Chap's Thoughts

Short Notes, Diary Entries, Songs, Poems and Freeform Essays

Tonight I mentioned to my sister... Jan 1, 2000

Tonight I mentioned to my sister, Denise Sudbeck, that I had called Phil Galatas, an artist friend who grew up with us. He was out, but I left him a message, saying I had made him a copy of Meschacebeenes for him. Also that I wanted to talk to him about illustrating it. I think that Meschacebeenes, a book of Creole poems by Dominique Rouquette, written when he was living in Bonfouca, is about ready for general consumption . Recently my translating efforts have been rewarded with English versions that, for the most part, read pretty smoothly. The power of Dominique's imagery comes through clearly and with great intensity. I am confident in most of the translations, but I confess that there are some Creole idioms that I have not been able to fathom yet. Anyway in order to move the book along, I am printing a limited number of manuscripts, one particular for Phil, to see if he might want to collaborate.

Jan 7, 2004

Jan 7, 2004 7:22PM

Thick as thieves, thick as thievessss , Look into the eye of the storm, Look out for the force without form Look around at the sight and sound Look in, look out, look around. Rush, Force Ten

Look the storm in the eye, Look at the sea and sky,

No reward for existence, No existence no applause. ========================================================================

Anatole at the wheel of the schooner, Cutting sharply in the wind, The shifting cargo, The shudder of the ship, He looked at Celestin. No one expected you to go racing, With a full load of bricks, Celestin shrugged his bare black shoulders. I'll have you know she really shines when She has a belly full of ballast And a fair wind, Anatole replied. Reaching for another grip on the wheel, Anatole heaved and smiled at Celestin, As the deck tilted more. Letting go of his handhold, Celestin headed for the wheel. Here, cried Anatole, Over the rising wind, Releasing the spokes, Just as strong black hands Gripped the wheel. Anatole open the cabin door, Peers in at his Chacta passengers. Better hold on to something, He yells down to them, There's an easterly blowing. But they just sit there, Unconcerned smoking their pipes. One asks, Squalls? Anatole heads forward, To tighten the sails, Then goes out to the bowsprit.

Adrien takes the fulton, Across the lake. Usually he makes rhythms in his head, To the metered beat of its pistons, As it pounds across the waves. He doesn't want his family To know his comings and goings. The rain is relentless on this voyage, But Adrien is unaware of the weather. He sits on a bench in the cabin, Comfortably close to Ushola, Sitting across from him. As her aunt stares at him, She coughs and crosses her arms.

As graceful as a flower blowing in the wind, Ushola turns her head. Adrien's gaze follows her every movement, Smiling like a idiot. He meets the old squaw's eyes, Bright slits in a wrinkled mask.

Ushola parts the blanket Hung across the cabin. She smiles at Adrien, sitting at his small table writing, before stepping outside, into the night. He wants to join her, But her aunt is still awake, Her silhouette moving. On the other side of the curtain. Adrien fidgets as he tries to concentrate,

Ushola's voice, Suddenly fills the night. Adrien barely sees her dim outline, In the dying glow of the cooking fire. As she began to sing. Adrien listens, Struggling to comprehend, He realizes that it is a story, That she sings to him, In an ancient tongue. Cursing his scholarly dysfunction, He tries to memorize her every word, Caught up in the sound of her voice. Errant poetic thoughts, Cross his mind in verse, Her voice fills the night, Like the stars themselves. Opening his eyes he shakes his head, And there in his hand, He realizes is his pen. As in a dream, He writes down verse after verse, Trying to capture her words, Like fireflies in the night. Here and there, He understands a word. His hand wavers, Indecisive over spelling. Her song overtakes him, And he drops the pen. In frustration, He leans back on the bed, Closing his eyes. Her voice touches him, As light as a feather. It carries him along, On dreamlike wings. Adrien feels a mother-like warmth, Flowing across his soul. Adrien listens till her last words, Leave her lips and echo through his mind. He sits up in time to see her enter the cabin, Before the wind blows out the candle, Plunging the room into darkness. Adrien drifts off to sleep, Her words swirling in his head. His last image of her, So beautiful, So rare and delicate. He awoke alone in the bare cabin.

Adrien sits in his rude chair crying, The spirit on him so strong that his limbs quake, Verse after verse roll off his pen, And mix with his tears on the pages below.

The bards on a fast steamer Bound for Bordeaux and then Paris, To read Poetry in the coffee shops, And visit the bookstores. Standing over the crystal castle, Myriad reflections display the facets of the City. The crowd applauds the Bards.

Francois walked briskly to his carriage, Looking at the paper in his hand, Counting his neighbors signatures. He waved back at Anatole and What did Francois want Armand? He is carrying around a petition To give Celestin his freedom. It was about time, He always was a good boy.

The parade of injured Indians hobbled by him, As he struggled up stream, Seeking the source of the hurt and pain, He stumbled through the night. Adrien standing in the woods shaking As the spirit came upon him. The sight of thousands of Indians Walking past him in a sad parade, The lame and the old, The young and the helpless, The once proud braves, Their hearts and limbs torn asunder, Unable to join their ancestors in Aba, Their stricken spirits condemned to stay in this world. The urge to stop, to help, The weight of knowledge that the most needy Lay ahead, unable to flee into the night. Heedless of their cries, Chahta-Ima, Chahta-Ima… He pressed on until the cries to moans, And the moans turned to silence. Huddled in a bush he found an old squaw, Glancing down at her mortal wound. She saw him and asked for her final confession. Chahta-Ima gave many final rites that night.

In the later years, as Adrien worked over his notes, The Chacta dictionary arrived one day. Finally able to decipher the translation He had slaved over, For so many years,

This (Ends here)

Jan 11, 2005

Jan 11, 2005 Up all last night, just finished a webpage for the "Preliminary Archeological Survey" UNO did in 1988. This survey covered Bayous Bonfouca, Liberty, Paquet and Fourneau and the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. I was surprised that many of the middens dated back as much as two thousand years by shards. 10:18 PM I am still working on the page, added survey area map and some more text, but I don't know what to do with this, unless I put it in the book. Jan 12, 2005 3:08P Listening to Nicholas Dylan, a street musician that I ran into on 21st St PDX. He was sitting under the propane infrared heated awning in front of the coffee shop, surrounded by avid fans. His music grabbed me and I bought his CD. Later I examined it and found it was homemade, the music real and revealing, a real talent. And a street person since 15, Nicholas Dylan (his stage name) reminded me of all the hopefuls that had panhandled me in front of St Louis Cathedral, guitars slung over their shoulders, and well traveled pets, content to sit on the ground and rest or poke heads out of packs and mew.

Switched to Foo-Fighters, the best new band of the 21st Century! Moving over the terrain Of the graphic equalizer histogram. Through settings of calm then chaos, The base threads through the song, Like the Mississippi through mud. The singer made naked by his words, Professes the same inner feelings That we have all felt before, The pain of being human, And the addicting pleasure of grace.

Generator, my favorite Foo song has no rhythms! Al Stewart take me away, with your historical-geographical rhythms. Oh that I could hear you again in Naples on the beach, This time without the lady that made me miss my favorite song. Idol of my youth, a lesson was learned that day. Never sacrifice the immortal arts for mortal beauty, And the promise of pleasure!

Road to Moscow, the Stewart song that I used to recover my guitar skills on. An impressive work, it encapsulates a Russian's experience during the German invasion.

Arien take the fulton across the lake... Jan 31, 2005

Adrien take the fulton across the lake. He doesn't want his family to know his coming and goings. Usually he makes rimes in his head to the metered pounding of its pistons, as it pushed through the waves.

He likes to lean on the rail, feel the wind on his face and gaze at the immense sky over Lake Pontchartrain. This trip the rain beats against the window panes and the steamboat sways back and forth as it rolls over the waves. Adrien doesn't mind because he is smiling at Oushola, the beautiful daughter of his friend Chief Wellee of Bushuwa. Adrien had seen many beautiful women, both in America and France, but never had he been more struck by such feminine perfection. Oushola was tall and willowy, with long black hair and dark eyes. Her skin was the color of honey and her beauty was beyond estimation. Sitting next to Oushola on the bench across from Adrien is her aunt, a weathered old squaw with darting black eyes. The old squaw pulls the blanket that covers her tighter, looks at Adrien and coughs. As graceful as a flower blowing in the wind, Oushola turns her head. Adrien's gaze follows her every movement, smiling like a idiot. He meets the old squaw's eyes, bright slits in a wrinkled mask. Adrien watches as the old squaw turned to Oushola and spoke rapidly to her. He strained his ear to hear what she was saying and his brain, to recognize the Choctaw words. It sounded as if she was concerned about the rain and perhaps getting sick. In the most beautiful voice Adrien had ever heard, Oushola assured her aunt that they would be fine. "Ahokni, the night cabin isn't very far away and maybe the rain will stop. " "Pardon", Adrien said slowly, forming the Choctaw words carefully. "May I help you?" Oushola smiled and said "Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho?" She's asking me if I speak Choctaw, thought Adrien. "I speak a little Choctaw -- Chahta iskitini anumpuli li." "Then we shall speak your tongue," Oushola said in perfect Creole. Adrien was amazed and couldn't speak for seconds. Oushola continued. "You were saying?" "I was planning to hire a carriage and stay at the night cabin myself, before I start on my way home tomorrow. I was wondering if you would like to share my carriage?" "Thank you, that would be nice," Oushola said before turning to her aunt and explaining to her. His heart racing, Adrien leaned forward to hear what the old squaw would say, but she just said "It is good -- Achukma hoke", and nodded, giving Adrien a quick smile of gratitude. Smiling back at her, Adrien couldn't help but notice her great age, her bent frame and her gnarled hands. Suddenly he felt sorry for her and a little guilty that he was only thinking about being with Oushola. Before he could dwell on it much, Oushola took his mind away, when she began talking to him. Before long they were talking like old friends and the thrum of the pistons slowed as the steamboat approached the wharves of Mandeville on the north side of the lake.

Oushola parts the blanket hanging across the cabin door. She smiles at Adrien, sitting with his writing table in his lap, before stepping outside into the night. He wants to join her, but her aunt is still awake, her dim silhouette moving on the other side of the cabin.
Adrien fidgets as he tries to concentrate,  straining his eyes to see by the light of one lonely candle, when Oushola's voice, suddenly fills the night.
Adrien barely sees her dim outline, swaying in the dying glow of the cooking fire. 
As she began to sing. Adrien listens, struggling to comprehend. He realizes that she is singing a story in an ancient tongue. Cursing his scholarly dysfunction, he closes his eyes and tries to memorize her every word.
Caught up in the sound of her voice, errant poetic thoughts begin to cross his mind in verse. Her voice fills the night, like the stars themselves. 
Opening his eyes he shakes his head, and there in his hand, he realizes, is his pen.
As in a dream, he writes down verse after verse, trying to capture her words. Like fireflies in the night, here and there, he understands a word. His hand wavers, indecisive over spelling. her song overtakes him and he drops the pen.
In frustration, he leans back on the bed, closing his eyes. Her voice touches him, as light as a feather. It carries him along, on dreamlike wings. It feels like a mother's warmth, as it caresses his soul.
Adrien listens till her last words, leave her lips and echo through his mind.
He sits up in time to see her enter the cabin, before the wind blows out the candle, plunging the room into darkness.
Adrien drifts off to sleep, her words swirling in his head.  His last image of her, so beautiful,  so rare and delicate.
He awoke alone in the bare cabin.

Adrien sits in his crude chair crying, The spirit on him so strong that his limbs quake, Verse after verse roll off his pen, And mix with his tears on the pages below.

The Treasure of Bonfouca... March 13, 2005

The Treasure of Bonfouca

Visions of pirates, Of desperate patriots, Fleeing plantation owner, Filled my young head in Bonfouca. So soft days spent, Standing on the banks of Bayou Liberty, Old chain overgrown in a cypress tree Invoke my imagination to times in the past. The wooden ships that in passing, Stopped for a night, Moored from its link.

Lichen covered trunk circled, By scarred bark grown over, And left rusted links still strong. Hanging down to the water.

March 13, 2005 Bonfouca

Oh mystical village of Bonfouca... Mar 26, 2005

Oh mystical village of Bonfouca, So different from most of America. As if almost forgotten by time,

Place where we endured hurricanes, Turns to mud from torrential rains. Majestic pine trees bend in the wind,

The fog rolls in so thick and still,

Filled with the cry of the whippoorwill.

Now do you understand what you lost? Have you seen the difficult path?

I've always enjoyed staying in villages. Everyone knows you and the daily routines And the ebb and flow of life Can be measured by expected pleasures.

The poet writes the verse, That frames the current thought,

A society that makes demands, Provides relentless abuse of the Exploited by the greedy. O was (Ends here incomplete)

Just thinking tonight... Apr 13, 2005

Just thinking tonight.. I went through my Al Stewart favorites and figured out the words so I could sing them. I've been hopping and bopping for hours. There is no denying the stimulation I derive from music. Now I am listening to the Chile Peppers' "Californication" cuts, Other Side, Parallel Universe and Get on Top. I am fortunate, I have several dozen of my favorite songs on my PC, so there is no screwing with disks and drives and that BS. No matter what I write, I keep coming back to Adrien's proposition that poetry is divine, and the highest form of the written art. I suppose he is right. Especially since his poetry was influenced by the melodious sounds of the Choctaw language and was made to be sang. Today he would have been a song writer for sure. In fact, I know that he played piano but he wrote no true songs to my knowledge. Perhaps it was because of the struggle that he had writing poetry, no matter how moved he was by his muse. Finally I end up listening to Rush, probably my favorite, the band I find the most spiritually moving. Their 80's work hits hard at the core of our existence. They use their fantastic music to wrap thought provoking messages and serious questions about our very nature.

Fri Apr 15, 2005

I should be on my way to Slidell to help GOSH, but I need to wake up some first. When I first awake, I am so fuzzy minded that it takes an hour for my whole brain to come on line, that it isn't worth venturing forth until I have it together. From the swirling maelstrom of thoughts and anxieties, some how I must carve out the path, a plan for attacking the day, (End)

The song inside me rages...Apr 26, 2005

The song in side me rages, On all my back pages, Though fools or sages, They speak through the ages.

I hear their voices so softy, They speak their minds to me, Through their eyes I see, What is to be is to be.

I have been living in blissful poetry for the last two days... Apr 26, 2005

I have been living in blissful poetry for the last two days, ever since I put the poetry of Adrien Rouquette to music and sang them. First "My Friend" ended up sounding like a Dylan song, but "Sympathy came out pretty good. I knew that I hit gold when I first played "The Nook". It came out fantastic! Then I sat down to do America, looking at its great length, with some trepidation. But amazingly a combination of minor and major verse delivers bone chilling emotions. These songs are so beautiful that they have pleasantly distracted me, sung under my breath as I labored outside, waiting for the moment I could strum my guitar to their melodious verse. The Bards Project has progressed in wandering fashion, first there was their discovery. Though I had been brought up in Bonfouca, I was unaware of their existence. The name Chahta-Ima meant no more than a school in Lacombe. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that I walked in the footsteps of world famous poets. Then there was the period of researching with awe, their legends and works. I found some of their poetry in France, but it was in Creole French and undecipherable to me. I looked longing at them, knowing that the true nature of the poets were hidden in their cryptic verse. Cleverly I used a French translator on the web to convert Dominique's Meschacebeenes and Adrien's Les Savannes to English, but ended up with a mess full of undecipherable Creole words and jumbled so bad that they took weeks to break up into separate lines. An exhaustive search revealed the Creole words' meaning, but the French idioms boggled the tongue and obscured the elusive meaning of the verse. Finally after much inspiration and work, I smoothed out the idioms until the lines were poetry again. Weeks had passed before I was able to read the Adrien's lost poetry to the folks gathered to celebrate his birthday Feb 26, 2005. At another poet reading I mentioned that the Bards tell several times of singing their poetry. When asked to sing some, I declined, stating my unwillingness to slaughter the French language any more than I had to. But there was something that I had failed to remember: that Adrien had written "Wild Flowers" in English. Could it be that they were written to be sang as well? The answer is a resounding - yes! Its too bad that I have no ideal what the original tunes were. All I can say is it shows Adrien's genius, in making verse so easy to convert to song. Not all the songs in "Wild Flowers" look to be as easy to put to song as others. Several poems do not have riming lines. These may take more work.

On the death of my mother-in-law...Apr 30, 2005

On the death of my mother-in-law

Winkie was my ex-mother-in-law, probably the only one I will ever have, and unlike many other men, I liked her. We were friends and I regret it had been too long since I called her.
The unfortunate circumstance of my life prevents me from keeping track of most all of my favorite people, here and around the country. Struggling as I am, trying to find the right combination of survival and exploration, I have retreated into semi-solitude, unwilling to deal with the mainstream at the moment. Its not like I am intent on remaining at my current station, I am just trying to finish the mission that I feel God has graced me with and that until I finish, I will have to sacrifice both material and social pleasures. Before you judge me another religious nut, hear my story and decide for yourself. For twenty-seven years I have been a computer geek, pouring my creative energies into software development for fun and profit. Like a painter or a song writer, my computer holds directory after directory of my personal computational creations. Much more than that still resides in or impacted modern computers. A system engineer by trade, I have programmed at every level of Windows from the BIOS and hardware device drivers to hundreds of applications on desktops or spread across the Internet. All because I got in at the very beginning of the microcomputer revolution, and with my fellow developers, fought our way through the primitive cyber environment to build the foundations of logic and code we enjoy today. Through my struggle upward I had to develop my personality as well as my intellect. Plunging into the arena of commercial software development after working for years as an academic computer consultant caused my enormous amounts of adaptation. Besides the incredible pressure of working at a fast pace, leading edge company, ZSoft, I was going through a divorce, driving back and forth between Atlanta and Bonfouca to see my son Eric, three times a month. For nearly a year I stayed at Motel 6 four nights a week in Atlanta, washed my clothes down on bayou visits and held a high pressure 9Am to whenever job. My career never slowed down after that, the long car drives, up to 3000 miles every other weekend visits became flying in on weekends from the west coast. All of the success brought money and for the first time in my life I felt financially secure. All things in time change and soon after Eric came to live with me, the Ecoms started going down the tube and soon I was one of the thousands of unemployed engineers competing for work in a shrinking software job market. I decided to return to Bonfouca for several reasons. My childhood home, I owned a small bit of property and an old trailer that I inherited from my grandmother, Gertrude and though I knew I wouldn't be able to find a job anything like the ones I had enjoyed for fifteen years, I thought that I could make enough money to survive comfortably, if humbly, camping rather than living in the old trailer. The property was a jungle, with just a path to the trailer, that when cut down and burned, revealed my yard, a muddy bog that was under water half the year. Over the years hurricanes had done their damage. I discovered a hole in the living room ceiling that would have destroyed the trailer if we hadn't returned when we did. Every facility in disrepair, shelter at best, and with no money to renovate, I adopted a temporary mindset about the place and spent my time seeking employment in New Orleans. That was another highly adapting phase of my life, adjusting to life in the city and the bayou, ever minded that it was only temporary. A year or so later I couldn't continue doing the New Orleans gigs, so I set out to discover some way to make money on the northshore of the lake. With little or no money for luxuries, I turned to exploring the history of Bonfouca, a study that continues to this day. I grew up in Bonfouca and knew virtually nothing about the place, though I had explored every inch of the place, by foot, pirogue, horseback or motorcycle. Imagine my surprise when intrigued by a web search for the word "Bonfouca", I discovered a fascinating and rich history as few places in America enjoy. Furthermore it was a virtually an undiscovered country that my mind's eye perceived. Inspired by the incredible stories I discovered, I wrote a book for local consumption. No sooner had I self published and sold the book, I was hooked and delved even deeper. One of the most interesting things that I had found out about were the Bards of Bonfouca, the most notable of which, Adrien Rouquette, was the first Creole American Catholic priest and was a missionary to the local Choctaw Indians, who called him Chahta-Ima. I translated the Bards Creole French poetry and turned them into books, then wrote books of English poems and the "Chahta-Ima Chronicles" celebrating Adrien's life. I found more research material and a book by Dagmar Renshaw Lebreton that filled in my data and so many wonderful excerpts from letters and rare poems. Strangely unworried by my future, it seems that God makes sure that I have what I need to continue my work, but not enough to significantly better myself financially. The poverty that I endured during childhood and feared so much during my years of plenty, I again endure daily with out too much regret. Unashamedly I make the claim that I am discovering new, unknown things about the Bards. For instance recently I put some of Adrien's poems to music and much to my delight the songs are beautiful. Somehow it occurs to me that I am the only single person who can do what I am doing, bring a dead but great meaningful poet back to life and the lapse of memory. Perhaps I have been selfish, living the same solitary life, with my Muses, as Adrien enjoyed, under the same shady pines and oaks of Bonfouca, as he did a century and a half ago. I would argue that my work is of great cultural value, no matter how you look at it. More than that, I am amazed to discover a like soul, from so far in the past, that I agree with so much. One thing that is apparent is so many others have been drawn to the life and works of Adrien over time, and each did their best to capture the essence of the man. Some had overcome the difficulty of translating his poetry, others had not. Many concerned themselves with legend, though I found the truth more intriguing. So I realize that I am only the most recent of a long line of liked souls who must have felt the same way as Adrien themselves. There are several differences between me and them. First I grew up in the woods and bayous that with the exception of time, was remarkably the same it was for Adrien. Unlike the other writers I was a native, with a Creole heritage that I adopted from childhood. Secondly I was neither a historian or a writer. My perspective and the direction of my research differed from theirs, using their works as the steps along my path to understanding only after I had done my original research. As I uncovered more details of Adrien's life, I began to notice something that other researchers seemed not to. Though well known for his frequent periods of depression, Adrien's poetry revealed a pattern of mania. Even more revealing was Adrien's description of his condition in correspondence during the period he was writing "Wild Flowers". As one who suffered from the same condition it was easy for me to recognize that Adrien suffered from bipolar syndrome.
So there you have it, I feel that perhaps God has given me this little role to play out and until I am done, I am going to have to accept certain hardships. It’s a journey longer than I expected to at first and I really don't know how far it go. It really doesn't bother me, living the life of virtuous solitude and poverty, perhaps less than it should. So far God has seen fit to take care of my needs as he guides me into unknown territories. But as I said before, I don't keep track with the ones I love as much as I should, so when I found that Winkie was in the hospital after some quality of life surgery, it never occurred to me to call her and so I missed my chance to talk to her one last time. She was recovering well, cheerful, even fiesty when she died in her sleep, while my ex-wife, Sylvia slept nearby in a chair. Saddened, though happy for her easy death, I talked to Sylvia tonight. She will be missed.

This will be the life of me yet... May 6, 2005

This will be the life of me yet. I am back on the bayou after returning from Winkie's funeral. I even got to spend a few hours with Eric over the course of the three days that we were there.

The Fairest Flowers... May 28, 2005

The fairest flowers, Adrien's "Wild Flowers", give a new understanding of the man.  Sometimes I find things about Adrien, in this case, writing musical score for "Offering" yesterday. Looking over English poetry from 1848, I pulled "Offering" over to the song book manuscript. Then when I was supposed to be else where helping someone, I ended up sitting here, trying chords and rhythms, until I finally got it right.   Why am I sure that I got it right? Well when you hear it, you will agree. There is a haunting beauty to Adrian's poems, so when the music is right, the poem resonates to exhalted levels.

Quantum clay UV dye painted structures... May 28, 2005 ?

Quantum clay UV dye painted structures.

Radio beamed psychological prompts,  based on neurochemistry and reaction controlling might make you go bi-polar with the flick of a switch or drop you like a rock with a jolt of RF energy beamed at you. Your brain cells receive a signal that resonates with specific neurological bio-chemical molecules that control the brain cell itself. When these are hacked, then there will be great benefit, but great danger as well for external control on one.

So there are the two old hippies sitting out on the veranda, chatting by the light of the citronella candle, deep into the summer eve. 
" Ideally, after flooding the nascent structure with muddy water to get another layer deposited, sunlight could be used to sundry and harden the structure.  The problem with clay alone is, it dissolves immediately on contact with water making only temporary cycles.   If the pattern is painted on the clay with UV sensitive dyes before the sun comes up, those areas will harden in the sunlight during the day and would be structural by nightfall. Then when the muddy water floods next time,  the structure remains intact and functional. "
"So what you mean is after the muddy flood dries up, you paint the structural outline on the surface, with special mud mixed with dyes. Under sunlight, the surface dries out further while the dye impregnated mud cross polymerizes chemically. By nightfall the structure is hardened and the process is repeated.
This process of deposition and hardening allow fairly complicated three dimensional structures to be manufactured. 
Imagine a series of sloping troughs, facing the sun. A large rectangular one is open and at the bottom there is a structure growing, spreading back up the box. It is composed of channels and chambers interconnected like the organs of a body. Using subtle principles of science to mimic the functions of life, its clay organs pulse and throb to the sun and the sea. Its purpose is to reproduce. 
To accomplish that it must be in an environment that allows it access to clay and water, appropriate hardening agents and adequate sunlight. As I explained before, it works by drawing structure on freshly deposited clay coatings, that will become much harder in sunlight, than drying alone could accomplish. 
To build a chamber, paint the floor on the fresh deposition and wait for it to dry. The next flood will wash away any material that is not hardened as well as providing a fresh layer of building clay. After the clay is drained off, before the sunlight is powerful enough to cause the desired polymerization effect, a clay mixed with a UV-energy absorbing dye compound that hardens in the sun...

With unlimited capacity to aid healing, even make the cells operate better, more efficiently. Like a modern home computer on the Internet, your body would require a firewall. The only problem is that it would be at another level, different again, than real and virtual. Its real world-like effects could readily be felt, but there was no denying its virtual-like existence. A higher order than either, it stood above containing properties that were similar-like to properties of both, but never really the same thing. Like invisibility, what is felt of an object reduces the need to see and produced a mental image that is as good as seeing it. Or we can use computers to show it in different forms of data.

Two mementos of the war, nano-war-engines, one completely encased in diamond, which is being attacked by the other one through a crack in its own diamond encasement. Watching them were two old war buddies. 
"That one sure hates the other!"
"Yeah, imagine how long it had to save up energy to burn its way half through the diamond case."

The constructor bed, the bottom a shallow inclined trough, had a lot of small structures growing all over it. These were the product of a daily cycle of flooding with a thick mixture of clay and water, painting on structures, then let them sun dry and hardening up their structure and repeat washing the soft unpainted clay away.

The colony constructor, capable of building a replica of the colony, layer by layer. The material procurer, a machine that is capable of locating and digging to a suitable clay feed stock. The main pump, solar driven, it is the main moving force in the colony. It pumps water down in the ground to get the clay that is used to build the structure of the colony. A fluidics computer that coordinates the colony through channels and capillaries through out the colony structure. Western solar collector, used to add to the energy peak in the early afternoon and provide trickle charge until the late afternoon.

Center south facing solar collector, constructed of hardened clay channels and manifolds. Eastern, early morning heat collecting solar array. It gets the colony working with the rising sun.

Anyway, after creating clay based quantum dots, the pace of evolution increased. Finer control allowed refined construction of additional nano-structure with extreme advantage. First the energy requirements were naturally low, though seasonal, requiring no outside energy sources.





Scene:
The brain was missing from the skull case and atop the spinal cord was a bundle of artificial tissue, an interface to the body that kept it alive.

"That's disgusting dude. You sure you want to do this?"
"Sure! I am so ready to drop these dots."
"So I can't talk you out of it. Isn't there anything I can do?"
"Nope my mind is made up. I've decided that I want to be the first quantum human."
He gave his friend a happy smile, before he resumed. "Imagine the possibilities. These dots are going to be like little walkie-talkies that are all over inside my body. I'll be able to hear everything that goes on in the cells of my body. And if I can control the cells, I can cure my diseases, even rebuild my body like new."
"Sounds a lot like magic."
"Magic is just what we don't understand. A magician makes illusions intent on fooling us. But it is difficult to see the world's true nature, so we create illusions ourselves, based on what we can see of its nature. Thus the more we understand the true nature of a thing, the less we fool ourselves with illusions."
He continued," The ingested quantum dots eventually end up in cells through out the brain as they duplicate the existing neural architecture. As they are networked, they create tremendous computing power.

Because they become embedded in cell walls and self align themselves into portals means that two way communications with the cell would be possible. Besides monitoring the cell, the actual metabolism of the cell could be stimulated by the quantum network, say perhaps forcing cells into anaerobic operation for survival.

Easy Airship Design... June 7, 2005

First we take the bag material and sew up the edges to make a long open ended tube. Then we flatten the ends of the tube and sew them up with another seam. We reinforce each corner of the flatten ends and insert grommets in each. Spread out, the tube is folded in the middle and the inner grommets attached. Then we layout the three beams to form the triangular base frame and a forth had connects the apex of the rear angle to the center of the front cross piece, on top of the tube. The bag bottom is stretched out over the triangular frame and grommets are attached to the bag and connected through bungy cords to the sides of the frame. Next we attach the cylindrical frame that houses the vertically mounted motor, propeller and two louvers that control the downward thrust forward or back, left or right. Now the center of the tube-like bag is aligned with the center of the cylinder and wrapped around it. The inner flatten ends are attached to the apex of the rear triangle and the outer grommets are also connected to each other, forming a circular duct in the rear. Inflation design differs here, depending on whether the buoyancy gas is hydrogen/helium or hot air. The simplest design is for a buoyant gas, merely insert a feed tube at each inner end near the grommets. One tube is used for filling and the other for exhaust. Helium is expensive and hydrogen, though cheaper is uncertifiable. An alternative would be hot air, though more complex it offers the easiest solution for buoyancy. The design I have in mind is radical and unique, an electric hot air balloon. Built on an inner cylindrical frame from the top down, inflation tubes to the bag midship, then electrical heating coils, below them the engine on top of the generator, and at the bottom, an electric motor over the inflation fan blade in a safety housing. Around the inner cylinder in an outer, just to provide ducting to the engine assembly, drawing air from above to be heated and forced into the bag. The bottom ends of the bag would have pressure relief flapper valves to prevent over inflation and provide thrust when underway. The circular duct that is formed in the rear when the bag is inflated around the cylinder and frame. An additional electric motor suspended vertically on a gimbaled housing at the rear can provide additional stabilization, maneuverability and speed.
I have not done all the calculations needed to justify whether there is sufficient caloric input from such a device to work, but I am sure that an unmanned one could be built that would.

A Freaky Time... June 9, 2005

It's getting to be that freaky time, When my mind retreats to rime, With the coming of the full moon, I sit down now to write a tune.

But first I need to warn all of you, Telling the truth is what I do. Some will hate what I say, Your open mind is what I pray.

I got a call late today, From my son, so far away. He can't come to visit me, No departing moment will I see.

Soon he'll leave to go to war, To fight for Country, Stripe and Star. Because he respects the uniform, Willing stands in the way of harm.

How can we ask them to serve, Then take away, what they deserve? How can Americans be free, When our bravest live in slavery.

Proud men and boys I've known, Served their country and are gone. Their cost would be bad enough, But dying for a lie is mighty tough.

Our trust in America rivals all, Together united we stand or fall. It has always been America's way, Belief in Country is strong today.

With thunder-bolts the Eagle flew, Seeking Talaban assassins to slew. Too bad Ben Ladin got away, To live and fight another day.

The reason that it happened so, Another crusade we had to go. To catch a man to us they lied, Sixteen thousand civilians died.

A tenth that we lost, our best, They tell us it's to save the rest. And we sit and take this stuff, Wonder when we'll get enough?

But deep in the White House stands, Karl Rove studying maps and plans. Elections swayed without alarm, So what if the War is getting warm?

You with your SUV and patriotic bow, I shake my head, what do you know? The truth you won't find on TV, Even if you really wanted to see.

The media giants their vision tunnel, Distracting fluff to you they funnel.

You self centered song writers, Its time to join our fighters. Demand nothing less than the truth, Raise our voices till we raise the roof.

Unhappy, the NeoCons have it all, President, Congress and Justice Hall. From Corporate buildings they are bred, And with your money they are fed.

They slash the laws that make fair, No forefather's safeguards do they spare. They fill their pockets with corporate greed, While mother's struggle their kids to feed.

Wall street driven and They bumble and lie to all of us,

Please move us in the right direction, We pray the Lord for his protection. From prophets false and zealots too, Lying words revealed by what they do.

So they got us stuck in Nam again, As anyone can see, with half a brain. Haliburton sure made some money, No bid, paying the VP, isn't it funny.

You can thank them for your 65 cent dollars, Your money's devalued and nobody hollers. A staggering debt the Republican made, While the rich man's taxes we paid.

Gas prices aren't high, as you will soon see, Our dollar is worth less than it used to be.