Paradise is Burning

The Fiery Inferno 

The month of November 2018 will be known as the month Paradise, a small rural community in California, burned down. I heard and saw the news and reacted with some sadness. President Trump's removal of US from the Montreal Climate Change Pact of countries sends a very clear and present message. You mess with mother nature and well, this is what happens, it was going to happen sooner or later. How shallow and unthinking can you get ? 

Countless people have lost their entire homes, their livelihoods and their precious loved ones in the blink of an eye. The fire storm was possibly caused by an electrical cable (some electrical company is assisting in the investigations right now) but the damage done is irreversible.

Aerial View of the Fires 

    There are 2 reasons amongst the many raised for this catastrophe. 

1. The forest filled with pine trees is now very densely, some say too densely populated 
    with trees.  Management of the forest led by strict anti-logging laws is one factor. 

Once the fire starts on the ground, especially dry ground which had been experiencing drought for some time now, a little spark can easily burn the undergrowth. Once the flames get higher, and reach the lower pine cones of the trees, it changes into a deadly catalyst leading to a much bigger fire. So the closer the trees are to each other, or the denser the forest is, that is, the number of trees per square kilometre, the faster and more intense the fire is expected to be, once it starts to get out of control. 

2. Climate Change ; this is long term and we have been pollutants of the green and ever sickening Earth for some time now. We have massive plastic dumped irresponsibly into our oceans. The growing middle classes especially in China, now want to eat red meat, meaning more farmed cows for quality beef, meaning we have more farmland for rearing this top quality Wagyu and Kobe beef. Well and good, but these cows FART, so massive amounts of methane (main gas in fart) are being emitted into the atmosphere, and contribute to the dreaded Greenhouse Gases further creating a gas cloud which prevents the heat from the earth's crust from rising up and dissipating into the outer atmosphere. 

Hence the incidence of hotter and hotter temperatures on average for the last 25 years.

Of course, cows farting are not the only cause of climate change. The use of dangerous ozone depletion refrigerants (in air conditioners for example) also add to the greenhouse gases once they (the air conditioner or fridge) are not in use and scrapped. 

The hotter climate has led to massive hot / cold fronts leading to more catastrophic cyclones,hurricanes and typhoons (they are all the same just of different intensity) as a result more catastrophic damage to our coastal towns, ports and villages.

Just last month, we saw the news that Venice, St Mark's square and Doge's Palace were all flooded because of rising tides again due to global warming and polar caps melting at a rate like never previously recorded in HISTORY.   

Think about Paradise Lost ; this small community of less than 30,000 whose entire lives as they know it, gone in minutes. 

It could and will one day happen to us. Let us think hard and start doing something NOW.  

Sydney May 2017

Sydney Harbour Bridge in Background

The Iconic Sydney Opera House 

I'll be Back - Florence

Last December in Florence Italy 

This city is famous for its statue of David, by Michelangelo, in the 16th century. The city centre's Il Duomo is imposing as it is magnificent. We have plans to come visit this historic city once again in a few weeks time, so I am really looking forward to that !

Fair Result Arsenal 1 Wolves 1 ; Grab the Game by the Scruff of the Neck

I did not watch this match as it was on a Sunday early morning and I had to rise early for work. The result is Nuno's dedication to perfection for every single match and yesterday's one was a classic example of how to shake off the self confidence blues and push and scrap through to the best of one's ability.

This Wolves team has the potential to be in the top 6 ; they have the skills, the defensive qualities and now with Ivan Cavaleiro in form, the attack bite. 

I was disappointed when they lost at home to Watford, they payed pathetically, and were unlucky with Tottenham.

Going forward lets face again the League with renewed optimism that this team are indeed a class apart from the the chasing pack with aspirations to win the League one day soon. 

Cool Song Nickelback - Rockstar

Meeting with friends we left some 40 plus years ago in school.

This post is a no brainer. However, as I am slightly sleep deprived, from a night out with my Primary and Secondary schoolmates, I feel that writing this post is the best that I can do given the limited cognitive and reasoning abilities I have this morning. Meaning, I had too much to drink the night before. 

Last night, I met up with about 30 of my ex-school mates. We are all 55 or 56. The one common interest we all have is wanting to reach out, and connect, to try to relive and laugh about the best times of our lives, oh some 40 odd years ago.

That is the primary motivation which got me going to this gathering. Not about who earned or lost lots of money. Who drives the biggest, car, or has a wonderful house or has the most beautiful wife and family. Nothing of these came up during our small group chats. 

We all were back to 15 or 16 years of age. That playful boy is now a successul architect. The most rebellious guy is now a pastor. The boys hauled up for doing the most naughty things is now a successful businessman.

Me the plump and  geeky guy is now still a geeky guy but way slimmer without his Nana Mouskouri black spectacles.

The trivia and memories we bring up are priceless. Long may we have them and our friends.

Life is Precious because it is transient and fleeting

      
                                 Duomo Saint Marco 5 Dec 2017  (1 year 5 days ago to this day!) 



The transient nature of life, as we know it, is that time, the 4th dimension passes by. We have no way of encapsulating time, like we encapsulate the other 3 dimensions, in form and function like, say a car, or a painting or even doodles on paper. 

We can create form an function, like an art work, a sculpture, or a painting, a picture and that should stand the test of some time. Perhaps Michelangelo, whose fantastic sculpture of David (as in the chap who defeated Goliath) has withstood 5 centuries. 

Time on the other hand, cannot be stopped, or encapsulated as we know it. It moves. Along with it, all of humankind and animals and flora and fauna are caught in this dimension. Hence, when we are in this world, we tend to zone out the dimenion of time and hence, just coast along unthinkingly that this dimension is fast running away.

At Rue Cler in Paris Dec 2016 

Life is precious, and every second, every minute is a second or a minute gone. So use the time we have wisely. You never know when that time runs out. Well to a certain extent, we do know what the life expectancy of a man or a woman,dog, cat. How many of us actually hit that mark is more likely only 50%.

Just some useless musings on this Saturday morning 10th November 2018. 

Da Vinci's Last Supper at Duomo Santa Maria in Milan taken Dec 2nd 2017