Genetically Unimpressed with Authority

It's not that I don't respect people in authority. I just don't respect them any more than any other people. It turns out that my disdain for authority may be genetic.

My great grandparents ran a bed and breakfast up in the Redwoods between the Oregon border and Eureka, California. It was partly a business (the real business was the dairy) and partly a service since there weren't really hotels in that part of California in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They let out their bedrooms and served meals to the occasional visitors to the area. The beds were offered on a first-come, first-serve basis and when those were full, additional guests were sent out to the barn to sleep.

The governor of California, Governor Gillett, was hunting in the area on one busy night. My great grandparents treated him as they would any other guest; given the house was full, they sent him to sleep in the barn.

One nice post script to this is that Gillett was apparently appointed by Republican Party heads because they knew he'd favor the railroads over the local communities and Gillett was not a particularly popular governor.

It seems like a shame that this tradition never caught on. How fun would it be to periodically send politicians out to the barn?

Cog Sigh

Jordan has been posting some fascinating stuff on cognitive science - easy to digest and intriguing. Her recent posts include explanation about why dogs in Russia say "gruff gruff," how even bonobos communicate with just eye contact, and a definition of deixis.

In particular, the video at this post

What YouTube Means About You

is fascinating (I know - I know! It's an hour long! But fascinating to anyone who cares about what is actually going on in the on-line community and, by extension, the global community.)

Jordan's Cog Sigh Blog

(Oh yeah. Jordan is my daughter. That doesn't make her blog any less interesting, though.)

First Day of the Last Year

It is the first day of school. For my daughter's last year as an undergrad. Sigh.

Your Faithful Correspondent and Blog Author Reports from Cancun

Here, in no particular order, are pictures and commentary from our family vacation in Cancun.


This is the reason for the trip - my favorite wife. After 25 years, I'm beginning to think that perhaps hers is not just a passing a fancy. Like the rest of us, she enjoyed this ancient Mayan tool designed to lower blood pressure.




















The adults formerly known as children joined us on our anniversary adventure. They've been a fairly big part of the marriage - it only seemed right to invite them along to celebrate with us.

The Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza were really spectacular and gorgeous in spite of obvious neglect for centuries.




The Mayans were incredibly advanced - roughly on par with ancient Greeks and Romans in many areas. Their knowledge of astronomy allowed them to make a calendar that only needed to be adjusted every 52 years (instead of every 4, like our own). They were advanced in math and science, performed brain surgery and eye surgery and yet their civilization collapsed. I'm pretty sure it was because they never mastered air conditioning. It was hot in the jungle.

Within Western Civilization, advances are usually attributed to one man. Galen developed 130 of the 150 basic surgical techniques still in use today before he died in 199 AD, for instance. By contrast, it seemed that everything I was told about the Mayans was about the Mayans - not any specific genius. Here, though, is evidence left behind by the unnamed genius of tic tac toe. Even though he gave his opponent twice as many turns, "O" (as we'll call him) still won this game, immortalized in stone.

If you look closely, you'll notice three pillars in the foreground that look amazingly life like. It wasn't just the Greeks and Renaissance Italians who mastered sculpture.

Do you suppose it is a blogger thing to talk too much - even when someone is trying to take your picture?

Sandi and I cheated on our marriage: we took our anniversary trip about 2 weeks early.

I think that Jordan may have spent more time in the hammock than she did in her room.



I got my first ever manicure. I'm pretty sure that the cure didn't take, though, as just hours later I was happily back in our room watching an action movie and wondering aloud about where a person might find ribs at this resort.

We enjoyed the snorkeling, the sun, the excessive relaxation and getting our pictures taken next to ancient ruins that made us feel young by contrast. And we're glad to be back in San Diego. (And by "we," I mean my family who did not have a mere 14 hours at home before heading back to the airport to fly across the country to work with a client.)