Goats in the Backyard

The goats arrived on Friday. This view is from the deck and yes, that's my favorite tree. There are about 400 goats and they have already decimated the blackberry vines. Their day is spent eating blackberry leaves, walking up the hill to get a drink of water, and walking back for more blackberry leaves. One of the crab apple trees was close enough to the fence for the goats to munch and they really liked that.

The pathway to the grazing area is fenced with electric wire. Only the baby goats go near the fence and jump when they brush against the wire.

Some of the goats wear bells and the occasional gentle clanking--mixed with the bahs and bleets--is actually quite pleasant and relaxing. Maybe even a bit romantic, in a Thomas Hardy sort of way.

The fenced area leads the goats down to a flat clearing filled with blackberry and other various brambles.

As with any large group in close quarters, squabbles break out. The black and white goat had an issue with the old gray goat and jumped in the air, butting heads with the gray goat as she landed.

For the most part, though, the goats are pretty mellow and just chew ... and chew ... and chew.

What fun!

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today would have been my dad's 88th birthday.

Water Woes, or Does This Look Wet To You?

We currently have an excess of water. Not unusual for this house lately. The broken water pipe under Grandma's bathtub has forced us to deal with the other water issues in that room. We had hoped that the redesign of the venting system for the dryer would solve the problem, but that does not appear to be the case. After ripping up the sub-flooring, it is clear that water is leaking somewhere, and has been for some time. Not fun.

PERT: A Detour, Then Home

The boys had planned to make a stop at Gold Bluffs Beach to see the new facilities, but once they started rolling for home they lost interest in anything else. About 100 miles from home, they discovered that I-5 northbound was closed due to grass fires between Eugene and Corvallis. The handy GPS guided them through the backroads of Oregon to Independence, and they jumped back on I-5 at Salem and arrived home about 9 pm on Wednesday.

Observations of a Road Warrior

The boys are heading home and Craig made the following observations:

• Clean restrooms are more likely to be found in restaurants than in gas station convenience stores or rest areas.
• Colleges are casual places. If you fail to wear shorts on a college tour, then people will stare at you and smile politely while thinking, clueless tourist.
• Non-smoking, no-pet hotels do not use perfumed cleaning agents. A good name for a hotel chain would be, Non / No. I would stay there.
• All luggage should have wheels, even the cooler. All luggage should be small enough carry with one arm when going up or down stairs, even the cooler.
• The worst drivers--in the states we traveled through--are not in Oregon or Washington, but in Tennessee.
• People do go outside in the south. Cocoa Beach, which is as hot and humid as any other place in the south, is filled with people walking and cycling. So the problem in the other areas of the south must be that weirdos live there.
• Death Valley National Park is evidence drug use was a problem in the old days too. National land fill would have been a better idea.
• Cell phones are nice to have. But a GPS in a car is truly wonderful thing. Do not do a 19-day road trip without one.

PERT: Stanford

There are a lot of lists in the world of universities, for a couple of examples, lists of the best science and engineering schools and lists of the best computer science departments. When it comes to computer science Stanford is usually at the top, as Peter says, because of their graduate programs. The newest part of the Stanford campus is named after the guys who paid for the buildings, the Moore Materials Research building, the Packard Electrical Engineering building, the Hewlett Teaching Center building, the Allen Center for Integrated Systems building and the Gates Computer Science building. With friends like that, how can you go wrong? Here is the computer science building, which Peter would not pose in front of as he does not want himself associated with Bill Gates. Both Cal Poly and Stanford are big enough campuses that bicycles are the default transportation.

After touring Stanford, the fifth college on the tour, Peter's first choice for undergraduate is Caltech, the coolest place on the planet, and for graduate work, Stanford, the center of the computer science universe.

After leaving Stanford the boys crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and got this postcard-perfect photo:

Ah, San Francisco ....

PERT: Cal Poly

In a number of ways Cal Poly is different than the other colleges the boys have toured. It's the first college not specialized to science and engineering. The tour guide recommended getting to know the agriculture students because they really know how to barbecue. Second, Cal Poly is the first public school they have toured. They were told Cal Poly has the leanest acceptance ratio of any school in the CSU (California State University) system. The other public school they will tour on this trip is Berkeley. And third, Caly Poly has about 5,000 students in their school of engineering (there are half a dozen different colleges on campus), which compares to 720 for Harvey Mudd, 900 for Caltech and 1,400 for Rose-Hulman. Class sizes are bigger too, but the average class size of forty is only about two to three times bigger than the other colleges they have seen so far. So forty is not crazy. For these reasons Peter was initially determined to not be impressed by Cal Poly. Peter intends to major in computer science and software engineering, which are combined into a single degree at many colleges but not at Cal Poly, which offers those plus computer engineering. That sounds impressive. Peter has yet to compare the actual courses offered to see if that is so.

Perhaps the most interesting thing they learned about Cal Poly -- and what turned Peter around -- is that Boeing Aerospace, one of the main contractors at the Cape Air Force Base, has students working on satellites right on campus. In Florida they learned there is a lot more space activity generated by private money and by classified government spending than by NASA. Boeing's involvement is a huge plus for Cal Poly for someone who wants to make a living in the space business. Most of the colleges toured so far have been secretive about the average SAT scores of entering students. But at Caltech it is 1,500; at Cal Poly it is 1,317. So these last two factors make Cal Poly a terrific choice as a safety school for Peter. And although Peter is not influenced by such factors, Craig was impressed by the city of San Luis Obispo and by the campus, which although a public campus draws a lot of private donations, especially the engineering college. I have done high school visits in San Luis Obispo and, when Peter was six months old, attended my cousin's wedding at the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa ... it's a charming city.

PERT: Death Valley Sans AC (no pun intended), and other mishaps

Yes, that is sand, not snow, drifting across the road. I hear it's hot in Death Valley, particularly in a car without air conditioning. As the boys tried to leave Las Vegas, they noticed a power drain in the Contour and spent the morning at a Ford dealership. Assured that everything "checked out fine" (how many times have we heard that from a Ford dealership?), they continued on their trek to Yosemite. The power drain worsened and, worried they would not have enough power to cross the desert, they were forced to turn off the air conditioning, head lights, and all other devices powered by the car's battery. Including Peter's computer. Stripped down to his boxers, with no other diversions, Peter had his road warrior patience tested. I hear he did fine. The first Ford fix-it opportunity is in San Luis Obispo, so the boys have been running in low power mode. Probably the reason they were unwilling to spend any idle time on the road in the Yosemite Valley.

On the home front, we are dealing with an excess of water. Grandma noticed steam rising from her bathroom floor and through the seams of the cabinets. The access panels were so badly warped that I couldn't get them off, so I enlisted the help of Bob the neighbor, interrupting putting practice in his backyard. Steam fogged my glasses as Bob removed the access panel and he stated the obvious: "You have a hot water leak". The weekend was filled with plumbers and water damage assessors, and I now await a visit from the insurance adjuster.

PERT: Yosemite

I hear that Sunday is not the day to see Yosemite. The boys bailed on the Yosemite Valley as traffic on the turnoff was mostly not moving at all. So there is still something they need to go back to see -- on a week day. After reaching that decision, after miles of majestic scenery, they finally decided to get out the camera to get a few shots before exiting the park.

Yosemite is the kind of majestic place you would carry a backpack to see, but you can just drive through it. There were about 100 bicyclists out, although the roads are not bicycle friendly. A convertible or motor cycle might be the best ways to see the park. The speed limit is 35 mph most of the time as the roads have many sharp curves. There are many side roads that would be worth exploring if a person had a day to do it.

The Final Voyage

Ben and I flew to Las Vegas to join the Epic Road Trip, at least for a day. Ben is the only one who hasn't seen Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. As it is closing September 1st, we thought he should have the chance to be chased by Klingons and assimilated by the Borg. We went straight from the airport to Quark's for lunch. While we were waiting in line at Quark's, Jean-Luc Picard, some anonymous Andorian, and Benjamin Sisko happened by.


After lunch we flew over Las Vegas in a shuttle craft, then were rescued from assimilation by the Doctor and Janeway. Unfortunately, I forgot that space flight makes me a bit nauseous, particularly when the shuttle craft is being rocked by phaser fire, but I persevered ... for the children. No cameras are allowed inside The Experience. Sorry for the blur. We left the flash turned off.

We visited the strip to see the Bellagio fountain, which is across the street from The Paris where I usually stay in Las Vegas. Peter and Craig confirmed the fountain is much more impressive than Old Faithful.There is very little point trying to take a picture of the fountain. If in Vegas, then see it for yourself. In the photo above, Ben is imitating Marvin the robot from the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We tried to explain to Ben that Marvin is a warning, not a role model.

On the way to the airport we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe for a snack. Here Ben is trying to be the un-Marvin. We had the same waiter Peter and Craig had when they were here in March. The waiter said tourism in Vegas is down twenty-five percent this year over last year due to the slow economy.

LV's not my home ...

Though I visit Las Vegas biennially, I've never experienced summer there. December in Las Vegas is nice: the air is cool and crisp, the skies are clear and blue, the Bellagio is festive with elaborate Christmas decorations, the streets are busy yet managable. August in LV is a different story. In the words of Ben, it's "104 friggin' degrees and there are naked women everywhere". It is hot, hot, hot and the air is thick with cigarette smoke, both inside and outside. There is no room to move on the streets and people are cranky and rushing to get back into an air conditioned building. The Star Trek Experience is an oasis, however. More on that later.

PERT: Coolest Place on Earth

The first stop today was Caltech, which Peter later described as the coolest place on Earth. To encourage networking, Jet Propulsion Laboratories employees get free access to the college fitness center. Instead of internships or coops with commercial interests, Caltech students do SURFs (summer undergraduate research fellowships), about a quarter of them at JPL about five miles away. The focus is not on making money, but on pushing discoveries in science and as training for future academic careers. Caltech is a small campus and packed about as tight as it can be. There is no quad. Craig reported that Caltech is also the wealthiest campus he has ever seen. All the buildings are in excellent shape. And those that are not get torn down and rebuilt. Many corners of the campus are under construction. In the photo above, you can see the trees behind the wall are in wood planters, a temporary location until they get moved to their new home.

The second college the boys toured is a very small -- 720 students -- engineering and science school. It's ranked in the top five in the country on a number of lists. But after Caltech, Peter was not impressed.

The carrot has been dangled ... it remains to be seen if it has a lasting effect.

PERT: The VLA

The VLA (Very Large Array, Peter's favoritest official acronym ever) of radio telescopes is on a 7,000' plain west of Socorro, New Mexico. The array was built by the the National Science Foundation and is the largest in the world. Seven 25-meter dishes each sit on one leg of a symmetrical Y shape for 21 dishes altogether. Each leg is 13 miles long. The dishes move on rails. As in Florida, the dishes were assembled and are maintained in a large assembly building on the rail system.

The boys covered 759 miles, their second-longest day of driving. They got off to a good start on an 80-mph west-Texas interstate devoid of traffic, but soon enough were doing 55 on two-lane roads in the middle of nowhere. While in the middle of nowhere, Peter made Craig take a video of the radio scanning for stations. The radio just kept looping without finding anything, which Peter found highly amusing for some reason. The NSF sought to put the VLA in the middle of nowhere to minimize radio interference and, according to Craig, they did a fine job. The cell phones did not work for hundreds of miles, and Craig suspects the NSF has a deal with the cell phone companies to stay away from the VLA.They crossed the continental divide soon after leaving the VLA and ended up in Flagstaff.

PERT: Evacuating Houston

14,000 people work at the Johnson Space Center, 1,000 more than at the Kennedy Space Center (but we don't know how many people work at the Air Force Base, where most the activity happens). In addition to astronaut training, the international space station is managed from Houston. In short, anything to do with manned space flight is managed in Houston. Anything to do with unmanned space flight is managed on the cape or somewhere else, like the JPL in California. The photo above is the Gemini, Apollo and early space shuttle mission control. Forty-two missions were run from here. But not the launches. So the Apollo launch control in Florida controlled events until the rocket lifted off the ground. Then Houston took over. The curvature in the photo is an illusion caused by stitching together several photographs: the workstations are in straight rows. The new mission control, which visitors can see if they come on weekends, is right behind the screens on the far wall.

Arriving at the Johnson Space Center as soon as it opened, the boys immediately got on the tram for the tour of the Apollo mission control, etc. Before they were done with the two-hour tour it was announced the space center was closing because of Tropical Storm Edouard. Here is how you evacuate Houston during a hurricane: use both directions of the interstate freeways to get away....

PERT: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

On Saturday the boys toured the launch sites at the Air Force base south of Kennedy that in some cases predate the space center. Above is the launch site used for two flights, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom (plus prior unmanned tests). After those launches, recognizing that history had been made, the site was left untouched and is now a museum. The building on the left is called a block house. With two foot thick walls, a five foot thick roof, one foot thick glass windows and two sets of steel blast doors, the blockhouse would more accurately be called a bunker. Underground wires connect the block house to the rocket 300' away. The blockhouse is quite small, yet held 117 people on the day of the launch. The computer is a Burroughs and came complete with pull-out ashtrays at every work station. The RAM chips are about the size of a modern rack server. The whole double-rack of RAM added up to 1024 bits, not bytes, not kilobytes.

Craig admitted to being a bit sad as they left Florida to return home. Today they are headed to Houston and will spend a day or two touring the NASA facilities there. About a third of the return trip will be spent in California, touring even more NASA facilities and a couple of colleges.

PERT: Kennedy Space Center

The boys spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center and will return again tomorrow. They are acclimatizing ... it's about 90 degrees, very humid and most of the sights are outside.

This is a Saturn I rocket, a short milestone on the way to the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo moon shots.

This is a Saturn V rocket, one of three left over when the Apollo program was canceled. The Saturn V -- the most powerful rocket built to date -- had about the same power as an atom bomb. The boys were awed by the size.

Here is one of the two Apollo and space shuttle launch pads. About 300,000 gallons of water drop from the water tower to the fire chutes during the twenty seconds the rocket exhaust reaches the chutes. The main purpose is to reduce the sound, which is loud enough to destroy the shuttle. Even so the sound is so loud it kills any unprotected animals (people too) within 800 feet. The white pole at the top is a lighting rod. The cape is full of lightning rods.

Amazing stuff.