And here is that dessert in the context of the story:
“He is not done yet,” Tenoal said.
Rav came around to Rei’s right and placed a scoop of brown sugar on the plate. He placed dollops of whipped cream in a splaying pattern then outlined them in chocolate.
“What is this? Rei asked.
“It is a pineapple blossom,” Rav said proudly.
“Oh yes,” Rei said, delighted. “I see it.”
“And now the finishing part,” Rav said. He pulled out a plate of strawberries and poured a small canister of amber-colored liquid over them.
What do you think Rav is going to do? I'll show you the final dessert tomorrow.
Entry 4-041: February 6, 2016
Hawaiian Desserts 3
Yesterday and the day before, I explained that when Denise and I were in Hawaii for our honeymoon, we saw a lot of amazing and beautifully presented desserts. We enjoyed them so much that I had to slip them into the now-lost luau scene from Rome's Revolution. Here is the final dessert we encountered:
Here is that dessert in the context of the story:
Rav pulled out a plate of strawberries and poured a small canister of amber-colored liquid over them. He went over to one of the torches and pulled off a small burning leaf. He touched it to the liquid which caught on fire instantly and glowed with a warm blue blaze.
“This is wonderful,” Rome said, clapping her hands together.
“Wait until you taste it,” Tenoal said. Rav spooned some of the flaming strawberries on each of their plates.
Rome lifted a biskar and skewered one of the strawberries and coated it with the brown sugar, whipped cream and chocolate. She blew out the flame and put it in her mouth.
“Oh my,” she said, closing her eyes. “If I understand the concept as Rei describes it, this is heaven!”
Rei tried it and said, “Mmmmm.” Then, in English, he said, “Oh wow!” Then, switching back to Vuduri, he said, “Tenoal, thank you. I cannot tell you how much I have missed fresh fruit. And this! This show. This is too much.”
Tenoal put his arms across his chest proudly. “It is the least we could do for family who have come so far.”
I hope you enjoyed seeing these desserts as much as we enjoyed eating them!
Entry 4-042: February 7, 2016
I love you
Since 1973, I have been trying to bring to you the story of Rome and Rei, two lovers who were always destined to be together. At least in my head they were. After they were banished to Hawaii, before they embarked on their mission to take on the Onsiras, they decided take a moment to savor the beauty and tranquility of the islands. It was during this tiny interval, when the stresses of ordinary life (and saving the world) were stripped away, that they got a chance to express feelings that normally don't fit in a hero's life. Even though the luau scene was excised from the final version of Rome's Revolution, I thought I'd share with you that one tiny, pure moment when Rome and Rei pretended the burden of genocide was not hanging over their heads:
“Thank you for an extraordinary meal, Onclare Tenoal,” Rome said.
“Yes, thank you,” Rei echoed.
“It was nothing, my niece. It was wonderful to see you and meet your new husband. We will do this again very soon,” he said.
Rome looked at Rei but said nothing. He took Rome’s hand and they took turns saying goodbye to the gathering. After they were done, they headed across the small stretch of sand, down the stone path towards the palm tree grove. They made their way through and emerged from the stand of trees at the north end of their beach. They could see the double set of footprints leading toward the hut but Rei pulled Rome down to the edge of the water. They looked over the ocean where the sun had set so many hours earlier. Rei turned back and saw the moon was just beginning to creep over the opposite horizon with a bright star to its right. He put his arms around his wife and kissed her long and hard.
When the kiss was complete, Rome pulled back a bit and said, “What was that for?”
“It was because I love you, Rome. I am the luckiest man alive in your time, in my time, in any time. Here and to the stars.”
He lifted her up by the waist with ease and twirled in the sand with her.
“And I love you,” Rome said, grasping his cheeks and kissing him again. She draped her arms around his neck and hugged him again, holding on to her man as if for dear life. She closed her eyes and just reveled in the feeling of now, of the peaceful world they had entered and how things would only get better. She slid her hands down, along Rei’s leg and came to the bulge in his pocket.
“What is this?” she asked slyly.
“Oh, that,” Rei said. “I was meaning to tell you about that. MINIMCOM said…”
Rei stopped talking as he noticed Rome was not paying attention to him. She was staring back across the island to the eastern horizon. The moon was exactly where it had been but the bright star to its side had moved and was, in fact, getting brighter.
“Rei,” she said with a hint of worry in her voice. “Look at that.”
I know what Rome was staring at. It isn't good. Their one tiny romantic moment was already over. It was time to whip into action again.
Entry 4-043: February 8, 2016
Moroccan Sun
A while back, I wrote a series of articles about renewable sources of energy. One article focused on direct harnessing of the Sun. I showed images of a solar furnace, a solar heating system and finally photo-voltaic cells.
The solar furnace at Ivanpah in the Mojave Desert in California is the world's largest solar thermal power plant. It uses a bunch of mirrors, all pointing at a central tower, to create super-heated steam which is then used to run a generator. However, when the Sun goes does, the plant shuts down. It sure seems like they could use an auxiliary block of Tesla's Powerwall to store energy during the day for distribution at night. A little known fact is that the Ivanpah plant burns a lot of natural gas to get started in the morning. So it does emit greenhouse gasses and so far has underperformed. It has also cooked something like 28,000 birds who have inadvertently flown into the path of the mirrors. It sounds like it is a technology that needs a bit more fine-tuning.
Well, the next generation is here, in Morocco of all places. The Noor series of plants use huge, rotating mirrors to aim the Moroccan sun at a tube containing synthetic oil, hot enough to melt sand before superheating steam to run a turbine. The molten sand is used after the Sun goes down to produce energy for an additional three hours now but might reach as much as eight hours upon completion when the plant is at full strength.
When the entire plant is completed, the Moroccan government expects to produce 42% of the country's energy need along with wind and hydroelectric power. They plan on bumping that number to 52% by the year 2030. If all goes well, eventually, Morocco will become an energy exporter and completely self-sufficient without using a drop of fossil fuels.
Kudos to them!
Entry 4-044: February 9, 2016
A floating solar farm
Yesterday, I described Morocco's Noor solar generation plant which harnesses the power of the Sun to heat synthetic oil which, in turn, generates power using super-heated steam. They elected to use a translation of solar power instead of photovoltaic cells. They could have done so but this is direction they elected to follow. Good for them.
But what if you really did want to build a solar farm using solar cells but didn't have the land area? Like Japan, for example. Well, they may not have land but they have plenty of water so they are now building "floating" solar farms on lakes and reservoirs. Here is an artist's concept courtesy of Kyocera Corp.:
Ultimately, this plant will generate 13.7MW of energy. Not a huge amount but, in a sense, free after the plant is built. Once Japan has completed all their floating plants on their inland waters, while it is not advisable to build such a plant in the middle of the ocean, they do
have the relatively calm Sea of Japan. There may be no upper limit to how much power they can generate once they perfect these methods:
Remember, the Sun radiates enough energy to power the entire Earth for a whole year three times over EVERY DAY! The floating sun farm may be the ultimate answer to eliminating fossil fuels altogether.
Entry 4-045: February 10, 2016
A bigger floating solar farm
Yesterday, I described the Kyocera floating sun farm in Japan which will be able to produce a little over 13MW of energy, at least while the Sun is out. Seems like a lot of free energy, right?
Well, Brazil has announced that they will build a floating solar farm on a reservoir which will produce 360MW of power. That's 30 times larger than the one in Japan which is the current world's record holder. Here is an artist's rendering of what that farm will look like:
This is a brilliant idea for a variety of reasons. Obviously the main objective is to capture the free energy put out by the Sun without the emission of greenhouse gasses. But there is a secondary reason, equally as brilliant. Brazil in in the midst of a historic drought and their water reserves are going down continuously. Building a solar panel farm on top of the reservoir plunges the water into continual shade and thus significantly reduces evaporation thus conserving water.
For obvious reasons, you cannot build floating solar farms on ponds or lakes or bodies of water that people use for recreation. But, historically, reservoirs are fenced off and not used for recreation. Therefore their large surface area is perfect holding a floating farm. No one's peace or enjoyment of life is hindered, only enhanced.
It is forward thinking like this that will lead us into the new age of nearly free energy generation. Our goal should be nothing less than 100% renewable energy generation by the end of the century. We can eliminate human production of greenhouse gases and leave that to cow flatulence.
Maybe there is still time, yet, to save the Earth. Once you achieve free energy generation, wealth becomes available to all and leads to an egalitarian way of life, just I have depicted in Rome's Revolution.
Entry 4-046: February 11, 2016
The Weinermobile again
A while back, I wrote an article that stemmed from the second section of Rome's Revolution. The scene took place after Rome had saved Rei's life by having him ejected from the Vuduri palace. The Vuduri planned on executing him but Rome stopped that. Rei was taken in a strange vehicle that was a cross between a military transport and the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile:
Rei had nothing but bad memories of that trip. In the final part of Rome's Revolution, he and Rome, while walking back to the shack on the beach, were interrupted by forces unknown in a similar craft. I cheated and borrowed the description of the craft from the earlier section for two reasons. First, it was meant to show that it was essentially the same craft, semi-military in design. And second, I am quite lazy. Here is that scene:
Suddenly, a blinding light appeared in the sky as the craft activated its floodlights, illuminating Rei and Rome and a broad circle of sand. Instinctively, Rei pushed Rome behind him as the peculiarly shaped vehicle flew overhead then settled into the sand just in front of them. Where it landed on the beach was nearly identical to where MINIMCOM had landed earlier in the day. The craft was a long tube on stilts, like a bizarre form of a bus or helicopter fuselage. It was almost insect-like. It was rounded with rows of windows along the sides and four oversized EG lifters, one at each corner mounted at the end of the stilts. Rei realized that it was very similar to the craft that had transported him from the Vuduri palace on Deucado to the thread-grass field where the rag-like creatures had tried to eat him.
Rei put his hand up to block the light from shining directly into his eyes. He saw that a door in the side lowered and there were stairs built into the back of the door. Very quickly, six armed men, dressed completely in black, ran down the steps and came right at them.
Six armed men, dressed in black when the Vuduri only wore white? That can't be good.
Entry 4-047: February 12, 2016
The Zengei
A while back, I wrote a short article describing Reema, the first Onsira queen, who we did not get to meet in person until my third novel, Rome's Evolution.
I tried to pattern the Onsira community after a typical beehive. While MASAL and later MASAL's Sipre provided the underlying group consciousness, it was the Reonhe, the queens, who provided the physical leadership. The Reonhe were peculiar in that they literally had two brains. Half their brain was devoted to MASAL and the Onsiras but the other half was a typical Vuduri brain able to connect with the Overmind and thus allow them to blend in.
We got to meet several Reonhe, first Estar and later Sussen, in Rome's Revolution and as I mentioned above, Reema, in Rome's Evolution. Just like a bee-hive, you also needed worker bees and those people, typically male, were called the Zengei. They were not connected to the Overmind and thus functionally invisible. They weren't mandasurte but they weren't Vuduri either.
Their eyes were very peculiar. Unlike a regular 24-chromosome Vuduri, they did not have a tapetum so their eyes did not appear to glow. In fact, their irises were flat black and their pupil in the middle made their eyes look a little like shark's eyes. They could speak but I wanted the shark analogy to spill over so you could conclude something about their personalities:
The men circled around until they formed roughly a ring around Rei and Rome. Wordlessly, one of the men poked at Rei with the barrel of a weapon while another waved at the transport. It was not hard to figure out their intentions.
“Don’t you guys have to have a warrant or something,” Rei said in English. The nearest soldier bent forward and looked Rei in the eye. The soldier’s eyes were dark black. In the reflected glow the craft’s harsh floodlights, Rei could see they were cloudy and flat. They had no life to them. They reminded Rei of a shark’s eyes.
“Come with us,” the solder said hoarsely, in English. The men behind them pushed them forward.
The Zengei were not nice people.
Entry 4-048: February 13, 2016
Cut off
In the latter part of Rome's Revolution, Rome has a problem. She has a tracking bracelet on her wrist which will inform the ever-watchful Vuduri if she leaves the island of Maui. In the mean time, she and Rei were just captured by the Zengei, the mindless followers of MASAL and the Onsiras. You can be sure that the Zengei plan on taking them somewhere nefarious especially because they brought a military transport. So what to do? Rome can be tracked. That means the Onsiras' plans for her have a limited lifespan.
Maybe not. You will recall that when Rome was first arrested, she was taken to a room lined with T-suppressors to isolate her from using her PPT transducers. The room was also a Faraday cage to cut her off from any EM transmissions. We know the Onsiras were listening in. After all, the Reonhe are part Vuduri so they simply copied the Vuduri's own design.
How do we know? Check this out:
“We just got arrested by a bunch of armed guards with dead eyes,” Rei said.
“That does not sound good indeed,” MINIMCOM replied.
One of the troops pushed Rei in the back. Rei started walking up the stairs as slowly as he could. “Where are you?” Rei asked, stopping at the top.
“I am roughly 4000 kilometers due north of your previous position. The Aleutian Islands are directly ahead of me.”
“I think you’d better come back,” Rei said. “And pronto. Nothing good is going to come of this.”
“On my way,” MINIMCOM said. “I will be there as quickly as I can.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Rei thought as he bent his head down and stepped in the cabin.
“No problem, erp, ” said MINIMCOM and the connection was cut.
Rei’s eyes widened. Nothing like that had ever happened before. When MINIMCOM was fighting the Cecetiras, there had been a disruption of the channel but that was
because of a problem on MINIMCOM’s side. This was something else. This was inside his head. Rei tapped his temple as if to clear the receiver but nothing changed. It was as if the transport itself was somehow shielded against the apparatus in his head.
Rei looked around. Now that he had fully entered the cabin, he could see it was transport designed to convey people, not cargo. The cabin was filled with a dozen rows of spartan-looking seats and not much else. The soldiers placed Rei on one side and Rome on the other.
One soldier sat between Rei and the aisle. Another did the same for Rome. The other four soldiers buckled themselves in both in front and behind them.
Rei looked out the window and even though there was no sensation of motion, he could see the ground dropping below.
“Hey,” he asked the soldier next to him.
“Yes,” the soldier replied without looking at him.
“Why does this thing have windows?” he asked. “I thought Vuduri did not care about such things.”
The soldier turned to Rei and Rei could see he had the same flat black shark-like eyes as the soldier who had first accosted him.
“We use this craft to transport mandasurte,” the soldier said tonelessly. “We have found that it renders the passengers more docile if they can look out of a window.”
“Transport us to where?” Rei asked but the soldier turned forward, ignoring him.
These people are serious! Not good.
Entry 4-049: February 14, 2016