I'm feeling a little distressed over the tone that's been set this morning over the study that states "organic" food is not any more nutritious than "non-organic".  The coverage almost has felt like we blew a hole through a mythical story that organic foods are so much better for us.  That's certainly not what the study means.

Forgive me, but nutritional content is an interesting question by itself, but there were no shocking insights revealed.  Rather, the fact that organic and non-organic foods are about equal is an outstanding result!  Choosing organic does not mean that you're sacrificing nutritional value and that is a big deal.

I'm a botanist by training, so I'm going to use a plant example.

A wheat crop growing in a field is going to take up water and micronutrients from the soil, and will gain it's carbon content from the air through photosynthesis.  Sure, that's a little simplified (the plant will take in some water through pores - called "stomates" - in its leaves) but it's a rather good starting point.

"Organic foods" are foods that are grown according to set standards.  Synthetic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, chemical ripening agents (except ethylene), food irradiation, and genetically modified organisms are unacceptable in organic foods.  Importantly, naturally occurring pesticides are permitted, as is the use of ethylene which plants use as a natural ripening plant hormone.  What the study looked at was a link between whether those chemical factors impacted nutritional quality.

Off the top of my head, I have questions regarding the nutritional value of organically certified foods.  Does the addition of chemical fertilizer boost the nutritional content of the wheat kernels?  Nitrogen content is usually the limiting factor, does more nitrogen availability mean a heather grain?  Alternatively, adding chemical fertilizer may actually over-compete for micronutrient adsorbtion from the soil and lead to less nutritious grain, although I would consider that a less likely (but clearly possible) result.

The most important point the study makes is that all the questions I just raised are not major factors in the nutrition of foods.  Barring further information, the food we eat can be healthy and nutritious whether or not it has been certified organic.

The biggest difference in cost between organically certified foods and non-organically certified foods generally results from differences in yield.  Chemical fertilizers do permit more growth of the plant and that extra growth is passed along into extra seed production.  This is even more pronounced in something like lettuce where we are actually eating the leaves.  More production means more value can be obtained from the same amount of land.  Clearly we have been able to advance fertilizer knowledge enough so that the yield increases are worth the increased cost of adding chemical fertilizers.

Just to restate myself, there does not appear to be any measurable difference in quality of organically certified foods and foods which are not organically certified!  We do not have to choose one or the other for direct nutritional benefits.  More is produced through current farming practices but it is, by and large, no better and no worse with respect to nutrition.

However, the next important question was mentioned by has not been addressed by the study.  The exposure to chemical pesticides is nearly one third lower in organically certified food.  It is important to look at which pesticides are most commonly contained in the food material.  It is important to look at how the plant takes up the pesticides.  It is important to examine the effects an increased exposure could contain.

Pesticides are any substance or thing that kills a pest.  That pest could be plant or animal.  If an animal, it could be insect, bug or deer.  The arrow a hunter used to kill the elk that was eating your roses could be considered a pesticide!  But that would not be considered a chemical pesticide, it clearly would not be passed along in the plant, and it would hardly be of concern to us.  ("Oh, someone slipped an arrowhead into my salad!")  On the other hand, cyanide used to kill rats mixing in with your breakfast cereal would be a major pesticide concern.  It's a very broad statement, more clarity needs to come with which specific pesticides are being transmitted in our food and what the impacts may be.

Further questions go on an even more granular level, which probably won't be of interest to the general public yet.  When we spray pesticides across a field, most of them work by foliar application - contact with leaves.  What is their mode of action on the pest?  (Do they work on a chemical pathway that only affects plant biochemistry?)  Do they enter via the stomates?  Are they translocated?  (Are they moved throughout the entire plant, and therefore into the seeds, or do they only function at the leaf?)  There is a wide range of really important, botanically nerdy questions that follow from that.


The biggest take home message I get from this article is, stated as simply as I can, nutritionally it does not make a difference whether I choose organically certified or not organically certified foods.  I'm not panicking over what I purchase, but I try to be objective.  I tend to believe the best nutritional value and flavour comes from fresh foods, so I  generally prefer food which has been produced nearby.  In the case of something like bananas, I have no locally produced option.  If costs are similar, I tend to choose organic options on the belief that I reduce pesticide exposure and believe organic food production tends to be a more sustainable practice in general.  (Granted, I usually have no idea whatsoever of the conditions the food was actually produced in, but I hope that choosing organic food would help make the argument that sustainable agriculture is worthwhile.)

Food I produce in my own garden is entirely organic.  I will not see yield increases that justify buying fertilizer.  I could use pesticides within recommended limits, but I'd never produce anything on a scale to make it really worthwhile.  It's simply easier to garden organically.

I am not harming myself nutritionally when I choose organically certified food vs. non-organically certified food.  My preference can then be made based upon further factors.  It is reasonable to choose, now look into your food and choose based upon good reasoning.

Magpie
You're such an early riser
Mapgie
You're such a bold chastiser
Magpie
Always waking up my wife and I
You coyote in the sky

I spoke with my neighbour not too many days ago.  She was showing me the work she'd done in her garden, we spent a little time visiting, and the call of a magpie came from the tree overhead.

"Looks like the magpies have moved into the old crow's nest."  Naturally she said it with a touch of derision.

I couldn't hold it in any longer.  I was puffing out with happiness.  I love the magpie.

They're part of the crow family - the Corvids - and that contains all of my favourite birds.  I think my favourite of all the birds is the Whiskey Jack or the Grey Jay.  To see them is a treat while I am camping in the mountains.  The pranksters of birds from the Algonquians.

The magpie is probably my favourite bird I see daily.  They are dreadfully intelligent, they are preparatory caching birds and scatter little caches all over the place and can keep track of each and every one of them, including the false caches they lay to fool others.  Perhaps one of the most intelligent birds of all.  Another trickster.  A coyote in the sky.



Unlike crows, the magpie has a melodic, songful call and less the harsh squawking caw of a crow.  You'll note even in the description they're called "dasterdly" and "a source of torment".

Nuisance birds, culled and and shooed.  Unloved and unwanted by many.  When I see it's iridescent colours unfurled underneath the sun, that long tail stretched out to catch a warming ray, the wings outstretched in a curling, graceful feat of manoeuvring flight, then that is when my heart soars with it.

I have to think back to attending the lunchtime series on reggae and was told about the connection between reggae and country music.  Wow, can you ever hear a connection in Ian's song here.  The syncopated beat, the lilting melody, and the song is pure west.

Woken by the song of magpies.  Today is a good day.

Ah, Magpie
You're a pretty bird
You just want to be free
Holy Moses, Magpie
I am you, you are me

Perhaps it is SpaceX's Dragon making a splashdown after a picture perfect flight today.

Perhaps it is anticipation with catching up with an old friend.

Perhaps it is having my dad back in town and being able to talk face to face.

Perhaps it's a pile of little things going right.

Perhaps it really is Directed Change.

You know those days where it's completely overwhelming, the world crushes upon your shoulders and you look around wondering how you can possibly get everything accomplished - let alone getting anything accomplished?

Then there are days where everything seems to fall into place, you can do three things at once with two hands, the world makes sense and your path is laid out clearly ahead of you.

Nothing changed between here or there.  Nothing I can put my finger on, at least.  It's just yesterday was crashing and today it is a landing as smooth as silk.  It's a feeling, a confidence, a knowledge of your capacity.

I wish I could bottle this feeling.  I need to draw on days like this.

Falling into place?  Naw..  It's gotta be Dragon.

There's a truism I've heard quite often lately about bicycles.  No matter how many you own, you always need one more.

I laughed when I first heard it.  Quite loudly.  Then the frame on my 20 year old Norco mountain bike broke while riding in the snow.  I bought myself a new Trek 3 series regretting that it wasn't the bike I really wanted to own.  What I really wanted to purchase was a great road bike for city commuting on the roads, but it was cheaper and much more practical and reasonable to get a new mountain bike for my newfound year-long riding.  And suddenly I grokked n+1 bikes.

It got worse than just one more bike for me.  Much worse, in fact.  Every time I go to Bike Bike I longingly yearn for a decent cargo bike.  Imagine not balancing and strapping whatever I'm hauling to the rack over my rear tire.  I could carry things much more safely without worry about the bungee cord that's got to be nearly as old as that Norco breaking.  Yeah, that's all I'd really need.  My Trek mountain bike, a whiz bang commuter and one of those awesome cargo bikes for hauling stuff.

Well, except that now I'm well accustomed to riding year round, I'm kinda getting tired of doing spring maintenance on the Trek to the degree I require in order to make it acceptably ridable after every winter.  There's no question, it gets rather grungy and the work involved with simply cleaning the drive train is no laughing matter.  In fact, wouldn't it be awesome to get one of those internal gear hub babies?  It would be so much nicer to maintain.  So that would be fantastic.  My mountain bike for crappy weather, my internal hub for really crappy, winter weather, my whiz bang commuter bike and one of those awesome cargo bikes for hauling stuff.

But you know, just today I went back to Bike Bike to replace my pannier that I was too brain damaged last week to notice when it fell off.  While I pulled up outside and locked up my bike (force of habit -- one I really don't want to break while I only have the one bike I rely upon) I noticed some really sexy folding bikes in the display window.  Now I can't say I've ever had any desire to have a folding bike, but I've heard the advancements have been really astounding and now they're clearly allowed on Calgary Transit it seems like a damned appealing thing to have for when I'm shuffling around town and need to worry about storing my bike.  So it's just my mountain bike for crappy weather, my internal hub for really crappy winter weather, my whiz bang commuter bike for getting around town, one of those awesome cargo bikes for hauling stuff, and a super sexy folding bike for when I have to worry about parking the damned thing at the office.

Although, truth be told, I have to admit that "brain damaged" isn't quite the term I need to use to express what happened with losing my pannier last week.

In actuality I'm so stressed out that...  Well, I'm very stressed out.  I've got all the signs showing in spades again right now.  I'm not sleeping well again.  My blood pressure is climbing back up the scale even though I'm taking my medication regularly.  I'm locking myself further into a self-induced segregation and feeling more and more distant from my friends.  The end result of all this is I end up riding my bike in a surly mood and don't even notice when my pannier falls off.

There's a little bit different from the last time I fought one of these big ones off.  Last time I wasn't sleeping like this, I ran into the Space Tweep Society and at least made something productive out of not sleeping.  Sure, I waste a whole lot of time on twitter talking to people I've never met in real life, but they ARE my friends and they have been amazingly powerful to building my reserves.  That's so much better than tossing and turning, waking up two or three times a night - always too late to run into my normal crutches people I regularly bitch at - and waking up as if I never fell asleep in the first place.  It's a lot different than falling headlong into a game until I'm bored with it and then flit to another equally pointless and subtly different game.

What is the same is the feeling of hopelessness.  The feeling that no matter what I do, I'm just not going to get a better result.  I'm headlong into a whole pile of those right now.

The sense that I'm bashing my head against a wall financially.  Not that anyone ever seems to care.  Why do I give a rat's ass about being decent when no one around me seems to be?  Hey, over the past three weeks I've even run into the mindless, brainless bureaucracy that doesn't even bother to monitor punishments it metes out!  No one will ever convince me that they actually care about anything more than the paycheque they collect every two weeks.

Just today, TODAY, I got a letter asking me to resign up for another five year term of volunteering with an organization that has only once ever asked me to actually volunteer -- and THAT single time only came in response to me jumping up and down and lodging complaints about never being asked to participate!  Honestly, is there a single organization in world that requests volunteers to sign up and then can afford to shun them once they have jumped through the hoops in order to participate?

Really?

REALLY?

I got thinking about the things that have been bugging the hell out of me lately and I'm concerned.  I've got five Very Angry Letters (tm) I want to write.  There's the three non-stop standard letters of complaint that seem to rule my life on a constant basis.  But right now there are two major issues I can't seem to get anyone to listen and act on right now in addition to the normal griefs and annoyances of my life.

Is there any reason I'm riding my bike angry right now?  That's supposed to be an enjoyment factor, especially for me.  Even I've been wondering what's been happening with me when I'm screaming at the moronically stupid drivers who endanger my life by driving in the bus / bike lanes along 9th Avenue SE through Inglewood while indignantly insisting that I'm blocking their progress and demanding the right to honk and gesture rudely at me for riding in the lane that has been designated for me.

So tonight while I was doing my bike maintenance I suddenly realized what I've been fighting and why I've been feeling so hopeless and uptight lately.  Sure, I need another bike, but until money becomes a little less tight I've discovered that my immediate desire isn't to have one more bike.  I'm thinking along a much simpler line to relieve stress.  I simply want to be able to go buy a new inner tube every bloody time I get a flat.

Infinite spare tires.  I want to stop looking for leaks.  I've had a slow leak that's been bedevilling me all winter long.  While finally swapping studded tires for mere knobbies I took that tube, submerged it into the water and knelt on it until I found the leak.

Some times the only thing you can do is rip off the old patch, sand off the crusty cement, and put a new patch on properly.  One of those patches is to stare at the skies and reconnect with some of my #SpaceTweeps.  I need to get some sleep.  I need to listen to more music.  I need to remember what I like about myself.

Meanwhile I'd be damned afraid if you're one of those people who can expect one of my Very Angry Letters (tm) soon.  Honestly, some things have to change and it's long overdue that someone actually listens and acts.

There were several "Bests" of Costa Rica.

Best joke flying down:  "I don't think we're in Kansas any more."
Best befuddled moment: Meeting Juan Jose for the first time and getting our orientation.
Best bus driver ever: Juan Carlos
Best place to stay: Tortuguera
Best ocean: Both of them.  Honestly.
Best boat pilot:  Primo.
Best guy to make sure I get a good photo: Primo.
Best kindred spirit: Primo.
Best surprise of the trip:  This tweet.
Best volcano: Arenal.  Poas was fabulous, but Arenal was so impressive.
Best rainy day: Arenal Hanging Bridges.  Rain in the rain forest?  YES!
Best day of the trip:  Surfing at Tamarindo Beach.
Best shared moment:  Surfing at Tamarindo Beach.
Best person to travel with: My daughter.


There is one thing I've spoken about a little to close friends and confidants, but I feel the need to express myself in explicit terms here.

I fell in love in Costa Rica.  Honest to ghod, live long, true blue love forever more and never ending.  It was not the sort of thing I was expecting to have happen, but love, like so many of the best things in life, sneak up on you from behind and bash you over the head when you least expect it.

Perhaps it was the weather.  Perhaps it was the sunsets.  Perhaps it was the endless numbers of beautiful women.  Perhaps it was the moment of being away from my troubles and cares for just long enough that I could release my inhibitions.  Romance blooms in unexpected places and unimaginable ways.

Sure, I heard some of the snickers, a few of the jokes, but all that matters to me is I have found happiness.

Gallo pinto, where have you been all my life?

The first meal we had gallo pinto and I was hooked.  Upon breakfast we had gallo pinto and I thought to myself, "This is so different from what we had last night."  For lunch, we had gallo pinto and I thought it was extraordinary.  I think we had gallo pinto in some form for every meal.  If we didn't, I would have been most upset.

Soothing.  Filling.  Complimentary.  Delicious ever time.  I've been longing for gallo pinto ever since we came back.  The real thing.  Oh, sure, I've had rice and beans and sometimes I've made beans and rice, but it's just not the same.

This weekend, when the kids are here, I'm going to try some of the recipes I downloaded and try to make it properly.  I'm drooling already.  That's true love, the way it ought to be.

I try really hard to not be an asshole.

Granted, I'm not perfect and it takes a lot for me to lose my cool these days.  Fortunately.  I know I've got a temper and I try really hard to keep control over it.

I try especially hard to stay calm around this time of year.  Line ups get long and nerves get frayed for the best of people.  I make no apologies for being scroogy right about now but I genuinely try not to be a dick to anyone else just for the sake of being a dick.

Today I was trying to ship a package of cheese buns from here to Kitchener.  I'd kept them in my freezer for a week trying to send them out as close to Christmas as I could manage.  Hopefully they'll get out there and be reasonably fresh and tasty.  They're for one of my really good buddies who introduced me to Glamorgan Bakery in the first place, it's just a way of saying thanks to him and his family and send them a little taste of Calgary.

Well, actually, I wanted to ship them yesterday but I missed closing time by five minutes so I was happy I gave myself an extra day to spare.

I know, I'm going to spend way more on the shipping than I did for the baking, but I'm doing it on my terms because it's a stupid idea and because I know there are a couple of girls out there who are going to hugely appreciate the gesture.  If their dad will share.

The problem I have is that I don't really know what it's going to cost or the best way to get it out there.  Usually when I've shipped anything it was a bushel of grain or research samples I needed for next spring, not overnight.  I'm doing the best that I can, but I'm going to need someone to help me out.

So I knew I was going to have to go up to the Purolator up near the airport to get my timing right, I knew I'd have to be up there before 7:30 and I knew that I had a client call this evening so I was going to have to hustle my butt to squeeze everything in this evening.  I'm going to need help on everything else.

Quirkily, there was a line in front of me and only one woman behind me.  I knew I was going to be a while and asked if she was just picking up a package.  She was, so I saw no reason to delay her at all, by all means let her step in front of me.

The guy behind the counter must have heard that it was going to take me a while and told me to go to the computer terminals and start there.  I felt a little put off that I was told to go do it on my own even though I knew I was going to need help.  No matter, I'm a SysAdmin for ghod's sake, I know how to fill in a waybill, I just need help on shipping options and the details that I don't know.  I start filling in the data.

My name, address, city, destination's name, postal code (that was kind of cool, it filled in the city information for me after I put in the postal code), but for the road she has "CRT" and I entered "Crescent" not "Court".  I hit backspace and...  If you know web browsers at all you'll just have figured out that I wiped out all the information as I effectively just pushed the back button.  Okay, that was annoying, but I start over.

Entered all the data, go to the next page and it's asking for weight and dimensions of the package.  I don't know the weight and dimensions, I didn't expect to have to know that.  I can estimate sizes by comparing it with my hands or arms, but the weight?  It's light enough I can carry it around all day if I had to.  I don't bloody well know and I shouldn't have to, all of that is behind the counter.

So why am I filling out the minutia when I'm going to have to take it to the counter where they're just going to re-weigh it anyways?  So now I'm stuck in a pickle.  I can't save the data partially filled in.  I can't just leave it and get measurements.  The only thing I can possibly do is write down junk numbers in the boxes and have it corrected when the guy weighs it or cancel everything out and start all over again.

WHY?

Annoying me further, another customer beside me is asking if I need help.  No, I'm fully capable of filling out everything in front of me.  I need a scale and a measuring tape and advice on the best way to ship my package to get this overnight.  I need to talk to the person behind the counter, not someone who does not understand my situation.

So I cancelled it and got back in line to the counter where I should have been in the first place.  Only a bunch more people had come in to be served and I ended up in the back of the line again.  And I still didn't have a waybill filled out, nor knew how I'd ship it, nor the final cost.

I got back to the front of the line and was determined that I was going to wait until I get the same agent that sent me off to the computers in the first place.  When he comes to the counter he starts talking to the guy that just walked in through the door behind me.  If I didn't feel shucked away before I definitely did by now.  I got pulled out of the line, left to flounder entering data that I couldn't provide, and now this guy is pushing me aside again for someone just getting into the building!

I planted myself in front of him at the counter and pointedly asked if there was a scale or measuring tape at the computers.  He rolled his eyes and said no, they were behind the counter.  I said, probably louder than I intended, "Then what am I doing over there?  I'll go find another solution."

On my way out the "helpful customer" said that I was being rude.  Yes, yes I was.  I was intentionally rude specifically to the person who sent me on a wild goose chase and then ignored me when I reached the front of the line.  I'm willing to bet each and every person behind me got better service the remainder of the night.

I have other options for couriers.  I waited about the same length of time at FedEx as I did for one trip through the line at Purolator.  I reached the front of the line and the agent took my package, weighed it, and told me I needed to fill out an Intra-Canada Waybill while he prepared my package for shipping.  By the time I got to the counter, I know the package weighed 1.14 kg and he apparently didn't care about the dimentions.  (The box previously held a case of microwave popcorn.)  I didn't have much for shipping options, it's going to arrive in Kitchener early in the morning, and I paid a whopping $55.27 for $10 of buns.  Still worth it because I didn't suffer the aggravation.

So I truly apologize if I appeared to be an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.  I genuinely feel bad if other customers thought I was simply being rude.  But if I'm expected to fill out information for the waybill on my own would you please provide a scale and ruler that I can access?

And never, EVER ignore the customer at the front of the line hoping he'll go to some other agent.  Especially when you've already blown him off earlier in the evening.

My ghod, I sound like a whingey, morose bastard these days.

Life is fantastic.  I have my plan laid out for the summer, for the fall, for the winter.  My path is clear, my days are busy, I'm seeing progress on almost everything that's been burning my ass that I haven't seemed to be able to get on top of lately.

I've alluded to all this lovely positive change happening around me and I've been talking tl;dr, dark and gloomy.

When I can get on my bike and go ride for an hour and feel fantastic when I'm home, I'm not sitting in bad shape.  When the difference between feeling good and feeling great means a little perspective around myself, that's a major shift from a couple months ago.  When I can attend a party with a bunch of people I don't know and enjoy myself...  Well, that's been unheard of for years from me.

Good risks.  Good chances.  I really am doing okay.  Just a little impatient for everything to fall into place.

Except it didn't really end.

And if you listen really hard, you may hear that wimper is really more of a high pitched whine.

In fact, you're probably asking yourself "Just why did he choose to upgrade today of all days?"

The answer is simple.  Clearly I don't have enough on my plate right now so I need a couple side projects to keep me occupied.

All the old stuff is still here, somewhere.  Hopefully I didn't break all the links.  Like I care that much.  I'm really apathetic as far as my blog is concerned.  "Know thine audience," I always say.  In my case, my audience consists of spastic monkeys who got here by mistake, spammers trying to promote their vapourous wares, and you.  You're special, it's all the other nutbars that are crazy.  But you, you are my angel of sanity in a festering lake of chicken skat infested cowpies.

And I love you most of all.

Thanks for coming back.  The nurses should be arriving in about 20 minutes with the huggie coats.

  - Mark

We huddled together around the small mound of ruddy brown soil scooped harshly into a low hewn mound. 

It had been a week, we were no closer to understanding why we were still alive.  Miraculously and mysteriously, we were.  Every night the fungus returned, the small mushroom-like tendrils reaching upwards towards the cold, distant sun.  Every night we collapsed with cold and exhaustion face down upon the ground, pleading for merciful release.  Every long morning began with the burning fury in our lungs and the misery and exultation of life renewed. 

Jeremy was the first to push the soil together.  We looked at him as a madman willing death's arrival.  He flailed his arms and thrust the red dirt ever faster towards his face.  The following night we noticed it caused much fewer of the thin white bodies to rise from the ground near him, but we hardly noticed in comparison to his supine body stretched out from under an ordinarily lethal burial mound upon his head.  The following morning he sat up with red-rimmed eyes and stared as if we were the crazy ones. 

I was the last to bury myself, of course.  I was never one to follow the crowd and could not bury my rationality as the others buried their heads.  Yet there was no denying that while I arose every morning grasping my throat and chest the others woke looking more relaxed than I, notwithstanding their red-rimmed eyes and dying tendrils plastered upon their faces.  I waited three days for my teammates to become zombies as their bodies were slowly taken over by an alien force, but it never happened.  Instead the four of us struggled about on the ground, weakly flinging a dusty regolith towards our faces.

The first day the tang was bitter, but the smell was not a musty fungal smell.  It had dragged my mind back to my childhood when I ran through the puddles after a rain or traipsed through a forest while hiking at extreme altitude.  Except there was absolutely no moisture to it at all - it all felt sere inside my sinuses and lungs.  The mix of sensations I understood with sensations that made no sense was disconcerting.  I was beyond the point of questioning and knew I must obey the unspoken command.

The third day we lay akimbo, heads buried in small mounds of dirt like some bizarre negative image of adults buried in sand at a beach.  The gently yellowed tendrils stretched skyward all around our bodies, much shorter than the first night, extending perhaps a few centimeters above our own forms, except for the mounds above our faces where they continued to stretch a full metre or more.

Clearly it was the tendrils that were giving us life.  Clearly it was the final act of suicidal self burial that kept us alive.  After six days I felt strength returning to my arms, the burn of metabolism coming to my body.  I sat up and stared at Jeremy for the first time since we had landed.  He was stronger than I.  We could not speak, being kept alive was one thing, but there was no way we had enough breath to push past vocal cords.

He stared at me with burning eyes as if to transmit meaning across the short distance between us.  Seeing my vacant expression he fell towards me, landing harshly on the ground.  I collapsed backwards, when next I dared to open my eyes I saw him scraping the ground together with a metal sheet he must have retrieved from near my head.

He mounded the pile at his head higher and deeper than I could ever have done on my own.  Perhaps enough to bury head and shoulders into the sharp, gritty soil.  More depth, more life.  You can't get too much of a good thing.

That night the fungus didn't return.  We lay there, choking, dying, praying for relief, waiting for death, wondering if we'd have the tendrils grace our bodies again before we died.  I'm glared at Jeremy, wondering if he had finally done the right thing through his carelessness.

I looked up to the stars, searching for Earth, longing for home.

“Refinery? Or science fiction? #melbourne ”


Andrea crested the rise, climbing over the last small ridge and drawing into view of Luna Corp's massive Cabeus Lunar Refinery.  In the distance she could see the particulate matter lazily drifting back to the lunar surface and wispy clouds of volatiles released in the process of turning frozen water to rocket fuel.  

She exhaled a gigantic sigh of relief, no longer worrying about the extra load on her suit.  She was getting back alive - there was nothing that was going to stop her from attaining the airlock now.  She found she had to restrain herself from bounding along the sharp, crunching surface.  Although she was going to make it with air to spare, she still had to be careful about her cooling.  Others had collapsed within 500 metres of the airlock with heat exhaustion as their suits lost the battle with the continual build up of heat.  Andrea hadn't travelled 20 kilometres on foot just to be lost in the final 850 metres and carefully returned to the steady, plodding pace that had served her well up to this point.

-----

Andrea was ranked one of the finest even before she reached Moonbase.  She had left Melbourne nearly 20 years ago to begin her intensive training.  First she left for North America, traversing one end of the continent to the other then returning again.  Each stop added yet another tool to her impressive toolbox.  Arctic training in Yellowknife.  Diving in San Diego.  Her triathlon training in New York and her successful second place finish in Hawaii.  Her doctorate was, of course, awarded from MIT to a thunderous ovation.  Andrea had become the household face of science, unprecedented except perhaps by Madame Curie.

Her acceptance to Moonbase was a foregone conclusion when Luna Corp scooped her up.  An exotic accent and an easy going manner made her a hit within the company and she rode that wave of popularity to engaging the people around her to produce their very best work.  Her department's work on lunar energy recovery practically forced Luna Corp to promote her to continue her work overhead.

What followed was another change in continent as she began training for launch from Baikonur.  For three tireless years she toiled to learn flawless Russian, to integrate with the Soyuz programme, only to miss the final launch and, for the second time in her life, to see a lapse in launches from a space programme.  As she reacted upon missing a chance to launch in a shuttle, she redoubled her efforts and changed locations once again to earn a ride on the brand new Ariane 7.  Four more years of intensive training and she launched to become part of Moonbase Operations Centre to take on the role of ensuring safe operation of fuel extraction from the southern pole of the moon and the transportation of that fuel to the deep space launching facility kept safely out of the gravity wells in high orbit around the earth / moon binary.

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The panel lit red on seven of the zones surrounding the Cabeus Lunar Refinery.  The refinery was fed by a circle of twelve solar arrays that fed power towards the central sector.  It was there that the energy collected from the sun was used for electrolysis of water.

Although the meteor showers were loved by the people of earth, they were feared at the CLR because of the heightened danger.  During construction, one of the domes was struck and pierced, putting schedule behind by an extra 15 months.

Today, Perseus had gifted CLR with a shotgun blast of projectiles that landed squarely on the solar collectors.  Five to the east, two to the west had ceased to respond and were no longer pumping power towards the refinery.  Tim and Sergei were dispatched to the east to repair those three, Juan took the southeast two while Andrea took her crawler west.  Although they were the most distant, they were also the closest together.  Mike stayed behind to direct the crews and inform the evening shift once they were awake.

Outages such as this are not particularly routine, but neither are they unheard of.  If the New Ares launch wasn't behind schedule, there would have been no need to expedite repairs.  After half an hour of debate, Mike acceded to Andrea's plan and three crawlers headed out in separate directions to repair the arrays.

Tim and Sergei had already found the first array smashed beyond repair.  Salvaging as many of the undamaged panels as they could find, they had already began moving towards the more distant pair of arrays when Juan radioed in.  His first array was battered, but easily repaired and had already resumed pumping back almost three quarters of its normal output.

Andrea pulled up to her first array and discovered good fortune.  The coupler had been bashed and needed re-wiring, but it would take about half an hour of work.  She got out her tool kit and began reconnecting the broken connections.

The day went well for the lunanauts.  The eastern arrays took little work to bring online and the second southern array was also smashed beyond repair, leaving little more for Juan to do but salvage what he could and return to CLR to await parts from earth.  Andrea finished connecting the first of her arrays and began rolling towards her second just beyond the ridge.

As she topped the rise, she found her crawler sliding sideways down a massive new crater.  She could see the glistening of water ice in the blasted sphere below her just as her crawler rolled into the debris.

Even in the lower gravity, she could not right a crawler on her own.  She ticked through the checklist in her mind taking tally of her situation.  With the crawler on it's face, the antenna could not boost her transmission  back to Moonbase.  The soonest the refinery would be able to send out another crawler would be once the evening crew came on shift and prepared another.  Worse, CLR may be expecting a communication blackout and not think of sending out a rescue crew.  Communication satellites would only be passing over twice an hour and Andrea was expected to be working on repairs.  She'd be able to contact the refinery from the direct line at the array.

Recharging her suit from the crawler to give her maximum flexibility, she retraced her trail towards the repaired array.  She began a trundling, bouncing low gravity shuffle back along her tracks.  She reached the array, plugged in her umbilical and flipped the communication switch.  Dead air greeted her. One of the pins must have bent within the coupler and she didn't have her toolkit to try to repair it again.

She sighed and began her bouncy trudge back to the refinery.  The next six hours were mindless, and passed effortlessly.  She kept her mind on her levels of oxygen, carbon dioxide and temperature.  It was going to be close, but her slow gentle traverse ate up the distance and kept her vital signs well within tolerance.

A problem, but never a panic.  She returned to her training and focused her knowledge to getting back safely.  When she crested the final rise and saw the refinery ahead of her the relief still poured through her.

Strange to see an industrial plant as a thing of beauty, but before her was a gem rising from the lunar surface.  She was safe.  She was home.

Mike crackled in her ear.  "Well hello, little lady!  Looks like you're throwing out perfectly good crawlers again.  Are you up for a debrief when you're inside?"

"Yeah, Mike.  I'll be fine.  It's just another boring day out here."