Instant Recall from my Schooldays

About a half hour ago I walked down to out mail box - it is about a 50 yard walk down a steep incline and is surrounded by maples and oaks. I was immediately taken back more than 50 years (gee - am I that old?) to my schooldays. It is autumn or fall here in the North Country, and already many of the colorful leaves of the woods and forests of the area are lying on the ground. Today there is steady rain falling outside - it has been falling for some time and is due to continue into the early hours of the morning - indeed there is s flash flood warning out for the region, with much heavier rain forecast for later today. So how was I taken back all that time?

Well, my High School education was at Bromsgrove School in the County of Worcestershire in the UK. Back in those days the quad (I believe it is now called Gordon Green) was surrounded by horse-chestnut trees, and at exactly this time of the year, when the leaves were on the ground and had started to rot, they gave off a distinctive and, to me, very pleasant aroma. I experienced that same aroma today for the first time in all those years (I never once experienced it during my 42 years in southern Africa), and my brain or or consciousness immediately recognized and recalled where I had last smelled it.

The brain and our consciousness is a wonderful thing, with billions and billions of connections between its neurons - more than the number of stars in our galaxy. I have several previous posts that refer to it - just do a search for "consciousness" at the top of the page if you would like to read them. To be able to instantly recall something that has been "in storage" for 55 years is quite remarkable.

Fryeburg Fair

In concluding my previous post I promised to write about our visit to the Fryeburg Fair. Fryeburg is the oldest town in Maine's Oxford County and was settled in the mid 1750's. The town's Fryeburg Academy, a day and boarding prep school, was founded in 1792 and is one of America's oldest schools. The fair is held every year in late September and early October, and attracts more than 300,000 visitors, the season coinciding with a massive influx of tourists to the region to view the Fall foliage.

We drove down to Fryeburg on Saturday 4th October, my grandson Luke's 2nd birthday, following Route 302 through Littleton, Bethlehem, Bartlett and North Conway. This route takes you through the spectacular Crawford Notch around the foot of Mount Washington, and past the renowned Mount Washington Hotel, which opened in 1902.

It was unfortunate that the enjoyment of the day was marred by inclement weather. One of the main reasons that Liz and I visited the fair was to see the exhibits in the Natural Resource Center, which I had strong recollections of from my previous visit to the fair 9 years ago.This time we made some interesting woodworking contacts as well as meeting several people of interest. One of the most out of the ordinary exhibits was that of Antique Wagons, all of which turned out to be wonderfully restored Gypsey wagons. It's a pity that they were the only genre!

We returned to the North Country by way of the Kancamagus Highway, which winds through New Hampshire's White Mountains from Conway to Lincoln. On the way the rain, which had been mostly drizzle until then, became harder and harder, and by the time we hit Littleton it was a regular downpour. All in all though, a memorable day.

Fall - a Time of Change

It is a time of change here in New England. Autumn (or Fall as it is called in the States) started officially a few days ago, heralded by the pagan festival of Beltane. The magnificent forests of the North Country are starting to change into the glorious colors that Fall brings. The ever-green hardwood trees of summer - oaks, elms, maples and birches - have started their seasonal change of costume, bringing red, brown, orange and yellow hues to the already beautiful landscape. This is an event that has to be seen, and sees thousands of tourists pour into the region to witness it.

Today's picture

The time of change has come to our lives too. A few weeks back I discovered that I did not need to fly back and forth to the UK every 90 days, and have submitted the appropriate forms, documents and moneys to the USCIS. At about the same time Liz started a new job. She had been working at the local county nursing home in dietary - a job she had come to hate - the 5 a.m. rising, lack of benefits and an environment in which she was surrounded by Alzheimer's and other age-related ailments. She loves her new job, is making new friends, will soon be getting excellent benefits, and has regular hours.

At about the same time all of our freight arrived from Cape Town - all 105 boxes of it. We have only been able to unpack a small amount - the apartment we have rented is only 725ft² - ridiculously small when compared with the 4,570ft² of our Eastern Cape farmhouse. Anyway to cut a long story short this has prompted us to look for a larger property, and a few days ago we viewed what would be an ideal one. It is a good size, has loads of storage space, a heated workshop - in short, just our cup of tea, which has just prompted me to switch on the kettle. We also found what would be a good vehicle for me - a 2002 Subaru Legacy AWD station wagon with only 67,700 miles on the clock. Now all we have to do is raise finance for the to items, so "hold thumbs" please and say a few prayers for us.

In a little over a week's time Liz and I will be taking in the Fryeburg Fair in Maine. I visited it this time 9 years ago and was awestruck. Look forward to a report back on this page shortly.

Quantum Entangled Scrambled Eggs

I'm always making note of when I can see some sort of proof of the Quantum Entanglement theory working, and this morning added to the many examples that I have documented when skyping Liz from a distance of 5,000 miles. Today though we were much closer. I was seated at the dining room table with a fresh cup of black coffee, and thinking to myself that in all the time I had been over here, we had not once had scrambled eggs for breakfast. As I was about to take another sip of my hot coffee, Liz said "I think I'd like to make scrambled eggs for a change". Now if that is not QE then I'd like to know what it is, and whether any of my readers have had similar experiences.

For the uninitiated let me explain. Quantum Entanglement is a branch of Quantum Physics, which in turn is the science of physics at a sub-atomic level. You are probably unaware that billions of dollars are spent every year in Quantum research. One of the results of this research is that quantum physicists have shown that many of the phenomena known as paranormal can be explained quite logically at the subatomic level. Consciousness itself has been theorized as being a quantum event that happens in the brain - which would account for this morning's breakfast treat. Included in the paranormal phenomena that can be explained are extra sensory perception, ghosts, deja vu, UFOs, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance and near death experience. Even the afterlife can be explained in terms of quantum physics.

By the way - the scrambled eggs were delicious!

Don't fly Emirates Airlines - Emirates sucks

I have been in the UK for a little over a week, having completed the first, and I had hoped the last, of my 90-day visits to Liz, Julie and the grandchildren. I fly back to Boston on Monday for another 90 days. I just wish that Homeland Security or Immigration or whoever back in the States would pull finger and get on with processing my I-130 and all it implies. Flying backwards and forwards across the Pond does not come cheap. Which brings me on to my title piece.

Yes. Emirates Airlines really sucks. They are completely unhelpful and remind me of the Middle Eastern attitude that I experienced in Abu Dhabi 25 years ago. Here's what happened just 3 months ago. I flew with Emirates from Johannesburg to Dubai and after a 4-hour stand-over from Dubai to Boston at the end of April. While disembarking in Dubai mu laptop was left behind on the Boeing 777 - something that I immediately realized and did something about. This included reporting the incident, contacting the aircraft cleaners, the police and the lost luggage department. I was assisted in this regard by a very helpful Emirates ground hostess.

Once at my destination I phoned Emirates, and was given an email address to write to, which I did, explaining the incident carefully and the lost laptop in detail. On 1st May I received an email from Emirates advising me that my laptop had been found, and that if I would advise them of the airport to send it to, they would forward it sine mora. I wrote back with those details (Boston Logan) immediately. Imagine my surprise when I received a further email a day or two later advising me that my laptop had been forwarded to some third party at the King Fahad International Airport in Saudi Arabia.

Naturally this sparked off a number of emails from me to various Emirates departments, asking for the situation to be clarified. To this day I have yet to receive a reply - in fact I have been completely ignored. The whole business reeks of incompetence and a complete lack of interest in helping out a desperate passenger. I estimate that the value of hardware and data that went missing is far in excess of $10,000, and if anyone can recommend a lawyer who might be willing to take on a case against Emirates I would be most grateful.

My laptop case and laptop contained more than Internet 6,500 articles, landing pages and entire website content written by myself, an unfinished copy of my memoirs, photographs and other memorabilia collected over a wide span of years, a 500 gB external drive,  hard copy documents such as birth certificates and other important documentation.