The Blind Assassin

 This is a quick post for book lovers, because only book lovers know the feeling I have right now: a feeling of contented exhaustion after finishing a great novel. 

As usual, I am late to the party. The Blind Assassin was published 26 years ago, but it was new to me, and I had no idea what to expected when I opened to page one; maybe something about a professional assassin? Maybe some secret agent man shit going on? 

Nope, not at all. Essentially this was a novel within a novel with three different, yet interwoven stories twisting around each other. 

I admit I had the thing figured out about 3/4 of the way through, or at least I thought I did, but then the last 125 pages had me second-guessing myself. Awesome storytelling.

Margaret Atwood turned 86 years old last November and she now has a brand new fan. Hey, it is better late than never!

It is hard to believe, but I am actually going to sit down and write a bit. I have my cup of tea by my side -- the cup is a big, black 20 ounce treasure from the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. It's a great place to visit if you're in the area -- especially if dinosaurs are your thing. The tea is "Organic Peachy Green" by Tazo. I am happy it is "organic," because an inorganic tea doesn't sound very palatable. The Tazo connoisseurs say this tea has a "hint of cucumber," but I'm not buying it. Still, it is pretty tasty.

No, I have not stopped drinking coffee; far from it, actually. Throughout the morning, I've had two pots of Sunrise Blend from New Hill Coffee Roasters. My friend, Kevin, is the owner/operator of New Hill and he roasts and blends fantastic coffee.

This date, February 28, is earmarked in my life and it might be why I was moved to write today. My father died on this day back in 1997. I held his hand when he slipped away. I've always been thankful I was with him when he took his last breath. I will never know if he knew I was there, but I am glad he wasn't alone. Twenty-nine years ago feels like yesterday, but at the same time it feels like a lifetime ago.

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So what have I been doing? Working, mostly. I usually have a day off during the week and then embrace these precious weekends. I've been watching lots of basketball lately; I always do in February and March. It isn't nearly as entertaining and interesting as football, but it is better than most things on television. 

I am also reading (almost done) a fantastic novel, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It was a Christmas gift from my daughter who picked it up at a used book store (she knows I love those kinds of gifts). Atwood, of course, is most famous for The Handmaid's Tale, which presently sits atop my desk, part of my lengthy "To Read" list. If it is half as good as The Blind Assassin, I will be happy. She's an awesome writer.

Well, the days are getting longer. That's a positive. This time of year I am always looking for something positive, because this is an ugly time of year. The snow has become a flagrant gray-black, as if its very existence is meant to be offensive. The trees are barren skeletons. The few pock marks of bare ground are dreary and dead. The sky is concrete on most days. On good days, the temperatures rise above freezing for a short time, then the world becomes a skating rink at night. Rinse and repeat. Day after day. 

Oh, and there's dog shit everywhere.

I guess this is called "spring fever," right?

And, as any Minnesotan knows, winter isn't over. My dad used to say we always get a snowstorm right around the boys state basketball tournament. And you know what? He was right every time. I suspect the same will be true this year.

[editor's note: my last post waaay back in July 2025 was about the Amelia Earhart plane wreckage and the Purdue University expedition to Nikumaroro where the mysterious Taraia Object is located. I mentioned there was something very odd on the northwestern shore, which was nowhere close to the infamous satellite imagery that many researchers think is Earhart's plane. 

As it turns out, this is actually a shipwreck of the SS Norwich City, which foundered there in 1929. So, my eyes didn't deceive me; it really was something man-made, just not an airplane. Mystery solved.

By the way, this expedition, originally slated for November 2025, has been postponed until later in 2026.]

Earhart Expedition and the Taraia Ojbect

 Most folks know I am a history enthusiast. Even as a boy I was interested in the past, so this next subject is "right up my alley," as my mom used to say.

The people at Purdue Research Foundation announced last week they are putting together a joint expedition with the Archaeological Legacy Institute on 5 November 2025, to confirm the findings of Amelia Earhart's plane, which disappeared somewhere in the South Pacific in July 1937. Many attempts have been made to locate the craft, but none have been successful.

Over the years, researchers have speculated that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made an emergency landing on a deserted island called Nikomaroro. Within a lagoon on the island, there is an anomaly called the "Taraia Object," found by satellite, which could be Earhart's Lockheed Electra.

Well, I had to look for myself. So I fired up Google Earth and started searching for Nikomaroro Island. I admit I could not have found it on my own; it is truly a mere speck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is about as isolated as you can get from any living creature on the planet.

Once I located the island, I started hunting for the Taraia Object (I had no visual references to follow because I am stubborn adventurous and I wanted to see if I could find it myself). The island is very small so the search did not take long. And yes, I quickly found something: off the northwestern shore of the island two circular objects and a roughly triangular shaped object with straight edges just 700 feet offshore.

I quickly noticed something just 700 feet off the northwestern shore.

An angle looking southeast. What is this? This debris (if I can call it that) is submerged in shallow water offshore.

Looking directly above, the object to the left does not look like a naturally occurring object. And what are the two round objects in the left-center and right-center? They look like manmade objects, don't they? If you look closely there is debris scattered all over.

Of course, I thought I found the Taraia Object, but I was wrong. Below is (or was) the Taraia Object:

The Taraia Object is the faint dark line in the direct center of the image, just offshore, above this spit of land. Older satellite imagery showed a tube like structure, which was thought to be an aircraft fuselage. However, other researchers say it is nothing more than an uprooted palm tree. No longer visible, researchers think it probably has been covered in silt.

What I did not know, until I looked deeper into this mystery, is the most common hypothesis is that Earhart and Noonan set up "Camp Zero" on the northwestern shore of the island and sent radio signals from the damaged aircraft, which is how investigators were able to eventually focus on Nikumaroro Island. The northwestern shore is where I found these anomalous objects!

The Taraia Object is at location B. The anomaly I found is in location A. North is at the top of the image.

The object I found and the location of the Taraia Object are some distance away from each other, but 88 years of tides, pounding waves, cyclones and storms could easily have carried debris all across this small island. If it is submerged, it is like finding a needle in a haystack.

At least 12 expeditions have explored Nikumaroro Island since 1989. Human bones have been found on the island, as well as a woman's shoe, a compact case and a jar of freckle cream, which Earhart was known to use. This seems to be strong evidence; however, researchers are still looking for her Lockheed Electra and no evidence of an aircraft has ever been found there. It is also possible the plane was carried out to sea and we will never find it.

Will this research team finally be able to solve this mystery? Furthermore, what did I find on the northwestern shore of the island? Is it parts of Earhart's plane? Maybe an old shipwreck? Perhaps we'll find out in November!