Allan's Photoblog
What happened this past Summer
I intended a few weeks ago to write up some of what we did over the summer, but I don’t have the time to do full write-ups. Instead, I’ll link to some photos on Flickr.
W attended the National Scout Jamboree 2017 from July 9 to July 29. The first half of the trip was spent touring historic sites on the East Coast, and the second half of the trip was spent at the actual camp at Jamboree, where he served as Senior Patrol Leader. Meanwhile, J spent the last full week of July at Boy Scout camp at Camp Cherry Valley. I don’t have photos of their outings, but I did take some photos during their return.
Meanwhile, I spent July 10 to July 21 (including travel time) in Busan, South Korea, at the 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference, where I presented results on cosmic ray Fe spectra as well as solar energetic particle ionic charge states.
After we all returned from our trips, we then spent a family vacation at the Atlantis Resort in Nassau.
Hot, and Feeding the Homeless
As part of the Ad Altare Dei program, which I am teaching again, several of my scouts, including J, fed the homeless breakfast at the St. Francis center in downtown LA this Saturday. W joined us, as did a few parents. (I took the photo above. The kid in the center is another volunteer with whom we had breakfast after the service was over.)
W spent the whole service in the kitchen, making batches of toast. During the service, I was a table captain, clearing spaces, arranging place settings, and generally looking after the guests. J helped distribute jelly to those who wanted it.
All told, we served 219 guests.
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We arrived just before 7 AM to help prep the food. While I was slicing apples, another volunteer said to me “Hi Tom! I haven’t seen you in a while! Oh, sorry! I thought you loooked like someone else. Doesn’t he look like Tom, Steve? Steve’s my husband. You look just like our friend, Tom. We’ve known him for a few years, and he is soooo HOT!”
I stood there a second, an apple in one hand and a knife in the other, thinking that she just told me I look like her friend who looks so hot.
Later at home, I did what any modern, enlightened, honest husband would do: I confessed the incident to my wife.
And then I spent the whole weekend being really smug about it.
ACE Meeting
Earlier this week, I went to JHU/APL for the ACE team meeting and 20th anniversary celebration. I gave a brief talk on charge states.
After the meeting, I got some Solar Probe work done there, too.
We’re all so old, now, and I’m pretty fat.
Ziplining and Horseback Riding
W., J., and I went ziplining and horseback riding during a Boy Scout campout last weekend.
I spent the weeks before the campout worrying about the 275 pound weight limit on the ziplines, but then I found out that the owner regularly rides the ziplines at 350 pounds, so the margin was pretty big.
Horseback riding — trail riding — was very relaxing. My horse was named Fiona, and she was a draft horse, which meant she was strong enough to carry me. She was really sweaty when I got on her, though. I found out that Steve A., another dad, rode her right before me. He’s not a small guy, so that explains all the sweat.
Fiona kept wanting to move off to the sides of the trails to eat, but she took direction so well that all it took from me was a finger flick on the right or left side of the reigns to keep her on the trail. At one point, J.’s horse wanted to roll around in the dirt, and he had to jump off at one point when the horse tried to kneel.
While the ride was relaxing, getting off the horse wasn’t so easy. It wasn’t my knees or thighs that locked up, though. It was my hips. I’m simply not that flexible any more. I had to have one person on my right help me swing my right leg back over the horse, while another person helped me on the left so I wouldn’t tumble and get hurt.
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I had to stick with J.’s patrol of 6 scouts, and we were separate from W., who went with the older scouts.