My Alien

JWise Photo of the Day

Department of Homeland Security notice that appointment date for biometrics interview is scheduled

My sweet Alien wife has finally been notified by MIB, also known as Department of Homeland Security that her I-90 application to replace her expired Alien Registration card has been processed and they are ready to accept her "Biometric" data. Caroline has been on pins and needles as these days everyone knows you don’t mess around with immigration issues in America and seeing that her old Alien I.D. ran out back in September, she has waited breathlessly for this letter letting her know that the glacial process will in fact – go forward. On November 18 in a small back alley room, what else can this be as November 18 is in fact a Saturday and NO ONE from the government works on Saturday, so what we assume must be some clandestine corner of Phoenix, Arizona, secret Homeland scientists will move to extract the precious "Biometric" data from my Alien. God only knows, will she be cloned, will they steal her stem cells, is she being profiled in some vast database of genetically specific Alien types? Just what goes on behind those closed doors will be exposed right here in just two short weeks.

Lilikoi – Passion Fruit

JWise Food, Photo of the Day

Insides of the Passion Fruit also known as Lilikoi - on Hawaii

If you ever go to Hawaii you will likely have more than one opportunity to try what is known in Hawaii as lilikoi, or, for us mainlanders – passion fruit. The same day we bought the dragon fruit we saw these old wrinkled up leathery fruits – ah, so that’s what passion fruit looks like. While on the islands we had lilikoi shave ice at Jo-Jo’s on Kauai, Mahi in guava-lilikoi butter sauce on Molokai at the Kualapu’u Cookhouse and something else with passion fruit but my memory fails me. Passion Fruit is super yummy, a lot more tart than we imagined, but the flavor is phenomenal. I have been looking for a passion fruit jam recipe that uses fresh fruit and not fruit juice concentrate but this must be one of the most closely kept secrets in the culinary world.

Inside the Dragon

JWise Photo of the Day

Inside the Dragon Fruit

Visiting the Wild Oats Marketplace nearby we come upon this odd-looking thing. A quick search of labels tells us this baseball-sized red orb is dragon fruit, also known as the pitaya or pitahaya, as well as the strawberry pear, and, for you Latinphiles, the Hylocereus undatus. The dragon fruit is a tropical fruit originating from the Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica area, however, is now cultivated around the world where tropical climates permit. So, if you live somewhere where 20 to 50 inches of rain (54cm to 136cm) a year, with temperatures up to 104 degrees (40c) are the norm, you might want to try growing this yourself, because, at $8 apiece, this is probably the most expensive fruit I have ever seen. And, no, it doesn’t taste like chicken, nor would it taste better with chicken.

Anywhere Left?

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Map of Arizona with John and Caroline's travels highlighted

This map of Arizona has been with Caroline and me since shortly after moving to Arizona in 1995. The dark black lines are the roads traveled to date. A few other roads have been taken but are not highlighted as I drove them myself without Caroline; this is a record of our Arizona travels made together. When we bought the map, some roads weren’t paved yet, and some roads didn’t exist. There are some short segments we haven’t taken, although we have driven all of the surrounding roads, and as of yet, we haven’t returned to close those gaps. Often, we have seen so much of an area that we are certain the short road won’t show us any more than that which has already been seen. This weekend, we will fill in a small area of dirt roads around Willcox, Arizona. November 11 and 12, we will drive the Buck and Doe backcountry dirt road from Peach Springs to Grand Canyon West before we visit Meadview, Temple Bar, Pearce Ferry, and the ghost town of Chloride. On this trip, we will also return to Oatman – another ghost town, this one on old Route 66 to take the gold mine tour we missed out on a previous pass-thru. After that, there is an area on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation left to visit, along with a 25-mile road through the Colorado River Indian Reservation.

Signage: Warning

JWise Photo of the Day

A "Restricted Area Warning" sign from a United States military installation in Frankfurt, Germany

During the early 1990s, Caroline and I met a Canadian bike messenger from the London, Ontario, area who fell in love with Germany after attending a race in Berlin and decided to stick around for a while. Ian Gordon was that Canadian, somehow he landed in Frankfurt, and one fateful day I ran into him at the hot local hot record shop of that time called Delirium. Ian often visited our little office where we attempted to make record covers and various other 3D psychedelic information. Shortly before Caroline and I moved to the United States, Ian stopped over for an ‘evening’, leaving quite late to go contemplate the language of trees when he stumbled upon this sign from the Frankfurt Abrams Complex – the U.S. Army’s 5th Corp Headquarters at the time. Today the sign makes its place on a wall in our bathroom. Thank you, Ian Gordon.

City Park

JWise Photo of the Day

A city of Phoenix public park

Coming this winter, this Phoenix City Park will see its grass turn brown, its trees leafless and just like in summer the park will remain devoid of visitors. You won’t find a picnic area, a barbecue, benches, or any other comforts at this park – it is a park only in name. During the summer the grounds are too hot and exposed for kids to play under the 118-degree sun. Without a single light, the park is pitch black at night. A similar park nearby was recently saved with the addition of a fenced area allowing dogs to run around with a leash, hey, how about some trees, paths, benches, and water fountains here so we humans can have a place to run around away from the leash of our homes and TV?