Hot Enough For Ya?

While the Bay Area continues to enjoy relatively mild temperatures this summer, much of the rest of the country has faced oppressively hot conditions for weeks. How hot? Hotter than you think. From the AP:

"Northeast Braces For Temps Near Boiling Point."

The headline is not misprint; they really mean it: "The extreme heat that's been roasting the eastern U.S. is only expected to get worse, and residents are bracing themselves for temperatures near and above boiling point... Washington, D.C.'s 103 degrees may seem the same as a melting 116 degrees."

In other news, the AP has modified its hiring practices to require its writers to demonstrate a grasp of the differences between the Celsius and Farenheit scales. Applicants may be granted a waiver of this requirement if they can demonstrate proof of possessing at least a fourth-grader's understanding of the boiling temperature of water (or any other liquid they care to discuss).

Last Flight

The Space Shuttle will launch for the last time in a few moments (11:26 am EDT). I got up early to watch the first shuttle launch on TV. Thirty years later, I'm sitting in my office, mid-career, watching the last launch on my computer screen.

The shuttle was more expensive and cumbersome to operate than was promised. But it was always a magnificant machine. Here's hoping that sometime in the future we will get back to designing, building and using machines that are even more extraordinary and inspiring.

Ask A Pilot

I love airplanes. I generally enjoy air travel, and as a kid entertained the notion of becoming a pilot. Of course, becoming a pilot requires a lot of time, effort and money, none of which I cared to part with when it was so much easier to just go off to college like all my friends, so I never pursued flight as a vocation. I remain fascinated by aviation, however.

I recently stumbled across a very interesting discussion thread in the most unlikely of places. A Delta pilot, who happens to be a gambling enthusiast, started an "ask my about being a pilot or flight in general" thread in the off-topic section of a gambling website. He started the thread a year and a half ago, and is still contributing to it. His online persona is exactly what you would hope for from a pilot of a major airline: knowledgeable, methodical and thorough, with a sense of humor and good cheer.

The discussion thread now numbers over 3600 separate posts. I'm not sure what it says about society, but the first questions all seemed to focus on the salacious: how, and how often, do flight attendants ... attend ... to the flight crew, and so on. However, once the frat boys in the audience got that out of their system, the thread settled into a wide ranging exploration of piloting techniques and practices, aerodynamics, airline industry protocols, and analyses of specific air disasters. (It was a post on another internet forum discussing the Air France 447 crash that alerted me to this one.) The feedback the pilot received from his thread was so positive, he was invited to start a blog with the Smithsonian's Air & Space online magazine. Several readers have also gone on to take private flight lessons as a result of the enthusiasm generated by the pilot's discussion.

If you have even a passing interest in aviation (and can slog through the sophomoric early questions about stewardesses), the discussion is an incredibly interesting and comprehensive peek into the world of pilots and flight.

Summertime Tour

As of this moment, Kelly is here:


She is on a trip to Philadelphia and Washington DC (via a connection through Atlanta) with a gaggle of her recently-graduated classmates. This is a trip the school has been making for many years. Coming on the heels of a year spent studying American history, it should be a prime opportunity to make that history come alive. Their schedule over the next six days is packed with visits to all of the historically significant points of interest in Philly and DC.

I delivered her to the school parking lot at 3:15 this morning. A couple of the kids were running late, but most were there ready to board the charter bus to the airport. The four girls on the trip took a row of seats near the front of the bus; the twenty or so boys all piled into the back. Just when you think they are growing up a little, they let you know that they are still kids.

Kelly is not close friends with anyone on the trip, so she was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, but we know (and she does, too) that it will be an experience well worth having. Our kids will link up with students from other schools for the tour activities, so there will be opportunities to meet people from all over the country.

In the meantime, I'll spend my time watching flight trackers whenever Kelly is in transit.

Overprotective parent update (10:30 am PDT):

Kelly's flight has now landed in Atlanta. The flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia will depart in about 90 minutes. I don't envy the two chaperones (teachers at the school) who must herd their young charges to the right locations at the correct times for the next several days.

Paranoid parent update (3:15 pm PDT):

Our intrepid Moragan youths are learning the harsh realities of air travel. They ended up stuck in Delta's Atlanta hub for three extra hours. They are now boarded on the flight to Philadelphia, due to arrive around 8:30 pm local time rather than 5:30 pm. Kelly called home during the delay; it sounds like all is well. By the time they arrive in Philly, their west coast stomachs will be crying out for dinner, so I hope they can work a late dinner into the schedule. It will be nonstop action for the next few days, once they eventually get to the City of Brotherly Love.

Endings, And Beginnings

This spring has differed little from recent prior springtimes in form. The weight, the sheer mass of the season, however, overwhelmed those that came before. Work was busier. Coaching baseball exacted a substantial cost in time spent on the field, awake at night, and, during most other waking moments, in puzzled contemplation of the psychology of 10-year-old boys and their parents. The pastor of the church we attend retired after 29 years of ministry, in the same season that I added the challenge of playing guitar to the singing I was already doing during the services. Volleyball kept up its familiar twice-weekly pace. Cheryl's tutoring business turned into a 10 hour per week (afternoons only) job. Over at all, the skies cast the gray pall, raining throughout Memorial Day weekend and the first weekend of June.

The baseball and volleyball seasons have now ended (more on those to come in other posts), and swim season has begun. The school year ends this week, and with it the departure of most, but not all, of the tutoring clients. The ponderous sense of finality that has loomed over this season comes from one of those endings. Kelly graduates from middle school tomorrow.

She will be leaving the only school she has known in this town. I feel the evening before her first day of sixth grade on my fingertips, when she and I walked around the unfamiliar campus charting out her route from class to class, a new habit at a new school. Even though she quickly learned the layout of the school and the location of all of the classrooms, we repeated that reconnaissance every year the night before school began, just the two of us. I would share knowing smiles with the other parents wandering around the school grounds doing the same thing. We were easing our own fears for our kids as they stepped out further away from us under the guise of helping them quell their anxieties about finding their way around the school.

And now that is over. The next scouting trip we take will be at the high school, where parental guideance will be even more conspicuous and awkward than before. Kelly is looking forward to the next level already, though. She has been drawn in to the volleyball program, which will hold thrice-weekly practices throughout the summer in preparation for an August minicamp and tryouts. She is eager to challenge herself against better players, and in tougher classes.

Kelly did fantastically well in middle school. She was a straight-A student, a video star, a two-year volleyball player, and a valuable aide to several teachers and administrators. We could not be more proud of her. When her name is called tomorrow night at the graduation ceremony at St. Mary's College, it will mark time well spent and accomplishments well-earned. We hope for the same for her as she starts high school in a couple of months.

It breaks my heart that she has to keep growing up, out and away from us to do it.

Dateline: Moraga

My new sideline career as a griping busybody stringer for the local virtual newspaper has dawned. In this fine piece of investigative journalism, I help expose the seamy underbelly of our fair community, where people (presumably rogues from other towns, of course) engage in roadside trash dumping.

It doesn't paint our community in a particularly flattering light. But we hardened, veteran jounalists know that although the news - yea, the truth - is seldom pretty, we will not shy away from our solemn duty to lay bare the soiled fabric of our society, that it may be washed clean in the light of day and the firm conviction of our citizens.

Cue "It's A Grand Old Flag" ...

The Professor on TV

My college roomate, the erstwhile Professor, left academia recently to return to government work in his field of human factors analysis, with a particular emphasis on driver distraction. This is a big deal these days, what with the proliferation of cell phones and GPS devices. California has passed a law banning the use of cell phones without hands-free capabilities while driving, and our local police made a concerted effort last month to crack down on texting-while-driving.

The CBS national news caught up with the Professor (the dapper fellow sending texts to the correspondent driving the simulator) and his team to report on their analysis of the effect of texting on a driver's capabilities behind the wheel. (Alternate video feed here.) We will continue to hear about more studies of this nature. Much of the data that will be cited in future discussions about driver distraction issues is likely to come straight out of the Professor's labs.

By The Light Of The Moon

Took a couple of interesting pictures today. One of the northern tip of the Upper San Leandro Reservoir:


Another of my car:


Fun fact: both pictures were taken about three hours after sunset, under a nearly full moon. By playing with shutter speeds, apertures and "film" speed, I was able to take some curious photos. Having now seen them on the computer, I have some ideas about how to make them better. The basic exercise, however, reveals how the light the camera takes in from the moon is a little different than the way we see things by the light of the sun. The colors are just a little different somehow. (That's an airplane outbound from San Francisco streaking over the hills behind the car.)

I even received a friendly visit from our local constabulatory (and his megawatt spotlight); I resisted the urge to rebuke the policeman for ruining my shot with his lights. He was satisfied that I was out after dark in an unlit hiking trail staging area to engage in legal, if odd, pursuits.

The Rollicking Skies

The sturdiness of airliners is in the news these days, what with a Southwest 737 recently shedding a few pounds of fuselage over Arizona. In a related way, I imagine the same unpleasant thought comes to most travelers' minds when their aircraft shudders through turbulent air: how much can a big airliner take before it, you know, can't take any more?

Consider this video from Boeing, showing some of their flight testing for the new 747-800. They subject the airframe to repeated positive 2.5 G loads and negative 1 G loads, a true roller coaster far beyond what most airline passengers will ever experience.

I used to think being a flight engineer or pilot for Boeing would be an incredibly great job. The prospect of five hour flights of endless high-G loads in a windowless cabin, though, is enough to satisfy me that I made a reasonable career choice to sit in front of a computer monitor that is not trying to escape to the ceiling only to clout me over the head a moment later.

At least we can be reasonably sure that the air sickness bags are flight-tested.

City By The Bay

San Francisco is one of the world's great cities in many ways, not the least of which is its beauty (when it is not enshrouded in fog). Living nearby, we have the frequent opportunity to capture more-interesting-than-average snapshot portraits simply because the City provides such an interesting backdrop. To wit:



With apologies to portrait photographers I may know, that beats "brown muslin #1" out the door and down the street.

Happy Birthday, Kelly!

After 14 years, she continues to charm, amaze and make me proud to be her dad.


14 is a great age. Solidly into the teen years, you rule the school as an eighth grader, with summer just around the bend.

And then you become a freshman in high school and are immediately shown that at 14 you're still just a kid. Oh well. Enjoy a couple of months at the mountaintop!

Another Rite of Passage, Take II

It was only a matter of time. When Michael was little more than a toddler, we were told that he would have major issues with his teeth coming in crooked. An extra incisor was a major part of the problem. The extra tooth (which turned out to be two co-joined teeth) was extracted last fall. Now, the inevitable corrective measures have begun:



With both kids now in braces, that means one happy development for sure: I don't have to share my popcorn anymore.

Return of the Champs

Thanks to a Christmas gift from Cheryl, we went to the Giants' first game in San Francisco since the World Series (which, in case you had not heard, the Giants won). It was a spring training game against the A's, but that didn't stop a crowd of 38,000 people from coming out to the park on the first day of good weather the region had seen in about a month.

I had wanted to be at the first game back, and it was worth it. We made an outing of it, cooking hot dogs and wrapping them in foil for the trip to the park, hauling in peanuts and Crackerjacks for the game itself. The Giants played well and won the game, but the most gratifying part was what we heard in the game reports in print and on the radio the next day. The story of the game was the crowd. The players and broadcasters marveled at the size of the crowd and how enthusiastic we all were. The stadium, with the pent up energy born of a winter's afterglow of the championship, had the energy of a game from a late season pennant race, with raucous cheers for every 2010 hero (Rookie of the Year Buster Posey, whose jersey Michael was wearing, getting the loudest ovations). Not bad for a preseason game that didn't count.

Savinging Us All From The Tyranny Of Hyphenation

The AP Stylebook has announced that henceforth it will refer to electronic messages as "emails," not "e-mails." This comes on the heels of the Chicago Manual of Style excising the second space after a period at the end of a sentence, saving typists everywhere entire milliseconds over the course of their lifetimes.

In a tight economy, any savings is good savings. The thought of the energy saved by eliminating those pixel-hog hyphens makes me giddy.

Game Day

Saturday was one of the sports-intensive days we get every once in a while. We were on the go from 8:30 in the morning until after 4 in the afternoon, with about a total of an hour at home over the course of the day.

Because of a rainout the prior weekend, Michael's first baseball game was up first.


We were up against what most people consider to the be the best team in the league, featuring the two best players. The top player could easily play (and dominate) in the next division up. Our Cubs lost, but we played reasonably well. Michael played second base with distinction, making three critical putouts.


He worked a walk in his first at bat.


He stole second, but was stranded there.


He took three great cuts to finish the game against that great player. He struck out, but did so with style.


Next up was Kelly's first volleyball game of the season. Her team is "Penn State" again, as it was last season. Oddly, all but one of the other players are from Lafayette, so she does not really know anybody on the team. She showed off her skills, though, saving the team repeatedly with tough digs and strong serving.




It was clear in the first game that the other players are comfortable deferring to her, the first time she has been in that position in volleyball. She seems to be okay with it. Whatever works; her team won easily.

We finished the afternoon with Michael's last indoor soccer game. This was a more casual league, with a team hand-picked by Michael's soccer coaches from the fall. He missed a few games due to illness or conflicts, but had a fair amount of success, scoring four goals in the five games he played.




Our group of suburban kids always played visiting club teams from more urban areas, but we held our own, finishing with a record around .500. We discovered indoor soccer to be a very fast-paced, intense sport that taught Michael some additional skills.

We are now settled into the routine of baseball and volleyball for the spring.

Until swimming preseason starts in three weeks.

A Bad Day In Japan

This image, from the US Geological Society's earthquake reporter, shows how active the ground has been off the coast of Japan over the last day:


The boxes that are the most numerous indicate aftershocks in excess of 5.0 on the Richter scale (red means within the last hour; blue means within the last day; yellow - a few of them peek through the mass of blue boxes - means within the last week). A 5+ shaker is quite a jolt if it is nearby; the sheer number of aftershocks of that size or greater is staggering. It is of small comfort that nearly all are away from land, since the tsunami danger has proven to be very real.

So It Begins

We met with the student counselor yesterday at the high school Kelly will attend in the fall. Or, rather, Kelly met with her counselor, and we were allowed to be in the room. With great intentionality, the counselor directed Kelly to the prime visitor's chair, and pointed out to us where we could find additional chairs. Her discussion of Kelly's proposed schedule was a conversation between her and Kelly. At the end of the discussion, she asked if Kelly had any questions. After that, she turned to us to see if we had any questions. We did, and she answered every question we asked.

The whole exercise is designed to indicate to students that they have a right, privilege and responsibility to begin taking control of their own lives. The message is aimed more specifically at the parents, however. For some kids and their parents, that transition has already begun. For others, and I would have to put us in that category, a parents are still heavily involved in the child's life, an arrangement that suits of the parents and the child. From the very first meeting, then, the school sets a new course for the parent-child relationship, at least as it pertains to school.

The experience was not as off-putting as it may sound. I spent most of the meeting being amused by the counselor's kind but firm focus on Kelly and away from us. Message sent and received.

I don't take it personally; I know the high school still loves us. They will prove it every time we get an athletic boosters/drama boosters/choir boosters/textbook fund/PTA fundraiser letter.

An Open Letter

To the person in front of me on the narrow two lane country road near home driving seven miles per hour below the posted speed limit:

You know you are doing it. If you have looked in any one of your three rear-view mirrors in the last 10 minutes, you know I know you are doing it, since I am close enough to dust off your rear license plate. Let's not kid ourselves. The only reason you have not pulled over into one of the three dozen wide spots on the shoulder is because you intend to annoy me. Know this: I am not so reckless as to put myself or anyone else at risk by crossing the double yellow line to blast past you in a cloud of dust and blatting exhaust. I will not give you that satisfaction. I will not give you the opportunity to wave your arm in self-righteous frustration at me as I accelerate all the way up to the speed limit to pass you, allowing you to then lapse back into your vehicular torpor. I will make you acknowledge the intentionality of your rolling roadblock by living in your trunk every millimeter of this road, to force you to contemplate your utter failure as a driver.

And to the bicyclists traveling in a pack on the same narrow country two lane road:

Your all-too-clingy spandex fools no one. You are a rolling advertisement for companies that suckered you into wearing their bright colored garb without even paying you. You are dangerous. You are not a Tour de France competitor on a training ride -- riding three abreast does not mean you are in the peloton, it means you poseur and a moron. You and your "teammates" take up an entire lane of the road on which people with actual jobs are commuting, a road with blind hills and curves. You force cars in both directions to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting each other while at the same time trying to avoid hitting you. And for the record, I do not deserve your glare as I have to pass you in the opposite lane after waiting for all other traffic to clear your aerobic road-clot. I deserve your thanks for exercising enough car control and patience to keep both of us on the road and out of physical contact with each other or any of the other cars passing by.

Running late for baseball practice dramatically lowers the temperature at which my blood boils, it appears.

The Cruelest Season

All week, the media were abuzz with the thrilling news that the Bay Area would see snowfall by Friday night. Even San Francisco residents expected to see a dusting of snow, setting off a flurry of homages to those rare snowy days of yore.

As expected, the Arctic system brought heavy rain and cold temperatures to the area for the week. Friday was to be cold, with the snow to fall that night. The rain arrived, the cold descended.

And then, nothing.

Friday night, temperatures dropped below freezing, but under crystal clear skies, each twinkling star a mocking beacon of non-precipitation. We awoke Saturday to a winter wonderland of temperatures in the twenties, sparkling frost everywhere, and the clearest of clear skies. Sunday was more of the same. Frosty morning and glorious sunshine.

The final indignity is that everyone we know in Burbank was raving about the historically rare and exciting snow they got. Our snow. What did we get? Gloriously sunny skies, perfect for baseball games and spring gardening.

Life is so unfair.

Distant Early Warning

A Silicon Valley startup (of course) has come up with an earthquake warning system. The device detects the "P" waves that humans cannot sense and sends out a warning, giving people a brief amount of time (less than a minute) to find cover before the slower-moving but destructive "S" waves hit. The amount of warning depends on the distance between the device and the epicenter. The system can be set up to automatically shut off utilities, send warnings to schools and turn on hospital generators. In view of the scenes of destruction and loss coming out of New Zealand this week, any amount of warning would be welcome.

There is no truth to the rumor that the device looks like this: