Greece 2023: Nafplio I

 Continuing on into the Peloponnese, we arrived at the city of Nafplio (Ναύπλιο). The shot below is taken from a rest stop as we crossed the Peloponnese.

The port itself is ancient; a possible inscription has been traced to an Egyptian funerary inscription in the 14th B.C. - quite possible, as it was the port of Argos, one of the great ancient cities of Mycenean Greece.  The city eventually conquered by Argos and dwindled in importance.

What became important (in the pictures below and above) was the Acronauplia, the fortress which stands above the town.  Originating in pre-classical times, the fortress was expanded upon by the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Frankish Crusaders, Venetians and Ottoman Turks (known as Palamidi Castle).  Like other cities we have seen, it was held by the Venetians through the 14th to 16th Century, fell to the Ottoman Turks in the 16th Century, returned briefly to Venetian rule in the 17th Century, and was then reconquered by the Turks until its incorporation into the Kingdom of Greece in 1822.  It also served as the capital of Greece from 1828-1834.

Like Corfu City and Preveza, the city retains much of its time under Venetian rule.

The Church of St. George.  It was under construction inside, but we could take pictures:

Seeing these sorts of streets makes me want to visit Venice:

A view from our hotel room of the castle of Bourtzi (which we will see tomorrow):

Dinner for the night.  Maybe from the bay?

Of A Christmas Festival

 This past Saturday The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I went to a local Christmas festival.

It was a luminary festival which our HOA/Municipal Utility District has sponsored for years.  We have never been, but now without the shuttling of children for Christmas (or their activities) and an evening on which I did not have to work, we decided to give it a try.

The luminary had been laid out along the trails around the community center and likely covered a mile or more for all of them; sadly the wind had come up and many were out.  The event itself was pretty well attended, with lots of families and young children around. They had a "hay" ride, a "train" ride, activities for the kids, and a line to see Santa.  All in all, it was a very nicely put together event staffed entirely by volunteers.

As we stood there in the slight cold, listening to the choir group that for the last 5 years would have had one of Na Clann in it, I was struck by the fact that there was a certain wistfulness to the whole thing.

There was nothing magical about any of it directly.   The carols were what they have always been, the lights and the crowds the same as you will find in a hundred such small, heartfelt celebrations. There was no magical weather or sounds or even emotion that filled the air.

And yet it struck how fragile such things really are.

They presume a certain set of things:  not only the place to have such a thing but a place free of struggle to have such a thing.  They assume a population that feels safe in attending and volunteers that can sacrifice the time to make it happen.  They assume generosity on the part of many and a willing acceptance of noise and a certain level of inconvenience, of children dashing in and out and things being a little bit on the edge of chaos.

They assume, in a sense, all the things that we often take for granted.

I cannot tell that there was some great revelation that occurred or I had some sort of prophetic vision of a future or even that anything original - other than, perhaps, this post - resulted.  But I was left with a wistful sort of softness, a sense that things like this are not common as we think they are and that we take their commonality at our peril.

Like the lights themselves, we assume they will come ever year, based on nothing more than our belief that this is the way the world has always worked.

Human History

 

On Sickness And Stress

 I am coming off what has not felt like the best of weeks.

For the first time that I can remember in at least four years, I came down with some version of whatever was going around - not The Plague 2.0, but rather some kind of combination of sinus infection and general lack of energy. To put it in the vernacular, I felt cruddy.

It really hit me Tuesday; unfortunately (or fortunately) for me, my car experienced an "issue" (which I originally thought was electrical but thankfully it was not; less thankfully it became a brake job) and thus I was forced to (or able to) work from home on Tuesday, although by the end of the day I was wiped out.  The car was delayed to Wednesday, so I had another day in which I felt slightly better.  

Thursday I had to make an appearance and managed to make it through the day but ended up not going to The Ravishing Mrs. TB's Christmas party and went to bed early.  Friday was my scheduled work from home day; I felt the best I had all week but my voice has completely bailed on me; I sound like a 14 year old teenager.

To be frank, this has been incredibly frustrating.

Feeling bad - certainly I have felt bad before.  Feeling drained and without energy - that, I despise.

It honestly brought back feelings from the hike to Mt. Goddard this Summer (here and here) where, due to altitude sickness, I was also deprived of energy. I do not know how much of my feeling bad (mentally, at least) was due to that and how much of it was due to bad memories, but it was miserable both on the physical and mental level.

I write this post Friday evening and, other than the above referenced warbling vocal chords, I feel pretty good.

The bigger question is, what am I supposed to learn from this.

There is of course the obvious lesson:  avoid sick people.  As I am in the public a lot more now with general work and Produce (A)Isle, that is a lot more difficult.

There is also the lesson of be sure to get more sleep.  Tempting, but I can only control part of my sleep in when I lay down and wake up.  For the rest, I am somewhat at the beck and call of factors beyond my conscious control.

Stress?  Well, that might have something to it.  There has been a lot of stress from multiple points over the last few months.  Stress leads to decreased immunity over time if the stress is maintained.

So maybe that is something to think about.  Because I really do hate feeling this way.

A New Roof: An Update

 As some readers may recall, in October of this year we had a "roof event" - a hail storm, which caused a fair amount of damage locally and impacted our roof.  As you might recall, the adjustor came out and gave us an estimate - $18,000 - to replace the roof.  Due to a clause in our insurance policy, we were only reimbursed for the value of the roof as it existed, not the replacement cost - around $2,100 for a settlement.

The company that originally been out with the adjustors - our "good friends who where here for us" - did not even give us a quote and disappeared.  I regrouped and found a second roofing company recommended by a local neighborhood group.  They came out and gave us an estimate - at 13% more ($21,000) for replacement.  Although they acknowledged the quote, they also noted that "their repair people always found additional issues which they took back to the insurance company".  Although I had indicated that this would be a direct cash transaction, that apparently did not matter.

And then, mysteriously, they stopped answering my calls.

This week - again - I looked yet another recommendation, this time using one on the neighborhood group from a friend from the Rabbit Shelter.  They came and looked - and gave us two options, standard 20 year roof for $15,500 or impact resistant shingles for $16,500 and explained why that might be a better idea as it would enable a homeowner's insurance discount.

His one comment was "Your home insurance is awful".  We both laughed.

And, they even offered to let us put the down payment on the credit card (not their usual practice, but he knew we were paying out of pocket) so we could get points on our credit card.

We pick colors of the shingles the week after next; installation will be 2nd to 3rd week of January, given weather conditions.

I really do try to believe the best of people.  But a 21% price difference stretches even the bounds of my credulity.   And pre-supposing that you will find damage before you look is, well, a little bit unbelievable as well.

Sure, there are lots of reasons I complain about insurance companies.  But it cannot be all one-sided.  If people look at insurance settlements as open cash register pay days, it is no wonder rates eventually go up.

The Collapse CLXXVIII: Streambed

25 June 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

We were up in the pre-dawn light, the Leftenant nudging each of us in turn with a look that promised doom at any sound.

I say “up”. I think it is likely we are up earlier now that we ever were, and from my years of hiking, one never truly “sleeps” in the wild, only interruptions between naps. And even if one was awake before the dawn, birdsong was always the sign that the dawn was coming.

Birds were singing as we moved out.

As I had mentioned, we found ourselves at the base of a small stream bead, the berm perhaps 3’ from the base. The stream continued down at angle where, about 300 yards distant, it intersected under the road. Beyond the stream, in the rapidly gaining light, was the town of McAdams.

This was the our line.

We actually passed upwards of the stream, moving slightly South towards the hills about 50 yards and around a bend where both sides of the stream flattened out a bit: an old cattle crossing perhaps. The Leftenant dropped her pack; we imitated her and gather around.

This was to be our base. Standard rules which I am sure applied to any age of war applied: No fires. No smoking. No talking. Do not – for any reason – step in the stream and create mud, which could be seen farther downstream. And surely, no standing, at least in daylight. The bend was enough to block us from the road both ways, but we were close enough to the road any noise could carry.

Teams would rotate in 8 hours shifts back where we had entered earlier in the night, which was deep enough that individuals could stand. From where we would camp, one could see the edge of the now designated guard post. If something happened, a flag would be waved and placed at the base and we were to arm up and go.

The decoy would be rolled out later this day. When – and not if – the event actually occurred, the phrase “you will know” was given. Our role was simple: move to the point where the stream ran under the road and form a line on both sides. Our side would have armbands; shoot everyone else.

The words “To Kill” were graciously left out.

Ox, Blazer Man and I pulled the night shift – 2100 to 0500, or essentially sunset to predawn – which made a fair amount of sense to me; after all, you want to have your best people the freshest and given what we knew, night seemed the least likely time for attack.

With that, she dispersed us and Team One set off down the stream. We were on our own.

We ranged ourselves along the edge of the stream bed, one after another. Water bottles were topped off with the understanding that they would not be filled again until evening, when water could be gotten. Whatever food you wanted had to be pulled out now, before every single thing was to be left in place. Arms were placed to the side.

And we waited.

If you have never spent time out in the wilderness with nothing to do but not being able to go anywhere, the first thing you find is that you are at the mercy of time – and time seems to stand still. That sounds like a bit of a foolish statement coming from someone in who’s age bracket days seem to pass like the wind – but with nowhere to go and no-one you can speak to and little to do, that is exactly how it is.

You may read or watch the stream for a while or even lay down and try to take a nap. You look at your watch – and it is maybe 40 minutes after you last looked, not the hour that you had imagined.

As the sun climbed in the sky, hats and bandannas came out to cover heads and faces. The water trickled by. Insects hummed. Birds flitted through the air.

And we waited.

We waited until it seemed like we were in a long tunnel surrounded by grass instead of a streambed. We waited as Team One came in and Team Two went out. And nothing changed.

I read more of The Peloponnesian War. I napped. I drank. I thought about all the places I should like to take Pompeia Paulina, as if this would all blow over next year and the world would be as it had been. Below my feet Ox either slept or sat by The Leftenant; above my head Blazer Man napped or made notes in a journal as he watched the stream.

Evening has begun to fall as I write this. I find myself tired from a day of doing literally nothing, conscious of the fact I will have to stay awake all night.

I dread days and days of this, being both bored and on edge at the same time. But I dread what will break this all the more.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Greece 2023: Olympia III

Like Delphi, as a temple complex Olympia was a repository of dedicated gifts, some of which have survive to the present day.

Shields and spears:

A bronze cuirass:

Greaves:

Helmsets:

This pair of helmets was one of the high points of the trip for me.   They were dedicated sometime after 490 B.C. after the Battle of Marathon.  To the left is a Persian helmet, to the right a Greek helmet.

Just visible is the name "Militiades", the Greek General (Archon) that lead the Greeks to victory.  This was his helmet.

These are the remains of the Winged Nike (Nike of Paionios), one of the great statues of Olympia in her glory.  The statue itself is 6' tall; it stood on an 18' pedestal which still exists.  It was dedicated to commemorate victory over the Spartans at the Battle of Sphacteria in 425 B.C.

Carvings and statues:

This is a Roman statute - Hadrian, I believe:

A model of Olympia.

Greece 2023: Olympia II

The entrance to the Stadium of Olympia, the first real "Big Show": 

The stadium itself is unremarkable:  a flat dirt area surrounded by a grassy knoll.  Comparing it to the modern idea of a stadium, it is hard to believe the start of what has become a world-wide event and competition started here.  But standing here, looking in, one can still hear the time-distant cheering of the crowds as the athletes entered the stadium.

The starting line:

Looking back towards the entrance:

The judges' box:

Outside the entrance to the Stadium was a series of bronze statues of Zeus known as the Zanes.  These were paid for with fines by individuals caught cheating or violating the rules of the Games.  The name of the individual and of his home city were on the pedestal of the statue.  The idea was to demonstrate that victory in the Games was won by effort and accomplishment, not money.

The Temple of Zeus contained within it an ivory and gold statue of Zeus made by the sculptor Pheidias and was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  The statue is gone and the temple is in ruins; interesting enough, the workshop Pheidias was found including a clay cup which said (In Greek) "I belong to Pheidias".  

When the Greek traveler Pausanias visited in mid to late 2nd Century A.D., there were over 70 temples as well as treasuries, altars, and other statues.

Ruins of the Roman baths:

Tales From Produce (A)Isle: O Produce Tree, O Produce Tree

 Christmas has come to Produce (A)Isle.

Seasonal foods have flocked to the shelves.  I cannot remember being personally exposed to so many desserts - especially displays full of fruit cakes - in my life. Between pies, cookies, cakes, and random desserts, my store alone may more calories present than some small countries.

Additionally, the appearance of Christmas schlock has made its appearance.  I seldom wander over to that side of the store, but there it is when I go.  Holiday decor, candles, last minute gifts for the desperate or unorganized - all have made their presence known in that most fluctuating of commercial areas, the "seasonal" aisle.

And, of course, the music.

To be honest, the music is not as horrible as it could be.  There is a fair sprinkling of 1940's and 1950's Christmas music, as well as some pretty good jazz arrangements.  Sure, there are the outliers - "All I Want For Christmas" (although not sung by Mariah Carey - not paying those advertising dollars) - but a lot of the normal things are there, including the music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (which is really Christmas to me).

As for ourselves in Produce (A)Isle, we are not nearly so fancy.

As Autumn has faded, so have the apple varieties:  we have slowly dwindled from the high point of October with 10 or more apple types to those that we tend to carry year round (It is the season for Granny Smiths, in case you were wondering): Gala, Fuji, Honeycrisp, the aforementioned Granny Smiths as well as the "Why do they take up the space?" Red Delicious.   We are now firmly into citrus season:  at least three kinds of mandarins, two kinds of grapefruits, four kinds of oranges, and pommelos (which I have never had, but look interesting).  Cranberries have a remained from Thanksgiving and the fresh variety remain available (although not, apparently, selling well).  Soup Ingredient kits are also now available (everything you need for a soup; I have to admit they look kind of tempting).  

We do have all the "usual" fruits and vegetables available - although one can really tell we are cycling through the seasons.  For example, the Roma tomatoes showing up to us are barely even red, yet continue to sell well (it is not as if there are a lot of other choices).  It certainly does make visible the fact that we force some of our food to be available instead of seasonal.

A rather odd footnote:  We have been rather shockingly short of spinach and other greens the last week or so, as well as some other general fruits and vegetables.  We are dependent on what the morning truck delivers, so I am not sure if there is a shortage or we are being shorted.  But it is notable, because these are items are regular sellers.  

Example Not Opinion

 

(Note:  And the example does not have to a big or public one.  It will be noticed in ways you cannot imagine.)

Of Batteries, Charging, And Fathers

 Two weeks ago or so when I got my Thanksgiving week schedule from Produce (A)Isle, I was a little surprised.  I expected not to work on Thursday (Thanksgiving) as it is a desirable shift and time and a half (and a shorter work day, which means the full time people have to be balanced in).  What I did not anticipate was not working on the preceding Tuesday.

That was a surprise as I had not asked for the time off and if there is any day I work during the week, it will be Tuesday.  Again, I chalked it up to balancing schedules and looked forward to the evening off.

Until Tuesday actually happened.

It started out with a dead car battery, which I was able to jump and get on the road - now running a bit behind.  It continued when I had to return home, having realized about a mile away I had forgotten my computer bag with its computer.  And it had a grand ending when, walking out of the office, the car was dead (again), precipitating a call home to get Nighean Bhan to come down and give me a jump after an attempt from a coworker' car met with bitter failure (due mostly, it seems, to the placement of their battery effectively under the dashboard of their car).

By the time I rolled into the house it was well after 1800 in the darkness, where I then had to take action via a battery charger to charge my car back up.

Pulling the battery charge down (A Black and Decker Model, back when that brand was still a thing) always makes me think of TB The Elder, who bought it for me.  I cannot remember the precise moment he gave it to us, but I am sure it was before we had moved to New Home.  Undoubtedly he had given it to me after some incident where a battery went down.  Unlike a lot of things I have owned over the years, the charger remains in pristine condition, inside its barely worn box.  Plugging it in and listening to its clicks as the slowly charges and looking at the pristine cords, I was reminded of my father.

And then it struck me that had I been working that evening, I would have been completely stressed about getting to work and then working while I had a car in the parking lot that I did not know would restart or not and then having to come home and charge the battery. Instead of being stressed, I was at some level of peace - also some level of aggravation of course, and a little bit of disappointment as my evening plans had fallen apart, but peace.

It is remarkable to me that, looking down the corridors of eternity, God took the time to apparently see ahead that I would not have a working battery that particular evening and so kindly arranged it so that I did not have to work.  It is less remarkable (in that sense) but no less comforting that a gift my father gave me years ago continues to provide for us even though he is now gone.

Fathers - Eternal and earthly - continuing to look after us even though we cannot see them.

The Cosmic Computer, The End Of Progress, And Big Goals

Of the works that we have from H. (Henry) Beam Piper (1904-1964), the favorite parts of his works to me are those that are labeled "Space Opera", a sub-genre which (per Wikipedia) involves "space warfare, with melodramatic risk-taking space adventures, relationships, and chivalric romance" (e.g., the sort of fantasy world I live in on a daily basis - or would like to, anyway).  Piper's genius was taken historical situations from Earth history and replicating them in the future:  Uller Uprising (The 1857 Sepoy Mutiny), Space Viking (A combination of 9th Century Viking Raiding and the 1932 rise of Hitler),  Four Day Planet (Any one of several colonial revolutions) and A Planet For Texans (well, not really based on a particular historical event, but what would happen if Texas was a planet?).

However, one of my favorites - and one I came late to - is The Cosmic Computer.

(Not my copy, but the copy I have.  Note that $0.40 price circa 1963)

The Cosmic Computer (originally Junkyard Planet) is the story of one Conn Maxwell, sent by several of his father's friends from the planet of Poictesme to Earth to study.  The planet he is from - Poictesme - was the main base of the Terran Federation during a war 40 years earlier.  The war ended and the Federation retreated, leaving a planet filled with military hardware suddenly on the fringes of the Federation, whose main business has become brandy and "mining" the military hardware.  Also rumored on the planet was Merlin, a supercomputer that supposedly helped the Federation win the war but has acquired an almost mythical status.  Conn was sent to find evidence of Merlin; the story is about his return and the re-establishment of civilization as well as the continuing search for Merlin.

It is worth reading the book (so I will not spoil the ending), but in the course of looking for Merlin, Conn convinces the business leaders of the town he belongs to (in Piper's works, government is seldom if ever truly helpful) of an economic plan to restore prosperity to the planet by 1) Directly trading with Earth instead of using third party traders; 2) Finding a space ship and space port to enable this; and 3) Re-establishing the industry required to manufacture said space ship.

One leaves the book with hope but not certainty that the people of Poictesme will succeed, that they have a plan going forward, a far cry from when Conn arrived on a planet with a slowly degrading infrastructure and no plans but to continue to  do what they have always been doing and hope for some kind of magic from a computer they believe to exist.

----

One of the things I miss the most about the world today is a sense that we are working towards a better future.

I have related the story before, but a lot of my view of progress and technology was set in the mid 1970's when I was into reading books about space and space stations. I would look at the artists' renditions of what a space station or space craft would look like.  It looked...well, futuristic. It also looked like there was something more amazing that what we had today.

I compare that with the messaging I see today.

To be fair, there are still companies out there that are pushing the envelope towards a better future.  Most of the rocket companies are doing it (The Silicon Greybeard, if you do not already read him, has a great daily on such things).  And there are lots of more invisible companies doing this:  biopharma and medical device companies with tools and cures we could not dream of 50 years ago, computer and software companies that create amazing tools to do amazing things.

But that is not the perception I sense on a daily basis.

Instead, I see a world that no longer seeks a better future.  It seeks a future that is insular, controlled, managed - in some cases deindustrialized.    Rather than seek to expand it seeks to contract and pull everyone in with it, leaving nothing but a constrained frame of life that no longer seeks progress but only maintenance.

I know - it is odd to hear someone like myself, someone who values my Luddite tendencies and "low tech", to be speaking that there is no vision of progress.  But I see that the sense of progress in one area permeates society, even to those who desire to live a less industrialized future.  Seen the other way - limiting options and lowering aims - has the same effect:  it lowers the expectations of all areas of society.  Suddenly we are not seeking the edge of what we can do, we are only seeking  the upper edge of the bottom).

Ultimately what saved the planet of Poictesme was not just continuing to glide on the past as it continued to lose speed but rather to make an active attempt at advancing in a direction.  To me, at least, it feels that we are exactly the opposite:  having abandoned any active attempts, we are content to slowly lose any sense of progress at all until, like a collapsing star, we begin to fall in on ourselves.

---

I had written earlier this week that I found myself in a bit of the post-Thanksgiving doldrums, but it was not caused specifically by Thanksgiving.  It was caused by - as Resident Optimist Ed put it - "losing the spark".  I read that and realized "that, this is precisely the thing".  I feel not so much trapped as if in some giant holding pattern, circling the airport continuously waiting to land.  

I find myself between goals too, as odd that sounds for someone that spends a rather ridiculous amount of time planning them (and posting about it) every year.  Not goals in the sense of "what I should do next year", but big goals, the sort that fire the blood and the imagination and give purpose to everything that one puts one's hand to.  One may remember a certain business movement ten to fifteen years ago that promoted "BHAG" (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals).  Something that would turn on its head the idea that we all did not come this far in our lives just to be mediocre.

What is that goal?  What is that next thing I need to be about accomplishing?  I do not know, writing from this side of it.  But the more I think about it, the more I believe that this has become the missing key to the spark flying away.  Find that thing - and it should be something so big that it will literally take me the rest of my life to grow into the person who can - and I believe these doldrums will come to an end.

Call it hope, call it vision, call it a plan - I (and maybe we) need something that we can aspire to, not something that we devolve into.