Vacation in San Francisco

Last week I took my little family on vacation to San Francisco. We were originally planning on going during the summer, but I figure we cut the cost by about 40% by going during our oldest kids' spring break instead. The risk, of course, was that the weather would be bad, but in the cold calculus of our cheapitude, a lot of money saved outweighed the threat of a little rain. Even so, we still spent a pretty penny (there goes our tax return ...), but it was well worth it. As there is absolutely no way that I have time to do a complete run-down of our experiences, I'm going to show one picture from each of the places we went, most of them NOT the typical tourist pictures, which hopefully will give a feel for what we did ...

Sunday, April 17th

We drove up north on Sunday, which is something we always try to avoid, but it just didn't make sense to do anything different. Even so, we wanted to have some religious content to our day, so on the way up we stopped at the Oakland Temple, where we took a lot of pictures. Again, I'm only going to show one, but suffice it to say that we took pictures of the temple, of the awesome view from the temple (we still have to assemble the panorama shots), of the inside of the visitors center (there's some amazingly beautiful paintings in there), etc. In what was to become a pattern over the next week, the children each had their own cameras, which they used to take pictures of everything from their legs to black walls.

Of course, being in Oakland, we were on the wrong side of the bay, so we went across the Bay Bridge. My wife had purchased a San Francisco travel guide, and read to the kids the history and information on the bridge. The older two didn't really care, but our youngest son, who is into all things mechanical, thought it was awesome. Their biggest complaint was that they couldn't see the bridge very well from the back of the van.

We were hoping to see Fort Pointe Sunday night before it got too late, as it is only open Friday through Sunday. Alas, in making our way there, we got stuck due to construction and by the time we figured out how to get there, it was past closing time. Even so, in part of our unexpected detour, we found ourselves in the Presidio military cemetery. My wife had never been in such a place, and it was a good reminder to everybody of the sacrifices that people make so that we can enjoy our freedom. We noted many tombstones that showed many people had actually participated in more than one war.

Even though Fort Pointe was closed, the wiggly part of Lombard Street, arguably the crookedest street in the world, doesn't ever really close, so we went over there to show the kids. We made the mistake of going east on Lombard Street towards the top of the hill, which meant we were in a row of cars many blocks long all trying to go down it. While waiting, I had the wife and kids get out of the van and walk up the hill a few blocks to get there and they actually were able to walk down and then back up it and return to the van before I had moved more than two blocks closer. We eventually bailed from the long line, and determined that we could skip it altogether by coming from the south along Hyde Street and simply turning right at the intersection. The kids were alarmed that we were "butting in line", but to me it was a demonstration of great wisdom rather than a show of a lack of ethics. Note to all future Lombard Street tourists: do what we did.

Monday, April 18th

Monday morning we set off for Golden Gate Park, a beautiful tract of greenery cutting a swath through urban San Francisco. Within the park was the Japanese Tea Gardens, which was free to go into if you got there before 10 am. We arrived just after 9 and walked through the gardens. It was slightly drizzly (the worst weather we had all week, actually), so the kids were a little anxious about that (remember, they're Southern California children ... rain is very much akin to a meteor shower in both their frequency and their potential impact). Even so, the walk through the gardens was beautiful and we were able to convince our daughter, at least, to just be still and enjoy the peaceful surroundings.

After we went to the Japanese Tea Gardens, we walked across the street to the Academy of Sciences, a museum that had lots of different sections. We walked through the butterfly infested rain forest, stared down the albino alligator, grinned at the sharks, and played with the starfish. The kids love that kind of stuff, even if they'd rather look and run rather than gaze and read. We spent nearly the whole day there, and were so very happy that we were able to get in to the planetarium for a star show. The children had never been to anything like that and they were truly in awe as we appeared to zip through the stars and swerve between planets. It was very, very cool.

After we left the Academy, we went over and, after a bit of difficulty, found some parking near the Children's Playground. The kids had a great time going down the concrete slide and climbing the rope tower. My oldest son was too afraid to go all the way to the top until his younger sister showed him up (after I demonstrated to her it could be done -- yeah, I'm a big kid). I think it was that night that we came back to the hotel and went swimming at the hotel pool, which waters were quite warm, but the air was SO cold. The kids got in, but my wife and I didn't. In fact, my wife stayed back at the room because she was so cold. Undeterred, the kids had a blast, though.

Tuesday, April 19th

No trip to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf would be complete without stopping at Pier 39 to watch the harbor seals. The noisy, smelly, rude animals always make me laugh. The kids were under-impressed, though, so we moved on.

We walked over to the Aquarium of the Bay and got there just as it opened. A relatively small aquarium (we were used to the likes of the Monterrey Bay Aquarium), we only spent a few hours there. The kids enjoyed it, though, particularly the really long tunnels that wrapped around under their big tanks. The kids had their cameras out and were taking picture after picture of sharks and rays and schools of fish floating over their heads. It was a great time.

When we were done at the Aquarium, we walked down the street to Joe's Crab Shack for lunch. It's totally bad for your body, but it is arguably one of my favorite places to eat. I'm a big burger fan, so when I saw their "Surf 'N Turf Burger", I was sold. It's a big hamburger with shrimp on top with deep fried onions and sauce (okay, there's lettuce and tomatoes on it, too). Again, it was totally bad for my body, but it was so totally worth it. Oh, and the wife and kids enjoyed it, too.

After lunch, we walked/sauntered/rolled over to the Hyde Street Pier. We just wanted to take a quick look at the ships from the pier, but then discovered that all of them were open to visit for free that day. Never ones to turn down free stuff, we happily clambered aboard each of the ships in turn. Our favorite of the bunch was most definitely the Balclutha, which not only had an interesting story, but was well-fitted for visitors. The kids were well-engaged and had a great time walking its decks. There was actually some kind of a youth program going on at the time, too, with people pretending to be sailors instructing a bunch of pre-teen kids on how to take care of a ship. Judging by all the sleeping gear left in one of the cabins, I think it was an overnighter for them. Such an amazing ship, we were stunned at its size and, given how we are used to such a mechanized world, amazed that such a huge thing (fully loaded, even!) could be moved just by wind power alone.

That night, we drove over to the Financial District. The kids wanted to see the Transamerica Pyramid. We drove around and the kids again took lots of pictures, most looking up at the buildings around us. They're city kids, but not city kids, and thought it was really neat. I still don't think they comprehend just how many people live in the big city, being so densely packed in compared to where we live.

After the Financial District, we drove up to Coit Tower and were stunned to find we could drive all the way to the top and get parking! All the previous times I'd been there, traffic to the top was a nightmare and we ended up parking down below and hiking up, so parking at the top was a real treat. We went inside, but declined the ticket to go to the top. Even so, we enjoyed the murals on the inside (the kids finding the part where a guy was being held up) and the view from the outside. We took some playful pictures, and also some great shows of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Wednesday, April 20th

Wednesday morning we went to the U.S.S. Pampanito. See my innermost thoughts on this here. We had a great time climbing through the submarine, and the children were very impressed by how cramped the quarters were, how tiny the kitchen was, how the sailors just slept wherever there was space, how there were pipes and wires and knobs and dials practically everywhere in sight, and how huge the torpedoes were. I don't think they truly appreciate the challenging life of a sailor, particularly one at war, but I'm confident I don't, either.

Later that afternoon, we took the ferry over to Alcatraz Island. For a place with such a dark past, the island is actually quite delightful to visit. The National Parks Service has done an excellent job, and the ranger/guide we followed for a 45 minute walk was engaging and entertaining. We were regaled with stories of people who attempted to escape from the prison, which was a wonderful lead-in to the actual audio tour itself. Each of us donned a pair of headphones and walked the halls of the prison. I walked with my six-year-old son as we listened to the stories of the place. Occasionally, he would hear something and look up at me with a long face and surprised eyes. It was priceless to watch his expressions change as he heard about the inmates' misbehaviors. I think each of my children appreciated that prison is not someplace they want to be. We'll be renting "Escape from Alcatraz" soon.

Thursday, April 21st

Thursday morning we went to the Exploratorium. My wife and I had visited there when we lived nearby just after getting married, and loved it then. In the years since, it hasn't changed beyond recognition, and still was quite enthralling to the kids. (Okay, and us, too. Blast it, it's just so hard to hide that we're nerds!) Again I went with my youngest son while my wife stayed with the older two children; their paces were just too different to stay together. We had a great time exploring each section, and actually ran out of time (which made the kids kind of grumpy when we left). They wanted to stay all day to play with the various exhibits. I think that of all the stuff there, a few favorites were the iron filings that could be assembled into structures on two opposing magnetopoles (you could actually see the magnetic field lines in the structures that could be assembled!), the sound tube that ran for 100 yards that you could talk into and hear yourself echo, the camera that took multiple frames that superimposed images with slight time offsets (my wife had, like, 30 arms!), and the wall where you could assemble tubes and ramps to make marbles roll down. My older children also really enjoyed all the stuff on electricity on the upper floor, a concept my youngest didn't quite understand (though he did really enjoy putting wires together in random, meaningless ways).

After we left there, we walked the Palace of Fine Arts briefly, so that we could take some pictures. Even with how beautiful the place is, its history is equally enthralling. However, I was struck with a sense of disappointment in that there really wans't much symbolism or meaning associated with the place. In comparison to the monuments and churches and other things we have seen in London and in Germany, it just seemed kind of ... second-hand. Still beautiful, but without the emotional resonance.

That night we took the cable cars over to Chinatown. Our first stop was the Sam Wo restaurant in San Francisco. I remember that place from over 20 years ago when I went there with my parents and siblings. Ever since then, every time I go to Chinatown I have been able to stop for dinner there. It is such a quaint little place with wonderful food. You have to walk through the kitchen area to a flight of stairs that takes you to the seating area where the waitress, if that's what she is, took our order. The food was delivered by dumb waiter to the second floor and we had to be careful to order water in cups, otherwise they bring bottled water and charge you for it. My youngest really doesn't do mixed or saucy foods, so he pretty much just ate rice, but the other two children really enjoyed it, as did I. My wife had a great meal of mostly meat and vegetables, which is just what she needed to keep her hypoglycemia at bay. We all walked out with smiles and slightly distended bellies.

Walking around the rest of Chinatown, we wandered the streets somewhat, stopping at a fortune cookie "factory". It was really just a garage where fortune cookies were assembled by two older Chinese men. I'm not really sure how food establishments pass food inspections in Chinatown, because nothing seemed terribly sanitary, but the kids thought that was interesting. We also did our shopping for souvenirs there, and the kids loved spending their hard-earned money on random things. Between the wooden sword, the really cool dragon paperweight, and the Baoding balls (and more!), we got sufficient touristy stuff to keep everybody happy.

Friday, April 22nd

Friday was our last day in San Francisco. We had ridden the cable cars the night before, but wanted to ride them again during the daytime. We took a different line this time, which still landed us in the Financial District, but this time we were able to get better pictures. The kids enjoyed the ride, especially my youngest son, who would often turn around and just watch the cable car operator as he worked the handles. We spent a bit of time learning about how they worked (which was different than we thought ... check it out). My two older children were excited to be able to hang off the side, and while they were somewhat disappointed that they weren't allowed to jump off it while it was still moving, and that they weren't allowed to hang out over the street, they greatly enjoyed themselves nonetheless. Truth be told, the time I ended up standing was actually a better experience because you can see a lot more of the buildings around you from that vantage point.

After that, we checked out of the hotel and drove up to Twin Peaks. Having lived near San Francisco, in hindsight I'm surprised that I'd never been up there before. The views were great, but that particular morning it was cold. We originally anticipated that we'd have a leisurely lunch and climb the nearby hills to the top, but it was just so cold that we had a quick lunch, snapped a few pictures, and left as soon as we could. The next time we're in town, we'll try again.

We then drove over to Fort Pointe. After finally navigating there successfully, we had a very nice visit at the fort. The kids like climbing all over the place, and while they weren't interested at all in the historical exhibits, they did like climbing the neat stairs and looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay.

Finally, we actually drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped on the other side. By this time, everybody was cold and tired and had sore feet. My daughter being the most vociferous of the bunch, she actually threw something of a tantrum about not wanting to walk out across the bridge. After much difficulty, we got her out there in time for her to see a few seals playing in the waves. It was really cute to see my youngest periodically stick his head between the rails so he could see if we were over water. We walked out to the first/north tower and took lots of pictures there.

We had a wonderful visit to San Francisco, and we are so glad we took a week to see the sights. As always, I was happy to be able to spend the time with my wife and kids.

I think there was much more we could have done, and it would have been good to have a few more days, but we all left satisfied with the experience. After the long drive home, we found all mostly well at home: our cat was still alive, we only lost one fish, and only one of our two frogs had croaked (sorry, couldn't resist).

(Postscript: it took me a week to assemble this! *phew!*)

The Missing Magnitude of Accomplishment

Last week I had the chance to visit the U.S.S. Pampanito in San Francisco. Frankly, it was incredible. I'll not talk much about that experience here, because I have something else I want to muse about.

Whenever I learn about stuff during the World War II era, be it flying fortresses or concrete bunkers built into the side of giant craters or aircraft carriers or atomic bombs, I'm always struck by just how awe-inspiring it was that these things came to be.

You look at today's technology, so carefully crafted with smooth and sleek curves (see Apple, Inc.), and things just seem so ... modern. But then I look at things like the Pampanito, and I remember what a heady time World War II was. It was a time when science and mechanics (and budding electronics) walked hand-in-hand with raw willpower under the demands of pure expedience to create some of the most amazing technological breakthroughs the human race has ever seen. The shape of the world today, for all it's flaws, is the result of World War II.

People of that time just built stuff. Their engineers planned, sure, and they tried to be just as deliberate as we try to be in their designs, but when it came right down to it, if there was a need to put a wire here or a pipe there, they did just that because they had to and they didn't look back. They tried things that had never been tried before, and often failed in the effort, but with each failure they learned something which they would incorporate into the next attempt. Clambering through the "spacious" decks of the Pampanito makes this every so apparent. (Okay, I'm no doubt grossly generalizing, but from the vantage point of 50 years removed and being poorly informed, that's the way it seems to me.)

I'm not saying that reckless design is a good thing, but as an engineer who occasionally gets so fed up with paperwork and process and review, I am in awe that they did what they did. I sometimes think that our modern engineering world is so frightened of making mistakes that we make the even worse error of failing to even try.

I love the world we live in today. I love that, at least for me and most around me, it is a comfortable and secure and content place. Nevertheless, I look back at the accomplishments of the early half (ok, 2/3rds if you include the Apollo program) of the 20th century and I look around at the world of today, and I just don't see the same frequency or magnitude of accomplishment, on such a grand scale.

With all the posturing in the hallowed halls of Washington and the budget uncertainties and the shaky economy and the media fear-mongering, I yearn for days when we can try and not fear. I don't think days like that will come anytime soon.

(See here for a similar rant on the absence of audacious goals in today's world.)

Full disclosure: I manage a small team of engineers developing software to help coordinate activities at Mars between various spacecraft operating there. This is pretty cool. However, the least favorite part of my job is that every year I have to spend gobs of time begging for money from the higher-ups to pay for this work, when to me it is obvious that it is important and necessary. I love my job, but hate that aspect of it, particularly since I don't need very much money to do what needs to be done. This post is very likely a reaction to that frustration and a desire to be free to do what I want and not have to account to anybody. This doesn't make me a bad person ... it just makes me like everybody else in the world with an ounce of ambition.

Sometimes I Really Love My Job

I was sitting in a meeting just now watching as representatives from four different spacecraft operating at Mars were coordinating how they were to work together to transmit data between them. The meeting had broken up, and everybody stood to leave, but lingered to discuss other details of what had to be done to make the next planning cycle go smoothly. I also stood to leave, but paused at the door to marvel at the spectacle. Since my job is focused specifically on trying to get these various projects to work together, the sight brought warm fuzzies to me.

Smart people + working together = great things accomplished.

Sometimes I really love my job.

Gifts My Youngest Son Got for His Birthday

My youngest son had his birthday yesterday, and we had a wonderful time visiting with the in-laws and watching General Conference. All the while, he quietly (really! well ... mostly) played with some of his new toys that he got for his birthday. Here's the run-down on what he received:

• Some money from his paternal grandparents, which he promptly stated he wants to spend on a model with wheels he can paint.
  
• Stinky The Garbage Truck, which his maternal grandparents miraculously found for a steal at $15.
  
• Tickets to a monster truck rally in a month.
  
• A TRIO blocks wrecking ball crane, which my wife and I miraculously found at Ross for $15, which includes a dump truck.
  
• A chocolate cake with a monster truck on it.

Does anybody detect a theme to all these gifts? Yes, my youngest son is indeed a boy and loves trucks and planes and trains and pretty much anything that moves. The other day, he put a push-broom on the front of his tricycle in the back yard and proudly proclaimed, "Look, Dad! I made a machine!" That's my boy!

His sister gave him some candy and his older brother "gave" him the upper bunk, which he was so happy to sleep in last night. We also let him stay in his pajamas all day long, which, for some reason, is a treat to the kids.

He feels like such a big kid now, and it is very strange to us to know that he is now 6 years old! He's still our "little guy", but he is getting bigger all the time. You can see his missing teeth here, which is so indicative of the age:

We love him so much, and are grateful that he is such a good-natured and happy boy. He really does bring great happiness to our family, and I feel greatly blessed to be his father. Love you, kiddo!

Temple Trip With the Young Men and Young Women

A few nights ago I had the privilege of going with the young men and women from our ward to the L.A. Temple for a night of performing baptisms for the dead. It was an awesome trip. I drove 6 of the young men with me -- boys between 13 and 17 -- on the quick drive down to the temple.

Nobody had a "real" camera, so I ended up taking pictures with my DroidX, which has an 8 mega-pixel camera on it. (Still absolutely love it. You want one, you know it.) Here's the result (click for full-size picture):

After that, we went inside to perform the baptisms. Two of the youth had a whole pile of names that they wanted to be done, which were supplied to them by their loco-for-genealogy grandmother. I ran the names upstairs to have the cards printed for them, and returned with a stack of roughly 60 cards that were relatives of these two youth.

One of the counselors from the temple presidency came down to the baptistry and told us a story. He explained that an uncle of his was nothing short of a villain, and how when he, the temple presidency member, had joined the church he firmly believed that nobody would want this man's temple work done because, frankly, everybody believed he was going to hell anyway. He then explained that he eventually came to realize that those who never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this life have the opportunity to do so in the next, and that the baptisms we do in the temple afford those who have heard that Gospel and accepted it in the hereafter an opportunity to receive the saving ordinance of baptism for themselves.

Once he finally came to this understanding, he himself did the work for this villainous family member, and had an exceptionally moving spiritual experience where he felt that his uncle had accepted the Gospel and was so very grateful for the opportunity to have his sins washed away. He reminded us that we here on Earth are not to act as the judges of people's hearts and minds, and that that privilege is reserved only for the Savior. It is our obligation to do the work and make those opportunities available for those on the other side, and allow the infinite Atonement of the Savior to work.

It was a great story, and the youth seemed to understand that the names for which they would be doing the ordinances weren't just names on a piece of paper, but rather names of actual people who have passed away, who had lived lives with experiences both good and bad that we can't begin to guess at.

After this, several of the men who were with us took some of the youth to do confirmations, and I went to the baptismal font with several others to help the youth actually be baptized. We started with those who had brought the names, and it was a great experience for them (and for those of us who were there). The man who was in the font did a great job with each of them, explaining how to stand and how to go all the way under the water appropriately, and took his time with each of the youth.

I recorded that the ordinances for each name had been performed, while two others acted as witnesses that the ordinances had been performed properly. The experience was great for each of the kids, who seemed happy to be there. For a few of the youth, it was their first opportunity to do baptisms for the dead, and for others, they were well-familiar with how things went. Several of them seemed honestly moved to be there, and I was pleased to find out that some of them had prepared themselves to have a spiritual experience by fasting throughout the day.

When all was said and done, each of the 23 youth had been baptized and confirmed for about 10 people for each ordinance, including those 60 or so relatives from the youth who had their own family names to do.

As we separated to go home, each of the drivers selected someplace to go for dinner with the boys. For me and my car full of ravenous teenage boys, they wanted to go to Souplantation for dinner because they wanted all-you-can-eat. It took us 20 minutes to get there, and then they all concluded that $10 was too much for them to pay for dinner. So, we made our way over to In-N-Out -- another 20 minutes -- for burgers and fries. We went through the drive-through, which worked well, but the timing wasn't so good for one of the young men in my van, who was diabetic and had elected to fast that day (which didn't go well). Unfortunately, there wasn't anything I could do to help him, except to get him home as quick as I could, which didn't go well due to the excessive traffic.

Despite the difficulty in getting home, I have confidence that, at least for those in my van, the experience was a great one, and I am very grateful that I had the ability to be a part of it.

On Nuclear Power

A very good friend of mine is kind of a nuclear nut. He loves the stuff, and can rattle off how different radioactive isotopes decay quicker than he can tell you his phone number. (Okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration ...) In any case, in light of the mess that is Japan in the aftermath of the 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, I was curious to know what his thoughts were regarding the explosions at the nuclear sites there.

And, of course, he not only has thoughts, he has insights. I highly recommend that all 2 of my regular readers take a look at his two (as of now) posts regarding the nuclear reactors there:

• Japanese Earthquake Implications Quick Q&A
• Thoughts on Fukushima-Daiichi

The content of these posts are very informative and explain much about what has happened and why much of the media-induced panic shouldn't be.

My friend is a huge advocate of a "new" style of reactor that uses thorium, called a "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor", or LFTR. This reactor is a much safer, much simpler reactor, without all the mess of weapons-grade waste products being created. The technology has been around for decades, but the political will to build them just hasn't been there. Perhaps this disaster can help some of the right people see some sense, and put some weight behind this technology.

Books to Make You Panic

... Or Books to Encourage You To Be Prepared

I love my family, and I always worry about their well-being. I also love to read books, particularly science fiction books. Sometimes, these science fiction books are set in the not-so-distant future and describe Really Bad Things happening. I'm reading such a book right now, which is making me think about ways I can better prepare my family for just such a catastrophic event. As I was writing this blog post, it occurred to me that it is fairly rare that a book does this to me, and I can actually count them on one hand. Here they are for your amusement:

• One Second After, by William R. Forstchen. This is the book I am reading right now, which describes the events in a small North Carolina community in the aftermath of a nation-wide electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack. It makes me concerned about being able to store refrigerated medications in a no-longer-electrical world, having enough water available for my family, and storing fuel for both cooking and transportation. It has also caused me to contemplate my own powerful dependence on electronic devices, most especially including my car.
• Mariposa, by Greg Bear. This is a book I read last year, which describes a near-future history where the ability to create biological weapons becomes more available to terrorist groups. It makes me concerned about my ability to keep my family isolated in the midst of a highly communicable disease.
• Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. This book I read several years ago, which describes the aftermath of a cometary impact on Earth. It makes me concerned about having a long-term store of food and water, as well as bringing into question my ability to protect my family from those who would take what we have.

These three books have caused no small amount of thinking on my part. My wife and I already do try to keep a supply of food, at the council of our church (see here for tips), but we are notably unprepared in storing water (which is very bad given where we live in the desert) and fuel.

It makes me wonder all sorts of things, such as how desperate our neighbors might become if the grocery store no longer had food for them to purchase on a near-daily basis and the eating-out establishments were to close. Would they try to take what they know we have? I'd like to think we'd be willing to share, but would I do so if the Really Bad Thing that happened didn't look to be resolved any time soon, and we needed to be prepared to dig in for the long haul?

A few years back, I attended a training class sponsored by CERT (see here for details), where I learned all sorts of things about how to help in the event of an emergency. We talked about all sorts of scenarios, including earthquakes (the most likely event for where we live), building fires, and chemical spills. The one thing that the trainer, a fireman, kept saying throughout the course was that when things get really bad, "We ain't comin'." This was a good reminder to all of us in the class to pay attention, as in the event of a major disaster of any kind, the firemen, policemen, and hospitals will be so overwhelmed that we should have no expectation that they will come to save us.

Having read these books, I feel a bit wiser as to what to expect, but one thing these books don't really talk about is how specific groups of people would band together for their common good. I think specifically of my own church, which has a very clear organization of authority and an infrastructure to look after and care for the needy. This organization is no small thing, with tiers and redundancies that flow all the way down and ensures that every single person that is a church member has several people looking after them.

I have no doubt that if any of these Really Bad Things were to happen locally, my church would be a source of order and help for the entire community. We see evidence of this whenever an earthquake strikes in some of the more obscure places in the world, from Haiti to Samoa to Indonesia. This is not to say that the church can swoop in wherever there is trouble and make everything better -- clearly this is not the case (see: Haiti) -- but it certainly can be a moderating influence to help avoid the bands of marauding hordes that these books suggest will roam the countryside eating everything in their way.

Even so, there are plenty of things to be learned from them. First and foremost is that one's priority will naturally be to look after oneself and one's own. This natural instinct will drive the behavior of those who have and those who have-not in dire circumstances, which means that one can, if not plan for it, at least anticipate it. Read into that whatever you will.

As for me, these books encourage me to be better prepared.

When Discovery Ends

Okay, so the title of this blog entry is intended to be clever, believe it or not. That said, I have been thinking a lot about the end of the Space Shuttle program, and it's long term implications. With Shuttle Discovery touching down for the last time, prior to becoming a museum piece after having spent a cumulative year in space, only a few more Shuttle flights remain until the program ends.

When Discovery launched on February 24th, I was at work and turned on NASA TV to watch the launch. I was terribly disappointed by the coverage. I know that NASA likes to portray a professional, we-do-this-all-the-time attitude, but watching the launch coverage was about as exciting as watching grass grow. It's no wonder the American public is ho-hum about the ongoing space program. The NASA PR people just can't seem to figure out how to make the whole thing exciting. The irony is that the public really does get excited about it, despite the failures of the NASA outreach folks.

Here it was, the last flight of one of the most iconic spacecraft ever built, and there was nothing discernible in the way of fanfare and glory. I quipped to a friend that day, "So this is how America's space dominance ends ... with a yawn." I was a little miffed at the time, but several weeks later, I still don't apologize for it.

I have written in this space before (here and here) about my thoughts on the Obama Administration's handling of the Space Shuttle retirement. I do appreciate and understand the rationale behind it, and I still have high hopes for the future, but I still worry.

Thus far, even the best of our nation's private industry hopes, namely SpaceX, has yet to produce a human-rated launch vehicle. When it does, it will be more of a throw-back to the Apollo era than anything akin to what the Space Shuttle represents. Listening to the radio the other day, some space pundit said that "the Shuttle could do anything except leave low Earth orbit." That last "except" is a big one, but the first part of that quote (the emphasis was his ...) is nothing to scoff at.

So, even though NASA doesn't seem to have any clue how to gracefully retire the thing, I'm doing my best to help my children appreciate the end of the era. And it really is the end of the era. For the foreseeable future, with no end date in sight, our great nation will have no means to delivery people into space. That's just sad.

But that didn't stop me from taking my kids out on Tuesday night to watch the bright spots of light rise above the horizon as Discovery passed overhead, followed shortly thereafter by the International Space Station. We went to a nearby treeless/lightless park and oohed and aahed in excitement. The kids tried their best to find them in the binoculars, which they quickly, wisely abandoned; and I could only grumble when my oldest son, the dope, announced he left his glasses behind and couldn't see a thing. Even so, the children all thought it was great stuff, and I hope it will have some positive effect on their hopes and aspirations for the future.

And I will continue to do so, because I'm a conscientious parent. Even and especially since NASA can't figure out how to do it ...

On the Fire Alarm Low-Battery Warning in the Middle of the Night

Every day contains 24 hours. Of those 24 hours, there are 1,440 minutes. Within these minutes are 86,400 seconds. That's a lot of seconds when you think about it. Seriously, it would take you a whole day to count that high if you counted once per second.

Consider now that during any given day, most people get somewhere between 6 and 8 hours of sleep. Me? I'm running on about 6 1/2 hours these days, which consists of 23,400 seconds. This seems like a lot of seconds, but not really when compared to the total of 86,400 in a day; it's just over 27%.

Yet, for reasons I can not even begin to fathom, it's in this 27% of my life that the fire alarm low-battery beeping almost always goes off. I have to include the word "almost" there, because I have one errant data point which prevents me from excluding it. Indeed, in the entirety of my adult life, only one time -- one time! -- has the fire alarm low-battery beeping begun during daylight hours when I was not comfortably sleeping.

Why is this? One would think that this incessant beeping would occur rather randomly, as every battery should have a fairly even chance to discharge below the needed threshold at any time of the day. Nevertheless, it is not so. I didn't ace statistics, so I can't precisely quantify the chances that the alarm would (almost) always go off in those 23,400 seconds, but just looking at the percentage, I'd assume the odds should be roughly 1 in 4.

Yet, so it happened that last night at 4:08 in the morning, I was very rudely awoken by the incessant PEEP! of the low-battery alarm. I knew immediately what it was. I also felt pretty lucky that I knew which alarm was going off -- the one in my room. (Last time this happened, it took me about ten minutes of stumbling around to figure out which one was actually going off due to the acoustics of my house ... I ended up pulling the batteries from 3 different alarms in the middle of the night before I found the right one!)

So, you might be able to image me, half-awake but fully-annoyed, stumbling around looking for a chair so that I could climb up and pull the battery. The first chair I was tempted to grab was the one we keep in our room which has a broken leg. It's stable enough to sit on, but only when properly positioned. I was wise enough to skip that one.

Instead I went out into the hallway and got a folding chair from by the computer desk. Turns out that folding chairs aren't very tall. Since I'm not, either, this wasn't very convenient.

Getting the battery out of the alarm involved me, still half-asleep, balancing on the rickety folding chair and standing on my tippy-toes with my arms fully extended above me trying to remove the battery. The little door that holds the battery in didn't want to open. After several tries that hurt my blood-deprived (remember: arms above my head) and sleepy fingers, I finally got it open and took the battery out.

Then I went back out to the hallway where we have a drawer full of batteries, turned the light on (I squinted in the bright light, trying very hard to not wake myself up even more), and dug around until I found a new 9 volt battery -- still in its case. I tore the box open and went back to my room, expecting to quickly pop the battery in and go back to bed.

Well, it didn't quite go that way. After installing it in a manner that I thought was correct, I attempted to close the little door that holds the battery in place. It was even more uncooperative upon closing. I tried hitting it gently to close it (keep in mind that I'm still half asleep, standing on my tippy-toes on a rickety chair, stretching my arms high above my head) and the whole alarm came off the ceiling! Somehow I had managed to jar it loose and it was then dangling from the ceiling by the wires that plug the alarm in to the house power. The loose wires caused the alarm to beep several times in rapid succession.

By this time, I'm keenly aware that my fumbling around was causing my hypoglycemic wife, who sleeps rather poorly, to wake up more and more. I finally gave up, unplugged the stupid thing altogether, put the chair aside with the alarm on the floor next to it so we wouldn't trip over it in the stupor of our morning, and went back to bed. I rolled over, annoyed but still quite sleepy, and quickly went back to sleep.

An hour later, much too soon, the morning alarm went off.

Without going through the rather difficult effort of studying the hardware in question, one could easily conclude that the fire alarm companies have actively created alarms that go off in the middle of the night. Perhaps it's a ploy on their part to ensure that somebody is around to hear it when it does. And why do they have to make them produce that really high-pitched PEEP!, which screams at you in the middle of the night? Given today's electronic capabilities, can't they program in a kind and gentle voice that casually says, "Excuse me, but the battery in this fire alarm needs to be changed."?

Or perhaps the batteries' discharge rate is more directly related to thermal cycles, and discharge more in the relative cold of the night. Or perhaps the time that I insert the battery (i.e. during the day) is directly affecting the time when it discharges (i.e. late at night). I would assume this would be rather random based on the battery's make, model, and production batch.

It could be any one of these things. However, absent any direct scientific explanation, I'm unfortunately forced to conclude instead that this whole thing is a manifestation of my typical bad luck.

Snow Camping 2011

I went snow camping last night. For all you initiates out there, snow camping is when a group of boy scouts go out to some high-altitude camp site where there is a whole lot of snow, pitch tents on top of that snow, and try not to freeze their tails off while attempting to sleep in sub-freezing temperatures.

Well, last night was just like that, except for the sub-freezing part. The temperature was actually in the upper 30s, but the wind chill, I think, took it below the line.

Being the First Counselor in the Young Men's Presidency puts me in a position of responsibility for the boys in the ward who are between the ages of 14 and 16. The scouts go on this snow camp every winter, but this year their scout leader, to whom I am the assistant in all things scouting, couldn't go. No problem, I originally thought, I could handle that.

Then I was informed, the Sunday before the trip, that the plan was to have each group do their own meals. It took me about two seconds to begin panicking, as I have never been responsible for feeding half a dozen ravenous teenage boys before, and had no idea what to prepare. In theory, the boys are supposed to plan and prepare for themselves, but at the last minute that wasn't terribly practical. I called the leader of the priests (the 16-18 year-olds), the Young Men's President, and told him that it was just silly that we were doing meals separately and, in very clear terms, I told him that I desperately needed his help.

He was reluctant at first, but I was quite insistent. In the end, he did all the planning and purchasing and preparing for the meals. I am very, very grateful for that, and, having now seen how it can be done, I will be much better prepared next time.

We gathered at the church starting at 3:30 pm, and by 4 we were on the road. The drive was about an hour long, so by the time we got there, twilight was upon us. We drove all the way to the top of the road towards Mt. Pinos, and found an almost empty parking lot. It seemed not many people planned to sleep over night in the winter conditions.

The wind was blowing, and it was bitterly cold. We later found that the temperatures were in the low 40s, but with the wind chill I'm certain it was below freezing. We started loading our gear out of the vehicles and all the adults and boys carried several loads of stuff from the parking lot about 500 feet off the road to a camp site that we barely recognized as one. The snow was 2 to 4 feet deep, but the top of the snow was frozen into a slippery and hard crust. On occasion our feet plunged through the surface layer, but most of the time we remained atop the snow.

Once we got things loaded to the camp site (I only slipped and fell once, and that was far better than most), everybody variously went off to go sledding (yes, in the dim light), putting up tents, starting a camp fire, and eventually starting to cook dinner. I was greatly surprised to find that none of the boys were particularly skilled in the art of fire-starting, and it took us a long time to get it going, and then only after using some lighter fluid.

Despite the temperatures, we weren't exactly roughing it. One of the leaders brought a generator to power a spotlight, and several propane tanks, one of which he used as a standing heater to keep warm.

Dinner commenced chaotically, with garbage going in every direction. (That said, in the finest scouting tradition, the next morning we did indeed leave things cleaner than when we arrived, packing out quite a bit of garbage that we found upon our arrival.)

For dinner, we had barbecue chicken on hoagie buns, with potato chips and trail mix as sides. It didn't even approximate a balanced meal, but the boys ate it up, and I didn't have to prepare it, so I'm happily counting it as a blessing. S'mores rounded out the evening, though I was surprised to find that many of the boys were rather indifferent to them.

As people wound down for the night, the cold started making itself felt. The boys began filing away to their tents for the night, with three of them deciding to sleep out under the stars. Keep in mind that the temperature was hovering around 40 degrees, so it was cold. By about 9 pm, most of the boys were headed to bed, and I went that way myself, finally going to sleep by 10 pm.

I slept in my little tent that I've had since I was a boy scout. I have a lot of fond memories with that tent, which is no stranger to cold temperatures. Once when I was a kid I actually slept on Utah Lake, and I remember that being much colder than I was last night.

Last night I slept well enough, and was actually quite comfortable, despite the slightly lumpy snow upon which my tent was pitched. With the wind whooshing through the treetops and a gibbous moon waxing above us, it was very peaceful, even with a tent full of boys inanely yakking away about cars 30 paces away.

The next morning, I woke up at 6, but it was too darn cold to get out, so I went back to sleep until about 7:30. At that point, I supposed I should get up and be helpful, so I did and helped get breakfast started. We had "eggs in a bag", with bagels and pop-tarts also available.

Many of the boys spent a lot of time sledding, the conditions being nearly ideal: steep hills, icy snow, and windy pathways. Actually, when all was said and done, it proved to be a little too ideal, as several of the boys got spooked by hard landings and decided to call it quits before they got hurt. I think kids these days are less resilient (or more wise?) than I used to be, because I'm pretty sure I would have kept sledding until somebody actually did get hurt.

Later in the morning, several of us went snow-shoeing up to the top of Mt. Pinos. One of the leaders rented 10 sets of snow-shoes. With 15 boys under foot, I was really worried that we wouldn't have enough to go around, but very few of the boys actually wanted to go snow-shoeing, something I couldn't even fathom. For all of these boys, snow-shoeing is so far outside of their normal experience that I thought they'd all jump at the chance, but most of them actually complained about how they went last year and how they wanted to go sledding and how they didn't want to walk all the way to the top of Mt. Pinos again! Granted, this was the older boys talking, but I was still surprised, and quite a bit disappointed in them.

Nevertheless, with only 5 boys actually agreeing to go, there were snow-shoes to spare, so I decided to go, too, because, really, how often do you get to do things like that? I most certainly wasn't disappointed, either.

The hike up Mt. Pinos was about two miles each way, with a well-formed trail to follow. With the snow as deep as it was, we were a little concerned we'd have trouble finding our way, but there were plenty of tracks to follow and some of those in our party had been there before. In truth, we were able to actually make the trip shorter because we didn't stick to the trail but instead went over the intermediate hills towards the top.

At the top, it was beautiful. We found large open spaces that made me yearn for a snowmobile, a solar-powered radio antenna (which, oddly enough, wasn't distracting), and amazingly wide vistas. I was happy to be there, and when we got to the bottom, all who went were glad they did.

Those lazy boys who didn't? It was their loss. Apparently they spent most of their time just sitting around doing nothing, watching other people who showed up in the morning to recklessly go sledding. They reported seeing several ambulances arrive to take people off the mountain who had head injuries and the like. Thankfully, none of our boys shared that same fate.

We finally left to come home at around 1 pm. I had 5 boys in my van, and they were all fairly muted during the drive home. The one in the passenger seat to my right tipped his head back and immediately went slack-jawed as he passed out, his neck kinked in a weird swan-like pose. It was quite funny.

Even with my initial fears of being "in charge", it wasn't that intimidating. Most of the boys were helpful (though a few were downright lazy, actively seeking ways to not have to help), and they were very respectful to each other, to their leaders, and to those around us.

So, a few final thoughts. One time when I was moving something from the camp to the van, I walked by one of the young men, a very tall and sturdy athlete. He was standing beneath a tree with a shovel and digging the snow out from beneath it. Stacking the snow chunks up in a pile around the tree, I was at a loss to know what he was doing, so I asked him. His reply? He was building a snow fort. Why, you ask? His reply was heart-warming: "Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to build a snow fort, so I'm building a snow fort." I was moved because here was a kid from Southern California making good on a childhood dream. It was, to my dismay, short-lived, though, because his peers mocked him and he soon gave it up. Such a pity.

Another time the boys were sitting by the cars watching others sled down the hills. It was hazardous sledding, which they had learned by experience earlier in the morning. One of the boys, who has a well-documented history of adrenaline-sport-related accidents (he got a fairly severe concussion a month or so back), was shouting out warnings to people who were doing things that were clearly unwise. At that moment, one of the boys deadpanned, "Listen to him. He's like the Holy Ghost, saying, 'Don't do it!'" The boys and I looked around at each other, and then we started laughing. We all recognized the irony.

All told, I had a very good experience, and I'm very glad that I went.