I like new technology a lot.  But at times it can really be annoying.  Like here on the Coral Princess for instance.  With great pride, Princess installed a brand new outdoor screen for movie watching out on the deck.

The downside of this piece of technological wizardry is of course, that there is no escape from the beast, or rather its massive sound system.  As you can see everybody is transfixed by the screen, showing a kids' movie by the way.  It's so damned intrusive!   So what to do?
Well, Princess has come up with a very nifty method to escape this intrusion and it's this -

Or to put it another way the notice board tells it more exactly -

Yes, once you pass through this little gate you enter a so-called sanctuary, where you can relax minus children and of course, the noise of the movie screen.  For a $20 fee of course. So that is the cost of silence.  Not a bad scheme for the owners of course.

Coral Princess - View

The Princess ships have cameras located on the foremasts and they relay the view from up front.  This is what the camera shows every five minutes up-loaded via satellite, if you're interested.  You can turn the TV on in all the cabins for this sight. http://www.princess.com/bridgecams/co/coral_bridgecam.html

California

Not many days go by without my being really grateful for living in California.  It's been 30 years now and it still amazes me.  For instance, yesterday was my annual trip down to Palm Springs, and this is what the side of the road was like when I left Big Bear at 8:30 for the two-hour drive.

Not very nice, and particularly when you realize there was a good half-inch of ice underneath.  I could save the TV people a lot of money on their radar systems if they just called me in the winter and asked when I was planning to drive off the hill.

It's almost guaranteed!

But on the way down the hill I kept an eye on the temperature and watched it rise from about 28 to up in the mid-seventies.  As usual, I began to regret my woolen clothing and long pants.  Palm Springs beckoned,

Now we're talking!

I stopped just as soon as I reached the outskirts of the town and took this picture of an ordinary corner of a small housing complex.

But of course it isn't all like this.  Absent the Mexican gardeners, fertilizers and constant watering it soon would turn into what is usually opposite - scrub desert, which is not very attractive at all.

It always reminds me of the old joke where the vicar is returning from his Sunday service and sees Old Joe leaning on his garden gate.  He says to Old Joe: "We haven't seen you in church much these days, Joe."  To which the old man replied: "No, Vicar, I've been tending to my garden most weekends."  The Vicar looks around and says, "Ah yes, God does wonderful work doesn't he?"  The reply was a curt.  "I dunno, Vicar, He hadn't done much with the place before I got hold of it!"

Sunday's Column - Route 66

The original Route 66 goes through Victorville.  And in what used to be a roadhouse, now sits the Route 66 Museum.  It is crammed with memorabilia of the days of America's Mother Road.  In the back they have an old Ford, which thankfully has not been "restored" or made pretty.  It shows the condition it might well have been when it traveled the 2400 miles from Chicago to LA.  It also makes you realize how tough it was to do the journey way back when.  You can read the entire column at www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels, provided of course, The Sun has it's **** together, which it hadn't last week!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where did it all go wrong?

Maxim gun used by the Roal Navy

Lots of older people wonder where it all went wrong?  There is no doubt that society is going through some difficult changes, and things don't seem as settled as they once were.  Lots of us who lived through the era think the sixties "hippie" time was where we began to lose our thread a little.  But why was that the case?
During that time there was the invention of the pill and also the increase in spending power of youth which gave them a voice, there was also the great jump in universal communications with TV spreading the news.
But I believe there was one reason this huge change came about, and it is because we had lost the cream of a generation of leaders who had simply died on the fields of Flanders.  The total number of dead during this war was 10 million military, with another 5 million civilians killed
This generation of bright, young, courageous (mostly) men were literally wiped out on the battlefield of the First World War in the trenches, with poison gas and the alarming efficiency of the machine gun as invented by Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884.  The men were usually in their late teens and early twenties, and by the time 1960 rolled around they would have been in very senior leadership positions.  And on their way no doubt having shaped society.  Without them we lacked their vision and their courage.  It's just my idea.  What do you think?
This year on February 7, we lost the very last WWI veteran.  You might like to read about her. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46297110/ns/world_news-europe/t/time-my-life-last-known-wwi-veteran-dies

Music Track - DPRK

A little different to the music I put on here every week.  This is via my friend Stan in England.  It's a guitar quintet of little North Korean kids. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiYtsSQYfA
Perhaps the were inspired by the Great Leader's demise!  Nonetheless it's 3:29's worth of fun.

Seven Wonders of the World - Powell

The first time I visited Lake Powell, the experience took my breath away.  An over-used expression but quite right in this case.  It truly is an incredible place.  It was "made" in 1963, with the building of the Glen Canyon Dam.  It took 17 years to reach its full height of water in June 1980, and the results are quite spectacular.  This photo shows the pink and beige rocks going straight down into the clear, blue, fresh water from the Colorado River.  You can also see the "bath ring" which shows the maximum level, which was once achieved again in 2000.  The level is dictated by the run off and also the amount of snow melt that flows into the Colorado.  As with us here in Big Bear, there is a constant fight against the infestation of the Zebra mussel, and inspections are carried out on all boats entering the 266 square miles of water.
I was lucky to spend two separate visits with some terrific male friends back in the 90's.  I hope to go back again before too long.

Favorite Book Number 9

This week we reach number nine on the list of favorite books.  It's a tough one and it was written in the 1930's by Aldous Huxley.  It's Brave New World and it paints a horrific picture of life in the future.  Here people are "made" in the laboratory and are given the designation of Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gama or at the bottom of the pile, Epsilon.  You wouldn't want to be one of those as they are assigned the very worst of tasks to keep this frightening society in place.
There are only a few Alpha's made to run everything, but in fact it's the computers that really do all the controlling.  With touch pads every few hundred yards, you are watched in your every movement.  With what we have going on with our computers it seems even more a possible reality as when it was written.  I've read it twice and found it most disturbing, but compelling.

New Sponsor - Tean and Coffee Exchange

We have a new sponsor - the Tea and Coffee Exchange.  There is a hot link to their site on the right of the page.  They are brand new in Big Bear and we really needed a coffee shop at this end of the village.  Be sure to visit them when you come up.

Elephants

I seem to have had elephants around me all my life. (Model ones that is!) My mother went to India when she was 19 and brought home a set of ebony ones with ivory tusks, which I used to play with when I was very young.  This little chap is only about an inch high and was a souvenir my grandfather brought home from one of his trips with the Royal Navy; it must be about 100 years old now.
The other evening we saw a TV program on elephants in Thailand.  It was about the last mahout there.  That's the name of a trainer.  He is trying to revitalize the Thai tradition of breeding and training elephants.  A thousand years ago they were used in battle and often a thousand of them would be used in a charge. It must have been quite a sight.  He was involved in a film by Oliver Stone, and had several dozen elephants at work.  During the filming the great Tsunami struck Phuket, and the elephants were used to help find missing people.  The mahout said they were as disturbed as the people by this work, but were indispensable, being far more sensitive than heavy equipment.

Winter - Video

As I've posted before, I don't like to go on about the weather much.  We all have it in some way, and mostly it causes us problems - unless you live in Marina Del Rey where the worst it can do is mess up your recently washed car!  Here is a video from Europe to let you know that things are - often a lot worse than where you live. http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=xkk7DX0l95A&Lid=12
Just remember that ice is the great equaliser, as there's no defense against it.  If it's out there on the road,  best stay at home!

Sunday's Column - Ontario

I'm not much of a shopper, but even for me, I've had occasions to visit the largest shopping mall in California.  It's the Ontario Mills and it didn't exist 20 years ago when I was first driving along the 10 Freeway.  Today, not only does it remain the biggest, but there are a number of satellite stores that have opened up around the actual mall.  This Sunday's column is about this huge complex and it shows that even in hard times, there seems an almost primeval desire to shop.  I must have missed out on that particular gene.  You can read the entire column - if the Sun is on the ball, of course at www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels

Conkers

Growing up in Southern England I always seemed to be within sight of a horse chestnut tree.  Now these are not the trees that bear "the chestnuts roasting by an open fire" fame, but nonetheless very interesting nuts.  They are inedible for humans but perhaps they're OK for horses, I don't know.  They are big trees and in the early summer grow pink and white blossoms like little Christmas trees on every branch.  Eventually these fade, and pale green nuts grow, increasing in size throughout the summer.  In the autumn these nuts fall off and we boys would break them up to get to the kernel inside.  This would reveal our goal - the conker!

This is a conker I picked up on the 5th of October 2007, when I was in Cassiobury Park in the northern suburb of Watford.  I picked it up and kept it, carrying it through customs, no doubt in breach of some Department of Agriculture rule.  As boys we would collect these brown shiny nuts to play the traditional game of "conkers."  Here you would thread a string through the nut, knot it and then let it hang down about a foot while a similar nut would be struck against it.  The idea was to break the other boy's conker.  You would remember the number of conquests you had and call your conker by that: "It's a tenner!!"  All sorts of ideas would circulate about making your conker the hardest, from baking it to soaking it in vinegar.  I wonder if it's still played, or has it fallen victim to the ubiquitous video game?

Music Track - Elgar

This is a short piece by Elgar - the first movement of his Serenade for Strings.  Here it is played by some very young Russian musicians. It lasts about 4 1/2 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XYPDsAHz8g