Blue Willows

2006-12-21T05:59:00.000-08:00

I've added a link to Rachel's blog. She is travelling in Thailand right now.

2006-04-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

The official date for the next Luau is August 12, 2006.

2005-09-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

Bear in its natural setting. Buses out of their's.

Proof that Marissa got to see Denali again.

2005-09-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

I'm having better luck with pictures today, so here are some more. This is one of 11 grizzlies that we saw on the trip to Kantishna.

Another pretty view from the canoe.

Sunset on the lake.

Denali from the Lake.

Denali at sunset from the lake.

2005-09-08T19:38:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't seen enough pictures:

What's everybody looking the other way for?

Well, there was a moose there. Other than the two in Anchorage, this is the only moose we saw. That's OK with Marissa. She's had her fill with moose already.

South view of Denali from the canoe we rented at Byers Lake.

This is why we came in the fall!

2005-09-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

On the drive through Anchorage, there was a Mom and junior moose blocking the way on the only major road running through the city. It came up too fast. The camera was packed away and the moose were still in the other lane so we didn't actually have to stop.

2005-09-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

The pictures that I download seem to have disappeared. Well, I guess I'll try again.

2005-09-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took the bus from Seward to Anchorage and rented a car. We went to Fred Meyers and got two $20 sleeping bags for the two nights in the cabin at Byers Lake and then we went to the Alaska State Fair in Palmer. We saw a lumberjack show, an 85 pound cabbage (that's bigger than the pig that we cooked over three boxes of cabbages at the luau) and a lot of happy Alaskans. We had salmon quesadillas that were really good, and then we came to the Alaska Garden Gate B & B, which is really a lovely place. And it turns out that Karen, the owner, provides WiFi internet access, so I'm sitting here at my laptop entering another blog entry. The last entry was from a dial-up speed public internet shop, which after downloading 6 pictures showed me only two of them, but today I got to check, and they are all there! The mushroom picture was from our walk in the woods after floating down the river through the Eagle Preserve outside of Haines. The cruise ship was actually quite nice, and we will miss it.

2005-09-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

See the eagle.

2005-08-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

Today we took the canoe adventure to Mendenhall Glacier. They let me steer, but we didn't get lost. Fortunately I had my Garmin with me.

2005-08-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

So, we made it to Alaska!
We've seen Sitka, Ketchikan, and today we are in Juneau.
In Ketchikan there was a young black bear that we saw find a big old salmon.

2005-08-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

Here are two nice pictures from Christian.

2005-08-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Lots of smiles at the luau. The pictures say it all.

2005-08-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

So I was sorry to hear this week that Bill's Dad is back in the hospital and won't make it to the Luau. We wish Don all the best for getting better.

Patricia ordered two cases of cabbage from Winco. That's about 50 head! We have added sweet potatoes and potato salad to the menu. The sweet potatoes will get cooked along with the pig. We got firewood last weekend from the friend that I mentioned before. He is building a huge house near Dallas that is consuming all of his time, but he took a little time out to drag out a downed oak tree trunk for us. We sliced off logs and I have been splitting them a few at a time. It was very nice of him, especially since it looks like he won't even make it to the luau.

The potato items were added to the menu by Bill's Uncle Jerry, who helped with the last luau. We are looking forward to seeing him again.

2005-07-31T12:58:00.000-07:00

I dragged the rocks and burlap out of the barn and I found the tongs that Don made last time. They were good enough for that time, so I guess they will do for this time too.

Here's the hole:Not me! The thing I'm standing in.I think it is done. That's what my muscles say right now, anyway. What do you think, Bill. Is that big enough for an 80 pounder? As you can see from the yardstick, it is about 3 feet deep.

2005-07-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

I talked to Bill last night. His Dad is still planning to come.

We talked about the "greens" for the roast (typically banana stumps and leaves). We don't have any yet. The purpose of the banana stumps is twofold. First it provides moisture to make steam that does the cooking. Second, it provides a more or less fire resistant buffer between the hot rocks and the pig. We decided to use cabbages. We will have to see if Costco sells cases of cabbages.

It has been challenging to keep the yard up these days. The hot weather is wilting everything but the weeds. The weeds are growing like crazy.

2005-07-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

Luau plans so far:
The pig has been ordered. 80 pounder ready for luau with the head on from Dayton Meat Company. I started digging the hole. It is near where the old one was. Ways to go still. I got 4 80" square burlap pieces from Home Depot and some chicken wire. Don't know what we are going to do about sealing the steam in. At this point, the fallback is to do what we did last time, which was to use a canvas painters tarp as the first layer and then put a poly tarp over it. Polypropylene is flammable, but I think if we wet down the canvas tarp first it should be OK. I still need to think up something to use as tongs. We have a friend with treed acreage who said he will supply the wood. The rocks are still in the barn.

DD says he can bring some chairs. Bill, do you have any? I might see if we can borrow some from Richard.

Dirk, Andreas and Rainer are coming to help cook the pig. Andreas is riding his bike out here and is going to set up his tent in the yard. My sister's family will be here then, along with my mother.

Dirk is bringing rice. Alan is bringing drinks. I think there are a couple of fruit salads on the sign up also, but it is at work and I can't exactly remember. DFH is bringing a veggie dish.

I got two cases of beer, and a case of Thomas Kemperer soft drinks and a case of snapples at Costco today.

2005-07-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

The theme of Robert Laughlin's A Different Universe is that we are moving into an age in which applying the principles of emergence are more likely to enhance our understanding of how things work than the staid practice of applying reductionist principles. But just what are the principles of emergence, anyway? They must be the ones found in the standard textbooks on emergence. I keep hoping to find something that qualifies as a standard textbook on emergence, and I hoped when I read about this book that it might provide some of the necessary framework that the future standard textbook will contain.

Laughlin knows emergence when he sees it. He recognizes it as a pervasive phenomenon that describes how the interactions between different systems results in relationships that have no meaning if considered in an environment with just one of the participating systems. He describes it as being the basis for new properties, which is a point that I think is lost on a lot of people. You don't get something for nothing, you get new properties for nothing.

On the other hand, Laughlin's book isn't the basis for some forthcoming standard textbook. While it has lots of interesting ideas and perspectives, Laughlin doesn't seem to have much patience for people that don't get what he already gets. His explanations are often quite abbreviated, and on occassion he alludes to things that certainly were lost on me. It's not that they were too complicated for me, I don't think. They just were too obscure. Here is an example. When explaining the basis for the proverbial Schroedinger's cat paradox, Laughlin starts by making clear that the idea of having a simultaneously alive and dead cat is ludicrous, and that Schroedinger intended it thus. He then states that it is a paradox only because something is missing from the argument. "The missing idea in the case of quantum measurement is emergence, specifically the principle of symmetry-breaking required for the apparatus to make sense." Instead of next making clear how emergence results in an apparent paradox, though, or what the principle of symmetry breaking is, he throws in several humorous analogies and then alludes to it being obvious that the problem is one of scale. The measurement apparatus must inherently be too large to detect a quantum property. This never really tied back to the assertion that the paradox could be readily understood by considering emergence.

My favorite chapter is the one on "baubles". I think nearly everyone can relate to the urge to collect interesting things. The degree to which this urge distracts us from focusing on meaningful things probably is not so obvious to most people.

2005-07-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

Some topics that I have in mind are:

The upcoming Luau in August
My trip with Marissa to Alaska
A review of A Different Universe by Robert B. Laughlin
More thoughts about emergence

Just for practice, Here is a picture of 8 of two of my daughters at Joshua Tree: