Emo Cow...

Emo Cow ... is photo of the day.  Debbie and I had no idea what the “Emo” was referring to, so we googled it.  I'll just say this about that: sometimes it's better not to exercise your right to search the Inter-tubes...

A delicate mix of quantum and classical...

A delicate mix of quantum and classical...  This is the answer to the riddle of photosynthesis' high efficiency – and just maybe a pathway to practical quantum computers.  I never thought I'd see botany and computational hardware in the same study!

Ok, the Internet is finished...

Ok, the Internet is finished...  Developers, you'd better find a new line of work.  The “Fluffington Post” is the last web site anyone will ever need...

Sometimes I want to resign from the human race...

Sometimes I want to resign from the human race ... because I don't want to be associated with its behaviors.  Someone – no suspect yet – shot and killed a horse pulling an Amish buggy near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  What punishment would be sufficient for such a cruel and senseless act?

Arab welfare states...

Arab welfare states...  Strategy Page has a good summary of how Saudi Arabia and other Arab states have become utterly dependent on foreign workers to keep their countries running.  The confluence of oil wealth, dictatorships (sometimes, as in Saudi Arabia, falsely dressed as monarchies), and a population trained to believe themselves superior has put them in a position where the loss of oil revenues would likely lead to the implosion of their political systems – and there's no obvious solution in sight.

As I've frequently told a friend of mine who's interested in the Middle East: it's a far more complex situation over there than most Americans have any inkling of.  There are no easy answers to the awful tensions there – and there may not be any non-military answers, either...

Here's one place I'm never going to shop...

Here's one place I'm never going to shop...  KlearGear pulled off an epic Bozo maneuver: they “fined” a customer $3,500 for the sin of writing a bad review.  Never mind that the review was completely justified.  Never mind that we live in an age of social media wherein an act like this is practically guaranteed to go viral in a bad, bad way.  Never mind that even my dogs would know better.

They did it anyway.

Bye, bye, KlearGear.  I'm glad I never new ye...

Resonant plate meets salt...

Resonant plate meets salt...

Second life for the Kepler telescope...

Second life for the Kepler telescope...  Using the miniscule pressure of the sunlight on its solar panels.  Awesome!

Pater: The loan...

Pater: The loan...  The photo at right is from July, 2005, at Clear Lake in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.  This was the first trip I'd been on with my dad where I could out-hike him, and that was quite a shock for me.  His age and chronic lymphatic leukemia had tremendously sapped his physicality, but not his spirit, not even in the slightest degree.  He was just as eager to see the trees, flowers, and scenery as he ever was – he just couldn't walk as far to do it.  We made very good use of our LandCruiser's offroad capability to help mitigate this – I was able to get my dad into all sorts of places that would ordinarily require a rugged hike, and he was really happy about that.  In the beginning of that trip, he was frequently expressing his amazement about where we could go in the LandCruiser.  By the end of the trip, he just assumed we could go anywhere at all :)

The loan...

This is a story I only know second-hand, and now the only two people who could elaborate on it are gone.  But I do know the essentials, though some details may be missing or wrong, and the story nicely illustrates another aspect of my dad's personality.  I'll relate it as I found out about it.

The first I found out about the loan was on a warm summer day when I was 11 or 12 years old – '63 give or take a year or two.  My dad had given me the job of cleaning up some brush and trash up on top of an old concrete truck loading apron.  I'd driven our tractor with a utility cart up there, and I was loading it up with junk – hot and sweaty work, and I wasn't happy about it.  I muttered some unkind and irritated things about my dad as I worked away.

Nearby, Julius Mate sat on a chair in front of the little cottage that he and his wife lived in, puffing away on his pipe, watching me intently.  Julius was a Hungarian immigrant whom my dad employed as general help on the nursery, mostly in our greenhouse.  He was, I'm guessing, about 60 years old at the time – short, thickset, weathered face, and always smelling of beer and tobacco.  He spoke English poorly, with a very thick accent.  We kids thought of him as a kind of odd, grumpy old man who never hesitated to holler at us if he didn't like what we were doing.  Sometimes we could understand what he was saying, sometimes not – but we had zero trouble understanding that he wasn't happy with us.

So I wasn't surprised that day when Julius wandered over to where I was working.  I expected him to start hollering at me, but instead, he beckoned me (he used a lot of non-verbal communications) to come over to where he'd been sitting.  He wanted me to sit down, because he wanted to talk with me.  Through the nearly impenetrable accent, I eventually figured out that he wanted to tell me a story.  What follows in italics is what I understood the story to be, but without the accent and hand-waving...

My dad hired Julius sometime before I was born, and (I believe) before he was married to my mom.  Julius was a refugee from then-Communist Hungary; he had been a member of the resistance in WWII, and was well-known as being anti-Communist, and was afraid for his life if he stayed in Hungary – so he left, but his wife and two sons stayed behind.  Eventually Julius made it to the U.S., and then found a job with my father, who valued his knowledge of greenhouse horticulture.  He was glad to be safe, glad to have a job, and thought of himself as being nearly in heaven, in America.

But always he dreamed of bringing his family here, to join him in this heaven on earth.  To fulfill this dream, he needed money – not only for the travel, but for bribing the Hungarian officials and border guards, for otherwise there was no hope of his family emigrating.  He also needed an American sponsor to sign a document promising to provide work, a place to live, and so on – to guarantee that the immigrant wouldn't become a burden to the community.  So Julius scrimped and saved, but knew it would be years before he could save enough money.  He thought my dad might be willing to be the sponsor, though, and he resolved to sound my dad out on that idea.  He figured my dad probably wouldn't mind, as he had already allowed Julius to live in (by Julius' standards) a fine house that his family could also live in.

One day, when he and my dad were working together in our greenhouse culling holly cuttings, Julius broached the subject with my dad.  This led to many questions, as my dad knew vaguely that Julius had a family in Hungary, but didn't know any of the details.  My dad asked where exactly they lived, what it would take to get them to the U.S., etc.  Then when Julius told my dad about the need to bribe officials, my dad's attitude changed – he was, apparently, quite angry that Julius' family might be kept in Hungary by such cruel people.  He then asked Julius how much money the bribes and travel would take?  Julius told him: about $800.

I don't know exactly when that conversation happened, but my best guess is 1949 or 1950 – after the war, after my dad was demobilized, but before he and my mom were married.  At that time, $800 would have been a great deal of money to my dad – probably close to a year's income – and even more to Julius...

What happened next just stunned Julius: my dad offered to lend him the $800, right then.  He also agreed to be his family's official sponsor.  Julius told my father than he didn't know when he could repay him, and he certainly had no assets to offer as security.  My dad told him – on this point Julius was adamant, and all choked up, near tears – that Julius' word was good enough for him, and that all my dad expected was to be paid when Julius could do so.  

This was the last thing Julius had expected, and he had no plans in place to get his family here, thinking it would be years and years before he could do so.  The next day, my dad went to the bank and got the money for Julius, and then Julius set things in motion.  He had a way to get letters and money secretly to relatives in Hungary, and they arranged the travel and the bribes to get his family out of the country, to Vienna, in Austria.  From there they traveled commercially to Philadelphia, where Julius met them and brought them home, to his cottage on our farm.  Julius' dream was fulfilled.

Julius related this story to me because he'd heard me saying something angry about my dad, and wanted me to know how wrong I was, and how good a man my father was.  Julius said he didn't know any man who would have done what my dad did for him.  I should respect and honor that, he told me.  My dad deserved no less.

Well, that was quite a story.  I believed him at the time; it didn't occur to me to question any of it then.  My anger and irritation had dissipated long before Julius finished his story, and I thought about his loan many times over the years.  It always gave me a warm feeling about my dad.  As I got older, though, a little doubt started to edge in.  Did I actually understand Julius correctly, or had I imagined parts of that story?  Or did Julius perhaps think I needed to hear a fable, even if it wasn't strictly that actually happened?

On one of our many trips together – this time, along the Big Sur coast to Monterey – I asked my dad about it.  He was quite taken aback to have that subject raised after so many years.  He was also a bit embarrassed to talk about it.  After all that time had passed, my dad couldn't remember all the details, but he verified the general outline of Julius' story: yes, he had lent Julius the money – a lot of money.  The money was used for both travel and bribes, and it worked: it got his family here.  It was done just on Julius' word that he'd repay it.  And yes, Julius had paid it all back.  And my dad was embarrassed that his generosity and trust had been discovered by his son.

Well, I've got some bad news for you, Pater: your son knows quite a few stories like that.  But this is one of the best ones...

ObamaCare debacle update...

ObamaCare debacle update...  Because we should be thankful for such debacles!

Doctors don't want ObamaCare patients.  More hassle, more paperwork, less money.  Who would have suspected doctors would look out for their own interests?

If you like your plan, you can keep it!  Well, not so much...

In shocking news, ObamaCare continues to flounder.

Five Republican predictions that turned out to be true.  Who'd a thunk that Republicans would ever get something right?

Positive stories about ObamaCare are so rare that ... when there are some, that simple fact is newsworthy!

“Periods of suboptimal performance”  Ace lays into the bureaucracy's multiple and manifest ineptitudes.  It's a target-rich environment...

“Epic failure”  Oregon healthcare exchange signs up zero people.  Oh, my – hard to go down from there.  But I'm confident they'll try!

Democrats fear that ObamaCare will cost them the Senate.  The schadenfreude runs deep in this one.  Just the thought of Harry Reid being relegated to the minority, or even not winning re-election, brings tears of joy to my eyes even now...

Insurers smell trouble with ObamaCare.  No, really?

Tippy's last leap...

Tippy's last leap...  Yesterday evening we decided that it was time to say goodby to our little Tippy, seen in these photos in happier days.  He was part of our life and our household since 1994, over 19 years – and we got him as a young adult, rescuing him from some abusive kids in our (then) Chula Vista neighborhood.

Tippy was a notable cat for several reasons.  Probably what we'll remember most is his remarkable ability to make vertical leaps – he was way better at this than any other cat we've ever owned.  We could frequently find him in the most unlikely places, like the tops of kitchen cabinets seven feet high, or on top of very high bookshelves.  Watching him make these leaps, we figured out that it wasn't so much that he had levitation superpowers – it was more that he was very skilled at finding the tiniest of paw-holds that would let him push higher and faster in mid-leap.  If you watched him make a leap, say, to the top of a kitchen cabinet, at first blush it looked like one fluid and seamless leap straight from the floor.  But if you watched him very carefully, you'd see that part way up he'd get a little boost by pushing down on a cabinet handle or a counter top.  The other cats just never figured out how to do this.

This ability suited Tippy's personality to a tee, because he really was the epitome of a curmudgeonly cat.  Most of the time, he really didn't care for the company of other cats or the dogs.  Being alone was what he wanted, and his ability to get to perches the other cats couldn't reach was his means to that end.  Every once in a while Tippy would come out and socialize, or even play – but those were rare occasions.

Tippy had another unique skill, too: he was really good at getting into drawers, especially those that he knew were filled with something soft and fuzzy – clothes or towels, for example.  He'd dangle himself from the drawer he wanted to get into (with his front paws), then kick with his hind feet to pull it out.  All he needed was a few inches of opening, then he'd hop in, curl up, and go to sleep.  We had to be careful when we saw partially-opened drawers – if we shut them, we might be trapping him inside.  Sometimes he'd be far back inside the drawer, too, so we had to search thoroughly.  Sometimes it would be subtler – he'd pull out one drawer, then go in through it, climb over the back of it and down into the next drawer below!

With us, his fully-owned humans, things were different – especially when he was younger.  He was then a serious “lap kitty”, and would stay with us for hours on end.  I spent many an hour working in my office with Tippy perched on my lap, purring softly... 

For the past couple of months he's been in decline from a combination of just plain old age and pancreatitis.  We fed him “chicken smoothies” (roast chicken blended with chicken broth), made sure he wasn't in pain, and showered him with attention and affection.  In the past five weeks that Debbie's been gone, caring for Tippy has been a big part of my days.  Making his smoothies, keeping him and his pen clean, administering his medications, giving him sub-cutaneous fluids, and just giving him some attention and affection occupied several hours daily.  He and I were a team.  Then in the last few days, other organs started to fail, he caught a cold, and stopped eating.  Dr. Christine Wilson, our wonderful Jamul veterinarian, kept us well-informed about the options, his condition, and prognosis.  Yesterday afternoon it became clear that no miracles were going to occur, and our first priority was no suffering for Tippy – so we decided it was time.  Debbie couldn't be here, as she's back in Indiana taking care of her mom.  I stayed with him, held his head and caressed him as he went peacefully.

It's so hard to make these decisions, even with a great vet like Dr. C. to guide us ... but I am very grateful that we have the option to allow our pets a painless end that is as comfortable as such a thing could possibly be.

I buried Tippy this morning, out under the pine trees with the other cats we've lost over the years.  It was sad and a bit lonely, but in a strange way, a cathartic ritual...