September 2013 In Review

September 2013 saw some notable trends in readership, and I thought I'd share the results with you.  

Top Ten Posts For September 2013

Post Name                                              Date Posted         Views
1. The Conan Chronologies                      April 4, 2013             77
2. Looking for Alec & Zoe Calendar: Pt. 1    Nov 28, 2012          52 
3. Learning from Roald Dahl's Stories        August 19, 2012       49
4. Jane Johnson's Wild Road                September 4, 2013       45 
5. The Dalek Invasion of Punalu'u        September 27, 2013       31
6. August 2013 In Review                    September 5, 2013        27
7. The Madness of Peter F. Hamilton    September 26, 2013      23
8. Peter Hamilton: Reality Dysfunction   September 24, 2013     21
9. The Exclusive Punalu'u Club             September 17, 2013     21
10. Failure at Punalu'u                         September 10, 2013      21

As in August, "The Conan Chronologies" again claimed the top spot. The popularity of "Looking for Alec & Zoe Calendar: Part 1" not only continued, but surpassed last month's 9th place ranking. "Learning from Roald Dahl's Immortal Stories" also returned to prominence, which was nice to see.  "Jane Johnson's Wild Road" garnered the most attention among September 2013 entries, but this was only fitting: the author has lived an interesting life, mixing hard work and determination with a willingness to take big risks in her career and personal life.  "The Dalek Invasion of Punalu'u Bakeshop" was my first and only Dalek blog to reach the top ten this month, but its ranking as of September 30th is notable as it garnered so many page views in three days.  Peter F. Hamilton is another noteworthy author, so I'm glad two of his entries reached the top ten this month.

Of course, you can review any of the posts by clicking on the title.

While I'm sure the Daleks would have loved a greater presence, it was nice to see the entries about authors and their stories dominate in September.  The desire to discuss the stories that entertain and inspire me, as well the talented people who wrote them, were the reason I started this blog in the first place.  Additionally, I'm happy to report that the page views for all the top ten exceeded those of August. Hopefully, that means I'm on the right track.

Before I sign off, allow me to mention that one of the top entries for September reached My Ten Most Popular Posts.  To see which post made it, and how high it climbed, you can follow the link above, or visit it from the Page Menu to your right.

As always, thanks for reading, and sharing The Dragon's Cache with your friends.

Dragon Dave

The Dalek Invasion of Punalu'u Bake Shop

Denim: Oh hey, here we are at Punalu'u Bake Shop again!

Pocket: Better yet, Master's sneaking us inside this time.

Denim: What a selection of baked treats!

Denim: Those Guava Malasadas are calling my name!  
Pocket: Mistress certainly enjoyed her Passion Fruit Malasada last time.

Denim: I'm betting Master opts for something chocolate.
Pocket: Then again, maybe Agent K had a point in "Men In Black 3." Perhaps we could all benefit occasionally from a really good piece of pie.

Denim: Wow, a Bismark with Chocolate frosting and cream filling, just for us!
Pocket: Thank you, Master & Mistress.  Mahalo!
Denim: Mahalo?  What's that mean again?
Pocket: It's Hawaiian for Thank You.
Denim: Oh yes, definitely mahalo.  Many, many happy mahalos!

Pocket & Denim Dalek

My Flat-Footed Sea-Cousins

If you hang around a place like Punalu'u long enough, you really notice things.  I've always enjoyed watching how the ocean interacts with the land, even when the tide is strong and the weather stormy.  

Of course, crawling around on slippery lava rocks is easier to do when the sea is calm, and the weather is pleasant.  

One afternoon, I saw these little round guys hanging out on the grassy rocks.  About the size of baseballs, they didn't move around much, but the waves didn't knock them off their perches either.  At first I thought they were mussels of some type.  

Then I noticed how many little feet they had.

It turns out they are a type of sea urchin.  Known as the Shingle Urchin or a Helmet Urchin, they don't have long, thin spines that could break easily in these intertidal areas.  Instead, they have lots of flattened, tubelike feet, and what you can see on the outside, from above, is just a portion of them.  

In other words, they've got many more underneath.

This gives them the ability to cling to whatever rock or surface they find, even when the weather is stormy, and the tide is strong.  

Growing up, I always wanted to get picked first for games on the playground (instead of last).  After years of trying to jog, run or play any team sports in school, I realized that Nature had blessed the folks with arches in their feet a competitive advantage.  So I poured my energies into excelling in other areas.

Like me, the Shingle Urchins may not excel at team sports or dancing. But they're unique and notable in their own way, just like each of us. 

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
Shingle Urchins at The Echinoblog

Paying Tribute to Henry Opukaha'ia

As we walked around the tide pools and inlets to the right of Punalu'u Beach, I noticed a building set atop a nearby hill.  It looked as if a steeple rose from its roof.  I thought this strange, as the Sea Mountain Golf Club had incorporated part of that hill into its 18 hole course.  Had the Club converted an old church into a bunker?

Returning to the road, we found a path up the hill, and decided to follow it.  At the summit, we saw a sign for the chapel.  The weekly service times had been taped over.  Yet flowers decorated the graves in the chapel cemetery, and a bell still hung in the adjacent bell tower.

The left side of the building featured a plate glass window, as well as small horizontal windows that could be opened to allow air through.  The right side and the back (where the front door should have been) were open to the elements.  The backless concrete benches announced that this was a BYOC (Bring Your Own Cushion) chapel.

More flowers had been placed on the altar, along with a card with a photo and a few paragraphs about someone who had recently died.

A plaque inside the chapel commemorates Henry Opukaha'ia, who was born here in 1792.  During a period of civil war, a battle swept up the residents of Ninole, and young Henry, only around ten or twelve years old at this time, watched his parents and brother die.  Henry made his way to the west side of the Big Island, where he lived for a time with his uncle, a kahuna (or leader in the Hawaiian religion).  But he found life there not to his liking, and in 1807, hoping for something better, he swam out into Kealakekua Bay, climbed aboard a merchant ship, and convinced the captain to take him on as a cabin boy.  

Two years later, Henry ended up at the captain's home in New Haven, Connecticut.  Wishing to learn to read and write, he applied to Yale, but was denied admission.  A student named Edwin took pity on him, and used his connections to help Henry out.  The young Hawaiian went to live for awhile with a relation of Edwin's, who also happened to be the president of Yale.  Then he was taken in by a preacher.  He served in the U. S. Marine Corps. during the War of 1812.  Then he returned to Connecticut, where in 1817, at the age of 25, he was finally accepted as a student at a foreign mission school.  

At that time, Hawaiian was not a written language.  Henry threw himself into his studies, working hard to compile a Hawaiian dictionary, grammar, and spelling book.  He completed a Hawaiian version of the Biblical Book of Genesis, working not from an English translation, but directly from Hebrew sources.  He started learning Latin.  And he made plans with his fellow Hawaiian students to return to his homeland.

Sadly, Henry Opukaha'ia (who also went by the name Henry Obookiah) was not destined to return to the Big Island of Hawaii, or to visit his former hometown set on the hill overlooking Punalu'u Beach.  Instead, he died while still a student at the foreign mission school, in February of 1818.

Henry spent only a short time in school.  Yet he made the most of his time there, and is credited with bringing missionaries of his adopted religion to Hawaii.  He is commemorated with this small chapel set on the site of his hometown.  Those who worship there, and pay tribute to departed family and friends, learn about him.  His memoirs have been published, as have books describing his life and work.  And his name was immortalized by perhaps the most famous of all American authors, Mark Twain.  In his book Roughing It, Twain writes: 

"Obookia was a young native of fine mind, who together with three other native boys, was taken to New England by the captain of a whaleship during the reign of Kamehameha I, and they were the means of attracting the religious world to their country.  This resulted in the sending of missionaries there.  And this Obookia was the very same sensitive savage who sat down on the church steps and wept because his people did not have the Bible."

When your past and present are filled with disappointments and failures, it's easy to tell yourself that, because no one seems to notice your efforts, they have little value to others.  Yet Henry Opukaha'ia serves as an example of the type of impact you can make on the world, if only you refuse to give up on yourself, and continue pursuing your dreams.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
The Henry Obookiah Collection
Wikipedia: Henry Opukaha'ia
Mark Twain: Roughing It

The Exclusive Punalu'u Club

One evening on the Big Island of Hawaii, we decided to explore the landscape to the right of Punalu'u Beach.  This is an area most visitors will never see, fixated as they are on the turtles basking in the sun along the famous black sand beach.  Cars packed the parking lot, and visitors rambled along the beach, but after we walked past the restrooms, the gazebos, and the picnic tables, we left most of civilization behind.

Walking through the first area of inlets and tide pools, we passed locals enjoying an evening at the beach with their families and friends.  A couple people followed us, but after we left behind the first few secluded sandy inlets (where we found a few more turtles), they lost interest and drifted away.  Now the only signs of civilization were the narrow off-road trails, and the locals camping out along the shore.

Lava rock breaks down into sand, but this takes a long time, decades if not centuries.  So much of what we walked across looked like the alien surface of a dead world designed by Swiss artist H. R. Giger.  And yet the plant life here was so varied.  Aside from the dried exoskeletons of dead crabs, and the bits of washed up coral, some of the rocks were also strewn with a strange white webbing.  

Hmm.  I didn't know Spider-Man had moved here.  Did you?

There are also low areas where water has collected to form ponds.  Life clusters around these as well, painting them with vibrant colors.

Everyone loves turtles and black sand beaches.  Enthusiastic reviewers on Yelp have earned Punalu'u an enviable 4.5 star rating.  Yet beauty and serenity can be found just right of the beach.  The locals know this, and perhaps Spider-Man does as well.  Thus, reading this entry grants you membership in a very exclusive (and powerful) club.  

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
Punalu'u Beach reviews
H. R. Giger

Michael Palin’s Discipline

Hawaii’s remote location is both a blessing and a curse.  Traveling there makes for a delightful change of place, where aided by the warm temperature, the cool tradewinds, the stunningly beautiful landscape, and the laid-back, carefree nature of islanders, one can cast off the cares of the world.  And yet, because so much must be transported there, everything becomes more expensive.  Staying in a remote location such as Punalu’u becomes even more expensive, with such necessities as a half-gallon container of ice cream (which in recent years has been bastardized down to 1.75 or even 1.5 quarts) costing ten or twelve dollars in a local grocery store.

So it was that my wife and I embarked on the hour-plus drive back to Hilo, where for a mere seven or eight dollars, our modern, sleeker cartons of ice cream could be found.  Other comforts of civilization cost too much, and had to be left on the shelves for budgetary reasons.

While there, in this pinnacle of Hawaiian civilization, we took the time to visit Hilo Bay Books.  There I secured a few precious items of literature that I had wondered if I might ever find.  Noticing the man behind the counter was watching a clip from "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" on his computer, I mentioned that I was currently reading Michael Palin’s Diaries.  To my surprise, he asked which of the two volumes I was referring to.  "The second one, concentrating on the 1980s," I told him. Like me, he loved the classic TV series, and was amazed by the creativity of its founders.

Michael Palin has been blessed with enviable talent, but that didn’t mean he could simply sit down and whip up a masterpiece whenever the mood struck him.  As a successful actor, writer, and TV presenter, his time and talents were in constant demands, to say nothing of all his personal commitments to his family and friends.  In the spring of 1981, Palin had finished his scenes for “Time Bandits.”  Yet he was constantly involved with the film, due to his friendship with Terry Gilliam, the disagreements between the Pythons and their management, the brewing trouble between Gilliam and George Harrison over the film’s music, and the constant rejections from American distributors.  Add to all that his regular meetings with the Pythons as they transacted business and tried to cobble together various ideas for what would become their final theatrical movie, “The Meaning of Life.” 

Finding time to pursue personal projects proved nearly impossible.  He constantly fended off offers from TV, movies, and fellow Pythons to participate in other movie and TV productions.  Yet he carved out several hours each day for writing.  Initially, he wasn’t sure what type of story he wanted to tell.  With so many competing distractions, this uncertainty over the shape and scope of the finished project didn’t help.

On March 9^th, he records, “Nothing springs instantly to my pen—no characters so all-consumingly important that I have to write about them.  It’s a shame really—all those people out there with burning convictions and desperate messages to the world which they can never make anyone listen to and here am I, pen poised to create entertainment for the world and not knowing what I want to say.”

Three days later, he faces another long day at his desk.  He estimates when he should finish.  He wonders when he can have his next cup of coffee.  He records, “Yawn.  Stretch.  Yawn.  Look blankly through all I’ve written this week, trying desperately to summon up any belief in the purpose of these arbitrary scribblings and character snippings.” 

“The hour passes without hardly a line written.  It’s like insomnia, in reverse.  My mind refuses to wake up.”

Later that day, he opts to go for a run during an unseasonable dry spell.  As he pounds around Parliament Hill and nearby surroundings, inspiration strikes.  By the time he returns home, he sits down with renewed enthusiasm, and with clarity of focus starts to write what would eventually become the film “The Missionary.”

Okay, his breakthrough didn’t occur while he was actually sitting down at his desk, trying to write.  The idea only struck him when he went out for a run.  But would it have occurred to him if he hadn’t chained himself to the desk each day for hours at a time?  I don’t think it would have.  How about you?

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

Palin’s Perspective

Related Internet Links

Hilo Bay Books

The Mighty Ghost Crabs!

One of the joys in staying at a great place like Punalu'u Beach is that you have time to really look around.  You're not limited to the few minutes your tour guide gives you, nor do you have to be somewhere at a particular time.  So after a relaxing day, my wife and I walked down to the famous black sand beach, and made our way along the rocky shore on the left hand side.

We found a stretch of level ground, and an area of thick cement that was crumbling as the ocean waves gradually wore away the lava rock beneath it.  As I headed toward one relatively flat expanse of lava rock, I noticed the top shimmer, as if the rock were morphing into something else.  An angry rock monster, perhaps? 

By the time we drew near enough to focus on the rock (on maximum zoom), we realized that these were little black crabs.  

Actually, they weren't that little: say, about the size of my palm.  

I climbed onto the rock, but the crabs had swarmed over the sides.  Few were still visible, or leant themselves to being easily photographed.  

Still, I crouched down, extended my camera as far away from me as I could, and managed to capture one as it climbed down the side of the rock.

  
Ghost crabs are predators as well as scavengers, and may seem fearless as they take on baby turtles and washed-up sharks.  But they're obviously wary of humans (as well as the Daleks who accompanied us on our evening jaunt).  That's the way it is with most of us, isn't it?  We may talk tough, and act tough, and play rough, but we're always assessing our strengths against those of others, and choosing our battles accordingly.  Some of us play the game ambitiously, others more conservatively.

If there's one thing I remember from my American History classes in elementary school, it's that the first President of the United States, George Washington, retreated from battles more often than he won them.  As a general in the Revolutionary War, he fought as long as he could, and then ordered a retreat, so that he and his troops could fight another day.  He lost more battles than he won, but through his determination, and by sticking to his goals and ideals, he eventually won the war.

Of course, like the dragons I write about, I'm the exception to the rule. I'm strong and fearless.  I don't have to weigh the risks versus the potential rewards of any given situation, or choose my battles with care. I can hurl myself at any challenge, and take on all life throws at me.

Just like George Washington.  Oh yeah: and those mighty Ghost Crabs!

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
Article on Hawaiian Ghost Crabs
Information on Ghost Crabs from the Maui Ocean Center
Video: A Baby Sea Turtle Versus a Ghost Crab

Failure At Punalu'u

One reason I follow James Gurney's blog is that he pursues his craft regularly and unselfconsciously.  He takes a light-hearted approach to his art, and doesn't shy away from practicing.  Instead of regarding every new scene he draws and/or paints as a major investment of time and artistic expression, he takes time to experiment, and capture little images, such as a building that draws his eye, airport workers loading baggage onto a nearby plane (while he's waiting for his own to take off), or even a small, metal creamer on a restaurant table.  I tend to thing big, and that every minute of my work hours should be devoted to The Next Big Project.  

For a long time, I've wanted to do more sketching.  I guess a part of me is rebelling, and asking what the point is of simply photographing what I see when I travel.  Shouldn't I be doing more to commemorate what I see than simply pointing and shooting?  Another aspect of this is that I'm dissatisfied with my concepts for my first dragon novel.  I want to get those details right, and have never forgotten comic book writer and artist Mike Bocianowski's advice to supplement drawing with writing. Using both methods could help me refine my ideas, breathe life into them, and aid me in making some final decisions as to how I portray them in my novel.  

George Lucas followed a similar methodology in developing "Star Wars," although he didn't do much drawing of his own.  Instead, he gave Ralph McQuarrie his notes, his descriptions of places and characters, and then turned the artist loose.  After seeing his ideas laid out visually, Lucas then refined his concepts, and gradually whittled them down each their final forms.

I don't have income rolling in from a successful movie like "American Graffiti," so I can't pay for artists of McQuarrie's caliber.  Nor do I really want to.  As I've said, a part of me yearns to do the artwork myself.  Yet somehow, each week goes by with few, if any, real sketches completed that will help me refine my story.  So this vacation, my wife took her sketch pad and kit, and promised to sit down with me, pursuing her craft while I made my own feeble attempts.

One day in Hawaii we walked down to Punalu'u, and laid out our towels on a nice shady spot beneath the palm trees.  After eating our picnic lunch, we started to draw.  

To begin with, I concentrated on the rocky shore to my left,  

and the stretch of beach in front of me. 

After awhile, I realized I was growing tired of the drawing, and wondered if I was devoting far too much attention to the lava rocks that, for the most part, defined the shape of the bay.  So I started working on what I was seeing to my right.

I rapidly realized that the latter was a huge mistake.  Here I was, trying to capture a scene that would have required at least half-a-dozen photographs to stitch together!

My wife had long since finished her sketch, and left to explore the beach.  Deciding to give up on my own drawing, I picked up my camera and captured some of what was going on around me, like the people walking over the lava rocks, or the children fishing in the pond behind me.  

After awhile, my wife returned, and showed me her drawing.  She had selected a smaller scene, and through employing a less meticulous methodology, brought it to life without exhausting herself.

It's amazingly easy to bite off too much in life.  But by defining our goals, and narrowing our vision so that we concentrate on what's most important, we empower ourselves.  Of course, we're still bound to fail in some of the things we do, but that doesn't mean that we can't try again.

I was discouraged by my efforts at Punalu'u, and a part of me argued that I had wasted precious vacation time.  But another part argued that I had learned a valuable lesson.  

So I vowed to pick up my pencils another time, and channel my failure into future successes.  

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
Mike Bocianowski's Passion

Take Time to Recharge Your Batteries

Punalu'u is a black sand beach on the southern coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.  Tour buses stop by here regularly, and tourists exploring by car also mark Punalu'u down as a must-see.  So often though, whether they're part of a tour, or venturing out on their own, folks don't really take much time to enjoy the beach.  It's just one stop on their itinerary.  

The black sand comes from lava, which breaks down with time.  While it's in rock form, it creates tide pools, little pockets of aquatic life that are fun to peer into.  Just watch your step, because lava rock can be slippery!

Of course, after you've visited a place several times, you're familiar with the lay of the land.  You can pick and choose where you want to go, and what you want to do.  Instead of constantly rushing about, from one picturesque locale to another, you can spend more time in the places you like most.  

Instead of returning home exhausted, and feeling as if you need to recuperate from your vacation, you can actually relax, and perhaps return home feeling a little more fresh than when you left.  

As the locals know, Punalu'u can be a great place to do just that.

We all need to take time to periodically recharge our batteries.   

Dragon Dave