FSOC Movie

When the boys got an animation set for Christmas, Bruce decided to try it out. He was taken with the process and decided to make a movie commemorating his team’s first successful flight using optical communication between balloons. We went through several set up iterations but finally he ended up doing most of the work in the garage.

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It’s a time consuming process but the final product came out great.

Hipster Bruce

Last month they were going to do some filming at Google[x] and, of course, Bruce couldn’t let that pass without a prank. As with many of his pranks, the idea solidified in the late afternoon of the day before he wanted to do it. The item needed: a wig.

After school, Ezra and I ran to the huge party store in Mountain View which luckily had a pretty good supply of wigs. Most of them, however, were for more outlandish costumes and not something one would wear in order to fake real hair. But we came up with two choices, valiantly modeled by Ezra.

The Unisex:

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And The Beatles:

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For Ezra, I think the Beatles is the clear winner, but Bruce liked the tousled look for himself.

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He tried wearing it for a while that evening, just to get used to it. He also added a few accessories; here’s one.

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I’m pretty sure my mom had this same hairstyle for most of the 70s and 80s. For work the next morning, he went with the cap.

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About halfway through the day, I figured out who he reminded me of.

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Best $30 I ever spent.

Bruce’s Birthday 2015

Bruce’s birthday this year was our typical low key affair. We celebrated with small gifts — a pen from Finn and licorice from Ezra.

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Then we went to Howie’s for pizza.

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And later we ate my contribution to the evening — a chocolate cake.

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Duck Decoy Hunting

It’s duck hunting season on the Bay and Bruce has become enamored of the abandoned duck decoys bobbing up and down in the water. He brought one home a few weeks ago, and one weekend, after seeing a few more that were too far out of reach, he decided he needed a hunting strategy. His idea: a lasso!

So, he pulled some rope out of the garage and looked up the lasso knot on the intergoogles and soon we were packed up and riding over to the Bay. Here’s the soon-to-be master on one of his first tries.

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(Can we just stop here and acknowledge what a ridiculously gorgeous day it was?!? It was windy and chilly for me, but absolutely beautiful!)

The rope wasn’t going as far as necessary, so he moved a little closer.

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He finally did manage to rope the duck … but unfortunately when he started to pull on it, he lost his balance in the muck and fell backwards into the cold and, dare I say, gross water. I was freezing just looking at him, but he persevered! After all, there was at least one other decoy out there! We rode a short way to the next location and, soaking wet, he managed to get another one. By a stroke of brilliant luck, I happened to be shooting video of it — the only video I took of all of his tries.

We stayed a little longer as the boys, Ezra in particular, was having fun breaking off the shore. Here’s a video (at his request), complete with a happy dance at the end.

And here’s a picture of the spoils.

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More Loony Shenanigans

One thing definitely in the “pro” column for our move is Bruce’s new team at work, a really good bunch of guys with good senses of humor. Google has micro-kitchens in each building with a ridiculous assortment of snacks and drinks. They offer some healthy stuff — mostly bowls of fruit, each with J. Peterman Catalog-worthy descriptions. Here’s an example.

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For a while now, Bruce has wanted to do a papier mache fruit with some resemblance to his colleague Todd’s head and leave it in a basket in the micro-kitchen. It finally happened a couple of weeks ago.

I don’t have many pictures of the construction, but it was a typical papier mache project in that he started with a balloon, which he tried to be roughly the size of Todd’s head. Oh, and here’s Todd. (Bruce tacked up a picture of him in the garage for inspiration.)

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The early stages were not without mishaps. Namely, in trying to quick dry a couple layers, he put the balloons in the oven on a low temp. Seemed reasonable. But the balloon expanded in the heat and started ripping the newspaper. Lesson learned.

Otherwise, I think it went pretty smoothly. By the time I started taking pictures, he had already spray-painted them orange.

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He added some green to make them less uniform and add some rustic fruitiness.

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He added black to one of the stems …

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… but everyone liked it better without that effect, so he stopped.

The other step was the mock description card. Bruce wrote the text and I formatted it to look like the sample he’d brought home.

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He took the fruit, the card and a basket over to his office in the evening and set it all up.

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By the time he got in the next morning, word of the new fruit in the micro-kitchen had traveled quickly and everyone immediately knew the culprit.

Loon-y Paper Mache

Bruce usually comes home from work in a good mood. He’s enjoying his new job — the team, the work itself and the whimsical Google environment are all a good fit. But one day a couple of weeks ago he came home a little embarrassed. He’d accidentally printed out a 1,000-page document when he intended to just print part of the table of contents. Because he had left the building when he started the print job, he didn’t realize what had happened until he got back much later.

He quickly owned up to the accident and suggested his penance should be to have to actually read the document: IEEE Broadband Wireless Access Standards, which sounds riveting. Another colleague proposed that he make a paper mache balloon piñata for Cinco de Mayo like the ones his group plans to fly to provide internet access to remote areas.

So in other words, the gauntlet was thrown and the Moisions sprang into action. I found a local party store that sells giant balloons and Bruce printed out some pictures of the balloons to figure out proper dimensions. Saturday morning he started the paper mache.

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Here’s the offending paper.

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This project really is an engineering problem, so it’s right up his alley. He was worried that the balloon would pop before the paper mache was dry, so he set up a little stand for it.

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After the first couple of layers, he decided that he wanted it to get some sun since it wasn’t particularly warm out. So we very carefully moved it out of the garage. It was windy, so in addition to it needing a cushiony place to sit, he tied it down so it wouldn’t blow off the box.

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After a few hours in the sun, we moved it back into the garage and tackled the next engineering issue: how to get it to drape down so it’s not ball-shaped. This is where I think most people would have a good laugh and give up. But not my nutty husband.

His original thought was to use string to get the shape and do the paper mache around the string.

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But that didn’t work because the paper would just rip when he tried to stretch it between the strings. Luckily, we still have a lot of cardboard left over from the move, so out came the box cutters and the hot glue gun and we shaped a stronger base. (And I say “we” because I was tasked with holding things in place while he did all the work, but I’m taking some credit anyway.)

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After tying it to a beam in the garage so it would stand upright (and take a little weight off the balloon), he started in on the first layer on Sunday morning.

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Later that evening he added more layers and got a little help from Ezra.

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They’re a good team.

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By the next morning, it was looking pretty good!

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He still had to add some layers to the part that wasn’t showing when it was hanging up.

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And we had lengthy discussions about how to attach a way to hang it when it was all done. More glue gun, cardboard and zip ties.

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A couple of days later it got an attachment.

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And hanging proved successful.

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Of course, in order to be authentic it needs a payload.

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More zip ties, glue, cardboard and black spray paint.

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While all this was happening, we were also trying to figure out what we should put inside. Our first thought was, of course, candy, but that seemed too obvious. I suggested bouncy balls which I thought would have a nice effect but could be problematic with little control of how far they would go. They would also add a lot of weight to an already heavy contraption.

Then Bruce had a great idea: origami cranes (or loons!) in the tradition of making 1,000 cranes for good luck. After some searching, we found people on Etsy who make them, in Google colors no less. We figured we’d buy some and make some ourselves, knowing it was unlikely we’d be able to make as many of them as we needed to fill the ball.

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We initially bought 500 3″ cranes from a woman in North Carolina which came folded and needed to be pulled out into shape. We put the kids to work.

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We then set out to make more (which included a late night trip to Michael’s for origami paper). We found that we had an easier time making them from 6″ paper, so we hunted through the packs of paper for the primary colors, put the kids to bed and got to work. It didn’t take long for us to realize we needed provisions.

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We kept at it and our small pile got bigger as we managed to get a little faster at making each crane.

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On Saturday, though, we brought in reinforcements: Baris and Alexandra.

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Alexandra is a pro and cranked out lots of cranes. Baris joined the rest of us newbies, and together we made about 200 cranes in a few hours. Of course, we had some delays, namely dinner and my own stopping to cheer for the Kings who beat the Ducks in Round 2, Game 1 that night.

On Sunday, Bruce put some finishing touches on the payload: a mocked-up comm system complete with solar panel.

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We took a break for lunch with our neighbors and then headed out on our two hour drive to Elk Grove to pick up the other 500 cranes we’d ordered on Etsy. The best part of that little excursion was that we arranged to meet Mike, Carla, Emily and Kendra for dinner in Sacramento. So great to see the “girl cousins” as the boys call them!

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On the way home, Bruce unfolded all the cranes, threw them to the boys who threw them in the back of the car. So what started out in this box …

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… ended up to be this giant pile.

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When we got home, I put the kids to bed while Bruce started getting the balloon ready for transport to Google the next morning. After attaching another, smaller balloon in the hole to keep the cranes from pooling in the bottom, he filled the big ball.

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Then, while trying to figure out what to use for the beating stick, we decided to contact our neighbor Chris who has his own [much crazier] project going on in his backyard — Tsunamiball — and therefore has lots of tools and scrap wood. He brought over a perfect stick and then had a look at the balloon. He proved to be the voice of reason, convincing Bruce that the ball was just too strong and no one was going to be able to bust it open. So … out came the drill.

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And eventually the saw.

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It ended up looking like this.

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Just to take this to a whole new level of kookiness, Bruce was worried that the cranes would a) be dusty from all the drilling and sawing, and b) get wet when he put the last layer of paper mache on (he couldn’t possibly leave it full of holes), so he had taken them all out.

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Trust me, there was a lot of mocking. Undaunted, he continued cutting, in part because after he did the initial cuts he tried hitting the ball and it didn’t budge.

Here’s a shot of all the holes from the inside.

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Next there was sanding …

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And the last layer of paper mache.

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After it had mostly dried, he blew up another balloon for inside (he’d popped the first one with the saw) and refilled the cranes. He marked a tiny black spot where he thought the weakest point was in case they ran into trouble breaking it.

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And we loaded it in the van.

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He sent me this picture of its final home between a couple of Google buildings.

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The festivities started earlier than I thought they would so I didn’t get to see the beginning; apparently Bruce got to take the first swings. When I rode up I could hear the smacking sound already so I rushed over to grab a few photos.

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And here’s the guy who finally did it in.

I love this shot of the aftermath. The cranes worked out great!

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You can see more of my photos here. Some of Bruce’s colleagues also posted photos. I’ll add links as I get them. For now, here and here.

Father’s Day 2013

Father’s Day was a low key affair around here; in fact, I can’t even remember what we did that day. I think Bruce had to work some of the day. I do remember that there was bacon for breakfast, which made all Moision boys happy. Here are pictures of the cards the boys made for Bruce.

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Ezra’s had an Epic theme because he and I had seen the movie the day before.

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Just before everyone dug into breakfast, I snapped this picture. What a bunch of cuties.

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JPL Mini-Tour

A couple of Saturdays ago Bruce took us and another Aveson family on a mini-tour of JPL. It was supposed to be the weekend of the ever-popular annual JPL open house, but the event had been canceled and the other family had a very disappointed space-crazy nephew who was coming into town for his birthday specifically to go to JPL. Bruce saved the day for them and we got to tag a long for the tour. It’s always fun to go to the lab. We started in the museum. Here are Bruce and Finn checking out the infrared display.

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We checked out the models of the spacecraft and then watched the newest version of their movie about the history of JPL. It was great — I wish I could share it but it’s only available at the museum for now.

Here are some other pictures from around the lab. Full scale model of Curiosity.

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Waiting outside the spaceflight operations room (which we ended up not being able to enter — the only disappointment of the day).

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Wildlife on lab.

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Mars Yard exploration.

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My favorite sign — Rover Crossing.

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The newest ATHLETE rover. (This is in a tent near the Mars Yard. Ezra was very worried about us going in to see it because he thought we weren’t supposed to be in there.)

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Our last stop was the observation deck of the clean room.

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They’re building something that Bruce worked on (the cylinder thing on the left side) which is going to the Space Station to do optical communication. It’s called the OPALS project and is set to fly in September. Very exciting!

The kids and adults really enjoyed the tour. I overheard several times, “This place is so much cooler than my job!”

Sheep Canyon Hike

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This was our sixth (counting an early trip through Salvador Canyon) trip through the Sheep Canyon wilderness and our last, at least for some time. We had entered from four other routes on prior trips. Peter, looking at the topographic maps, picked out a promising route in by climbing a ridge north of Salvador Canyon. It looked reasonably flat, and used an entry point from a trip described in Schad’s guide.

Ribbonwood up close

Ancient cans

On several of our other trips we were pressed for time, and had long, exhausting days. Trying to learn from this, we started in Friday night after dark. We first met at Carmelita’s, a Mexican restaurant in Borrego Springs with a surprisingly busy bar, and then drove in to the second stream crossing-as far as I felt comfortable driving my 2WD Escape. The moon was nearly full, which provided some light as we crossed through the willows, a densely vegetated area with a clear trail, well worn by horses. We hiked for a few hours, arriving at the base of the mountain, and made camp in a sandy wash. On the way we spotted a dead hawk, and a big fat scorpion sitting in the road. The moon was beautiful, and we each took several photos-all fated to not come out.

Friendly scorpion

Lichen?

Agave

I’ve long thought of playing music on a hike-even to eke out a few simple notes, but I had never learned an instrument. This year though I’ve been accompanying Finn to his recorder lessons and learning to play a little. I brought my mom’s old recorder on the hike, encased in a hand woven sleeve she made back in the 70’s, and three songs from Finn’s class (I can’t play anything by memory yet): Juba, When the Saints Come Marching In, and Old MacDonald. I played a bit by moon and headlamp. I’m no good, but it was still a pleasure to play, and Peter was a patient (that is, captive) audience.

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Heading in

Salvador canyon

We headed out at five the next morning, expecting it to get hot. We had a little less water than I would have liked, but we expected to get to a stream by midday. The climb up the ridge went well. There was a little navigating, but the decisions were relatively simple. Along the way we spotted two agave roasting pits (there’s a photo of one below).

Agave roasting pit

The Cahuilla used to collect agave in the mountains (where they grow) and roast them in a big, shallow pit. You can find these on the top of ridges. Once you learn to spot them, they’re relatively easy to find: a flat spot, with dark soil, devoid of any large rocks.

Huge ribbonwood

Ribbonwood?

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We crossed Sage Flat around noon, spotting a snake along the way, and were running a little short on water. The next section was a stretch where we wanted to learn the route, having missed it on other trips. We picked up a trail, but lost it, and, being a bit tired and dry, pushed on to the stream, coming to in the same spot we had stopped twice before. We filtered water, drank a bit, and, a rarity for us, took a nap–a perk of having started early the day before.  Picking back up, we dropped into the bowl and came across a long hose that wrapped around the mountain. I’m guessing this is for some irrigation for the mountain sheep.  I followed one end of the hose for a bit, and didn’t find the end.  Past this we detoured to see a curious rock formation and  continued until we found a decent site in the bowl and made camp.

Friendly snake

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Filtering water

Even though I have a small, lightweight tent, I was glad to leave its weight and bulk behind on this trip. I always imagined I brought the tent even when it didn’t threaten rain to quell any fear of mountain lions at night. But I haven’t been really worried about a lion at night in a while—and I always knew any worry was irrational. And, as it turns out, the thought of a lion sneaking up and crushing my skull in my sleep wasn’t a concern. But I missed that moment of getting away from feeling exposed—to be in a separate environment for a moment. I played the recorder and read for a little while, but a cloud of bugs came and made it a bother.  A big spider also climbed into my bag—I presume attracted by the light, or all the bugs. I finally slept, a little fitfully. I woke several times to a big bright moon.

Rock formation

Looking into the top of sheep canyon

Camp

The next morning we headed down the canyon. Peter was in a route-finding zone, and led most of the way. We made good time and were out in a couple of hours. We stopped one last time to get water, and headed across the wash back to the car. The day before my heel was hurting a bit, and it turns out two sizable blisters had formed under it, deep under the skin, caused by my socks getting caked with dirt. Peter fortunately had some moleskin, which kept it from getting worse.

Descending

Dropping packs down

Camo-frog

Descending

It was fairly uneventful back to the car, although hot (Peter’s watch read 103). It’s always pleasant to end a hike with a walk across the flat wash, and this was more pleasant than most, as we had made good time. I drove back home via the Salton Sea and Palm Springs, tired, sore, and happy to see everyone.

Peter's right leg

Exiting Sheep Canyon

Bruce’s Expert Presentation

Ezra’s class has been learning about becoming an expert in something. Each student chose a topic and wrote a letter home to his or her parent asking for help in becoming an expert in their chosen area. Here’s Ezra’s letter.

Ezra's expert letter

They have also had a series of presentations from parents on being an expert at something — either work or hobby. Bruce signed up to do a presentation and went in last week to talk about how he became an expert in Information Theory. His first step was to talk about how important it is to be able to communicate with spacecraft. Case in point, the Millenium Falcon.

B's expert presentation

He showed them the receiver, too.

B's expert presentation

And, trying to spark a passion for math in at least a few of the students, he talked about how beautiful math is to a mathematician, using musical notes to a musician as an analogy. I’m not entirely sure they got the point, but I thought it was wonderful.

Music and math

Kindergarten Guest Speaker, Take 2

Last Monday Bruce was guest speaker in Finn’s class for another stint teaching Kindergarteners a little bit about communicating with Mars. As he was with Ezra’s class two years ago, he was a big hit this time. The giant Mars globe is a good start.

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First he wanted to give the kids an idea of how far Mars is from Earth and their relative sizes. Here he is blowing up Earth.

Blowing up Earth

Then he blew up Mars and our moon and the kids took a look at their sizes.

Mars, Earth and the moon

Next up, he talked about the very large antennas used to communicate with spacecraft so far away.

Pictures of big antennas

And pulled out our homemade antennas for a demonstration.

Intro to antennas

Finn got to be the volunteer to listen with the “big ear.”

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Finn's big ear

Finn's big ear

He moved all the way to the back of the room …

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… and could still hear what a classmate said through the other antenna.

From across the room

Of course, the part of his talk that really kills is the volume miscalculation water trick. I think the kids understood perfectly this volume calculation.

Volume Equation

Or maybe they just wanted to play with the Rover wheel he brought in.

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But really, once the experiment starts (to see if he calculated the volume correctly) their eyes are glued forward … until chaos breaks out.

That’s just a stippet of the video; I put the full 3:54 of it up on YouTube:

My favorite part is when he defends math. Hopefully the fact that he got it wrong twice won’t deter these future mathematicians too much.

I cut the video off a few seconds early — just before he yelled, “I did the calculation for a cylinder and it should be a truncated cone!” I don’t think anyone else heard him over the screams of laughter.

Sheep Canyon Hike/Bike

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I’ve been hiking in the desert for about 18 years now. I first followed routes from Schad’s “Afoot and Afield in San Diego County” and traveled with various friends from school or went out on my own. Some time ago I started hiking with Peter Thomas, who’s been my hiking partner now for about 14 years. Peter started planning trips by piecing together sections from guidebooks with sections that aren’t in any guidebooks, but looked like feasible routes from topo maps. Recently, we’ve been exploring a loop route from Sheep Canyon to Shingle Spring to Fig Tree Valley in the Anza Borrego Desert. This is a description of the trip this weekend.

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This was our fourth time to this particular area and route. The first time we came in from Anza to the north using bicycles and a trailer to get to the start of the loop. On that trip we had a lot of trouble with the bicycles and, especially, the trailer getting stuck in the sand. It was long and exhausting and it was dark by the time we came out on the second day. The second time we came in from the mountains to the west. A ranger there warned us that a coming storm would make the access road impassible, so we shortened our hike to a day hike, making it to the saddle at the top of Sheep Canyon. The third time we came in again from the mountains. That trip was also long, and we ended up having to navigate our way out in the dark.

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This trip was a reprise of the first trip using bikes to get the the trailhead but I was using a Surly Pugsley instead. The Pugsley has 4-inch diameter tires which allows it to travel through soft sand. The plan was for Peter to ride in Thursday night from the south, for me to head in Friday morning from the north, and we’d meet at Middle Willows. On Friday morning I drove to the top of Turkey Track in Anza and the end of a rocky dirt road. The forecast was for a storm to come in the next two days and deposit 1-3 inches of snow the first day and 3-5 the second. I was a little worried about the road getting muddy, but I guessed I could drive out after the storm. I parked and headed in to Coyote Canyon on the bike.

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I didn’t set up the bike until the night before when I realized my rack wouldn’t fit over the tires, so I just rode wearing my pack. The Pugsley was great. It seemed made for this. I rode on jeep trails and through rocky washes all the way to Bailey’s Cabin in Fig Tree Valley without ever having to walk the bike. I did take one fall over the handlebars with a firm thud to my helmet (thank you, helmet), but otherwise it went smoothly.

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The next section of the canyon from Upper Willow to Middle Willows, two sections of dense vegetation, is an important desert bighorn sheep habitat and is closed to motor vehicles, so it was rougher going. I started down a wrong route in Upper Willows, got stuck, backed out, and found a route around the Willows. This was rocky and harder to navigate. I passed a monument to Juan Anza de Batista which seems to be in the middle of nowhere. I came to the Middle Willows which has a narrow path right through it. I started on the path, lost it, and got stuck. If I were on foot I could have pushed through the brush to pick up the path but not with the bike. I put the bike down and searched on foot for the path. After finding it I pushed the bike through to that path and followed it the rest of the way out. I came out the other side where Peter was waiting having come up from the south the day before.

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We filtered water there and headed over to Sheep Canyon on the bikes. We stowed the bikes at the head of the canyon and started hiking. Sheep Canyon has an annual stream in the upper reaches, but there was no water at the bottom. This is the case with all the streams in the desert. They start in the mountains, fed by a spring, run down a canyon, and then stop, usually before reaching the valley, absorbed back into the ground. It always seems odd to me for a stream to have two endpoints. Somehow I think they should be a line with only one dry endpoint. Although we were fairly sure we’d find water eventually in the upper reaches of the canyon, we couldn’t camp without it, so we decided we follow the stream bed for an hour, and, if we didn’t have water by then, re-assess. We did find water shortly.

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Traversing the canyon is slow going and involves a fair amount of scrambling over boulders and pushing through brush. The number of people who traverse these routes is small and drops off quickly the farther in you get. We typically don’t see anyone in the mountains on our trips (we didn’t this time). So even when there is a known route, there is no trail. Or, at least not a hiking trail like you typically imagine or see — a clear path with markings. Here and there you can find and follow thin signs of a trail. In some places it’s clear, but it inevitably disappears. It gets grown over, washed out, or breaks into separate routes. Following these spare trails is always an little emotional roller-coaster. There’s a high when you’ve found it and are following it and a let down when you lose it. When we lose it we usually push through and try to pick it up again. Sometimes the the trail will lead you around an impassible section in the canyon, like a drop-off or very dense brush, so it’s important to stay on it. We’ve gotten better over the years at following the trail, at picking up little signs of it, and being able to predict what routes they tend to follow. We take turns leading as it takes more effort to stay on the route and sometimes one or the other is doing better at it.

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We made it to the lower reaches of a wide bowl near the top of the canyon and made camp. Somewhat coincidentally we found the same spot from a previous trip: a nice, flat, sandy spot near the stream. It was getting dark and cold as we set up the tents. We filtered more water, made dinner, and got to sleep. Nights are often long for me when hiking as we go to bed when it gets dark. I’ll sometimes get a lot of reading done (this time I picked up a book from our little library on the way out, which, so far, is pretty good). This time I slept pretty well and only woke a few times. It was a windy night and sand was blowing in under my rain fly and through the mesh tent. When I was reading I could feel the pages get gritty from the sand. Our tent pegs were set in the sand and not too firmly. I woke once to reset one when it blew loose letting the tent flap loudly in the wind.

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We try to pick sites that are close to water, are out of the wind, have enough space to pitch tents, and receive the morning sun, so as to warm us when we get up. But the choices are often restricted. This site didn’t receive morning sun, so it was cold when we got up. We tidied up, left our packs and tents, and headed up the canyon. We had had difficultly on previous trips finding the best route out of the top of the canyon, which involves some difficult climbing up steep, rocky slopes. Although we weren’t heading out that way this time, we wanted to scout out routes. We had a trail description from a book by Lindsey, but it was a little cryptic in this section. Even standing looking at the hills we weren’t quite certain of the right route. We settled on one that looked like the best candidate which we’ll try another time.

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In the desert your view is seldom obscured by trees or foliage which allows you to pick out routes visually as you go along. Also, because the foliage is seldom dense at high elevations (away from water), if the slope of the terrain on a topo map is moderate, you can be relatively certain that you can traverse it. We use this to choose paths in unknown areas. However, you often have to choose an approach along a certain ridge line or canyon. As the ridges separate, if you weren’t careful in selecting your route, you can find yourself in an impassible section, on a ridge that has a sudden, steep drop off, or facing a cliff.

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We bring a GPS on these trips but, since we’re not following a marked route, the GPS can only resolve where we are, not where we should be. We also bring a SPOT device. This can send a message at pretty much any location to a satellite, and we use it to send tracks of our route. It also allow you to send a call for help if need be. I started carrying it a few years ago after my third heart attack and after the boys were born. I also bring on every trip a small vial of nitroglycerin as well as extras of my heart meds. in case I have heart problems. I think the risk of having a heart attack on a trip is very small (it’s been 11 years since my last heart attack), but it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m in remote locations and far from medical help. In theory, if I had an attack, we could call for help with the SPOT and I can take a bunch of nitro., although I don’t know if extraction is possible in some canyons.

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After finding what we thought was the right route out, we headed back to our camp, packed up, and started out down the canyon. These spring-fed desert canyons are simply beautiful. Around every corner is another striking spot essentially untouched by humans. There’s a stark contrast between the steep canyon walls with roughly hewn rocks, studded with agave and dry desert plants, and the canyon bottom, thick with palms, mesquite, catclaw, and water-loving brush. The boulders on the bottom of the canyon are typically larger, and smooth, carved by the water. In many spots the water carves out clear grooves and divots in the rock.

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It often reminds me of the garden at the Getty museum in L.A. There’s a small man-made stream there that trickles down the hill making different sounds as it moves over varied surfaces. The streams here are what I imagine those man-made streams are emulating, and they’re much more compelling in their natural form. In every corner they create a new little picture, a new set of sounds.

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We always see some wildlife on the way although of course it’s relatively sparse. In the canyons, we always see birds and usually some frogs. We occasionally see snakes, probably one every trip, or every other trip. This time I stepped near a boulder, heard a rattle, and jumped aside. I never did see the snake. It’s unusual to be rattled at. It’s happened only about four times to me.

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After a few hours of descending (always harder than ascending) we came out at the mouth of the canyon. As much as I love climbing in the mountains, I always have a feeling of relief on coming out. Route finding on the desert floor is relatively easy, and you’re not required to be constantly watching your footing. We picked up our bikes (my rear tire had a slow leak, so I pumped it up a bit) and headed out. On the way we passed a set of three four-wheel-drive vehicles heading in, and a lone hiker, also headed to Sheep Canyon. He gave Peter’s bike rig a thumbs up. Strapped to his pack was a small solar panel, which Peter asked about. It was a kit, and incorporated bamboo, which seemed to me to be the selling point for the hiker, who also sported a pair of bamboo hiking poles. He used it to charge his smart phone. He relayed the story of the maker, a young retired Silicon Valley millionaire, who, after making his millions, dropped out and started pursuing pet projects like this solar panel. We all nodded in agreement on the wiseness of this decision.

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We rode the rest of the way out, carrying our bikes over three stream crossings. We finally came to Peter’s car, strapped our bikes to his rack and drove to Anza. The plan originally was for us to split up at Sheep Canyon and for me to head back North and come up via Turkey Track, but I decided it better not to travel alone, especially in such a remote area. It took longer than I anticipated for us to drive around to Anza. Peter couldn’t drive me all the way to my car, which was out on the end of a rocky dirt road. So he dropped me off and I got on my bike to ride the last section. I rode in a short way and ditched my pack on the side of the road, taking just my headlamp and car keys (double checked), so I could travel faster. The sun had just set and it was getting dark and cold.

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At the end of a long trip there’s always a little pleasure in finally coming back to your car. And if you ever want to bond with your car, there’s no better way than to have it start up for you when you’re exhausted, all alone, in a cold dark remote location. It did start (I immediately forgave it any past offenses) and I drove out, stopping to pick up my pack. The storm had never materialized so I didn’t have to test my guess that I could still drive out if the road turned muddy.

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Through Anza and part of the way back to Temecula I could only get AM talk radio and spanish FM. I listened to AM talk hosts lament the results of the election (“I’m telling Boehner-not one more dime of my tax dollars”) and discuss the minutia of college football.

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Peter and I took a lot more photos. You can see a slideshow of them here.

Happy Birthday, Bruce!

We had a very low key birthday celebration for Bruce yesterday — just a poster (from Finn) on the back door and a blueberry buckle cake after dinner.

Happy Birthday, Papa!

Bruce had to convince Finn not to “help” blow out the candle. Ezra wasn’t sure Finn would comply so he took matters into his own hands.

Blowing out the candle

But eventually we all enjoyed cake.

Mmmmm ...

Happy low key birthday, Papa!

Father’s Day

The boys made Bruce some gifts for Father’s Day. Finn did a couple of drawings.

Finn's Father's Day drawings

And Ezra brought home lots of good stuff that he made at school.

Ezra's Father's Day gifts

Ezra's Father's Day letter

And I made a blueberry buckle cake.

Blueberry Buckle cake

“Tootho”

Ezra lost another tooth last week. And by lost, I mean really lost — we never found it. (We’re assuming he swallowed it.) The Tooth Fairy came, bringing the usual four quarters and a letter.

Letter from Tooth Fairy

But what really caught Ezra’s attention was the envelope.

Envelope

He was so excited about “Tootho” that he wrote a letter to the Tooth Fairy and left it under his pillow last night.

Ezra's letter to the Tooth Fairy

And, of course, the Tooth Fairy responded posthaste.

Tootho close up

Oh, and here’s a shot Ezra’s crazy mouth.

One more lost tooth