January 2004 Archives

I enjoyed one of these while in St. John. I usually don't like fruity drinks, and I really don't like flavored spirits as a rule, but this was delicious. So, I got the recipe. Make sure you use Cruzan rums... the flavored rums that are more common just don't give the right taste.

1 part Cruzan Coconut Rum
1 part Cruzan Pineapple Rum
1 part Cruzan Banana Rum

shake over ice in a martini glass and serve.

The finished product is crystal-clear and very refreshing. It drinks like juice, so be careful! This is essentially pure rum—it's only disguised as juice.

For those who didn't know, I just got back from the first vacation I've been on in about eight years. I mean, I took the occasional long weekend, and even took a small weekend trip to DC for a wedding, but this is the first real vacation.

The destination was Maho Bay Camps: a series of "eco-tents" situated along the (very steep) hillside of Maho Bay on St. John, USVI. The "tents" are more like tree-houses, nestled atop the tropical plants and trees on the north side of the island. The entire operation was run with respect for nature, complete with recycled water, no-flush urinals, and even a communal "visitor sharing center" (which does not allow visitors to share each other, but rather it provides an easy way to share items like left-over sunscreen, bug spray, etc. so that there is less need to produce trash).

The rooms were simple, frugal and most importantly fun. They call them "camps" instead of rooms because that's really what they are: you are not in a luxury resort, but are camping among nature in a tropical paradise. The tree-house tents are bug-proof and rain proof, and have real beds with mattresses, a cook-stove, and (limited) electricity, so it's a bit cushy for camping, but it's still fundamentally camping. Personally, I love that, but it probably isn't for everyone.

The views, of course, were spectacular, but not necessarily from the tents themselves. The tents were so nestled among the trees that you only could catch scattered glimpses of the beach while lying in bed. The views offered only slightly better glimpses while sitting out on the deck drinking Cruzan rum. The overall effect, despite the difficult views towards the beach, was fantastic. The individual camps were spaced well enough apart that there was an extreme sense of privacy, and each was interconnected to the beaches, showers, restaurant shops, etc. by ewok-style boardwalks. It was very other-worldly... or maybe its better to say that it was very this-worldly; it brought me closer to nature than I have been in a while.

The beaches were great: there were two that were very easily accessible from the camps, and one that was just a short climb away, over a rocky outcrop at the edge of one of the first beaches. Each had little pockets of coral along the edges making casual snorkeling rewarding. A short hike from Maho Bay to Waterlemon Bay was even more rewarding: there I saw a colony of about a hundred starfish, each over a foot in diameter. Also, three large (maybe 16-inches long?) iridescent blue squid swimming in formation and sea-urchins that would make the heartiest sailor cry for mommy.

As mentioned, the view from the beach was fantastic. This is the view from little Maho beach, just about 100 yards from our camp. This was taken early, when there weren't any people on the beach yet. It did fill up, being the closest beach to over 100 camps, but there were so many activities, hikes, pottery classes, glass-blowing demonstrations, yoga classes, and you-name-it going on that there usually weren't many more than one or two dozen people on the beach at any one time. The glass-blowing was fun to watch: as one of many efforts to Reduce Reuse and Recycle, the empty beer bottles and other waste-glass were collected, melted down, and used to make blown-glass items such as bowls, bird-feeders, pendants, sun-catchers, vases, etc.

We did our share to support the enterprise by buying lots of glass... a great gift idea, but very difficult to transport home. We also did our share to support the profit-hungry renters of beach chairs, snorkel gear, wet-suits, etc. EVERYTHING was available for rent... if we had known better and/or planned better, we could have saved ourselves a lot of money. The end result was worth it, though.

One of the highlights of the trip was an unguided hike to see some native petroglyphs, deep in the V.I. national forest. This is about a half-day hike, which took us to the sacred fresh-water pool of the Tainos. The trail began at the head of the Reef Bay Trail and then detoured onto the Petroglyph Trail, which we found without difficulty thanks to a sign that said "PETROGLHYP TRAIL". However, someone was kind enough to stick a small note on the sign with the correct spelling of "Petroglyph" so we didn't lose our way. I didn't get too many pictures of the petroglyphs on my digital camera, and the "real" pictures aren't developed yet, but the two links provided offer some great images and a lot of interesting info as well.

One of the things that really surprised me was the cost and quality of the food at Maho Bay Camps. The camps, along with some studios that offered slightly more comfortable living, shared a restaurant. Food (and everything else for that matter) on St. John is expensive because everything has to be flown into St. Thomas and then ferried over. However, the restaurant offered $6 breakfasts and $17 dinners, which included everything (no tax, no tipping allowed). Dinner came with bread and a salad bar. Drink were extra, and a variety of wines and beer were available, including draft McEwans Ale, Guinness, Newcastle Brown and (of course) the local Carib. The abundance of British beer is no doubt attributed to the proximity of the British Virgin Islands, which you could almost swim to, they were that close.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the food was that it was excellent. Each day offered a menu of four entrÈes, one of which was always vegetarian. They included such things as coconut curried shrimp, grilled tofu, cuban pork, etc. and each was prepared with a fine combination of island spice and a lot of care. The grilled tofu was particularly delicious, and I regretted having ordered the Grouper with Mushroom and Clam epinade after tasting from my wife's plate. It inspired me to purchase many spices and sauces so that I can experiment until I somehow replicate it. I would challenge anymore to eat this meal and then still claim that they "don't like tofu".

Anyway, that's it for now. More pictures to come once the camera is repaired (did I mention that our Nikon SLR was killed by the humidity?), and once we develop the 35mm film.

I have returned from my vacation in the Virgin Islands. It was a sad departure, and an immediate drop of about 60 degrees fahrenheit. However, I am looking forward to seeing friends and family, sharing some great rum cocktail recipes, and finally nipping down to pick up a bottle of Sara Witbeir (yes, I've been thinking about that all week despite being on a tropical island).

Pictures are forthcoming, as soon as I can find the damned cable to sync my digital camera.

I tried the Ephemere from Unibroue last night. It is a wonderful light Ale-on-Lees in the tradition of Unibroue's signature ales. It had a definite hint of Apple, but it did not overpower the crisp and spicy flavor of the ale. Overall, it went down smooth... making me thankful that this champagne-corked 750ml bottle of ale only clocked in at 5.5% alcohol content. Any stronger and I would have felt it, because I'd quaffed the whole bottle before I even knew it.

The aftertaste was pleasant and didn't linger overlong. I enjoyed it with some gourmet salami and a Hop-crusted Hautefort that I picked up from the new grocer Enoteca Italiana, in Kittery Maine. It's a bit out of the way, but worth it.

I've realized something during the painful process of promoting the book. That is, you can't sell jack anymore unless you pick up a fork and start shoveling SPAM.

It saddens me that I've had to stoop this low. I am ashamed.

I tried out a new dojo on Tuesday night: the Twin Dragons dojo. It' s a small outfit run by two of the instructors from my original school, The Portsmouth Dojo. It was a blast... not a super-serious workout, but enough to make me feel it. And it reminded me how karate can be fun—we were joking and laughing and catching up (the four of us there hadn't seen each other in almost six months).

I think that I'll continue to stop by when I can; my travel and book schedule are still keeping me way too busy. Luckily, they let you pay per class so it's going to be easier to do financially.

I've been working hard at the job, which means a lot of travel. I've also been working hard at the book, which means most off-work hours are spent, well, working.

Well, at 4:00am EST on Friday January 23, 2003 that is going to end. From that time until the following wednesday, I will be in tropical paradise. My beautiful wife will join me here:

And our day will consist of the following routine:

8am: roll out of bed and into a hammock
8-10am: read in said hammock.
10am-12 noon: Practice karate on the beach (wife will practice yoga)
noon: eat ripe fruit, maybe drink a little rum.
noon - 3pm: splash around on the beach, read more, sleep in the sand
3pm - 6pm: drink rum
6pm - 7pm: eat dinner, while drinking rum
7pm - ? : drink rum

The next day might start later than 8am, depending on how late into the evening the rum-drinking goes.

Although I've been extremely busy trying to marketing the book with no money, I have been finding a little time here and there to slowly pluck away (pun intended) at the next book. The working title is Cluck. There's a small snippet from a very early draft here if you're interested. It's basically a parody that mixes up some comedy, some horror, and some "one-word-title thriller" type adventure.

It's hard to describe. I'm shooting to have it categorized as a mystery; even though it has elements of horror in it, those elements are countered with comedy, leaving the story to stand mostly on the merits of the underlying mystery.

The preliminary feedback that I've gotten on Cluck is even better than the original feedback for Out of Place Out of Time. It's in the very early stages (a complete outline and almost a complete first draft), so I would expect to be finished with it by next spring. However, as it might stand to benefit from an October launch, I might delay publication until 10/1/2005.

It will appeal (I think) to the same crowd of adults and young-adults that admire the Harry Potter stories, and/or anyone who has read and enjoyed Terry Pratchett. Right now, it's probably a little bit too "adult" (read: graphic, not porno-grpahic) for any mainstream market, so I'll try to tone it down a bit during upcoming re-writes and drafts.

I took today off to market the book, but ended up only making it halfway through the honey-do list, with no time left in the day to much of anything else.

Oh well. I did manage to get the place looking pretty nifty.

[Update] Mop 'N Glo is a new product to me. So it's not my fault that I just nearly broke my hip skating across the kitchen floor like 'Elmo on Ice'.

I present photographic evidence that you should never drink and fold.

This masterpiece was created by my own dear wife after just two manhattans and one martini. And a few glasses of wine. And... well, you get the idea.

At first I was going to post this on www.drstowel.com, but I felt it was probably of more interest to the casual blog reader than it was of any significance to my book. With my book just barely available through online distribution channels, I've already reached a sales rank of 1,707,560. This isn't great. The best selling book has a sales rank of 1. But this is a significant event in that it is not the worst sales rank there is. That means that despite a complete lack of real marketing, being written by an unknown author, and barely having been available for order, my book has already sold slightly better than hundreds of others.

Barnes & Nobel is still in a fluctuating state of "No New Copy is Available at This Time" that I have been unable to rectify. The book has not been available for weeks now... and a sales rank did pop up briefly but is now hidden from view once more. The sales rank was 186,000 (ish) on B&N.com, but I have no frame of reference against which to judge this. Is this fantastic, as it would seem when compared to the Amazon rank? Or (more likely), does B&N simply rank their books differently so that the upward reaches of bad-book-sale-figures do not reach the 1.7 million mark? Again, it is significant in that there were worse ranks out there. Only time will tell, I suppose.

On my return flight from Nephi, United airlines entertained me with "Under a Tuscan Sun". My first thought was that I wanted to see this movie on some level: it had received critical acclaim and looked like it might be something more than the "chick flick" that it was billed as. However, I wanted to see this with my wife, as she expressed interest in it while it was still in the theaters. Sadly, we missed it. I decided to plug my headphones in so that the movie would provide a backdrop while I finished up some writing, so that I could rent it later. Not being one to watch a movie twice, I didn't want to ruin it for my wife.

However, it is hard to write an convincing horror-comedy while there is an extremely romantic movie playing, and I was quickly drawn in. Luckily, I was impressed so much by the story, the acting and even the cinematography that I will happily watch this movie again. However, this is not a movie review. It's an observation about how we cut out the good bits. This observation came while writing a bit from story (below) and noticing at almost the same time that a scene had been edited. I've worked in film and theater enough (albeit long ago) to recognize when something doesn't quite fit, and in this case it was the shortening of a scene. It was obvious that a well-filmed take had been cut back for some reason: most likely due to attention spans of movie goers and the desire to produce a movie that was "the right length". The right length for a movie, to me, is how long it takes to tell the story, and to show in as much magnificence as possible the characters and events of that story. It is for this very same reason that I felt the Lord of The Rings movie trilogy was too short. If you ask me, they should have broken the books down into the original six (each part of the trilogy is actually two books) because there's that much to show us. But I digress.

The bit that I wrote was this:

"The problem with a person breaking tradition is that traditions are built from more than just one person. When one person turns from the defined path, they can loose sight of this fact, and expect that through whatever epiphany they were freed must also have enlightened everyone and everything else involved. But, sadly and more commonly to the immediate detriment of the enlightened individual, the rest of tradition is more likely to rebel and hold even tighter to the framework upon which they are built. Traditions do not like to be broken. They resist it. They fight back."

The point is that a perfectly great movie was fighting against expectations, and the movie lost. Sadly, something important had been removed. Quite possibly for no other reason than tradition.

In history, some of the most important events of mankind--in art, science and philosophy--were the results of directly defying tradition, and I can't help but wonder if "Under the Tuscan Sun" might have been that much more enjoyable had something not been hidden from me. I hope that some of the boundaries of "traditional movie making" might have been broken by the highly successful LOTR movies, and that we might more epic attempts at storytelling in the future, with less formula and sadly predictable tradition.

I'll still watch it again, mind you. It was a really well made movie. There was attention to detail that was respectable and often innovative. But I know there was more. I just know it. They cut a bit, and to me, that bit could have been a good bit.

Yeah, you get the idea. It's cold. Very cold. Very, very cold.

I'm very happy that I have a new car, because I don't think the old one would have started today. In fact, I just went out to start the new car, and it gave me a little bit of resistance. Sort of a car's version of, "What are f'in kidding me?" The LED's on the in-dash computer are barely operational enough to tell me that, without wind-chill, it is a balmy 5 degrees Fahrenheit. That's -15 celsius, for those who were wondering. With wind chill, it is supposedly -5 to -10 F, or -20 to -23 C.

Yup, it's cold enough to resurrect that old-time New-Englandism, Balmy. Balmy (pronounced Ball-mee) is an interesting term in New England because it is only used sarcastically. Ever. You will never ever in a million years hear someone say it's balmy out when it really is balmy. We only say it when it's really freakin' cold outside. Cold enough to put goosebumps on your...

For those who have been waiting, my novel Out of Place Out of Time: The Testimony of Dr. Trenton Stowel is now available to order online in several places. While I'm personally fond of Barnes & Noble, bn.com is lagging behind, and for some reason they aren't allowing anyone to order the book, even though it's listed.

For more info on the book, hop on over to www.DrStowel.com.

For the latest book news visit the news page.

I'm not overly political. But this caught my attention. Hopefully, the right-wing crowd can find humor in this also.

Google Search for "Miserable Failure"

Is it just me? I mean, I'm the first to admit that I am not overly pro-child. My wife lacks a real maternal instinct, and it's rubbed off on me a bit. So, maybe I'm being a little hard...

But to me, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Steve Irwin walking his infant like a marionette towards the waiting jaws of a hungry croc. Why? Well, first of all, the croc wasn't hungry. He just fed it, with baby safely held at his shoulder. Secondly, this is STEVE IRWIN. He's been doing this since... I don't know. I bet it's been for a long time. I'm willing to bet that his dad dangled him in front of a croc when he was a lil' babe.

In short, I don't think there is a problem with the behavior because I honestly believe that he was in complete control and that the baby was in no real danger. I could be wrong. If I am wrong, than yes Steve did a bad thing.

But this whole tirade comes down to an observation that does two things:

1. Targets me for attack. Really, I'm not anti-kid. I'm not a horrible man. I would never suggest anything other than that parents should keep their children safe at all times.
2. Well, that's all it accomplishes really. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.

The observation is this: Why are people so incensed by the croc-hunter "potentially putting his child in harms way" while at the same time turning a blind eye (or at least a quiet one) to definitely harmful situations that children live in every day. I think the child of a parent who chain-smokes is in more danger than Irwin Junior. As are children who live in crime-infested neighborhoods. The children of crack addicts are probably at high risk also.

You get my point, I'm sure. Putting things in perspective, I think that Crocodile Dundee is pretty harmless. He's still a complete weird-o, but a harmless one.

But still, I have one question for Steve. Click here to hear it.

...is really very easy. I sell my current 10Gb iPod on eBay for $150, and get a brand new "mini iPod"!

Well, OK... that doesn't really solve the problem of how to connect it to my car's stereo, but at least I would be trying to connect a new iPod instead of an old one :-)

Seriously though, with the multitude of iPod rumors floating around the Internet, one of them is bound to be true, meaning we will get a $100-ish smaller iPod with some nifty new features. When? Today, if the rumors are true. Of course, for me the point is really moot... even if I did hawk my old 'pod on eBay, I can't afford to be buying gadgets. My backside still hurts from paying all the Christmas bills (my office chair isn't very comfy).

As previously reported, we have had an Invisible Fence installed to contain our new puppy. The puppy (whose name is Pavlov) is a bluetick coonhound; a notoriously un containable breed. Yet, after only one week of training (out of the required four-week regiment), the little guy won't go anywhere near the borders of our yard. Throw a Frisbee into the road, and he sits a respectful 10 feet away staring forlornly but remaining motionless.

It's unbelievable. I'll keep posting updates, but based on what I've seen so far, I would recommend this product to anyone.

I'm crazy... despite still being hung over, and despite my New Years resolution (which is to be more healthy), I am going to a second "New Year's" party tonight.

Wish me luck. I'll need it.