INTERESTING TIMES

When I go on a trip, I keep three lists.  GIB, WIH, and DN are abbreviations for the lists: Glad I Brought, Wisht I Had, and Didn't Need.  Based on these lists I am able to refine my packing for that actvitiy or destination.  I'm going to share with you what I learned about packing for a trip to Kauai, Hawaii in December.  If you use this system, you will clarify your own packing lists.
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I was wearing my new black PEACE T-shirt, that says shalom in Hebrew and something analogous in Arabic.  We were walking back to our condo along the coastal trail in Kapa'a, and I stopped in the restroom to let off happy hour.  While I was in there the locals accosted Will and he approached a pack of 4 guys and one gal who were hanging out by a sign.  One guy tried to sell him some herb, and when he didn't want any, asked to buy some.  When I came out of the rest room, I approached Will and the gang at the sign, and the woman asked if he was my man, and said something about how I should tell those guys to be nice to him.  At this point two of the guys left, leaving only the two, one young, one old, crouched beside the sign.  The woman, who turns out to be named Laura and has lived 44 years on Kauai, is of hispanic origin as indicated by her perturbation of my name.  She was tipsy.  Had all her teeth so I didn't suspect meth.  The remaining two brown men never entered the conversation, they stared at the ground and sneaked peeks at us when we looked away.  The woman kept talking about clothing and climates and places she had been, and Will was polite and engaged.  I was watching his back, watching our backs, because there were a lot of people toward the beach from us and the men weren't acting friendly.  A white man, drunk, passed by us and I turned to watch him.  He approached me and said we should not be at this beach, "It is not a good beach, not good people" and he told me we should move along.  He shook my hand and left.  I started backing away from Laura, and turning around to watch the goings ons in the parking lot.  My body language would tell anyone that I was watching for hazards and extricating myself from her.  Eventually Will managed to get away and she finally took the cue and made her goodbyes.  I didn't need to hear any more about her clothing challenges when traveling.  I know how cold it can be in Oregon.  And I didn't want to be around if the natives were restless.  I do think she was trying to protect us.  Thank you Laura and all the peace loving people of the world.  Thank you for tolerating the clueless tourists.

Only one type of plastic does not float *in salt water at least*, and that is type I PETE plastic, the hard clear kind that drink bottles are made of. It is the most abundantly manufactured kind, and it does not float.

Types of Plastic:
1 PET
2 HDFE
3 PVC (rafts)
4 CDPE (bags)
5 PP
6 PS (polystyrene)
7 Other

I posted once about the Great Pacific Waste Dump, basically just parroting media hype. It turns out the plastic in the ocean is mostly in tiny bits instead of in a big island of capped bottles. It is thickest in the five GYRES on the planet, which appear to me to be doldrums where there are no tradewinds or strong currents. The most directly alarming thing about the litter of plastic bits is that it is covered in life that is migrating in a whole new way. Barnacles, biofilm and plankton all hitch a ride or get tangled in the mess. We had NO IDEA what this is going to mean in the long run. A new name has been coined for all the microorganisms on the polypropylene and polyethlene in the ocean: the Plastisphere. The only organism named by Emelia DeForce PhD in last night's Science Pub talk was Vibrio, the same genus as cholera. I was dying to ask if MRSA was on the plastic around Hawaii but we left because the line was long and we were done. All the factoids in this post are courtesy of Dr DeForce.

Plastic is made from crude oil into nerdles (sp?), which are small balls of hard petroleum product. Those can then be shipped to the manufacturers who combine them with additives and make their product.

OTEC = Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

( on an interesting way to generate electricity from temperature stratification in the ocean )