Quantum Forest

A pebble is not a pebble is not a pebble. There is a special one some where in this beach (see map). I just need time and my trusty orange bucket.

• Late 80s, riding an old bus late at night feeling loved.
• Going in a bus full of forestry students on the road to Constitución. It is autumn, the Nothofagus forest is exploding with colour and the music is Mercado Testaccio.
• A few days before leaving Valdivia in 1996, riding my old bicycle and the seagulls are flying around me. Everything looks still for a few seconds and we are part of the same flock.
• Orlando comes running towards me for a hug, he can not stop and pushes me. Anybody would think that he has not seen me for weeks, but it has been only a few hours.
• Marcela, Orlando and I are working in the garden. We are weeding and cleaning and that is it: simple.

There is something therapeautical about working with plants in the garden. There is the sense of achievement that is absent when working with intangible problems: I can see a small plant at the end of a day’s work.

In a previous post I complained about Taronga Zoo. I thought that the ticket (AUD30) was quite expensive—as anything that you could buy inside the zoo—and that the place was not that great. After arriving back in Hobart we went to Zoodoo, a wildlife park located in a farm near Richmond.

The contrast could not be bigger: the ticket was AUD12, the variety of animals much smaller but it was so much more fun. The place could be defined as a ‘red neck zoo’; there is no attempt at mimicking natural conditions for most species but its main intention is to make easy the interaction between people and zoo animals and Orlando loved it.

If you have children they will really enjoy a visit to Zoodoo. There is no serious attempt at animal conservation (compared to a normal zoo) but it certainly reinforces the love for animals.

A colleague of mine, who is having a baby pretty soon, was asking me about my experience with baby products during this last year or so.

Good products:

• Nappies (diapers for the US visitors): Huggies (by Kimberley Clark). Yes, disposables to keep what is left of my mental health. If you are into cotton nappies get a cleaning service. There is very little time available and I prefer sleeping over washing nappies.
• Baby wipes: stick to huggies again. I prefer the unscented ones, but some days I wish for any perfume to overcome the smell.
• Bottles: we tried three different brands: Pigeon, Pur, and Nuk. By far, the best ones were Pigeon with peristaltic nipple. Prefer wide neck over narrow neck, because they are easier to clean. Pur bottles (either normal or self-sterilising) tend to leak and nuk bottles have the weirdest looking teats of them all. When have you seen a real nipple like this?
• QV bath oil: really good in the bath, no smell.
• Infrared forehead thermometre: at first we tried one of those ear thermometres but they are hard to use with a baby moving.

Most useless things:

• Bath thermometre: one does not need this piece of useless crap. Even worse, the maximum temperature allowed in the thermometre was still too cold bor a decent bath (probably a lame attempt at avoiding lawsuits).
• The motion sensor that comes with the baby monitor. If used it will drive parents mad, because will go off at the most useless moments. In addition, it is not certified for monitoring babies susceptible to cot death. Just a gimmick for worried parents. Do yourself a favour and buy a simple monitor.
• Sterilizer: if you live in a civilised part of the planet, hot soapy water will do the job and save you time; good thing that we did not buy one. Only used it while in hospital.
• Baby packs: are used to carry clothing, bottles, nappies, etc. Packs designed for parents are often overpriced, low quality and not very functional. Buy a nice, properly designed backpack: it will save you money and you will get something useful. You will not have a Disney character printed on the pack, but baby will not care.

Worst products:

• Nappies: Snugglers (odd, by Kimberley Clark too)

Ambiguous

• Changing table: I rarely used it, prefering a bed with a cover for accidents, which happen!

Some times Orlando appears in this web log and people ask why did you choose that name? Well, Orlando has the advantage that is spelled the same (and with similar pronunciation) in English and Spanish. No, I do not have any relatives with that name and did not know anybody with the name.

Other Orlandos

There is Tony Orlando, but I didn’t know about his existence before Orlando was born. More popular is Orlando in Shakespeare’s As you like it play. Funnily enough, the most well known Orlandos these days are Orlando Bloom (Legolas in the Lord of the rings movie) and Orlando, the city where Disney World is located. I say funnily because I am not interested in any of these two. Orlando is related to Orly and seems to be related to Rolando and Rowland.

I am writing this in Rotorua (New Zealand), where English and Maori meet in a big way. Maoris are often surprised by my pronunciation of Maori words, that appears to sound very well. Vowels in Maori are quite close to Spanish, so it is not really a reflection of my language skills, but just another linguistic accident.

We had some wonderful conversations with Peter in Wakefield, New Zealand (map). We were talking about the links between optimism and optimum and later Peter was telling me about the relationship between adventious events and religion. Then he mentioned the connection between Chrestos (sense auspicious, good) and Christianity. The word chrestos sounded familiar to me, when I remembered the word chrestomathy (a selection of literary passages).

While we were talking about the etymology of these words I mentioned that I thought there was a name for words of mixed etymology. I could not remember the word, and the closest I have got is to macaronic (yes, it sounds like pasta). Do you know the word I was thinking of? If you do, please contact me using this form. This is just another case of loganamnosis.

Sadly, my problems to find the word relate to the disappearance of The Agora (following the link you may get a ‘page not found’ error message). It is hard to create a vibrant internet community and it is so easy to destroy it. First it was the electronic implosion where there were thousands of posts lost. Then another minor implosion and then total disappearance. A real shame.

P.S. 2004-12-10. The Agora seems to be working again…

I always find surprising the clean and green motto used by New Zealand, particularly the green part. Driving with Marcela and Orlando from Christchurch to Wakefield (following the Kaikoura, Blenheim, Nelson route) the whole landscape has been transformed. There were only rare examples of the original native vegetation, but there were plenty of farms and wineries (with very nice white wines, by the way).

Yes, the place tends to be very clean and there is a surprisingly large number of public toilets (most of them quite clean). However, from an environmental point of view, New Zealand has been modified and transformed into a large farm. In fact, Tasmania is much ‘greener’ and with a larger forested proportion. It just happens to be drier and, therefore, the vegetation looks less green.

In summary, the motto seems to be clever marketing but quite far from reality. This takes me to another word used all the time with the motto: sustainability and the almost religious meaning of the word.

A few weeks ago I was asked in Tasmanian Times if plantation forestry was sustainable, mostly from a soil fertility viewpoint. Of course my answer was ‘it depends on site and silvicultural practices’. However, every time I answer this type of questions I have a feeling of uneasyness, because people seem to think that the idea is to repeat ‘exactly the same practices’ ad infinitum. That is, they assume a static world, where there is no technological change and no learning. For example, applying current techniques we would probably be able to keep growing plantations one after the other in the same site, while maintaining site productivity. However, most likely we will not use the same techniques and we will want to actually increase productivity while reducing the amount of land dedicated to production.

Last Friday night we arrived back from the land of the long white cloud (Aotearoa / New Zealand). It was a good trip and Orlando behaved really well in the planes, making Marcela’s and my life a lot easier. The first week was to participate in the biannual Research Working Group 2 (Forest Measurement and Information) meeting, while the second was travelling around the Northern part of the South Island.

Workwise David and I were quite happy with the meeting, and we were able to see that the work we are doing in inventory and growth modelling is of good standard and has nothing to envy to things done in the rest of Australia and New Zealand.

One of the best parts of the trip was the chance to see Jo and Peter in Wakefield (map, a few kilometers from the birthplace of Lord Rutherford). They are the closest thing to family that we have in this part of the world and it is always good to see them. They are restoring a 1875 farm house, which is turning to be beautiful. From a culinary viewpoint, the highlight was Strawberry Fare — a restaurant in 114 Peterborough Street, Christchurch (map) — where the list of desserts is longer than the list of mains and entrees. A delight for people with a sweet tooth (I mean people like me).

The low point of the trip was going through multiple security checks and related idiocy. On my way to New Zealand I was swabbed in Hobart by a security guard looking for gunpowder residue. It was supposed to be a random check, but it was clearly targeted to bearded males (doh!). On my way back I forgot to put my ten year old Swiss army knife in my check-in luggage, so it was detected by some Kiwi low life that wanted to confiscate it. I managed to buy an envelope and ten dollars on stamps to post it to Australia. I have my fingers crossed hoping to get it back.

We arrived at home late at night and our cat, being a genuine representative of the species, did not show any interest in our presence. Anyway, it is nice to be back home and blogging again.

Yesterday was my first Father’s day; I mean as a father, of course. The day started at 5am with Orlando reciting a 45 minutes poem full of goos and gaas, and smiles. Really memorable. It is incredible to see how much he is changing everyday.

I later called my dad, 11,000 km away and 14 hours time difference to say ‘Happy father’s day’. It was a real surprise for him: Father’s day in Australia and in South America are in completely different times of the year.

Later during the day I felt touched by the news coming from Beslan (North Ossetia): the sadness of so many wasted lives due to fundamentalism. What would I do if I were in that situation? There are no words to express the horror suffered by those people, and here we are on the other side of the world without much that can be done.

I have not written for a while about Orlando. No, I have not lost interest on him; on the contrary, there is so much interest that I try to spend as much time as possible with him doing things rather than writing about it.

Several people have asked for new pictures of Orlando. Here we have a couple when he was just three months old (two weeks ago):

After a slow start he is catching up on weight (5.5 kg) and size (63 cm) and becoming very talkative, with lots of goo, gaa, etc. He is smiling very often and starting to sleep for longer during night (for the relief of his parents).