Blogging may be a bit lighter than usual for the next week or so. My wife and I are visiting our daughter Jessie in Pasadena, where she’s recently completed her second year of a Ph.D. grad program in applied physics at Caltech (two or three more to go). Not a Jessie one-note, however, she’s also spending a bunch of time each week at competitive ballroom dancing, despite 12-hour days in her lab every day.
I will also be spending two days at a small conference Ward Connerly hosts every year at the Reagan Library. Since I usually spend much time every day sitting by myself and spouting off, it will be a distinct change and a real pleasure to sit around a big table and listen for a change, not to mention the pleasure of seeing Jennifer Gratz (of Michigan fame) and others from the front lines in person again.
Is Jessie working on the first practicable faster-than-light space drive, John?
One can hope …!! ;-)
Hube – She doesn’t like to talk to us about her work, in part because we don’t even understand the vocabulary, much less the substance. Has something to do with improving or nano-sizing or something with infra-red cameras. But it must be pretty involved, since she said three or four more years, not two or three.
Hot enough for ya? My folks back in Altadena said it was around 107 – or perhaps that it only feels like 107, when it’s really a comfortable 105. Enjoy.
They said it was around 108 or so in Pasadena on Saturday. As luck would have it, we weren’t in Pasadena that day. We had planned, and followed through on the plan, to take Jessie to Palm Springs for the weekend. I believe it was 120 or 121 in Palm Springs when we got there, which is fine if you like walking around inside an oven. It was so hot we couldn’t swim in the pool — because of the water, not the air. But now we’ve driven over to the coast — Dana Point, just south of Laguna Beach — and it’s terrific. California really is an amazing place.