Popular voting and same-sex marriage (Nov. '12)

I sent the following letter to the Washington Post, hoping that if it was printed, Supreme Court justices would see it (not published):

The statewide approvals of same-sex marriage are a welcome breakthrough, but civil rights should still never be subject to a popular vote.

A childhood memory

Explorer 1

Late one night when I was 7 years old, my father took me out in our front yard. It was a clear night, and we could see lots of stars. He showed me the Big Dipper and the North Star.

Then he paused, found what he had been looking for, and pointed out one "star" that was slowly moving. I wasn't quite sure I saw the right one.

He told me it was America's first satellite (Explorer 1), and he said I should remember the date: January 31, 1958.

I did remember the "January 31" but I forgot the year until I looked it up much later.

I'm sorry my dad didn't live to see me working at JPL! Today would have been his 87^th birthday.

Keep religion behind closed doors ('12)

I sent this letter to the Los Angeles Times in August 2012 (not published):

Re: "An eruv in the Hamptons? Why not?" (Opinion, Aug. 15)

Helfand writes, "Even the most adamant belief in the separation of church and state should not spill over into the notion that religion belongs only behind closed doors."

He's wrong. That's precisely where I believe religion belongs. Keep it to yourself and out of my face. What's wrong with that?

Yellowstone (July 2012)

Link to more photos.

I made a short trip to Yellowstone National Park and vicinity a few weeks ago. I'd always wanted to see the park, and it didn't disappoint. The weather cooperated, too; no rain and mostly around 80 by the afternoon every day.

The geological features were amazing, and we had good luck viewing animals as well. I've never managed to see the bison on Catalina Island, but we had lots of excellent, close views of them in Yellowstone. We also saw elk, two grizzlies, and a glimpse of a wolf.

Fairbanks and Denali (1990s)

Rodney with salmon (see below) My first project at JPL was the Alaska SAR Facility, a receiving station for radar data from Earth-orbiting satellites at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

JPL sent me to Fairbanks nine times in the 1990s. Because of my teaching schedule, almost all the trips were in the summer. What a deal!

On my first trip in 1993, I went a day early to do some sight-seeing. At a scenic overlook, a small dog came scampering up to me and wanted to jump in my rental car. No one else was there. The dog had tags with a phone number, and when I called, they had just realized the dog was missing. As a reward for returning the dog, they gave me a salmon they had caught the day before. I brought it to the B&B where I was staying, and we enjoyed it that night.

Alaska Range (Denali N.P.)
Fox with Arctic ground squirrel lunch (Denali N.P.) I extended my second trip in 1994 to spend two days in Denali National Park, where I saw bears and moose and Dall sheep and caribou (from a distance), marmots, foxes, and lots of mosquitoes.

I always enjoyed the Alaska Salmon Bake, with all-you-can-eat salmon and halibut. (It seems they've swapped out the halibut in favor of cod.)

Cincinnati (Spring 2012)

The Ohio River seen from the Overlook in Eden Park.

Link to more photos

I've graded Advanced Placement Computer Science exams for the Educational Testing Service for many years. I began in 1987, but was out for 1993-1997. It's 7 to 12 days of work (depending on my position) each year in late May / early June.

The APCS Reading has moved around during those years. First, Trenton State College (NJ), then Clemson University (SC), then back to Trenton (where the same school has a new name, The College of New Jersey), then to convention centers instead of college campuses, in Louisville (KY), and finally, the last few years, in Cincinnati (OH).

I haven't previously written these up as travel. For one thing, since work is 8 am to 5 pm every day including weekends, we don't get a lot of time to sightsee. Also, I only have a few photos from earlier years.

This year, since I'm still trying to lose weight, I did do a little hiking in central Cincinnati a few times after dinner, and, since it was my last APCS Reading, I did take a few photos. The link is above.

Katmai National Park (Summer 2000)

Bear in a stream feeding Kaflia Bay
In 2000, I won a bear-watching trip to Alaska in a sweepstakes that I didn't even know I had entered!

Somewhere, I had read about Bears magazine, and I bought a subscription for bear-loving Victor. I didn't know that they were having a sweepstakes where some new subscriber would win a bear-watching trip! I was shocked when I got the email telling me I had won. After calling them, I convinced myself that it wasn't some sort of scam.

The only bad part of it was that Victor -- the one who obsesses over bears, the one for whom I bought my subscription, the one indirectly responsible for my winning the trip -- couldn't join me. (Instead, in 2006, Victor and I went bear-watching in British Columbia. Update: Victor finally joined me for a repeat of this trip in 2019!) My friend Jerry, who was already planning to be in Alaska visiting his brother at the time of this trip, went along.

It was a fantastic trip. Photos and a map are here, and four of my video clips are on YouTube. And here is the text of the Bears magazine story about the trip.

On the first day, we glimpsed Timothy Treadwell at his tent in Hallo Bay. (Our guide knew who he was.) He walked away from his tent when he saw us. In 2003, he and his girlfriend were killed and partially eaten by bears at that same spot. Werner Herzog made a 2005 film,  Grizzly Man, about it all.

Autographs - Ian Whitcomb

Ian Whitcomb

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Edmund White

Edmund White

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - William Samelson

(Click the image to enlarge it.)
William Samelson was one of my Hebrew teachers at Temple Beth-El when I was a boy. His first novel, All Lie In Wait, is based on his personal history as a Holocaust survivor who was in Nazi labor and concentration camps at the age of 11. Click here for a 7-minute video interview with Dr. Samelson from 2007.

(Index of autographs)