mccullochblog

Bloody Hell

OK, so after a massive 48 hour period of deliberation, I've decided I'm not going to stop blogging. Thank you to those who encouraged me to continue.

I'm just going to begrudgingly practice a little self-censorship. As Yahoo! suggests, it's better to stay in business (even if you have to abide by some rules you don't like) than to pack in the game entirely.

Another reason I decided to blog today was this article about a helicopter crash in Kauai. It added a little perspective to what had already been a perspective-filled week. If I'd known - as the Honolulu Star Bulletin informed me today - that "Every year for the past three years, there has been a fatal helicopter crash on Kauai" I suspect Emma and I might have thought a bit differently about doing exactly that during our trip to the island.

Still, we did, and so did six other people, and sadly three of those people died as a result of their helicopter trip just a few yards away from the reef at Kee'e beach where Emma and I happily snorkled just a week or two ago. (We're quite relieved we paid a bit more to travel in a new EcoStar helicopter now).

Anyway, the key point is that I may not be able to express myself unconditionally on the Web anymore, but that's ok, at least I'm not 'swimming with the fishes' as those delightful mafia types put it. Onwards!

p.s. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Blogger Exposed: "He's no Dog!"

Before the FBI figured out how to track down anything and anyone on the Web there was a saying in the technology industry that "No-one on the Internet knows you're a dog." Yes, once upon a time, you really could write stuff on a Web site or date someone online and no-one knew who you were.

I suppose most people with a blog - other than mainstream publishers - still think along roughly those lines. I'm sure Cranky Greg, for example, doesn't really expect anyone outside of Clovis to take him too seriously.

But the thing is, once Cranky Greg posts, he loses control over how people chose to react. A leader of the Democratic party, for example, might consider Greg a political threat. One of Greg's neighbors might consider him a crazy extremist as a result of his ramblings and Greg's mum might even be embarrassed by his outbursts.

I'm been mulling this issue over quite a lot in the past week because I've had a few reactions to my blog that I wasn't expecting - some from people I didn't realise read my blog and others from loyal readers I know well. Together, for the first time, they caused me to see blogging as a risky business rather than as the outlet for creative writing (and occasionally emotion) that it's been to date.

So I got to thinking about how I could regain control of my blog (and my readers) and I only saw three options: (1) I restrict access to my blog (don't know how to do it), (2) I spend hours considering every single post before I publish it in order to ensure there is absolutely no room for misinterpration (for example, Ella, I'm not leaving SF yet!! ;-) or (3) I scrap this blog and launch a new blog for every individual train of thought I have, so as to narrow the risk of misinterpretation considerably.

And that's as far as I've got.

I may soon launch a separate McCullochMusicBlog (to blog about my fledgling band), McCullochTravelBlog (to write about my travels), McCullochFamilyBlog (to send photos home) and McCullochPRBlog (to write grown-up stuff about work).

On the other hand, I may pack in blogging entirely.

Me and Nikka Costa

In my more soul-searching moments, I've imagined that I might have been an actor. I always picture that if I had been an actor, I might have been incredibly rich and famous today like Nikka Costa. Nikka Costa (pictured) and I are exactly the same age but whereas I am reasonably well renumerated for working between 40 and 80 hours a week in relative obscurity, Nikka gets to attend Red Carpet parties in Hollywood and no doubt gets paid an obscene amount of money for wearing slinky green negliges.

Now, I'm not one for wearing negliges, but I do still wonder whether I might make a late break into acting (didn't Jack Nicholson start relatively late?) or whether I might perhaps take a job at the White House and somehow end up as the ambassador to Nepal. The point is, who decides whether you can still pursue wild dreams or whether it's time to turn over the Game of Life card that says: "What you're supposed to do when you're 33".

Personally, I'm torn between encouraging Emma to give up the job she started two days ago so that we can use up our savings traveling around the world for a couple of years or moving to New York to help Kofi Annan sort out the UN. What about you, my readers? If you didn't have that mortgage/wife/child/restraining order, what new chapter would you love to write?

Answers on an inflatable neon postcard to http://mcculloch.typepad.com

Flushing out the Truth

There is much I reported about our trip to Hawaii, but one thing I neglected to mention was that we returned to find a new toilet installed in our bathroom. ‘Find’ is really the operative word because we were not expecting a new toilet, nor was there particularly much wrong with the old one (except for the broken lid, which would sadly not bear the weight of Emma standing on it while fitting a new light bulb). Still, that didn’t do much to hamper its function.

Perplexed about the unexpected replacement, we phoned our landlady, Mary-Anne Ordono, a woman with a voice so high-pitched she makes the BeeGees sound like Barry White. Mary-Anne was momentarily stupefied. She was fairly certain she had not ordered a new toilet to be fitted, but, oddly, wanted to check; presumably thinking that she might have sent a new toilet to the wrong apartment in her no-doubt-extensive property portfolio.

After checking, Mary-Anne called back. No. She was almost certain (she’s not the most decisive of people) that she hadn’t ordered the new toilet. I assured her that there was a new toilet. After all, the outline of the old toilet was clearly visible in the paintwork that had not been refreshed with the installation of the new. The mystery deepened.

Then Emma found a note from Mei, our cleaner. It simply said: “Emma, are you back yet?” Emma called Mei. Mei also has a shrill voice which only compounded the difficulty Emma had in communicating with her as Mei speaks barely any English. She said something about being at home and calling back. She never called back.  Still, we’re struggling to think of how a cleaner could so vigorously scrub the toilet bowl such that it would crack or in some other way stop functioning. Nevertheless, we are suspicious.

Rest assured we shall not rest until the mystery is unraveled.

Hawaii - Day 6

Today was a big day for sightseeing - both from in the sky and in the ocean.

We started our day with a fantastic helicopter trip all around the island. With all the flying I do for work I've come to not enjoy air travel much, but I reckon I could get into this helicoptering stuff! Anything that can take off backwards gets my vote!

Suffice to say that Kauai's scenery is even more stunning from up in the air than it is from terra firma. Flying into the heart of an extinct volcano and hovering as giant waterfalls cascade all around you is quite an experience. And I can't tell you how sweet it was to swoop down over kayakers struggling their way up the Napali coast without having to lift a finger to get an even better view than the one they were sweating for!! Ah yes, the joy of a little luxury.

And now to today's big news: the fishwatching update.

Emma and I had a close encounter today with not one but TWO moray eels at the Koloa Landing dive spot. We then saw some absolutely fantastic angel fish, bright orange slate pencil urchins and some enormous parrotfish! (pictures to follow - underwater camera permitting).

As Ron and Nutan are both fans of the sea (mostly Ron, I'll concede) I'm going to recommend they get married here - underwater.

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Hawaii - Days 4 and 5

After two days we've more-or-less gotten over the trauma of the kayaking trip. A fascinating day trip to Pearl Harbour on the island of Oahu and a day of beaches, snorkeling, waterfalls and Hula dancing thankfully saw to that.

First though I'm sure you're keen to get up-to-date on fish sightings. I'm happy to report that our afternoon at Lydgate beach threw up some treats! Yes, we saw Bluefin trevally, flounder and spotted Toby today. Can you believe it?

And so to Pearl Harbor, a fascinating place to visit. It's undoubtedly true that some extraordinary events happened there.

You know about the infamous Japanese attack, but you probably don't know, for example, that the US military actually saw the squadrons coming but ignored their radar reports given they were also expecting some back-up planes that day. And you might also not know that the US Navy made catastrophic errors of judgement (it had 97 ships in port that day, and all of its aircraft lined up wingtip-to-wingtip in the middle of the airfields) that made the disaster much worse than it ever needed to be.

Still, it was a deeply tragic event and visiting the floating memorial over the sunken hulk of the USS Arizona was very moving even if the hordes of Chinese tourists present didn't quite appreciate how sacred that place is.

As ever, it was a human experience - a meeting with Sterling Cale - a dispensary assistant in Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 - that really brought the events home to me.

Cale, now a volunteer guide, told me how he cried the day after the bombings as he was sent to collect bodies from the charred decks of the Arizona - then still partially afloat. As Cale knelt down to clear ashes off its decks he realized they were infact the ashes of some of the 1179 sailors killed by the huge firey explosions that consumed the ship on the previous day. How's that for context?

And as if that wasn't enough we rounded off our day on the USS Missouri, the very ship where the Japanese foreign minister signed the unconditional surrender that ended the second world war. And you thought Hawaii was just grass skirts and snorkeling! (Well, I did)

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Hawaii - Day 3 (Death by Kayak)

So, about that kayaking trip. I don't know what it was that persuaded me a 16 mile kayaking trip was a good idea. I certainly never put up a fight when Emma suggested it. And yet I really should have.

16 miles is after all more than half a marathon - a distance I would never have entertained running and given scant consideration to walking at anything more than a stroll. Why I should therefore choose to cover such a distance by paddle is beyond me. Frankly it was the hardest thing I can remember doing.

At 11am - two hours in and with three hours to go until lunch - I didn't know whether to cry or puke. My arms were aching, we had overturned our kayak into the pacific ocean three times and it had become clear we'd bitten off more than we would ordinarily consume in a month.

By the time lunch arrived, I could do nothing more than sleep on the beach and pray that when I awoke I'd be back in Kansas with Toto realising it had all been a horrible dream. No such luck. We still had two hours of paddling to go.

Thankfully my prayers to Buddha, Allah and God were answered and after paddling out from the beach our guides took pity on us and set up a rudimentary sail with a flag and two oars. Oh joy of joys!! For an hour we sailed effortlessly, our five kayaks bound together until our final destination beach came into view. From there on in, we paddled: left one thousand, right one thousand, left one thousand, right one thousand....and made it!

Yes, we saw green turtles and dolphins, and the spot where that teenage surfer had her arm bitten off by a shark, and we saw the stunning Napali coast that provided the scenery for Jurassic Park, but mostly we suffered!

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Hawaii - Day 2

Good news. After another 24 hours on Kauai, Emma and I are able to bring you the fish-spotting update I'm sure you're tuna-ing for. (Ha!)

Yes, we can exclusively reveal (after purchasing the 'Hawaii Fishwatcher's Field Guide') that yesterday's big white fish (seen today in impressively large shoals) was a Yellowfinned Goatfish and that the spiny fish was indeed a 'puffer'. Furthermore we can report exciting sightings of bright blue Bird Wrasse, Redfin Butterlyfish and parrotfish. Of course it is possible that we actually saw Saddle wrasse, Yellowtail Coris and Whitelined Goatfish. Frankly it's impossible to tell half of the buggers apart.

Fortunately there'll be no such difficulty in distinguishing between Emma and my sun-baked bodies tomorrow.

Apart from the obvious differences, Emma will be sporting the "I should be alright" sunburn, while I'll be modeling the "Dammit, I missed a bit" sunburn. The bits that were decidedly not alright after today's spell in the sun are the backs of Emma's thighs and the right side of my torso. Thank God for aloe vera. At last I've figured out what the stuff is good for.

Anyway, we're off Kayaking tomorrow - 16 miles of it around the Northern coastline. Should be great!

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Hawaii - Day One

Ahhhhhh........yesssssss. We're in Hawaii. Land of grass skirts, Mai Tai cocktails, garlands of flowers and waving your arms gently to the left and right while singing the words "wah wah wah".

Emma and I landed on Kauai (pronounced...oh hell, I have no idea how it's pronounced) at 12 noon and by 3pm we had completed our first snorkeling foray off a secluded sandy beach on the North shore of the island. Frankly it was bizarre; as if today was Kauai's "no tourist" day. I can't believe we only ran into about three tourists the whole time...it was brilliant as we virtually had the beach and the coral to ourselves!

Within a few dives we'd seen one big white fish (with a bit of yellow on its side), one big brown spiny-looking fish and a dozen or so little yellow and black ones. OK, so over the coming days I hope to provide you with a more informed commentary but for now, I'l just revel in the fact I've been swimming with fish in the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean at all!

Tomorrow we're heading to Kee'e beach which apparently has some of the best snorkeling on the island. I can't wait!

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Performance-related Presidencies

On an evening when tens of thousands of New Orleans residents are scrambling for suppplies of water and food, Emma and I enjoyed a 12 course dinner (accompanied by 10 wine pairings)  in the Kitsalano district of Vancouver.

I'm well aware that such an act could be considered tasteless in light of the week's events, and I mention it not to gloat but to highlight the fact that very few of us expect our meals (no matter how extravagant) to be provided by the Government. In fact, aside from a nominal police presence (rarely of any practical use) and a fire brigade, most of us Californians (and no doubt all Americans) expect very little in return for the 40% of our salaries we hand over to Washington and Sacramento.

But at times like these it seems entirely reasonable to wonder what exactly it is that my tens of thousands of dollars are paying for if not some semblance of security in the face of adversity.

After all, all those tax dollars don't seem to be going on education (SF's schools are known to be woeful), healthcare (we pay for that separately), garbage (we pay for that too), so aside from the maintenance of some excellent roads one can only conclude it must all be going to the war effort, which of course explains why the people of New Orleans were essentially left to their own devices by George Bush this week, just as - I imagine - the people of San Francisco would have been if this week's hurricane had been a major earthquake.

The White House says it's tasteless to make a political issue of the hurricane but frankly I can't think of a better political issue.

Appropriately, the world's press has seen fit to view New Orleans as a final nail in the coffin of the Bush administration. If only the tenure of the President of the United States was a performance-related position,then at last we'd see Bush getting what he really deserves: the sack.