California Vacation - Day 10

DAY 10: Monday - I arose this morning at seven to go running again with Andy. Yesterday's winds must have continued through the night because it was 39 degrees! Brrr. We chose a 4.5 mile route that we ran two days ago, but decided to run it in reverse. This posed a special challenge because there is a hill that is more than a mile long and ascends about 600 vertical feet, terminating at Brockway summit. Needless to say it was frickin HARD!

But as Andy says, once you complete something like this, you have the moral high ground and can do whatever the heck you want to your body! Think Sierra Nevada Pale Ale :)

Nancy and I deemed it too cold to take the kids swimming, so we played games with the kids. Ethan seemed fully healed. Mimi, Andy and their kids left to return home, but we will see them in another week at Lake Almanor. John's girlfriend also departed. Suddenly everything is quieter!

My Dad treated to a delicious lunch on the Sunnyside dock. Even after lunch it was chilly so we decided to drive the kids around Lake Tahoe rather than go swimming.

Yes, AROUND it, which is about an 80-90 mile drive. Tahoe is BIG: about 20 miles long and 12 miles wide. At 1600 feet it is one of the deepest lakes in the world. In fact, just a single day's evaporation contains enough water to meet all the water needs of a city the size of Los Angeles. Anyway, from Sunnyside we went South, past Chambers Landing (where I used to stay as a kid) toward Emerald Bay (in picture behind Nancy and Seb). It was terrific to watch the kids climb the rocks and marvel at the grandeur of the place. Everything is bigger here compared to the East: bigger water, bigger trees, bigger mountains. We circled 'round the South side of the lake, stopped at a lame museum, crossed the Nevada border, rounded up North past Sand Harbor, re-entered California, and finally reached Kings Beach. The whole trip took about two hours.

Arriving at Kings Beach I witnessed something I had never seen before on the lake: three-foot swells! The wind was blowing so hard I could have easily body surfed them. It looked like the ocean. In fact, these waves were rougher than most of the puny waves we saw in Florida over Winter break.

California Vacation - Day 9

DAY 9: Sunday - We went back to Sand Harbor sans Ethan (fever), Alec (beached out) and Nancy. The wind was whipping pretty strong and clouds kept imposing themselves rudely between us and the sun. It was chilly! We did some swimming but the wind made it so cold when we got out of the water that by noon we packed it in.

Michele and Wyatt departed for home in the Sierra foothills.

I saw an old friend today. David Yardas, who grew up down the street from me and was even my babysitter once upon a time. He lives in nearby Truckee with his wife and three wonderful kids. This is the two of us.

Mimi and Andy made their famous linguini with clam sauce for everyone. Yum!

California Vacation - Day 8

So much in one day! More fun and silliness at Sand Harbor! Alec and I saw part of the Black Flys skateboarding contest in Truckee. Dini's husband Ed arrived. We celebrated Mimi's 40th birthday. Ethan developed a fever. Finally, a very chubby racoon came to our back deck to eat scraps from the party.

We're only halfway finished with Tahoe!

California Vacation - Day 7

From mini golf to real golf. While Nancy and the kids went to Sand Harbor, I played nine holes at Brockway with Dad, Mimi and Andy. This is only the second time I have ever golfed -- the first being two years ago on this course, when I shot a 125 on nine holes. Yeah, I sucked. But today I shot 71! A crappy score, but at least it is defensible :) Andy is good at anything athletic and shot about twenty strokes fewer than me. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, although I doubt I will ever become a golf fanatic.

Dad treated us to lunch at the Blue Onion, which is adjacent to the clubhouse. Good grilled vegetable panini!

Michele and Wyatt arrived today, and we all finished up the Cuban food. Black beans always taste better aged.

California Vacation - Day 6

We took another break from the sun today. Mimi and her family arrived and we all went mini golfing at Magic Carpet, where I have mini-golfed since I was a kid. Grant bested all three of his brothers and his Mom!

Afterwards we headed down the street for snacks and drinks at Garwoods. Alec seemed to have a bit of heat exhaustion but by now was feeling a lot better.

We hosted a cuban dinner at our cabin for everyone. Nancy cooked a feast of roast pork shoulder, yucca, black beans, rice and platanos fritos. Everybody loved it! We defintiely cooked too much so will probably eat the leftovers tomorrow.

California Vacation - Day 5

Back to Sand Harbor for more fun in the sun. We spent a lot of time paddling around in Dini's inflatable raft. Seb loves jumping off the side (with his life jacket on, of course).

This past winter there was so much snow that the level of the lake is quite high -- probably six feet higher than I remember from two years ago. The result is that the beach has shrunk by about half. The tourists are really packed in. More like Jones Beach on Long Island than typical Lake Tahoe.

Back at the cabin, John arrived with his girlfriend, Sherri, whom he had just picked up at Reno Airport. Nice woman -- I'm looking forward to getting to know her.

California Vacation - Day 4

DAY 4: Tuesday - Tried to keep out of the sun most of today. I played a lot of Xbox with the kids. We took a hike through part of the Tahoe National Forest. Beautiful place, but it sucks that logging is going on here. You wouldn't guess so from the main roads. The logging companies prefer the public does not notice what they are doing.

I'm hardly a tree-hugger, but this is inexcusable. There are literally millions of acres of private forest land in this country. So why log the National Forests? It's cheap: your tax dollars pave the roads to bring in the private timber companies, who then turn around and sell the timber to Japan, and elsewhere. Think the proceeds from the sale go back to YOU (after all, this is PUBLIC land)? Nope. They go directly to the timber companies. You suffer, the forest suffers, and private forest owners suffer. The entire system is a ripoff.

Nancy, John, Dini, Ava and I went out for drinks later. We tried Captain Jon's but after waiting 15 minutes without even getting acknowledged (and the place was S L O W) we bailed for Garibaldi's, which has both great drinks and great service. They make a legit Mai Tai that you should check out if you are in North Tahoe sometime.

California Vacation - Day 3

DAY 3: Monday - What a great place to run: 7000 feet with no humidity. Temp is about 68 degrees at 7:30 am. Perfect. I ended up running about 5.5 - 6 miles, which is frankly a lot more than I expected given the altitude. Honestly, it was easier than running only three miles through Virginia summer humidity.

We spent the day at Sand Harbor. Lake Tahoe is one of my favorite places on the planet, and Sand Harbor is my favorite place on the lake. Think of beaches and water that looks like the Bahamas (but is 68 degrees and fresh) with a backdrop of snow capped mountains and you will get an idea of its magnificence. It is great to be back. I used to come here as a child every summer and now every two years my own kids get to enjoy it.

The best part of my day was bouldering with Alec and Ethan, and my brother John. Behind Sand Harbor is an enormous rocky crag that is the source of hundreds of giant boulders that have rolled down into the lake over many millennia. We swam around them and scaled them for an hour in relative solitude.

We joined my parents, sister and uncle later for pizza at Steamers in Kings Beach. Afterwards, the boys played in the sand:

California Vacation - Day 2

DAY 2: Sunday - The kids wake early due to jet lag but they are psyched to be in California. Seb seems to be feeling better. Time to exchange rental cars. You see, renting a minivan for three weeks from Budget at Oakland Airport costs about $1300. Renting a minivan from Budget in San Ramon in the East Bay is about $900. So my rental last night for $96 is a one-way. Today I get my long-term car.

So I go in, do the paperwork, and leave with the same car. Really. The little bit of extra effort saves my about $400. Whatever.

I return, get the kids and car and we are outta here. Lake Tahoe, here we come!

We zip across the central valley East toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. The car says the outside temperature is 115 degrees. Dang.

My phone rings. A guy named Eden has found my iPod and wants to return it! I give him the address of my cabin. Wow, there are still honest people in this world. An hour later he text-messages me the FedEx tracking number! I am going to send him a reward.

The lake is gorgeous. The cabin is the finest we have ever stayed in. Dinner with friends is hysterical. Haven't laughed that hard in a month.

Today was a good day.

California Vacation - Day 1

DAY 1: Saturday - Seb and I are on our way to Dulles; Nancy and the other kids are departing from BWI. My brother-in-law, Jose, is driving us. Seb falls asleep in the car. VERY unusual. We pull up to curbside check-in and I lift Seb out.

He's on fire. HIGH fever. Wonderful. :(

I find some children's acetaminophen in the terminal. He naps on the seats at the gate. Finally, we board and get comfortable. As Seb's fever subsides he becomes less lethargic and more talkative. He watches a bit of Finding Nemo, which I've ripped to my video iPod for him. We eat a bit of food. He falls back asleep. Our seatmate, Jenny, is teriffic. She covers Seb with her sweater and offers to let him stretch out his feet on her lap. As a mother of a six-year-old she empathizes with our situation.

The pilot announces that we are putting down in Denver due to mechanical problems. We will be put on another plane. No one seems concerned. I think everyone is fine with safety-related delays. We land. Seb wakes. As we stand up in the aisle Seb pukes up all his food. Most of it hits the floor, but a lot lands on his sandled feet and mine, and splashes on others.

Lovely.

We disembark (I can't stand the word, "deplane") and make our way to the nearest men's room, which is a five-minute walk. Squish squish squish.

Eeww.

We clean up and head back. Jenny has purchased Seb a new shirt in the gift shop. She won't accept any money from me for it! We board the new plane and depart. Seb falls asleep. I reach for my iPod, Where is it?

Crap. I left it in the seat pocket of the first plane. We land in Oakland without incident. Pick up the rental minivan.

We head out to my sister's house in Walnut Creek we arrive at 11:30pm and it is still 92 degrees. Time to sleep. It has NOT been a very good day.

An eloquent defense of rationalism

I am a bit behind on listening to some of my favorite podcasters. I listened to the February 10th podcast of Point of Inquiry last night and felt compelled to share. Below is a transcript and audio version of "Driving by Faith" by Lauren Becker (Lauren's feature is found at minute 49:10). Point of Inquiry contributor Lauren Becker explores "defensive driving maneuvers" in a world where so many "drive by faith and not by sight."

The other day, I drove by a church billboard near my home that proclaimed this bit of wisdom, "Go by faith, not by sight." I instantly worried that all the drivers around me would take the message to heart and close their eyes. Quickly, I prepared for extreme defensive-driving maneuvers.

Simple (and stupidly dangerous) homilies like this are one of the reasons we reasonable people get so annoyed by the faithful around us. They may survive their trip to work – or through life, for that matter – and attribute it to great faith and the guiding hand of god – but in reality the rest of us have been running around, working extra hard to protect them and the world from their blindness. In reality, going by faith and not by sight is a terrible way to go.

We are in a period of great distraction. As more and more people choose to "go by faith and not by sight" the rest of us must spend more and more energy and time (not to mention money) planning and executing extreme defensive measures to make up for their voluntary myopathy. I’m not talking about the inconvenience of a post office being closed on Sunday. I’m talking about religious and ideological views that inhibit reason and perpetuate grief and suffering across the globe.

For example, if your faith tradition tells you that sex is bad and that condoms promote sexual activity, the first thing you do when you get into power is stop funding medical facilities that distribute condoms. "That will stop sex!" you think. In reality, of course, sex happens anyway. But now, because people lack cheap and accessible protection, more disease is spread and more women get pregnant. Many will look for abortions which, also because of your faith, are even more deadly, or - more children are born unwanted and lacking care. Going by faith rather than sight causes suffering.

Or how about this: it’s election time again and your faith tells you to vote for someone who believes in the same god that you do because that automatically makes him "a good man." Never mind policy positions, past performance, or job qualifications, you cast your vote for a fellow faithful. And not just you. Your pastor, your church – entire congregations around the country – sponsor rallies, register voters, and volunteer countless hours to make this man-of-god the leader of the free world. In reality, your faith has made you gullible. You have been manipulated into electing a delusional, impressionable man whose policies and influence have brought war, poverty, debt, and torture back to the dinner-table-discussion, every night. Going by faith rather than sight causes suffering.

Perhaps your faith tells you that you are god’s chosen people, that anyone who does not follow your god is an infidel and should be wiped off the face of the earth. Accordingly, you set out to convert the world. In reality, a diverse humanity can’t possibly believe in the same god, so you spend your life creating widows and orphans, destroying nations, destroying lives. Going by faith rather than sight causes suffering.

Marx said religion is the opiate of the people. Oh, were it still so benign. Add some TV cameras, nuclear weapons, and delusions of grandeur and faith becomes the methamphetamine -of–the-masses, destroying reason, moderation, and self-control in an all-out crusade to supply its addiction, to feed its own righteousness.

When religious followers act under the influence of faith, they force the rest of us reasonable people to become the designated drivers. So.. because we do care about humanity, we put our own plans on hold, find a safe way home, and then begin to clean up the mess that faith has left behind.

Historically, after periods of widespread suffering and destruction, people do say "Enough. We are being unreasonable and it is making us miserable. Let’s think of a better way. There must be something more to life than suffering...".

Ah, and there it is. The faithful, tempted by the promise of a blissful afterlife, believe and that this life – this one - here on earth – is entirely about suffering. It’s not supposed to be happy - it’s a trial! - a preparatory test that must be endured in order to get a passing grade into heaven. For them, suffering is part of God’s plan.

There is a huge difference between those of us who find inspiration in the life around us and those who look for hope or meaning in an afterlife. It’s the difference between people who own their home and people who’re just renting.

If this life is our own, and not just a loaner from god until we make it to the next one, aren’t we going to take better care of it? Are we going to accept a life of suffering if it’s the only one we have?

Without a god to take care of us, to rescue us, to bribe us, we must surely be more responsible. There’s no landlord to replace the carpet when we spill our tea – shouldn’t we be more careful? Shouldn’t we fix that leaky faucet? If this isn’t just a starter home, a wayside on the road to a bigger and better neighborhood – wouldn’t it be nicer if we repainted and planted a garden?

Now, no sooner than we had the bulbs in the ground, somebody driving by faith instead of sight, has popped the curb and run riot through the daisies. More suffering. More work. More money. Should we build a defensive barrier next time?

Reason is once again on the defensive and there are two great problems with this. First, as any good coach will tell you, you cannot win a game by always playing defense. The best you can do is "not lose." There is an important difference between "not losing" and "winning." It is the difference between being alive and living. It is the difference between enduring and thriving. It’s the difference between faithfully waiting it out until the next life or doing everything you can to make real improvements now.

Second, this distraction with faith is a colossal waste of human potential. Every time another generation is raised on faith instead of reason, everyone has to go around the circle again, throwing time, money, and lives at the same problems, the same battles, the same wars. What new wonders could we achieve if we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel every 30 years? What suffering could we ease if we lived in this life and focused our passion on reasonable solutions rather than wishful thinking?

The human mind is an amazing calculating and creative tool. On an open road, when it is free to pursue its natural potential, we get Shakespearean sonnets, DaVinci machines, libraries and universities, a cure for polio, Galilean satellites, civil liberties and democratic governments, a walk on the Moon, and an Ode to Joy.

That’s right. Not an ode to god. Not an ode to faith and suffering. An ode to JOY.

"Drive by faith, not by sight?" Enough. How much further could we progress if we didn’t have to repeatedly swerve and dodge to avoid blind drivers?

We just might get beyond suffering and make it to joy.

-Point of Inquiry contributor Lauren Becker

Ebay fraud

I was scammed out of $105 on Ebay by "Mary Love" of Thomasville, NC. I have her street address but am too nice a guy to post it publically. Instead, I am reporting her to law enforcement authorities.

I thought I was buying a new Rosetta Stone Spanish Language course on CD. What I received was homemade pirated software. Note the crappy label on the case, the CD-R from Staples (see center ring), and the amateurish CD label.

After I paid, but before I received the item, Mary Love began receiving similar complaints -- and negative feedback -- from other buyers. Suddenly too she is no longer a registered Ebay user, suggesting intentional fraud.

So in the spirit of Walk the Line (which I saw last night), and in honor of you, MARY LOVE of THOMASVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA, here's Johnny Cash's middle finger, you scamming fraudulent fuckwad.

[I am just adding some extra keywords here for search engines]
Mary Love, "Mary Love", Thomasville NC, "Thomasville, NC", scam fraud ebay fraudulent, rip-off

My last ten movies, reviewed

Updated March 28, 2007

Borat
Half Nelson
Paycheck
Central Station
Persona
Tsotsi
The Wooden Camera
Invincible
The Aviator
Bad Education

I will continue to update this post as I see new films. My rating system is blatantly plagiarized from the San Francisco Chronicle.

R.I.P. Gobi

Ethan's pet leopard gecko, Gobi, died this morning. It was young: we had given it to him as a birthday gift in September (photo). They can live up to 35 years.

For the past month he has suffered from some unidentifiable wasting disease where he refused to eat his crickets. The vet and exotic animal specialists were stumped. No intestinal blockage, which was our first thought.

For the last two weeks we took to hand-feeding him a nutrient supplement from an eye dropper. Ethan is in tears but since this death wasn't unexpected he seems to be doing well. We plan to bury Gobi in our garden.

Survey says, "Hang up and drive"

People who talk on cellphones while driving, even using 'hands-free' devices, are as impaired as drunk drivers, researchers said on Thursday:

"'If legislators really want to address driver distraction, then they should consider outlawing cell phone use while driving,' said Frank Drews, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Utah who worked on the study....

Just like many people who have been drinking, the cellphone users did not believe themselves to be affected, the researchers found."