Ryan's Journal – Page 29 – "My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?"

Giving Immunity Necklaces to Legislators

Posted from Culver City, California at 8:30 pm, August 31st, 2013

I enjoy following politics, and enjoy looking back at old journal entries about political issues, but I also try to avoid writing too much about politics in this journal since it’s a subject that tends to evoke a visceral reaction in a lot of people. People have strong opinions on a lot of subjects, but politics and religion seem to be the two subjects where differences of opinion too often lead to arguments rather than discussions.

That caveat aside, this journal entry is a hopefully non-controversial, and very random, brainstorm of one possible way to address the fact that Congress seems to be making a mess of things. It’s not really a viable solution, but is a fun thought experiment that might generate further (civil) discussion on how to improve the current system.

Some background

The upcoming deadlines for passing a budget (important!) and raising the debt limit (much, much, MUCH more important!) are two highly visible instances where Congress seems to be unable to do even its most basic job. After reading this Josh Barro article I’m not as worried that Congress will fail to raise the debt limit and thus plunge us back into economic chaos similar to 2008, but the fact that one has to worry whether the US government will endanger the US economy is a sign of significant problems with the current system. Our Congress should be an example of the best and brightest minds coming together to do great things, rather than a collection of angry people fighting with one another while barely managing to keep the system functional.

As an engineer, any time there is a problem I wonder how it could be fixed. Following standard engineering practices, the first thing to do is to identify the primary source of the problem. After not-nearly-enough thought, I would posit that the US Constitution did a great job of building in checks and balances to our system of government, but it failed to account for political parties, much less a two-party system that incentivizes “supporting the team” over focusing on the merits of specific issues. There are other issues (money in politics, difficulties in scaling representative democracy for a nation that has grown hundreds of times larger, etc), but a very strong argument can be made that it is the tribalism of the two-party system that is most often the impediment to a smooth-running legislative process.

The Ryan Plan

To solve this issue, some reward would need to be introduced to ensure that the most effective, respected lawmakers are focused first and foremost on making the government run well, and that they are rewarded more for being good legislators than they are for being good party members. Note that while elections are supposed to fulfill that purpose, unfortunately our system is heavily impacted by voter apathy, the influence of money, name recognition, and other factors that have little to do with a legislator’s competency. Since the premise of this journal entry is that any option is open for discussion, and reminding anyone still reading that I haven’t had a ton of time to think this through, I offer a plan that allows the best legislators to face re-election less often. This plan is very loosely inspired by another dysfunctional tribal system: that of the TV show Survivor.

Proceeding from the premise that the incentives for lawmakers are too far skewed towards promoting their party interests, any solution must provide an even greater incentive for putting aside party interests in cases where they conflict with the national interests. Since politicians are most interested in their own re-election, why not take a page out of Survivor and its “immunity” challenges and reward the most effective lawmakers with another term without having to face re-election? In both Congress and Survivor, what individuals fear most is being voted off the island, and thus immunity from ejection is the biggest incentive one can possibly offer.

How it would work:

First, some broad principles. This proposal should be created in a way that ensures legislators still have to go before voters, but it would allow the most effective legislators to do so less often. Second, it needs to be structured in such a way that “most effective” really does mean legislators who do the best job of legislating, rather than simply rewarding those with the longest tenure or highest party rank; in the same way that rankings are developed for schools, doctors, and myriad other things, we should be able to identify and reward the best lawmakers. With those disclaimers out of the way, here are some rough thoughts on how this proposal could work:

Each election cycle a non-partisan office (similar to the CBO) would be responsible for creating a nomination list of the most effective legislators, with the list to include 30% of the legislators up for re-election, divided in proportion to party. As an example, for the 2014 election that would mean:

	Democrats up for re-election	Democrats to be nominated	Republicans up for re-election	Republicans to be nominated
House	201	201 * 0.3 = 60	234	234 * 0.3 = 70
Senate	21	21 * 0.3 = 6	14	14 * 0.3 = 4

Factors to consider when developing this list might include things like the legislator’s effectiveness in passing legislation, the legislator’s approval ratings in their district, their ability to find innovative solutions to legislative problems, etc.

From those candidates identified by the non-partisan office, each house of Congress would then be responsible for narrowing down the list by a further one-third (representing 20% of the legislators up for re-election), again in proportion to party.

	Democrats up for re-election	Democrats exempt from re-election	Republicans up for re-election	Republicans exempt from re-election
House	201	201 * 0.2 = 40	234	234 * 0.2 = 46
Senate	21	21 * 0.2 = 4	14	14 * 0.2 = 3

The final list would need to be a compromise arrived at by both parties, and would need to pass with a two-thirds majority to ensure there was broad support from both parties. This process would ensure that the parties still had some say in approving or rejecting individuals that were of particular interest.

A Senator could not be exempt from re-election for two election cycles in a row, so even the best Senator would still have to face re-election each twelve years. A House member could not be exempt from re-election for three election cycles in a row, so a stellar House member would still face re-election every six years.
A recall process could be set up for cases where voters in a district were unhappy with this process, although the need for a recall should be very, very rare if the non-partisan office did its job correctly.

There are clear holes in this proposal, and the logistical challenges of trying to implement it make it almost impossible – a Constitutional amendment would be needed, and undoubtedly groups would complain about reducing the “voice of the people” – but if it was implemented it would lessen the reward for legislators who merely complain the loudest, and give legislators a chance to actually earn re-election by building coalitions to get solutions implemented. As a side benefit, the best legislators would need to spend less time fundraising and campaigning, and could instead focus on doing their jobs as lawmakers. With less need to focus on fundraising, this approach might also help to address some of the issues related to money in politics, although any such impact would likely be limited and would probably be better addressed via legislation.

This proposal is just a random idea that occurred to me while trying to come up with a third journal entry topic, and was a fun way to engage in political discussion while (hopefully) not offending anyone’s sensibilities. I’d be interested in other crazy ideas that people might have, and will offer two bonus points for anyone who can link their idea with a popular TV show or movie, or three bonus points if the movie is Forrest Gump. Meanwhile, unless October comes and the debt ceiling isn’t raised, this should be my last political post for a while and I’ll return to writing journal entries about bobcats and Steve Martin.

August Recap Part 2

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:03 pm, August 28th, 2013

Following the wedding, the concert, and the working, August got a bit more nature-y.

Aaron had two bobcat sightings on Mt. Diablo recently, and since I didn’t want to be the only Holliday child not to see a bobcat in 2013 we did a couple of twilight hikes during the Bay Area visit. After some turkeys, bats and a few deer, the bobcat made an appearance on the trail ahead of us. You haven’t seen an annoyed cat until you interrupt a bobcat on his nightly rounds, but despite the attitude we were both pretty stoked at the find. The next night we took another hike in the same place, and while the bobcat stayed hidden the turkeys and bats were out again, and we also managed to spot a skunk and a tarantula. With Aaron having spotted the tarantula (two points) I negotiated for five points if I could get it to walk across my hand. The evening’s final score: Ryan 6, Aaron 3.

With a full weekend available for the drive home, the trip back to LA was via the scenic route. I’ve done a lot of road trips through the Sierras, but after scanning the map realized I’d never been through Sonora Pass and set off for the second-highest mountain pass in the Sierra Nevadas. It’s been far too long since this grown man slept in the back of a car, so after a late-afternoon bushwhack up a small peak the evening was spent sprawled out at high elevation in an automobile. The next morning the road led over the Sierras and to the ghost town of Bodie. During the gold rush days Bodie was a den of sin and hard-living, but today the sin has mostly gone elsewhere and the California park service maintains the town in a state of “arrested decay”. Another man might have walked through the deserted streets pretending to be a cowboy, but I’m 37 and clearly too mature for such shenanigans.

After leaving the ghosts the highway led to Mono Lake, and beyond that a pilgrimage was made to Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light photo gallery in Bishop; his photos are some of my favorites of all time. After that it was a straight shot south to LA, but Mother Nature intervened to make things interesting – a dust storm brought visibility down to almost nothing for a short time, and that was immediately followed by a lightning storm that struck a town next to the highway, setting something ablaze. Lightning has been rare during my time in California, so to not only see a huge storm but to also see it set a fire was pretty insane.

There are two weeks of vacation scheduled for September, so journal entries should be plentiful as Audrey and I head out on a couple of (brief) adventures, and provided UPS delivers on time they will be done with a new camera in hand.

Bristlecone Pine near Sonora Pass

I decided to do some hiking in the high mountains, and pulled off the road by a smallish granite dome. My trailblazing was less-than-impressive, and I emerged three hours later with cut feet, torn pants, and this photo.

Bodie Ghost Town in the Eastern Sierra

The ghost town of Bodie. The park guide notes that “by 1879 Bodie boasted a population of about 10,000 and was second to none for wickedness, badmen, and ‘the worst climate out of doors’“.

Mono Lake Tufa Towers

The tufa towers of Mono Lake. These should be underwater, but diversions for the city of LA have dropped the level of Mono Lake by more than thirty feet.

August Recap Part 1

Posted from Culver City, California at 10:08 pm, August 27th, 2013

As expected, August was a month of much excitement. So much excitement, in fact, that it warrants two entries for the summary, which is a good thing given that it’s the 27th and I still need to write three entries to meet the monthly quota.

The previously mentioned wedding in Santa Barbara was all kinds of fancy, but your humble author was most impressed by the five red-headed woodpeckers hanging out in the palm trees above the bridal party. Another highlight was watching a bunch of engineers on the dance floor – after some unfortunate experiences in my early twenties I’ve learned that dance music and engineering degrees should never be combined, so Audrey and I stayed on the sidelines and enjoyed observing the carnival of awkwardness. Luckily we also got a few minutes to catch up with my very, very busy former roommate and his new bride, something that numerous wedding guests agreed is extremely tough to do these days given his other commitments.

Speaking of all kinds of awesome, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers was an insanely good concert – if they are playing anywhere near you then you should most definitely go to there and see the things. After an opening by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band featuring their giant, prancing tuba player, Steve Martin took the stage. When you start off by bragging about how you’re going to perform a song “that you have completely memorized”, and follow that up with some ridiculously good bluegrass, amazing harmonies, and grammy winning band, you’ve got my attention. Bring in Edie Brickell to sing some songs with lyrics so poignant that all the girls cried, and then strum the banjo at about a million miles an hour, and Ryan is a happy boy.

The month of many events continued with a trip up to the Bay Area for a week working from Berkeley. In addition to single-handedly reducing the productivity of all of my co-workers by at least thirty percent during our office hours, the group headed out on the Bay for a cruise from Berkeley to Tiburon, past the Golden Gate, along the San Francisco waterfront, and then under the new Bay Bridge. While a romantic cruise with a bunch of software engineers isn’t something that’s on my bucket list, it was still a really great evening.

Bay Bridge Self-anchored Self-Suspension Span

This is either a neat photo of the soon-to-be-opened self-anchored suspension span of the new Bay Bridge, or a really, really terrible picture of the moon over San Francisco Bay.

Photos of Iceland

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 11:08 pm, July 31st, 2013

Five years ago this month my dad and I were in Iceland taking pretty pictures of pretty things. I’ve still not managed to process most of the photos from that trip, much less get them online in a gallery, but here are a few that seemed nice to look at as I was browsing through them tonight.

Lesson #1 on this trip was that rain and generally crappy weather (both of which Iceland provides in large quantities) is ideal for photographing moving water.

The Skipper modelling typical Icelandic beachwear.

Razorbills at Latrabjarg.

July 2013

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 10:05 pm, July 29th, 2013

Here’s the recap for the month:

Audrey is in charge of the 4th of July (I get Thanksgiving), and this year decided to invite the neighbors over for a barbecue before walking down to the Marina for fireworks. Despite a marine layer that partially obscured the fireworks it was a decidedly fun evening, and especially cool since we live close enough to walk to the Marina and thus avoid the horrid traffic.
Audrey’s next big social event was getting everyone together to go to the Hollywood Bowl. In an effort to promote culture without confusing me completely we attended the latest incarnation of the LA Philharmonic showing Bugs Bunny cartoons while playing the music live. Beyond seeing “Kill da Wabbit” performed by a world-renowned orchestra, a highlight of the night occurred during the national anthem when the four professional singers and four choir members in our group belted out an impromptu harmony, causing those seated nearby to begin looking around to find out where the singing was coming from, and to then offer an ovation when the last note was sung. Incidentally, the Hollywood Bowl is another place that will eventually make it onto my list of reasons why LA can be a pretty awesome place to live.
The month concluded with some friends getting married. While at most weddings having groomsmen in full Scottish attire would have been the best part of the event, for this wedding the highlight was the music. Since they’re both singers a significant portion of their friends are also singers, so in lieu of wedding gifts they asked people to sing at the wedding. The wedding choir included somewhere around fifty people who perform in everything from church choirs to the LA Master Chorale, and after three rehearsals the result was a performance of eight(?) amazing pieces of music; it may have been the most impressive musical event I’ve ever seen in a church.

Things should stay lively through August, with a work trip to Boise this week, a wedding in Santa Barbara this weekend, another trip to the Bowl next week, and numerous other hopefully-journal-worthy activities throughout the month.

Bugs Bunny at the Hollywood Bowl

You don’t get classier than a live orchestra, the Hollywood Bowl, a beautiful evening, and Elmer Fudd.

A Day in the Life

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:27 pm, July 23rd, 2013

During every notable vacation I try hard to do a daily journal entry, but at home few days are exciting enough to warrant their own entry. However, having just read through some journal entries from about ten years ago, writing one entry that captures a snapshot of what daily life is like right now might be an interesting thing to re-read many years from now. Warning to those who continue reading: currently daily life really doesn’t warrant its own journal entry.

Today the alarm went off at 7:30, at which time I crawled out of bed and wandered into the kitchen, firing up the two laptops sitting on the table. The birds were making a racket outside, Audrey was still asleep, and the morning news wasn’t making much sense pre-coffee.
At 8:00 the workday started with a daily status call. With the rest of the bodybuilding.com team on speakerphone I stumbled through an update on yesterday’s progress and today’s plans, after which I settled in for the workday.
With the coffee beginning to clear out the brain fog it was time to start on the day’s tasks. The morning involved helping people out with a random series of issues (loading some test data on a machine, answering some questions, chasing an issue in production for the business) and reviewing and testing some new code I’d written that changes the logic in the site’s shopping cart. The latter task required a fair amount of focus, since a screw-up could very well lead to revenue being lost in quantities that I can barely begin to fathom; with great power comes great responsibility.
Another status call followed, with the highlight being a quick discussion about “snacks on the catamaran”. After that it was a quick rush out to Tender Greens to grab a salad and sandwich (and a homemade pop tart because I couldn’t resist the impulse dessert). I got back just in time to call in to a meeting while simultaneously responding to three different people’s questions in various chat windows.
The afternoon was mostly filled with reviewing documentation and code related to the multi-language search capabilities of the ATG software that this project uses. In layman’s terms, I read a lot of PDFs, searched through code, and pestered teammates in an effort to build a plan for allowing someone in Brazil to search the site for “proteína em pó”.
After yet another meeting, the day finished up with a series of failed attempts to reproduce a bug that has been seen intermittently in the QA environments. In this case I got to play scientist, proposing a theory of what might be going wrong, figuring out a way to test that theory via creation of specific data or code changes, and then going back to square one when my theory didn’t pan out. I am not a good scientist.
Work was followed by an excessively long nap – one of the neighborhood dogs has a lovely deep baritone bark that carries forever, and has taken up the hobby of barking non-stop for 5-10 minutes every two hours on random nights. Apparently my sleep schedule has gone all wonky as a result.
A ride on my Lance Armstrong stationary bike while catching up on the day’s news and then crashing in the living room to write a journal entry concluded the activities for today. Around midnight it will be time for bed, with the cycle starting again tomorrow morning.

After spending much of 2002-2005 playing, it has now been about eight years of working steadily. While work days pay well, as this journal entry demonstrates they are slightly less fulfilling than those spent trekking around the Antartic or snorkeling in the Galapagos.

A Journal Entry About SPACESHIPS!!!!

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:50 am, June 30th, 2013

It’s not a secret that I think Elon Musk’s three companies (SpaceX, Tesla Motors and Solar City) are three of the most exciting businesses out there, and that each is likely to radically change the world for the better. Enough has been written about Tesla lately, but two items of great excitement with respect to SpaceX haven’t gotten a ton of attention.

First is their efforts towards a more reusable rocket. As Elon Musk has put it, space travel today is comparable to airline travel if you had to throw away the plane after each trip – most of the reason that space launches are so expensive is that you either don’t get the vehicle back after launch (most rockets), or when you do it takes so much work to get it back into flight-worthy condition that there isn’t any cost savings (the space shuttle). SpaceX originally planned on recovering their rockets in the ocean using parachutes, but when that proved infeasible they moved to a vertical takeoff and landing model. Here’s a video of a test of SpaceX’s ten story take-off and landing vehicle rising 250 meters into the air, then landing vertically. They’ll be testing this system on actual rockets returning from space starting later this year, with a goal of being able to reliably land and re-use the rocket in a few years time.

Second, they are planning on a test launch of their new Falcon Heavy vehicle in the coming year. If you need to put 117,000 pounds into low earth orbit, this will be the only vehicle that can do it, and combined with its lower launch costs could create all sorts of new options for satellites (for comparison, the Delta IV Heavy is the current largest rocket on the market, and it can carry around 50,000 pounds). Even more exciting, this will be the first rocket since the Saturn V moon rocket with that amount of power.

It’s sad that after advancing from airplanes to moon rockets in under two decades our exploration of space has seemed to stagnate for fifty years, but it’s hugely exciting to be on the precipice of another major evolution of travel beyond the planet’s atmosphere.

Who, What, When, Where

Posted from Culver City, California at 10:30 pm, June 27th, 2013

Here’s all that’s new since the last status update:

Proving that at age thirty-seven I am truly a grown up, I called a plumber and got a new water heater installed after the old one died. No nineteen year old is even thinking of hot water heaters, much less bugging the installer with stupid questions about efficiency and reliability as he’s installing it.
Audrey and I actually went out and saw TWO movies in one month, which may be a record. Reviews: Star Trek was excellent entertainment, and I even got to make a starfleet insignia and wear it so that Audrey could brag about how cool I was. Man of Steel was average. I wanted it to be great, and you could see how much potential there was in what they were going for with the whole “what is my place in the world” thing, but I never really felt like I cared that much about any of the characters, and as a result it didn’t really matter who was super-punching who at any given moment. Hopefully this series is like Batman, where a lackluster first film is merely setup for an amazing second film.
In another stunning example of grownup behavior Audrey and I joined some friends for a fancy dinner at the Getty Museum (side note: the Getty will be near the top of the eventual “great things in LA” list). Despite being a high-end restaurant, there was only one fork to deal with so the meal was completed without any truly embarrassing mistakes.
Our friend Greg, who was an early buyer of the Tesla Model-S, invited us to join him at Tesla’s recent announcement about battery swapping. The event was set up like a party, with lights, drinks, many hundreds of well-heeled attendees, and techo music blaring (comment from JB: “I keep telling Elon to let up on the techno but he loves that shit”). The main event was an Apple-style demonstration of a Tesla driving up on stage, the battery pack being automatically replaced from underneath, and the car driving off fully-charged ninety seconds later. I’ve posted about why I’m so impressed with Tesla’s engineering and strategy before, but it will be interesting to see what the next reason people come up with to disparage them will be now that the “no one wants to wait thirty minutes to charge the car during a roadtrip” issue has been addressed.
Finally, following the monthly pilgrimage to Boise, we met some friends for a birthday celebration at Mar Vista Lanes. The music and disco lights came on at ten, and while I may have scored the most points, the clear winner of the evening was Brett and his magical (and intoxicating) bowling dancing. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a man in a Green Lantern shirt perform a two minute routine to disco that culminates in a gutter ball. Hopefully a video will someday show up online.

Bouillabaisse at the Getty

A very fancy plate of bouillabaisse at the very fancy restaurant at the Getty, with my super fruity cocktail in the background.

Only the coolest movie-goers wear homemade Star Trek insignias to see the show.

Still Innocent

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 9:39 pm, June 12th, 2013

“If you want to know why Americans remain leery of government, it’s because of this combination of power and incompetence.”
— Andrew Sullivan

I recently received papers in the mail notifying me that I was being sued (again). This new case was completely unrelated to the prior debacle, so it is clear that in a past life I was an evil lawyer and in this life I’m getting my comeuppance. The timeline of events for this latest comedy of errors went something like the following:

Mail arrived stating that in thirty days I would be served papers for a lawsuit filed by LA County against me over failure to pay child support. To be clear: unless I was lied to during those awkward classes in junior high, there is absolutely zero possibility of any Ryan Juniors being out there. The letter attached to the legal documents offered the helpful option of being able to come into their office to pick up the court papers should I wish to avoid the potential embarrassment of being served in public.
I called the contact number provided to try to figure out what was going on, and was sent to an automated number asking me if I was the parent of a child. Upon answering “no” I was transferred to the line for lawyers. Upon stating that I wasn’t a lawyer I was transferred to the line for parents and asked for my support number (which I didn’t have). After five minutes of this I was eventually transferred to the LA County call center where an actual human picked up.
The woman on the other end of the line asked me for my support number (which I still didn’t have), and then asked why I was calling if I didn’t have a support number. I told her I did have a stack of papers telling me that LA County was suing me; she put me on hold.
When she picked up again she asked for my social security number, entered it into her system, told me it wasn’t on file, and then paused as if waiting for me to respond. I was a bit confused – I didn’t really care that my social security number wasn’t on file, nor did I really know what it meant to have the number on file or not, so I assured her that this really was my social security number and always had been.
With a failure to get anywhere based on social security number, I told her that there was a court case number on the legal documents I had received and read that to her. Doing so apparently opened up some magic on her end, and she then asked me to repeat my name. After more confusion she suggested that “this might be a case of mistaken identity” and that she would note this in the file. Since I had no access to the file, but I did have a massive pile of documents letting me know that I would be found guilty and be forced to pay monthly child support if I didn’t appear in court, I asked what this meant. She said that it meant someone would look at the file.
After I noted that the legal papers stated that I had thirty days to resolve the situation, she assured me that someone would be in touch soon; it was fairly clear that there was no more that she was going to do. I ended the call by asking if there was a way to call directly without having to navigate the convoluted automated menus; she assured me that there was not.
Twenty-five days later I hadn’t heard from anyone, so I called again, spent five minutes navigating the horrible phone system, and finally got to talk to a real person. She asked me for my support number (which I still didn’t have). I politely let her know that when I had called before I was told this was a case of mistaken identity and that I had a court case number that she could use; she then put me on hold and hung up.
Five minutes, no support number, and a different person later, and I started off by saying that I didn’t have a support number but that LA County was suing me, and gave her the court case number. She told me that the file was flagged for review and asked if there was anything else she could help with. I let her know that the legal papers I had been given indicated that I had thirty days to resolve the situation, and that the thirty days was nearly up; she let me know that the file was flagged for review, there was nothing more that anyone could do, and that “sometimes they don’t begin court action at exactly thirty days”. I was not reassured.
A week later I got a call from an unrecognized number, which resulted in a voicemail letting me know that my case was being reviewed and that I should call them back. I called back immediately, and the phone then rang for two minutes with neither a human nor voicemail picking up.
Two hours later I received another call from an unrecognized number and I picked up immediately. The guy on the line indicated that I was being given three days to resolve the situation, cited the court case number, and then asked me for every bit of personal information I have – social security number, mother’s maiden name, driver’s license number, etc. Immediately after getting off the call I checked all of my bank accounts and credit cards, just in case I was the victim of an elaborate con.
Shockingly, four days later a two-sentence letter arrived stating that the case in question appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, and ominously that I should keep a copy of the letter should it be needed as proof in future cases.

While this case was resolved, it could have easily gone much, much worse – an immensely powerful bureaucratic apparatus was randomly pointed at me, and I had basically no means available to do anything about it. I heard a much more extreme example of this on the radio the other day where a woman was sent to jail for seventeen years for a crime she didn’t commit, and even after being exonerated she remained in jail for an additional four and a half months while paperwork made its way through the system. Luckily I didn’t face anything even remotely comparable, but both stories illustrate how this powerful and impersonal behemoth can so easily go horribly wrong.

One final caveat: government does many things, and it does a surprising number of them very well – millions of people get their social security checks on time, the national parks are fairly well run, elections almost always go off smoothly, and the FAA directs thousands of planes from point A to point B each day without incident. However, given the nearly limitless ability of the bureaucracy to disrupt our lives, and the fact that often no individual piece of it really seems to care about much else besides passing you on to someone else, it is very easy to understand why so many of us wish the whole apparatus was stripped down to bare bones. I have spent long periods of time going from desk to desk at City Hall to obtain a “business license” so that I could work from home. We’ve all stood in line for hours at the DMV just to be told that some form was filled out wrong. And the theater of the TSA at airports, where one can’t even wear shoes anymore, is enough to make you want to scream out at the idiocy of it all. One can only hope that some day we’ll figure out how to run things better, or at least figure out a way to allow people to call LA County child services without first spending five mind-numbing minutes navigating an automated phone tree only to eventually be sent to an agent who is incredulous at the idea of anyone calling them without being able to provide a support number.

California Has the Things

Posted from Culver City, California at 12:34 pm, June 1st, 2013

For no particular reason (aside from the fact that it’s the end of the month and I’m one entry short of the three-a-month goal), here’s a random sampling of places that make California so extraordinary:

Death Valley Most places that have “death” in the name probably don’t deserve it, but this one most-assuredly does. That said, visiting outside of the summer months is awesome – Badwater Basin is an expanse of salt flats like no where else, the surrounding mountains rise to over ten thousand feet in elevation, and the rock at lower elevations is a rainbow of mineral-stained artistry. Visiting the backcountry requires traversing roads and terrain that make you wish you had an extra two feet of ground clearance and rock climbing gear. And around each corner is something surprising, ranging from giant craters to dry lakes to remote signposts decorated with teakettles.
Big Sur It is doubtful whether anyone has ever put together a list of “prettiest roads in America” that didn’t include Highway 1 along the Big Sur Coast. Seacliffs are always scenic, but then you also get redwoods, sea otters, millions of birds, raging oceans, and a road not meant for those prone to car sickness.
The Salton Sea. The first time I visited this engineering debacle I was shocked to discover how bizarre it was. Several years later when I returned with Audrey she remarked that she was shocked that it was “exactly as weird as you described”. Ghost towns consisting of 1960s vacation homes, a stinking toxic lake filled with huge numbers of birds, and scattered human populations that seem reminiscent of a Mad Max movie. PLUS, it’s 120 degrees in the summer, so you get to take in the scenery while slightly delirious from heatstroke.
The Sierra Nevadas Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park are the two most obvious highlights, but Highway 395 along the Eastern Sierra passes by the massively-odd Mono Lake, travels past the highest mountain in the lower-48 states, and then lets you out next to the home of Virgin Galactic and an airplane graveyard.

There is much more – the Redwoods, Mount Lassen volcano, the random roads that traverse the area around Mount Shasta, Joshua Tree, Monterey, San Francisco Bay, the wildlife refuges hidden throughout the Central Valley, etc, etc. Overall, not too shabby of place to have settled down.

Brown pelican in La Jolla

For a photographer of limited skill looking for birds to “stand still and look pretty”, La Jolla is a top-notch destination.

Taken during a road trip in 2005 after an unusually wet winter, the salt flats were particularly crusty and other-planet-like.

I Don’t Get It

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:39 pm, May 27th, 2013

This journal entry is a rant. Posts about mastodons and tar pits will return in the future, but those expecting stories of spaceships parked at donut shops might want to skip this entry.

For those still reading, Elon Musk recently tweeted the following:

It is unfortunate that climate change was brought to public attention by Al Gore, as it then became a “left wing” issue.

That tweet gets to the heart of something that is both saddening and frustrating about today’s discourse: a number of issues, many of which are very important, are now approached with the mentality of sports fans: “My team is right, your team sucks!” Just as with sports, individuals support “their side” and ignore the merits of the argument.

Consider Musk’s example of global warming: admitting (or denying) that climate change is a serious issue is a litmus test for the far left and far right; commentators on the right are constantly screaming that it is either a hoax or not caused by human activity, while on the far left you might think that anything less than the elimination of all fossil fuel usage is akin to Armageddon. However, looking at it from the standpoint of the scientific community, there is similar certainty that human produced greenhouse gases are heating up the planet at a dangerous rate as there is for theories such as the big bang or evolution. Meanwhile, saying that climate change is a problem that should be addressed will get a politician voted out of office on the right, while far left activists are chaining themselves to the White House gates over the construction of a single oil pipeline, and in the mean time not even a minimal amount of action is taken to mitigate something that will have serious negative future consequences.

Similarly, I’m convinced that ten years from now no one will buy a new car without debating whether or not that car should be electric. From an engineering standpoint (mechanical engineering grad here!) electric cars are undeniably better technology. Consider:

Battery technology today allows a range of 300 miles, and that technology is improving at about eight percent each year.
Maintenance on electric cars is minimal – no oil changes, no belts or hoses, no transmission, no emission system.
Electric engines are approximately three times more efficient than gas engines.
The driving experience in electric cars is vastly better – you have full torque immediately, offering a ridiculously fast acceleration.
Electric cars have no emissions – the smog and related pollution issues of cities like LA will diminish significantly with a move to electric vehicles.

However, with Romney and much of the right wing having labeled Tesla Motors as a “loser” and an example of an Obama “failure” during the campaign, any mention of Tesla is now followed by comments about how the company is a beneficiary of “crony capitalism”, is merely building a toy for the rich, and will be bankrupt any day now. This, despite the fact that Tesla repaid its government loan (issued under a Bush administration program) nine years early, was funded solely with private money for its first seven years, is one of the few new manufacturing ventures in the US, is the first successful new American car company in several generations, has always planned for a mass-market ($30,000) vehicle as part of their roadmap, and has built a car that literally has people cheering after test drives and has won awards from every automotive group that has reviewed it, including the highest score in Consumer Reports history, and Motor Trend Car of the Year. If we can’t support this example of American ingenuity, what has gone wrong in our discourse?

Other issues evoke similar reactions: nuclear power is supported on the right and opposed on the left despite studies that seem to indicate that use of nuclear power has saved lives. Environmental issues are now immediately dismissed as left-wing, although the vast majority of people support clean air, clean water, and a place for wildlife. The list of issues goes on and on: guns, GMOs, healthcare, taxes, immigration; all of these devolve into “my team versus your team”, despite the fact that there is clearly a huge amount of middle ground on which agreement (and action) is possible.

In spite of the seemingly grim atmosphere, things do tend to work out in the end, although given the state of rhetoric today it seems that we’re making it much, much harder to get to that end state than it needs to be.

End of the Month

Posted from Culver City, California at 3:18 pm, May 26th, 2013

As a few people noticed, the server that runs the site died an ignominious death last week, so there has been a bit of a scramble to buy a new machine and get things running again. While I’m always excited to get a new toy (16GB RAM!!!), it’s been rather tiring trying to get three web sites and countless applications running on the new computer. At this point mountaininterval.org should be back-to-normal, with the notable exception of email notifications when comments are added (I’ll get to that); please let me know if you see anything else that is amiss.

Technical issues notwithstanding, May has so far been a relatively uneventful month:

Audrey and I finally managed to visit the saltwater portion of the Ballona Wetlands a couple weeks ago. Most of the existing wetlands were destroyed or filled in during the construction of Marina del Rey and Playa Vista, but the undeveloped portions (which are now basically grassy fields) are on the state’s list for habitat restoration, so hopefully in the next few years the area will return to a more natural state and again become the home to fish and birds.
We also put our memberships to the Natural History Museum to good use and visited them early for Bug Fair. Audrey was excited about the creepy-crawlies, and I was excited about getting to visit the spaceship again at the next-door science center after our morning with the insects was over.
Somewhere during the month I also added to my haul of Marriott Rewards Points™ with yet another trip to Boise. Amazingly I’ve now been working with Bodybuilding.com for nearly two years. Being able to work most days from my kitchen, in pajamas, with music blaring, on a project that is well-managed with good co-workers is definitely a nice situation to be in.

April 2013, Part II

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:17 pm, April 30th, 2013

Continuing from Part I of the April 2013 recap…

Audrey’s favorite band in the whole wide world is Rush, and they were finally voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. With the induction ceremony being held at the Nokia Theatre in downtown LA it was a matter of seconds from the time tickets went on sale until she had four in hand.

I don’t know a lot about Rush, but I have learned that they have extraordinarily passionate fans. The crowd milling about before the Nokia Theatre doors opened was evidence of this fact as at least half of those present were wearing Rush shirts, Rush jackets, Rush purses, Rush flags, etc, despite the fact that seven other groups or individuals were being inducted (Heart, Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Donna Summer, Albert King, Lou Adler, Quincy Jones). The point was driven home further when the ceremony started, and the chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame began reading the names of each inductee. There was applause and cheering for each individual until he said “And from Toronto”. What followed was two minutes of pandemonium as people screamed, cheered, chanted, clapped, and otherwise lost their damn minds, during which the guy at the podium could do nothing but stand and wait. As Dave Grohl of Nirvana later stated in an interview:

They didn’t even say the name and the place went fucking crazy… It was pretty awesome tonight to see Jann say, “And from Toronto,” and the fans just went, “FUCK YEAHHH.” Everyone at the tables were just like, Jesus! It was amazing. That’s what it’s all about.

John Mayer had similar thoughts:

As Mayer stepped into his Escalade, he was still blown away by Rush’s fans, who cheered the band for several minutes when Hall of Fame Chairman Jann S. Wenner’s mentioned a “band from Toronto.” “Man, I want Rush fans to come to my shows now, that is some fandom,” Mayer told Rolling Stone. “If you’re a Rush fan, you should get in any show free.”

Other highlights of the evening included being in the same room with Oprah, Jack Nicholson and Tom Petty, some pretty good music, and a hugely amusing speech from Cheech and Chong. The ceremony will be broadcast on HBO in late May, although hopefully they’ll trim most of Flavor Flav, whose rambling, incoherent induction speech seemed like it would never end, was frequently interrupted by other members of Public Enemy trying to get him to stop, and which Rolling Stone described as a “filibuster”.

The remainder of April was supposed to be uneventful, but Tuesday night Audrey came into the living room shaking, and said that she had gone out to the hot tub, reached into the control box, and barely escaped disaster when she found thousands of bees inside. This seemed clearly to be a job for the Bee Warrior, so I donned appropriate attire and went out to investigate. Citronella candles were ineffective against the swarm, so the next morning we called Bee Capture, which turned out to be a tiny lady in a truck who showed up in the evening. She donned her bee gear (which was lame compared to my own – no Mexican wrestling mask, nor a college letterman jacket) and proceeded to scoop 40,000 bees out of the hot tub controls and into a “bee box” that she had brought along to act as their new mobile home. The next day several hundred bees had returned, so the bee warrior re-emerged to spray them with vinegar, but with the bees still undeterred we called Ruth again and she came back to scoop away the stragglers.

Audrey and I at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Audrey wore a Rush shirt to the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony because Rush was being inducted. I wore a Captain America shirt because Captain America is awesome.

Ryan Holliday, Bee Warrior

One member of the household was stung during the bee invasion; it was not Ryan Holliday, Bee Warrior.

April 2013, Part I

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:37 pm, April 28th, 2013

April has been a relatively eventful month so far, with everything from fancy resorts to insect invasions to barfing to rock and roll. Given that there have been so many adventures, and since I need two journal entries in the next three days to meet the three-a-month goal, here’s part one.

At the beginning of the month Audrey had a rare Sunday off from her weekly singing gig at All Saints’ Parish, and I was a bit burned out from work, so we scheduled a four day weekend that was evenly split between nature and relaxation. Unfortunately after spending the night in Ventura and arriving early for our boat ride out to Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park we were told the trip had been cancelled due to weather – despite the calm morning, forecasts for the afternoon called for 40-50 mph winds, and they apparently don’t take people when they can’t guarantee a return trip, which is probably a good policy to have even if we were bummed not to be able to go.

The following day we enjoyed a barbecue with Audrey’s friend in Santa Barbara, then made our way a bit further up the coast to the mighty fancy Bacara Resort. After being the lucky recipients of an upgrade to a suite we checked into our giant room next to the ocean, and while Audrey did some reading I curled up into the fetal position before eventually refunding all of the day’s meals. Whatever sickness I had prevented us from fully appreciating the pillow-top, high thread count sleeping options available as Audrey was forced to spend the night on the couch while I prayed for relief from the host of demons that were madly shoveling things out of my stomach.

Monday morning I rallied, and by “rallied” I mean got a massage (yep, Ryan is pampered) and a very fancy dinner overlooking the sea coast; the life of this programmer is not filled with an inordinate amount of hardship.

After returning home and surviving a short work week we made a pilgrimage to the La Brea tar pits (“La Brea” means tar, so “the tar tar pits”). I’d never visited the world’s largest known deposit of Ice Age fossils, a spot where (according the the Page Museum’s web site):

Since 1906, more than one million bones have been recovered representing over 231 species of vertebrates. In addition, 159 species of plants and 234 species of invertebrates have been identified. It is estimated that the collections at the Page Museum contain about three million items. Our current Project 23 excavation may, when completed, double this number.

Living a few miles away from such a weird spot, home to a massive cache of pre-historic animals, is another point in the plus column for LA. AND there’s a really good build-your-own burger place next door, which may not be a reason to move here but is a nice bonus when you’re hungry after a long day of looking at mastodons and giant sloths.

Mastodon skeleton at the Page Museum

The mastodon was a prehistoric animal that was very similar to modern day elephants, but with 50% more awesomeness.

Ryan and mastodons at the La Brea Tar Pits

I might have been excited about the giant mastodons and pools of tar. Photo by Audrey.

Commitment

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 9:32 pm, April 15th, 2013

The very sad events at today’s Boston Marathon are cause for grieving, but to a greater extent people seem to be focusing on those who immediately rushed into the smoke to help, or on the fact that in the aftermath so many people donated to the Red Cross that their web site crashed, or on the commitment of the individuals who chose to run the grueling race. On the latter subject, Ezra Klein wrote an article that does a good job of capturing why the marathon is so inspiring entitled ‘If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon’:

My wife has been training for a marathon. She leaves the house early in the morning and runs for hours and hours. She comes home tired and sore. And then she does it again. And again. And again.

There’s no reason for her to do it. There’s no competition or payoff or award. It’s just a quiet, solitary triumph over the idea that she couldn’t do it, and it all happens before I even wake up.

It’s thoughts like these that provide hope in spite of tragedies. The runners in a marathon are a case study in human inspiration: yes, running 26 miles is impressive, but the reason to cheer each finisher is as much about the days or years of effort that lead up to that accomplishment, and the idea that any human being who is willing to dedicate themselves to the task can complete such a mind-boggling feat.

A friend of mine in LA, Arkady, not only finished the 50 mile Comrades Marathon through the mountains around Capetown, but was in the top 15% of competitors. Several years before, this same ironman was 80 pounds heavier with 40% body fat, and made the decision to change his life. That single commitment, revisited day after day after day over many years, is what people celebrate when Arkady finishes a race, and is what they were celebrating as he finished (safely) in Boston today.

Another friend, Angela, decided one day that she wanted to run a marathon, and started out by running around the block once. The next day she ran around the block twice, and before long she was carrying a wooden box of matches with her and transferring them from one hand to another to keep track of her laps. Rather than stopping at the marathon, she trained for the world’s toughest race, the 135 mile Badwater Ultramathon through Death Valley in the summer, and today is one of the very few people on the planet to have actually finished that race. That seemingly-impossible accomplishment started out with an average person simply making the decision to do something extraordinary, and then getting out each day to put in the required work over a period of years to make the impossible possible.

Sport is about incredible human accomplishments, but a key reason that we stand along the road and cheer during a marathon is because the athletes in the race show us that a completely normal person who simply makes the decision to commit each day to a task can do something amazing and thus prove that things that seemingly can’t be done are within anyone’s reach. The bombings today are a tragedy, but the fact that so many people are taking notice of good things in the world, and perhaps themselves making a decision to commit to do something inspiring, provides hope that even such a horrible evil can be a catalyst for a great deal of good to come.