Day trip to Colombo

Date: 26 May 2011

Location of accommodation: Galle Fort

Activities:  Day trip with a micro-bus to Colombo, shopping for dongle, new passport pickup at US embassy, attempted extension of visa--too late, return home with big bus.

Money spent: 1000 Rs. room

                          215 Rs. microbus

                         2700 Rs. new watch and old watch repairs

                         6000 Rs. dongle

                           500 Rs.  airtel SIM and minutes

                           500 Rs. tuck-tuck to Sri Lanka immigration office

                           107 Rs. bus return

                            400 Rs.  food

                            200 Rs.  fruit

Special experiences: the dongle setup I have doesn't work, but I think it might be the Airtel Sim. Get to the immigration office before 2:30 pm. 

Also, the watch repair man demanded to have my metal ring.  I can't believe he actually kept it.  I have a half a mind to go and demand it back. 
Lost my temper when I found out that I was going to have to go back to Colombo for the visa extension.  Remained pretty much angry throughout the journey home.    

Insights:  material possessions are not worth breaching the trust between humans over. 

Thought of the day: this is the emotion that occured to me in Colombo, although it took until the day after (while preparing this blog) until I was able to put it into words:
I realized for the first time today when I saw a fence around the Sri Lankan capital building, with it's huge, beautiful (and completely empty) lawn, that I am unwilling to have fences around government buildings in order to provide for the safety of the people inside. If you take public office, you should have to do so knowing that you might become a target. It would give us more responsible and sober-minded representatives. If I can get mugged or shot or hit by a car walking down the street, if I can get blown up by a bomb while visiting a foreign country, my representatives should face the same threats. Am I willing to give up personal liberties for security--you bet your sweet ass I'm not. Protective fences are for cowards.

Photo of the day: 

Writing of the day:
(Of course all of what follows belongs to Lucas's world of Star Wars.  I'm not trying to make any money off of it, it was just fun to write):  "Jedi of the Conch Republic":

            The sound of the island sytar filled the living space as the early morning sun crept in through the windows, filtering through the breeze-blown drapes.  Beer cans littered the ground, the sole survivors of last night’s festivities, the music itself not an inhabitant of the morning but merely an artifact of the night before.  The carpet, once lush and full of soft comfort was not worn hard and scattered upon with the stains of various kinds of droppings, beer, cigarette butts, vomit and more, much more, the fossilized evidence of much full life and hard labor.  And over by the portal leading into the hallway leading out to the courtyard—there, just beside of the air lock hatch which could be secured at a word against the ever present threat of a nitrogen upsurge in the unstable atmosphere of the planet, laying like some tossed away party fair, was a lightsaber.  How it had come to be lying on the floor is lost to the annals of galactic party lore, but it was not so soon forgotten as it had been haphazardly misplaced. 

            A shadow fills the doorway leading to the rooms beyond in the darkened part of the house.  Hanging glass beads part and the shadow breaths heavily, reaching out his hand in a sigh of relief and a beckon.  The lightsaber flies to the open hand and is lit as soon as it touches the golden tanned skin of its master.  The blue flame lights the face of the man behind the weapon, partly concealed by the shadows of the hallway beyond, but the eyes wide with amazement in a still drunken stupor.  It is always amazing, the power of the lightsaber.  They say these are the weapons of Jedi.  I don’t know much about that.  Where I come from there are no true Jedi.  No knights that you hear stories of.  Where I come from the ones who are lucky enough to be able to build lightsabers use them for one thing and one thing only: snorkeling in hyperspace.

Jedi of the Conch Republic

A short story of the Star Wars universe

By nathaniel V. finley

            “The Conch Republic: a water world in the T-2a system.  Once a haven for pirates, smugglers, and bounty hunters of all types, this small planet with an unstable nitrogen-flaring atmosphere was known for centuries as one of the premier tourist destinations for the lower Galactic systems.  It became a designated no-entry zone after Andobin power crystals were discovered in its watery depths and all tourist activity was suspended indefinitely. Plans were laid to relocate the small but staunchly loyal citizenry of the planet. However, when the Galactic government sent a battalion of security guards along with three full Jedi knights to oversea the resettlement of planetary residents to other systems the residents themselves formed a governmental council and declared that they were ceding from the Republic and named themselves “The Conch Republic” (after a similar event recorded in folklore said to have occurred on some obscure planet in a galaxy far, far away…an event some even stipulate has not occurred yet). A short conflict ensued between galactic troops and the residents but upon further investigation the Jedi council in charge of the new power crystal mining facilities realized that the power crystals were in fact only to be found in a relatively small portion of the water world’s surface and a compromise was thereby reached in which residents and tourists alike could remain on all but the small portion of the planet where mining activities occurred. Over the centuries the planet’s population proved to be so hospitable that the mining operations and the residential and tourists districts came in close contact and proximity to one another, and it became part of the Conch Republic’s charm and fame to have live Jedi miners mingling in the same bars and cafes which were popular among the tourists.  More than one retired miner was known to make a living selling Jedi miner wares to the tourist population. 

            Still, you don’t hear much about the Jedi agriculturalists, since they are far overshadowed by their Jedi knight counterparts. The Jedi Agricultural Core (JAC) is formed by Force-sensitive individuals who were not picked up by Jedi masters for further training as padawans after the initial three years of Jedi education. There are actually a number of Force-related jobs that such individuals might become involved with, and in the JAC mining for power crystals is only one such job field. It requires an extra five years of training at the JAC academy on Dantooine, where the extreme outer desert regions serve as a simulation field for mining activities in all types of environments , as the outer desert in Dantooine is an environment without oxygen. Power crystals only form in the absence of oxygen—although the reason for this phenomenon is not yet known—and the nitrogen-thick waters of the Conch Republic are just such places.

            Of course, Force-sensitive individuals who are not picked up to become padawans could opt out of the entire Jedi career field and many do. But programs such as JAC allow Force-sensitives the chance to continue developing their force skills and to learn how to use the force for other-than-combat (OTO) situations.  In the waters of the Conch Republic these workers are power crystal harvesters, or PCHs, popularly known as “pocks”.  It is a great honor to be able to call yourself a pock, as training is extremely arduous and completely voluntary with an over 80% attrition rate. Pock culture is exclusive and well known for its rowdy, drunken, can-do attitude. Pocks are famous for their unofficial motto “nobody owes us nothing, and we don’t owe nobody anything.”  On the Conch Republic the pocks intermingle more with the locals and the tourists then they do in other mining areas, but there are still a number of bars that are exclusively pock bars and no tourist in their right mind would wander in to those places uninvited. It’s not that pocks are violent, but one of their more striking and defining characteristics is a highly attuned use of the Jedi mind trick, which is always at play in any pock interaction even among themselves, and all the more the pleasure when it is turned on some unwitting tourist. Most of the time a tourist would pass a pock bar without even knowing it was a pock bar. If a tourist did happen to wander into a pock bar the first thing a pock would wonder is whether or not that tourist were unknowingly force-sensitive. At least one famous Jedi knight was first “discovered” after he had wandered into a pock bar and saw through the mind games that the pocks there attempted to play on him. 

            Another reason for the hard-edge of pock culture, and the reason why pocks are allowed to carry on as famously as they do was a defensive reason. For example, the Republic first learned of the existence of power crystals in the T2-A system because a Jedi spy had uncovered Sith activity in that region during the first Sith War, whereupon it was uncovered that the Sith were mining dark power crystals from the waters of the Conch Republic. This was actually the reason for the resettlement procedures, but once the secession had begun the Sith War ended, and as the immediate threat of the Sith had been alleviated the compromise agreement was reached and everybody seemed to be happy. It had been over 500 years since any dark side activity had been registered by force-sensors and even though there was a constant watch over the Conch Republic things seemed to be working out all right. The tourists brought in money for the system, the residents were happy and relatively independent of outside oversight, and the well-trained and insulated pock battalions worked peacefully in the waters without much interruption. They harvested both dark side and light side crystals—like all pocks do—which is once again a reason for their intense training since they had to build up an immunity to the power of the dark side crystals. That’s also why it was against the law for pocks to be allowed to have access to lightsaber technology.  Which is why a pock having a lightsaber was a very rare occurrence (in fact, pretty much unheard of), which is why the pock was so relieved to find his lying inside his compartment and not lost somewhere outside in the hands of one of his party guests. 

            “Goddammit why do I insist on showing you off?” the pock, whose name was Coal (after the legendary mineral from miner’s lore), declared as he flipped off the lightsaber and disappeared with it back into his sleeping chamber. 

            Now pocks are given three weeks vacation for every three months of work that they perform. Most pocks take this vacation off planet, which helps keep them from going island crazy. Coal also took his vacation off planet, except not the way you might think. Coal and his buddies had discovered a new pastime, one which was growing famous among the JAC community and the pock community in particular, and which was causing a great deal of concern with the Jedi council. This activity was known as “snorkeling in hyperspace”, and for the last two years it had become the only way to spend your vacation time. 

There are two types of Andobin chrystals—both of which are of the same family as the chrystals used in making laser guns (lightsabers blades are “frozen” laser beams).  One of these types channels the light side of the Force, and the other type channels the dark side—which is why the light of the two types of light sabers are of different colors.

            Light sabers work through a mechanism that focuses the Force from the body of the Jedi through the Andobin chrystals, creating a lazer beam of Force energy.  The mechanism must have some method for controlling the focus so that it freezes and sustains a specific wavelength of Force energy. Each Jedi must construct his or her own light saber, including inventing his or her own mechanism, and so there are multiple variations on this mechanism and no two are exactly alike (thouth mostly each lightsaber is a variation of the Jedi master’s who is training the padawan, because the padawan needs some clues and starting technology to construct the mechanism).

When lightsabers were initially concieved they were only theoretical. The practical problem was not how to create a lazer—that technology had long been in existence. The problem was how to freeze the lazer at a certain height and then to sustain it at that level. 

Most sabers use some sort of a conductive technology that uses the Force to act on the power mechanism that sends energy through the chrystals to produce the lazer.  Some operate on the mere will of the Jedi. If the Jedi is knocked unconscious the saber goes out. Other lightsabers employ a mechanism that actively channels the Force from the Jedi, and these sabers are turned on and off with a power button and can be operated by any force-sensitive being. But all lightsabers must be employed by channelers of the Force—whether they are Jedi or not, even if they are not aware that they channel the force to any small degree. Many Jedis employ evolving technology, which morphs itself to the Force imprint of the specific Jedi so that with use it will eventually only operate in concurence with that Jedi’s touch. The process of building a lightsaber is a process that teaches padawans a great deal about their personal  relationship to the Force. 

            All lightsabers, however, employ the power chrystals that are harvested from, among other places, the nitrogen waters of the Conch Republic. And the Jedi council use Jedi agricultural specialists to harvest the chrystals. Since Coal was not chosen by a Jedi knight to become a padawan, he was sent with five other trainees to become agriculturalists. He got his pick of what kind of agriculture he wanted to specialize in, and he chose chrystal harversting.