The Richter Scale^®

My family and I had a rare experience yesterday - we were invited to a friend’s home on Bonaire to meet former NASA Astronaut Charles Bolden. Charlie, as he asked us to call him, is on Bonaire with his wife and daughter as part of a week long visit to share his experiences - both on terra firma and in space - with children, teens, and anyone else interested, in the hopes that they will see that the sky truly is the limit in what one can accomplish if one works hard enough towards achieving one’s goals. 

Pictured above, in a photo by Bob Lassiter, are my family (Linda, Bas, Krystyana, and myself) with Astronaut Charles Bolden.

As part of his visit to Bonaire, Bolden will be announce the winners of several space related contests set up to coincide with his visit.

Never having knowingly met an astronaut before, we were pleasantly surprised to find Charlie to be a very warm, engaging, and just plain nice person. His friendly demeanor was even able to crack the usually shy facade our son Bas puts up when strangers try to engage him in conversation, and to my mind, that’s saying a lot. Charlie is sure to be a big hit with the schools he is visiting next week with his obvious charm and delight in sharing his world with children and adults alike.

The other thing which was unexpected, but in hindsight should not have been, was that Charlie was shorter than I had expected - and this was a common comment heard at the small reception we attended. One just assumes that someone who has exited the Earth’s atmosphere would be tall and imposing, but the hindsight comes in that U.S. Air Force pilots, and by extension, astronauts, have maximum height requirements due to the limited cockpit space and the extreme cost of space suits, which I understand to be produced to fit a limited range of body types.

My wife and I are pleased to have been able to help sponsor Charles Bolden’s trip to Bonaire, and hope that he will inspire at least a few of the youths on the island to reach for the stars.

I just finished posting the Bonaire Insider’s first ever review entry, about a fabulous dinner at the new Tex-Mex restaurant on Bonaire - Papaya Moon Cantina. You can see the full review here.

I went with my wife Linda, and our two kids, and we had a most excellent meal. I truly had never expected to have excellent Tex-Mex on Bonaire, so this was a very welcome surprise. My only dilemma is how to balance my newfound lusting after the Raspberry Lemon Tiramisu with my low-carb diet.

I give Papaya Moon Cantina a 9.0 out 10.0 on The Richter Scale.

A few weeks ago, my wife Linda and I were fortunate enough to have been invited to participate in a regional gathering of one of the organizations we belong to, the Chaine des Rotisseurs, a gastronomic association devoted to the enjoyment of fine food and wine. The regional gathering, known as a “Confrerie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs”, was organized by the Atlantic Caribbean Assemblage in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The Bonaire Bailliage of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, to which Linda and I belong, is actually directly under France, and not part of the Atlantic Caribbean region of Chaine, which is part of the United States Chaine. Nevertheless, we were invited because we are in the Caribbean and knew Drs. Marcelo and Virgen Oben, two of the organizers, whom we had met at a Chaine event in Curacao three years ago.

In sum, the long weekend entailed an evening with eleven of the best chefs of San Juan at a “Taste of Puerto Rico” dinner, an amazing wine tasting the next day, followed by a black tie French Gala Dinner Dance. On the final day we had a wonderful brunch. Linda and I also took an extra day to visit the famous Bacardi rum factory and go shopping. We had a very nice and relaxing time, made some new friends, and ate and drank very well.

Kudos to the Chaine Bailliages of Puerto Rico who hosted us and did an absolutely incredible job organizing and running all these events!

Instead of boring you with more written details, I will instead point you here to my photo gallery of our time in Puerto Rico at the beginning of November.

I finally got home to Bonaire a couple nights ago, and among the first things I did was hook up my new HD-DVD drive to my Xbox 360 (which is connected to my Samsung 62” 720p DLP via the VGA/PC cable). Installation was a breeze, although in hindsight I should have connected the USB cable to the back of the Xbox 360 before loading the installation software because as it was, I managed to unplug a couple of things in the back of my Xbox 360 when trying to cable things up during the software installation. I then put the new HD-DVD drive through its paces with “King Kong” in HD-DVD format (included with the drive - also included was an Xbox 360 remote).

I also dug out my regular wide screen version of King Kong for regular DVD playback, put it in my upscaling DVD player, and then sync’d up both the HD and regular titles to the same point in the movie so I could compare current technology (DVD) and new technology (HD DVD).

All I can say is “Wow!”.

I had not realized what I had been putting up with as “good” quality with my regular DVDs until I compared them to the output of HD DVDs. And it’s only going to get better once I get my 1080p HDTV delivered in a few weeks. Last night I watched “16 Blocks” on the HD-DVD drive, and was tickled to be able to read the print on signs, papers, and other props in the movie with great ease because of the image clarity.

Whereas there are all sorts of scaling artifacts in the DVD image, the HD-DVD image is incredibly crisp and a delight to behold. My only complaint, and this is a minor one indeed, is that the HD-DVD drive has no display on it to show me how far along into the movie I happen to be during viewing. I know I can get the Xbox 360 to show this to me on-screen, but it’s visually disruptive.

In any event, now that I have tasted HD-DVD, I will be hard pressed to go back to regular DVD where a choice between the two exists. And as I was one of the unfortunate many unable to procure a Sony PS3 on Friday, I won’t be testing Blu-ray DVDs any time soon, although I suspect the visual difference between Blu-ray and HD DVD to be minimal or non-existant.

One thing I do like about HD-DVD titles I purchased is that most of them seem to include a DVD version as well, so that in locations where I don’t have HD-DVD playback (like my notebook computer when I travel) I can still watch the movie without having to buy a second DVD-only copy (as if I would do that anyhow). And Amazon.com has a deal where if you buy three HD-DVDs you’ll get a 10% discount on all HD-DVDs in 2007. Nice little additional bonus.

Now I need to go buy another HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 in my bedroom… At $199 it’s a pretty good deal, I think.

I give the HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 a 9.0 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale.

By now we have all probably seen the amazing devotion a die hard group of people have had to the Sony PS3 on the news, with a stampede at a Wal-Mart up north, shooting at people in a PS3 line in New England, and people traveling from outside the U.S. to wait in line for a PS3 as well.

I had opportunity to be in the Miami area yesterday (the pre-launch day) for shopping of my own. Okay - I did entertain a brief thought I might be able to score a PS3 by waiting in line too, but once I saw the line in front of Circuit City (see above), which I learned had started on Tuesday, I gave up that hope.

If you look closely at that picture, you’ll see Gaming Granny there on the right. I can’t compete in a line with the inherent patience someone like Gaming Granny has, never mind that the Circuit City had only 40 units coming in and there were already more than 40 people in line (the folks in the rear either being optimists or ignorant - not sure which is worse).

I must say I was impressed that some gamer managed to rope his grandmother into waiting in line for him while he was off doing something else (working?). I heard that elsewhere folks were hiring the homeless to wait in line for them. Capitalism at its best, I’m sure.

The line at BestBuy in Hialeah was even worse - probably close to 100 people. I asked the BestBuy employee monitoring the line if he had a box of Kleenex for the folks at the back of the line who would be crying after spending a couple of days waiting for nothing. He said, “Let them cry on the sidewalk.” Heartless, and full of disdain. He was probably bitter because store employees were not able to buy units themselves at launch.

An interview published in USA Today quoted a young man who was waiting in line to buy a PS3 - not to play it, but instead to sell it on-line, because he needed the money. And with PS3s listing on eBay for numbers as high as $2000, waiting in line for a couple of days for a 300% return isn’t a bad deal, I guess.

For those looking to buy launch time PS3s to actually play themselves, I question how many of them have the requisite display hardware necessary to really let the PS3 show off its mettle. That means a TV or display device with HDMI in and 1080p display capability. Very few HDTVs on the market presently offer 1080p resolution, and the ones that do aren’t exactly cheap - the price of a loaded PS3 is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of a decent sized HDTV with 1080p capabilities.

Sure, you can use a PS3 with a regular TV or even a newer (but not bleeding edge) 720p resolution HDTV, but that’s like owning a Corvette and driving the speed limit. It’s a waste, in my humble opinion.

With that in mind, planning for my future PS3 purchase once availability has improved, I bought a new Samsung 61” DLP HDTV with 1080p capability yesterday to replace my older 62” DLP 720p HDTV. Better yet, once it’s delivered on Bonaire, I will already be able to take advantage of it because a recent Xbox 360 update delivered by Xbox Live has enabled the Xbox 360 to output 1080p resolution signals both for games that support it, as well as with the new HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 (which I have also just picked up).

One parting comment - think of what would be possible politically in the U.S. if only those folks who slavishly waited in line for days for a gadget (or perceived profit) would be willing to commit the same level of devotion to political change in the U.S., perhaps for a third political party, or campaign reform, or… The mind boggles.

Back in August I had picked up a Subal housing with a pair of Sea & Sea YS-90 strobes so I could take my Nikon D200 underwater. As fate would have it, travel and a general lack of time kept me out of the water here on Bonaire, until yesterday.

I finally got a chance to both take the hour or more that it took to unwrap the housing and accessories and rig up my D200 DSLR, without leaks, and then take a nice leisurely hour-plus dive with friends Martin de Weger and Sebastian Schulherr. Martin is Dutch, Seb is from New York City, and both are long time repeat Bonaire visitors as well as moderators of BonaireTalk.

This was to be Martin’s 600th logged dive, and it was a nice one. We also did a thorough cleaning of the Bonaire ReefCam, one of the many WebCams on Bonaire that I am responsible for maintain and operating.

In any event, it had been perhaps five years since I last dove with a camera housed in a metal case, and I had forgotten about the 4-5 pounds of additional weight, so I had to work a bit harder to stay buoyant than I otherwise would.

The housed D200 is a pleasure to work with, though, especially as I get to use my strobes in TTL thanks to a little gadget from Sea & Sea which allows the YS-90s to sync properly to the iTTL of the Nikon D200. I never liked manual strobe twiddling and this gadget gives me yet another excuse to not need to bother with that.

I can tell however, that I will definitely need a fair number of additional dives with this rig in order to have it feel as comfortable as my old Nikon 8008s, which I had in a Subal housing as well, back five or more years ago.

I am pleased, though, that the D200 handles much more as did the old film SLRs underwater than do the present generation (and earlier) digital point and shoots. Fast focusing, great light balance, and the ability to immediately determine if my subject was in focus.

For those wanting to see my initial results (these all shot with the standard Nikon 18-70mm DX zoom lens), take a look at my visual dive log.

Outsiders often don’t quite understand the relation of Bonaire to Holland. Some assume our island is part of Holland, but it isn’t at present. But it will be next year as the Netherlands Antilles get dissolved.

What Bonaire is at present is one of five islands in the country of the Netherlands Antilles (the other four being Curacao, Sint Maarten, Saba, and St. Eustatius), and the Netherlands Antilles are in turn part of the Dutch kingdom (or more appropriately, Queendom).

And our monarch here is Her Royal Majesty, Queen Beatrix of the Royal House of Oranje (hope I got that all right).

Queen Beatrix is paying Aruba (another country under the Dutch kingdom) and the Netherlands Antilles a visit this week.

A couple of days ago she arrived with much fanfare on Bonaire - her first stop in the Netherlands Antilles. She was greeted by members of the Antillean government as well as Bonaire’s own Lt. Governor. Because of my work on Bonaire Insider, my partner Susan Davis and I were granted a press pass and were able to take a fair number of pictures (see here and here) and trail along with her entourage for several of her stops on the island. And then yesterday, I met the Queen personally as one of the artists whose works were on display at the exhibition she opened at Kas di Arte.

That’s me handing the Queen a small token of appreciation from Linda and myself (photo by Herman Leeuwen).

What struck me the most about the Queen’s visit is the genuine love, admiration, and enthusiasm her subjects on Bonaire have for her. There was regular cheering whereever she showed up, and a real sense of pride among all the people that yes, this was their Queen.

I must say that Queen Beatrix certainly exuded an amazing amount of charm and friendliness. One look at her and her warm smile, and you just sensed that she was a nice person. Or at least that was my first gut reaction. But our Dutch house guests (one of whom is a big fan of the Queen) say that perception is very true. What also amazed our house guests and us alike was how freely she mingled with the crowds. While there were body guards in evidence, they were typically at a distance, giving the Queen free reign (pun intended).

My daugter Krystyana (holding the flag) was one of many of the local school children greeting the Queen at the airport when she arrived. The Queen just walked out of the airport luggage area by herself before Krystyana had time to register who it was, apparently (photo by Susan Davis).

Certainly Queen Beatrix does not have the power of someone like my (as an American) president, George W. Bush, but she does seem to have nearly universal approval, something Bush does not, and for me that was a very stark contrast.

Queen Beatrix left Bonaire for Sint Maarten this morning and life is returning to normal here on Bonaire once again.