages love it, people on stilts and on fire roam, and somehow the city of Oakland allows it because of a perfect track record and a perfect location in a barren parking lot almost under a huge freeway. Our subway (BART) passes right overhead and the flames reach up toward it, and it pauses to watch. Out in the middle of this commercial/urban wasteland it must be look like hell, or something from Mad Max - its good to be extreme.

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