My Austrailian Adventure - Sunday

Just after six o'clock Sunday morning, I could see the shores of Austrailia through my window.

The plane circled a bay before landing at SYD.


((Much later, I studied a local map and discovered that we circled Botany Bay.
The S.S. Botany Bay is the sleeper ship that Khan and his genetically engeniered followers escaped on during the 1990's.
DNA from embryos from the same project that created augments like Khan is responsible for the smooth QuchHa' forehead seen in the 23rd century.
I was infected with the virus a few weeks ago.
The pilot was circling the bay as an insult.))


The first thing I tried to do was access the local Wi-Fi.

I managed to learn that SYD has two different providers, but didn't get far enough to actually connect.

I met up with Tracy and we proceded to customs while I continued looking into Wi-Fi.

Then we hit a sign that said no cameas or phones. *sigh*

Eventually, I handed my passport and a little form to an official.

The exchange went smoothly enough.

And then I bought $5 worth of Wi-Fi (Ah, the joys of a CDMA phone--no service in GSM countries) and wasted most of my 15 minutes.

Luggage was found, and currency exchanged--with a $10 fee attached...

And then we went through another customs check point.

I declared the food and knife in my luggage.

Long story short, I kept the food; they kept the knife.

I had brought my Daqtagh, a symbol of my personal honour, as well as the rest of my Defense Force uniform.

In the US, "costume laws" allow me to wear such a blade (or even carry a betleH) as long as I'm in costume and at (or traveling to/from) a related event.
The official stated that they did have such laws, but they were still going to confiscate the dagger.

This process took quite some time.

((Meanwhile, Tracy made it through customes without a scratch and found Dan standing with all of the limo drivers holding a sign labeled "Klingons". I hear he got a lot of looks.

After I didn't come out for a while, Dan remarked to Tracy "I hope they didn't confiscate his betleH."))

After all of the paperwork was resolved, they put me back in line to deal with whatever food I may have. But they failed to give me back the needed form.

After they figured out what happened to my form, they were so confused that they didn't ask me about the food--so I didn't tell.


Eventually, I made it out.

I found Tracy and Dan and informed them of the seizure, and they both looked over the stack of paperwork.

Dan assured me that we could get it back.

UPDATE:  I got an e-mail last night informing me that it should be on its way back by the end of the week!


And then it was off to the Blue Mountains in Dan's batmobile (his car has bats on it).


We stopped for breakfast along the way at a little restaurant? bistro? and I had my first Austrailian food: scrambled eggs, bacon, and some sort of bread with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

I didn't recognize a thing.

But it was delicious.

Over breakfast I mentioned the superiority of webOS and Dan assured me that his iPhone was company-issued and that he wasn't a fanboi.


Hours later, we pulled off the road to find some kangaroos.


"I'm looking at a kangaroo. In Austrailia. Because I speak Klingon."
It was un-real.


The first thing you see when approaching Jenolan is their Grand Arch. I'm pretty sure it's the only cave in the world with a major road going through it.

Words do not do it justice.
(But please show up and take the audio tour ;-)

After making it through the arch, the view opens to take in the hotel and offices. Impressive indeed.

And cold. It's winter there.

Our rooms weren't ready, so Dan took us to his favorite cave, the Temple of Baal.

Wow.

I don't know what I had expected, but this is a nice cave. And there's a rock that looks like bacon!


Finally, we got the chance to freshen up. We had been traveling for well over a day by then.

The rooms at the Jenolan House are quite nice. (I'll note here that they don't have TVs in the rooms--you won't miss it. There is a common TV room, though.)

I was even more impressed with the instantly hot water in the shower.
And all of the water in the hotel is local water that has been filtered through the surrounding limestone.

Mmmmm... limestone.


Dan had things to take care of, so James took over as host.

The three of us explored the Imperial Cave.

Yup.

Tracy took several pictures of me in the Imperial Cave.

((I should have these pictures on Saturday.))

It is a very impressive cave. Even has a wine cellar.

And when we came across an undergound river, we were shocked by how clear it was. Absolutely amazing.


That night, the three of us met for dinner at the hote restaurant.

I can't pronounce the chicken dish that I had, but it was wonderful.

I followed it with chocolate mud cake.

((I was unable to find Dr Pepper. Austrailian Coca-Cola is made with sugar, unlike its American counterpart. However, to my pallet, it had a distinct artificial sweetner aftertaste. I drank water for most of the trip.
My wife informs me that Americans have more sugar in their food than other countries. Between this and the lack of soda, this partly explains why I followed so many meals with chocolate cake and why I always felt sugar-deprived.))

As James is in charge of the restaurant, we discussed ways for him to tie-in to the Klingon tour.
We discussed various Klingon food and drinks.

((As great as this trip was, I can't help but feel like I'm missing out.
In a few months, they'll have a Klingon tour, Klingon food, and hopefully a T-shirt. Wow!))


The day over, we retired for the night.
Sleep came easily.

My Austrailian Adventure - Saturday

I departed LAX Friday, July 9th.
I arrived at SYD on Sunday, July 11th.

Somewhere in there, Saturday occurred for a few hours.

Feel free to stare at a map and comprehend the International Date Line.

My Austrailian Adventure - Friday

Friday, July 8th, I arrived at Indianapolis International Airport.

International‽ They only got me to Chicago!

But let's back up.

In March of this year I was contacted by a guy named Dan from Austrailia.
Apparently they have some famous caves ( http://www.jenolancaves.org.au/ ) down there and they want their self-guided audio tour to be in Klingon.

Okay.

That time last year I was translating for England-based Sophos and produced a Klingon anti-virus.

And so things moved on.

I completed the translation and assumed that everything was over.

Wrong.

It's an audio tour.
It needs to be recorded.

I recommended qurgh.

Someone was going to be in the States late June and they would do the recording then.
But I still wasn't done. They wanted me to be present for quality control.

No one on their staff speaks Klingon, and if qurgh were to make a mistake, they wouldn't be able to detect it.

Allright. We live only a few hours apart. If they book a studio in Kentucky, it'll be a day trip.


And then things turned seriosly cool.


They couldn't fit the recording into their schedule.
Aince they couldn't come to us, they invited us to them.

We were going to Austrailia. To speak Klingon.

Wow.

Unfortunately, qurgh was unable to make the trip.

So I sent them audio samples of two other Klingonists; they chose Tracy.


Back to July.

Tracy and I made our way from IND to ORD to LAX to SYD over the course of 21 hours.

Our seats were never close.

The flight from Chicago to LA was the longest I had ever been on.
They even played a movie!

And then there was the 13 hour flight to Sydney. Wow.
It was so long that they gave us food. (Yes, I have seen such things in the movies. But movies lie all the time.)

I fell asleep before we even left LA. Several hours later, I awoke.

What time is it? Where are we? I wondered.

Then I realized how unreal those questions were.
We were not on some road trip where you can point out a highway sign and X miles to city sign.

We were somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. There was no way to know where.

And what time is it where? In LA where we left? In Sydney where we're going? In the random time zone that we're passing through?
Surely there's not a "ship's time" to go on.
No, the time was also to remain an unknown.

Soon enough, the random TV show playing ended and a map was displayed; complete with all of the info I was looking for.

Thanks United.

Hours later, a stewardess walked down the aisle collecting "rubbish".

I knew we must be close.


...to be continued...

Austrailia on a Dollar

Early January 2002, my friends and I walk into a Half-Price Bookstore.

In a small display, I found the audio cassette Conversational Klingon on clearence for one dollar.

"Wow! I can learn Klingon for a dollar!"

My friends and I proceeded to practically choke ourselves on the way home attempting to pronounce  [Q].


Flash forward eight years.


I just got back from Austrailia after supervising a recording of a Klingon translation that I completed for Jenolan Caves.


That was the best dollar I ever spent.





As I have the time, and as the mood hits, I shall record my expieriences abroad.

There were three cameras involved in the trip--I don't currently have any pictures of me. So I'll have to go back and add them as they come in.


As I am still (back) on my social network-free diet, please post all comments and questions on my blog, not on facebook or twitter.

Goodbye

Due to...circumstances, tomorrow morning I will be going off the grid.

I will be cutting off all of my social networks (I'm in the process of shutting things down right now).

I will not really be checking my e-mail.

I still have some business transactions going through, so I'll be looking specifically for those messages.

But my internet access will be severely limited, so don't expect instant replies.



I don't know when I'll be back, or even if I'll be back.


Until then,

~Michael

An Open Letter to Palm

Dear Palm,

I love webOS. I really do.

I don't go a day without telling someone how great it is.

I bought my Prē on launch day on Sprint.
I have sold at least 6 more since then.

And I'll continue to do so.


Now can you do something for me?

I've sent multiple e-mails and tweets to you, and have received no reply.

I want to translate webOS into Klingon.

Officially.

Oh, I'm capable of putting my own phone into Klingon. But that's not good enough anymore.

You see, there are several third-party apps out there that I would also love to translate.

But first, they need the OS to auto-detect the language.

Which is where you come in.

Just send me the strings.json files, and I'll begin right away.

I won't even charge you. I'm volunteering.


If you didn't already know, webOS has more Klingon apps than any other mobile platform.

And I've already provided translations to devs who don't use the auto-detect feature.

Other devs have been kind enough to make sure that their apps work with the native Klingon writing system.


I have been overwhelmed with the amount of support that I've received from other webOS devs.

Now I need suport from the company that made webOS possible.

Thank you,

Michael Roney, Jr.
Professional Klingon translator and webOS dev

p.s. Both Macs and Firefox recognize Klingon as a language. The iPhone auto-corrects "klingon" to "Klingon".




nom qaS yIn. Hoch yIjon!
Life moves fast. Don't miss a thing.

Let's show @Evernote just how many "a lot" is! #tlh

On April 10th at 1:26pm ET, Evernote sent out the following via Twitter:

Evernote keeps adding new language support and language-related features: http://bit.ly/ajtFDs

Following the link, you come across the following line

If you would like to help translate Evernote into your language, then join our Translation Program »

Of course I want to join the Translation Program.

I'll gladly donate my time and skills to bring Evernote into Klingon.

Especially since they have a webOS app ;-)

I ended up on their Contact Us page.

While I don't have a copy of my initial message, it went something like this:

I would *love* to help translate Evernote into Klingon.

I would especially love to for that translation to end up on the webOS app, but of course I'll translate more than just that.

I received this reply:

Hello Michael,

Unfortunaly we don't have such plan. We translate Evernote into languages where there is a lot of users.

Thank you!

Irina Soshinsky
Evernote Corporation

I'm not sure which hurt more; the rejection or the grammar.

I replied thusly:

I think you mean "where there are a lot of users".

How many is "a lot"? I will start gathering names.

Evernote:

I am very sorry, but for now we don't have such plan - translate Evernote into Klingon language.

Thank you again.

Again with the grammar. And the rejection.

So, this begs the question: How many is "a lot"?

(and did mentioning the webOS app hurt? They haven't released an update in a while. And we need one.)

When Sophos released their Klingon anti-virus last year, they had a lot of downloads.

(I've been unable to track down the exact number.)

I've released a few Klingon-themed webOS apps, and I would say that they have had a lot of downloads. (Klingon solitaire has 1630)

They already have the infrastructure set up for adding additional languages.

It's not like I'm asking them to take on a massive project.

So, let's let Evernote know that there are a lot of Klingons in the world!

Send Evernote a message letting them know that you want Klingon!

tlhIngan maH!

Once again, the Contact Us link.

And for those of you a little more bold, the support address that replied to me.

(And for reference, it's Case 93795)