Oh, man. It’s the end of the year already. Missed entering November and almost all of December. Getting this just under the wire.
I skipped the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco this year. Mainly, it was scheduled a week later than normal, right in the middle of the boys’ pre-holiday school week, with W’s pre-holiday final exams and J’s holiday school programs and whatnot. I wasn’t going to miss it. I figured that, with my skipping the week-long conference in San Francisco, I’d at least feel like I’d get a week of the pre-Christmas season back at home, but it didn’t feel that way. We got the Christmas tree and lights up maybe two weekends before Christmas, which felt like cutting it close. I had to do the bulk of my Christmas shopping via Amazon, with last minute shopping running around to various Best Buys here and another web store there.
Christmas cards went out the week before Christmas — Hsuan was away, and I had no ready photos of the entire family from the past year that looked good, so I grabbed the boys, dressed them up in nice shirts, and posed just the two of them in front of the tree for a simple portrait. They weren’t even wearing nice pants. (Shorts, though.)
I mentioned to Peter, my officemate, how short and everything felt, despite my skipping the AGU meeting, and he noted that Thanksgiving fell a week later than usual this year, so the Thanksgiving to Christmas period was indeed a week shorter. So, I didn’t really recover the week I thought I had gotten back for skipping the AGU meeting.
Okay, in summary, here’s what’s happened since the last entry in October, by subject:
Work:
I’ll knock out work first, because frankly, it’s all been a blur, and I’m not really all that interested in recounting details. Or in trying to dig them up.
I’ve been doing a hell of a lot of work on the GSE software, adding features, fixing features, tuning performance. It gets frustrating when people expect me to add features that simply aren’t possible with the package we’re using. In some cases, I can ask for feature enhancements from the developer, but in other cases, I have to wash my hands and proceed to more important functions.
Plus, I’m even more frustrated when I get stuck between the way the developers’ package does things and the way our engineers do things, especially Rick. It’s apparently my job to get two disparate approaches to work together, and from my point of view, I can usually see a third way — “my” way — that’s usually better, but it’s almost never my call.
I spent two or three weeks chasing down a “bug” — a persistent error flag that pops up during start-up — that really doesn’t seem to affect us but which bugs our engineers but doesn’t bug me or Andrew. Our (mine and Andrew’s) opinion is that once the software is started, just reset the error counters and proceed as normal. Anyway, though, I tuned the start-up as best I could, but I’m pretty sure the error flags get set during execution that has nothing to do with my own code. The rest may be Ubuntu-specific; the developers don’t run into the problem on Windows.
On other projects, e.g. Super-TIGER and one other project, I’ve been finding myself more involved in the scramble for money. I’ve helped figure out how to frame grant proposals or requests for extensions on grants because money is tight and we have to justify everything three times over, it seems. And with money being as tight as it is, I found out that I’m named as manpower on another proposal — just for a little money — just in case we get funded some time in the future.
This isn’t a happy thing, but if that’s what it takes to help me keep my job, I’ll put in my best efforts.
Family — Sunday School:
The biggest move since my last entry is that I have withdrawn W (and myself) from W’s Sunday School class and moved him to the Thursday religious education class. I discussed the move with Bernie, the religious ed director at our parish, and she assured me that the Thursday class is flexible enough that W being late regularly is not an issue, since everyone knows we live far away.
When I originally decided to join W’s class as a catechist, it was with the intention that I would have significant input in teaching. I agreed to do so on the condition that W could continue attending class on Sundays, since the only regular classes offered for him are on Thursday. Plus, I wanted to bring a Roman Catholic, Christian Humanist approach to the curriculum that would be very traditional and in keeping with the faith. Just teaching the works of the great Catholic thinkers and writers and the development of Catholic thought at least through the Renaissance — the great thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Thomas More, for example. Natural Law, and Faith and Reason from a Catholic perspective, e.g. Pope St. John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio encyclical. Maybe touch on Renaissance art and literature as well. Maybe dense and academic, but nothing radical.
I know when people hear Humanist, they sometimes mistakenly think Secular Humanist, then Secularist, and so on, but that’s not at all what I wanted. I just thought that W was ready for something more than just the tired, old, repetitious curriculum of memorizing old Catholic prayers, reviewing the lists of the Sacraments and the Ten Commandments, and so on, over and over and over, week after week.
Instead, what we got was Dennis, W’s old Sunday School teacher, glomming onto the class and taking it over, with me as co-teacher, essentially sitting in the back of the class in a supporting role. I did that last year, but it became clear to me that he was pretty much stuck in the mud, with a mystical bent that focused entirely on the Holy Spirit as the source of all things and no credit given to human free will and reason. When he started pounding on the Catechism as the “rules” and arbiter of all that is right and wrong — and not the conscience as the thing that is the subject of Confession — he started reminding me of the Pharisees, who lorded their adherence to the Law of Moses over all other Jews as less than they were. He kept pounding the Catechism as “the rules” — and yet he never really made an effort to teach the kids from the Catechism.
He kept repeating, week after week, that the kids in the class had to attend Mass every Sunday or risk their eternal souls. He did this every Sunday. I thought that the Commandment concerning the Sabbath (and the Christian “sabbath” isn’t the same day as the Jewish Sabbath) was only one of the Ten Commandments, yet it seemed as if it was the only thing that mattered to Dennis. Somehow, none of the other commandments got as much mention in the year and more that I sat in that class.
I kept thinking that when Jesus said “Suffer the little children to come unto me”, he did not say, “Suffer the little children to come unto me so I can tell them they have to go to Mass every Sunday or risk being DAMNED TO HELL!!!”
And he painted a portrait of God not as a loving Father but rather as a merciless judge waiting on the other side of death’s door just waiting to pull the lever, gleefully, to open the trapdoor and drop the kids down the chute straight to Hell.
Dennis seemed to think, incorrectly in my view, that if you didn’t believe in — and live in cowering fear of — a stern, harsh, and judgmental God on the other side of Death’s Door waiting to send you to Hell for breaking even one rule in the Catechism, you must be a hippy who believed in a loosy-goosey Jesus who’d accept just about anything and let anyone into Heaven. That’s not true in the slightest, but that’s the black and white, either-or impression Dennis gave.
I made the final decision a few weeks ago when Dennis went off on a rant in class. He repeated that the Catechism was “the rules.” I repeated that what we confess in Confession is our Conscience, that Conscience is supreme, and even if we have a malformed conscience, nevertheless, if the Confession is sincere and complete, the Confession remains valid if deemed so by the Confessor. It’s the obligation of the Catechist to try to ensure that the students have a properly formed Conscience, yes, guided by the Catechism — hence the title Catechist — but ultimately, Conscience is what reigns supreme in Confession. That is, what precedes the act of Confession is Examination of Conscience, not Examination of the a Personal Checklist against the Catechism. He went off on his rant, that people have to accept every single rule in the Catechism or leave the Church.
I realized that it wasn’t possible to reason with him. I reasoned that it wasn’t possible for the 12 year old kids in class to know every single rule in the Catechism (928 pages in paperback! and that’s not including Canon Law) and that to make them responsible for adhering to all those rules — without yet teaching all of those rules, an impossible task at their age and unlikely at any age — would be to put them in a position, in Dennis’ description, of risking their eternal souls for violating any single one of well over a thousand “rules” that they may not even be aware of.
I believed that his view of a God gleefully willing and eager to damn children — or anyone, for that matter — on technicalities was not a view I would tolerate. In fact, it was a view that was also explicitly rejected by one of our departing associate pastors, recently, who was promoted to another parish. On the subject of, say, being hit by a truck while on the way to Confession, he said during a homily, “I don’t believe God will condemn you on a technicality.” When I mentioned Father Don’s words in that class to Dennis, he immediately rejected Father Don’s words, saying, “Well, he’s wrong!” I’m not exaggerating, though he backtracked, very slightly, when I pushed back.
So, the day after his rant — and it wasn’t just the rant but the entire year that motivated my move; the rant was just the last straw — I spoke with Bernie and told her I wanted to move W out of the Sunday class and maybe study with me independently, and then she suggested that I instead move him to Thursdays and that maybe I could teach a session there as well. She said that the Thursday class dynamic was more social, more age-appropriate for pre-teens, and more flexible and fun. It’s also less academic than I was planning, but I’d take care of that myself. She also suggested that maybe Dennis was getting tired, to use a euphemism.
So, we moved, and W seems happier. The people are nicer, and W is reunited with some of his old friends, too.
Family — Boy Scouts — Rock Climbing:
On to more happy news. Well, the move out of Dennis’ class was happy.
W and I have done two more major Boy Scouts activities since the backpacking trip to Henninger Flats.
One was a rock climbing trip to the Joshua Tree National Park, on Nov. 14-16. We drove out on Nov. 14, arriving late at night at the camp site reserved by the troop and setting up our tent. Only one other member (and dad) from our patrol was there when we arrived in the dark, but several other scouts and dads from the troop were also there. Luckily, it was a car camping trip (not backpacking), and the vault toilet was well maintained and well stocked with toilet paper. W and I set up our tent in the dark without difficulty, and we hung out with J and his dad in the dark, helping out patrolmates as they arrived, and looking at the spectacular night sky. The city of Twenty Nine Palms was visible a short drive away in the distance at the park’s edge.
The next morning after a light breakfast — one of our patrol had forgotten to bring his contribution to breakfast, so we had to rearrange with our spares — we all formed up and hiked to the nearby amphitheater area, where a group of instructors from a rock climbing company were there to provide gear, safety guidelines, and instruction. Dads who had signed up and paid to climb as well as scouts who had already earned the rock climbing merit badge were separated from the rest of the scouts. Everyone had to suit up with special climbing shoes, harnesses, and helmets. Everyone was suited up by about 10 AM, after initial group instruction.
W was with the scouts who were going to earn the rock climbing merit badge, and that group was further subdivided into about five smaller groups, and arranged around about seven or so climbing stations of varying difficulty. W’s group started with one of the more difficult ones. During each climb, one boy climbed, one boy belayed, and one boy was back-up belay. At the top of each climb, the climber had to switch to a device for rappelling down.
W near the top of his first climb
W was the first up in his group, but it wasn’t easy. Seeing him go up made it a little easier for the other boys, but others still had some problems. Some had pretty debilitating fear of heights, and this particular climb was daunting. Others had difficulty with getting strong grips, and so on. The first climb took from about 10 AM to about 12:30 PM, which was a pretty long time. We also cheered on members of our patrol who were in another climbing group in an adjacent station that was also pretty difficult. Afterward, we had our sandwiches and drinks for lunch and went to the next station.
The other two climbs were easier and went faster for all of the boys in W’s group. By now, the boys were getting into a good climbing routine, and they also knew to belaying and back-up belaying responsibilities and how to tie the knots on the lines and switch out the rappelling device at the top of the climb. Fear was less of an issue for those boys who had fears of heights, and the climbs themselves were easier than the first, anyway. The only issues boys had were getting in difficult positions and having hard times finding strong handholds or footholds and lifting themselves up. During his third climb, W had to use the bathroom, so he sped up quickly, saw the nearest vault toilet a short hike away, and descended relatively quickly again.
After we were done and W and the other boys got some of their paperwork in, we returned to the campsite, where the merit badge boys gathered to do some classwork to finish off their rock climbing merit badge requirements.
After that, each patrol started dinner. Again, we had a cooking contest between patrols, and this time, we weren’t really expecting to win. Everyone brought their own charcol grill, it seemed, in addition to the patrol boxes with the gas grills and other cooking equipment. It also semed that everyone was preparing to grill tri-tips.
Our plan was to do tri-tip kebabs, with marinated tri-tip and cut green and red peppers, mushrooms, and onions. The boys did all the food preparation and cooking, with some guidance from the dads. In addition, we sauteed some of the same vegetables on the side with garlic, pepper, and salt for separate vegetable servings with different texture and flavor. We had Hawaiian bread dinner rolls, corn on the cob boiled in a pot of water, and canned baked beans (honey barbecue baked beans with bits of bacon — I forgot which brand I bought). Prashant, one of the dads, also made homemade coleslaw using some juice from canned peaches that he later used to make peach cobbler.
Prashant’s plan was to make peach cobbler using a camping recipe he found online, with a Dutch oven. However, we didn’t have a Dutch oven, so we made do with a big pot and lid, and we used two burners on one of the camping stoves. After he made the peach cobbler, we tried it out, but the top wasn’t crusty enough, so I suggested he remove the lid and let the top crust dry out a bit. That did the trick.
The boys plated the main entree for the senior patrol leader and assistant senior patrol leaders. Then, J, W, L, and V delivered the plate to the senior scouts, and I think J made the presentation, apparently making a big selling job, noting that all the major food groups were there, and so on.
During the scout spirit conference that evening at the campfire, the senior scouts announced the results. The theme was supposed to be American barbecue. One runner-up entry was a tasty carne asada and marinated chicken (I think) barbecue, with the ASM declaring “We’re all Mexican now!” (He’s not Mexican in the slightest, but it smelled good.) Another had an apple cobbler cooked in a Dutch oven with a caramel topping.
Surprisingly, our entry won. Somehow, we were described as a Hawaiian barbecue by the senior scouts. Was it the Hawaiian bread dinner roll? The boys won In’n’Out gift cards.
Family — Boy Scouts — Cycling Merit Badge:
The other thing I’ve been doing with W over the past couple of months is riding with him on his bicycling merit badge work. The cycling merit badge is one of three merit badges that he has to do for Eagle — either hiking, swimming, or cycling. In addition to some basic class work and learning about cycling safety and maintenance, he has to ride about two hundred miles spread out over several weekends. The rides were with the group of other merit badge scouts, plus counsellors, and willing senior scouts and parents who wanted to go along. Most rides departed from the Scout House where we hold our meetings. Rides departed on Sundays at 7 AM, when there wouldn’t be a lot of traffic on the roads.
The first ride was a 5 mile warm-up on October 5. And then there was a 10 miler the next weekend, and so on. I mentioned this in the previous entry, and I mentioned how I bought a new bike. I mentioned also how I fell over and badly scraped my knee during one ride.
Over the next few weeks we continued doing 25 mile rides. During one 25 mile ride, we rode up to Sacred Heart Academy near the Rose Bowl. This was an exhausting ride, because SHA is at the top of a very high hill overlooking the Rose Bowl. Every time I kept riding my bike up the steep, winding roads, I’d turn a corner and find more road going up. I’d get off my bike and push and walk. Sometimes I’d get back on and ride when I thought I could keep going, and one dad — and impossibly fit and fast biker — would come by and say “It’s just a little while longer” — but he’d keep saying this every twenty minutes or so.
Another ride was a 32 mile one way ride from the scout house to Seal Beach, along the San Gabriel River Trail. I was riding with Richard, the counsellor, and Robert, another dad, when my chain popped off, twice, and we got separated from the group while we stopped to get my chain back on. Then we missed our turn and somehow couldn’t call the rest of the group on the cell phones. Luckily, we caught up to everyone at a stopping point at a gas station, made our way to the San Gabriel River Trail entrance, and started the long ride to Seal Beach.
It was a very long ride, but W had the good sense to stick with me, because we got separated from our group pretty quickly. W rode too slowly to keep up with the fast group in front, and we rode together too quickly for the more inexperienced kids behind us. Luckily, I had my iPhone, so I was able to check on Maps periodically to verify that we were indeed on the right trail — though the trail was pretty obvious anyway. Eventually, we all met up at the end of the trail at Seal Beach, rode to a nearby McDonalds, and had breakfast there. Everyone else was picked up for the ride home, but Hsuan and J were still at Sunday School, so W and I waited.
Eventually, we decided that there was nothing to do around Seal Beach, so we called up Hsuan and told her to pick us up in Long Beach, and we biked to Long Beach, an additional six mile bike ride. There’s a bike path on the beach that made for some very pleasant riding that morning.
There were some additional make-up, 25 mile rides to Chinatown and elsewhere during the weekends afterward that we wnet on, but the big, final ride was to be a 50 mile ride, capping off the merit badge.
On Saturday night, December 13th, W and I rode to Leo Carillo State Park, near the Leo Carillo State Beach, and camped overnight in a spot reserved for our troop. Actually, we just slept overnight in our Honda Element, with our bikes locked to the wheels of the Element. The next morning, we got up, prepared our bikes, dressed, had a bagel, and rode our bikes to the parking lot, where we met up with the rest of our troop (those involved in the merit badge) as well as additional members from Troop 710 joining us for the 50 mile ride. The ride was hosted and supported by the LA Wheelment, a local cycling organization, members of whom would be along the route providing support (water, repairs, electrolytes, etc.).
The original route was supposed to be along the Pacific Coast Highway, south to Malibu, north to Oxnard, and back. However, heavy rains had closed part of the PCH, so we had a new route up into the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area above Malibu. The resulting change was exhausting.
The route took us east (“south”) from Leo Carillo State Beach along PCH to the 76 gas station at the intersection of PCH and Corral Canyon Road (at 26101 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu CA 90265). After taking a bathroom break here — the bathroom was out of order — we went back west (“north”) on PCH and took a right on Latigo Canyon Road. We followed Latigo Canyon Road as it wound and wound, up and up, through turns and neighborhoods, high into the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area above Malibu, cresting above a high ridge, passing by various intersections, until we hit South Kanan Dume Road. We turned right, following Kanan Dume Road briefly before turning left onto Mulholland Highway. We followed Mulholland Highway, which briefly merged with the 23 highway before splitting off again. We continued west along Mulholland Highway as it wound through the wildnerness areas, curving finally south and down from the mountain areas and descending, finally, back to the coast and the Leo Carillo State Beach area. Once back at the beach, the course completed only about 46 miles, so to complete the 50 miles, the cyclists had to ride west and then back east along PCH back to Malibu, stopping at a Starbucks, and then back to the parking lot at the beach, surpassing the 50 mile mark.
That describes the route, and you can check it on Google Earth or Apple Maps. It was long, long, long.
It doesn’t describe the experience of the ride, which was exhausting. It was the most demanding physical exertion I can recall putting myself through.
W and I went through the initial ride along PCH just fine. I had taken the rack and back off his bike and left the rack and bag on my own, and we were supposed to be biking buddies, along with his patrolmate G, so I carried extra water, food, and Gatorade in my bag. We also adjusted W’s seat higher, with some fine tuning from John, one of the dads, so W was able to pedal faster without tiring. W forgot his cellphone in the car, but since we were supposed to stick together, that wasn’t supposed to be a problem. As we rode along with a small portion of our group to and past Malibu and past Zuma beach, we kept a good pace. We even stopped to help a Troop 710 scout who had popped his chain, and at one point, I stopped for the kid with one of the LA Wheelmen and let W ride on. My new Trek bike let me catch up by riding very quickly.
After the rest stop at the 76 station, W rode on at Latigo Canyon Road, and we got separated. The initial uphill part of Latigo Canyon Road was at least 10 miles of nonstop uphill climbing and winding, and I must have made at least 3-4 miles of that without stopping. However, I had to stop for a drink, and I didn’t have one of those bottles that I could reach down and pop open at the top without stopping, so I stopped, got the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and drained the bottle. Naturally, that killed my momentum for the rest of the ride on Latigo Canyon Road, and it killed my will for the rest of the day.
W was long gone, and I assumed he stuck with the faster group. I knew there were slower people far behind, so I figured I was somewhere in the middle. I walked much of the time, and I rode when I could. A couple of the moms caught up to me and strayed either ahead of me or behind me. Generally, when I rode, I rode faster than they did, but when I walked, they walked faster.
The endless uphill climb wasn’t sapping my will. I knew I could keep going. Just focus on keeping one foot moving in front of the other. Head down. Keep going. Don’t stop. When the two moms — Loretta and Yasmine — stopped for a snack and offered me some, I thanked them, explained I had plenty, and explained I couldn’t stop, had to keep going, keep my feet moving, etc. My only worry was fluids, but Kermit, the LA Wheelmen guy, kept showing up at good intervals.
At one point, I stopped for some reason, maybe to switch bottles of liquids or something, maybe to get a power bar, and my legs seized up in the worst cramps I could possibly imagine. Maybe the worst thing since my brain tumor, but at the time, I couldn’t even make the comparison. My thighs and my calves suddenly felt like impossibly hard, tight chunks of overcooked meat or slabs of rock and pure pain, and I couldn’t tell if my legs were supposed to bend one way or the other. I didn’t know what to do, whether it was to keep walking or maybe try to stretch it out. Right at that point, a couple of the adult Troop 710 leaders drove by and offered me some assistance, seeing I was obviously in distress. I thought about it, but I figured if they picked me up and drove me to some stopping point, I’d just end up being in a lot of hurt in their seat. Somehow, I got it in my head that the best thing to do was to keep my legs moving, so I thanked them and said maybe I should try walking it off.
Moving seemed to help, so I kept moving. Eventually, I ran into Kermit again and explained my situation. He loaded me up with some Tums for the calcium as well as a load of electrolyte tablets and fluids. Robert, one of dads, caught up with me and decided to walk with me, so we walked and talked until we finally reached the crest of the Latigo Canyon Road part of the trip. The ride down to Kanan Dume Road was exhilarating.
At Kanan Dume Road, we met up with Loretta and Yasmine and some of the scouts, along with Kermit, who topped me off with electrolytes and fluids again. We took Kanan Dume Road to Mulholland Highway and biked along until it started going uphill again. I started walking and, as usual, fell behind. After a few more miles of walking — I passed the troop 710 parents, waved and smiled; they were parked at the side of the road, waiting — I eventually found a relatively level part of the highway and was able to get enough strength back to start riding and caught up with the rest of my middle group, i.e. the moms, Robert (who had, by then, stopped with his son for a longish snack, so I passed him), and a few other scouts.
For the rest of the trip back to Leo Carillo State Beach, it was mostly downhill and windy along Mulholland Highway. I stayed with G, W’s patrol mate, who apparently is not only afraid of heights but is also afraid of speed, keeping the brakes on rather tightly during the downhills so much so that not only did I eventually ride on but the moms rode far beyond. We let him catch up on the flat parts, though.
When we got back to Leo Carillo State Beach, Yasmine and Loretta decided enough was enough. We were parents, and we weren’t in it for the merit badge. We had no idea where the faster riders were and where the rest of the trail was supposed to go. Unfortunately, that meant we couldn’t guide the scouts we had with us. We waited for instruction, but we got none. Eventually, we found out, and I half-heartedly volunteered to ride with some scouts on the rest of the course, but they weren’t eager to go, either.
Eventually, I also contacted Resur, the other counsellor who had ridden with the faster group, and he told me where they were (and also that W was with them). They came back by late afternoon.
W completed over about 52 miles of riding that day. (I completed about 46 miles, I think.) He was exhausted. Unfortunately, he had brought no money with him, and because we got separated, he had had to get water from other scouts, and he had no money with him to buy a snack at Starbucks in Malibu, which was one of their stops on the final leg.
Still, our troop did very well overall. Troop 710 surprisingly did only one 25 mile warm-up ride before attempting this 50 mile ride, while our troop did the entire series of 5, 10, and many 25 mile rides, plus the 32 mile ride. All of our scouts made it through at least the 46 miles, and many made it through the 52 miles. I don’t know if or how those who didn’t do the last leg will make it up.