Journal Entries
Grand Canyon
Posted Jan 20, 2004
So...
we had a three day weekend, in honour of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Dr.King is a hero of mine, for being smart enough and eloquent enough to teach people peacefully what should have been very obvious to anyone with a brain, and now I have new reason to be thankful for his life.
Saturday, Mrs Gradient and I are sitting around sipping coffee when she comes out with one of her genius ideas.
"Why don't we go to the Grand Canyon?" she says.
Seconds later we're at the PC and looking up routes and hotels and bank balances. We can do it!
We reserve a hotel room for us and the four gradientlings. Then we check the weather.
It's snowing in the Canyon. It's not at home. We're going to need coats.
Here's a major contrast between my former home and my current home. Here, in the Sonoran Desert, it's hot. All the time. Even when it's chilly here it's hot enough to make the English complain and get sunburn. People here only complain about the heat when it's hot enough to kill a few thousand frenchmen, and even then they don't complain much. So we're all about getting rid of heat, not retaining it.
Have you ever tried to buy winter coats in a city where the average daily temperature is 75f?
Needless to say, we did it and Sunday morning set out.
Car travel with 4 kids is never dull.
By ten, we were countryside that was distinctly Cornish. Flatish, low to the ground and windblown. No one tried to sell us pasties or cream teas, though.
By 11am we were checked into the hotel and heading to the Canyon itself.
Here are some stats.
The north rim to the south rim, as the raven flies, is about 10 miles. It's a thousand or so feet down to the Colorado river. To go around the Canyon is 215 miles, or five hours, by car. If you look at the geology of the Canyon, there are two billion years of planetary history to be explored, much of it exposed to the air. The Bright Angel fault is still geologically active and causes minor quakes from time to time. The first 300 feet of the Canyon is a sheer drop.
Forget the stats.
Look...at this point I'm tempted to say "there are no words to describe it" but that's a cop out. There are plenty. "Big" leaps to mind. So does "deep" and "vast", along with "beautiful", "awesome", "inspiring", "majestic", "spectacular" and "amazing".
After a few minutes of looking at it, you reel your brain back in and it tries to process what it's looking at. You wait a bit and it fails. It tries again, and fails. If there was ever anything that made me thankful for the autonomic nervous system, this is it.
You have to see it, for real, to understand.
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Latest reply: Jan 20, 2004
Back to Reality
Posted Jan 5, 2004
The kids have gone back to school, the wife has gone back to work and I have gone back to alternating between cleaning house and tapping away at the keyboard in the hope of writing something interesting.
A number of H2G2 threads have caught my attention, because they are mostly about subjects I know well - literature being one of them. Oh how easily the old skills come flooding back! Rusty, but there nevertheless. It's a pleasure to bandy words back and forth without any sign of people getting stressed out and storming away from the conversation.
One participant in particular is thoroughly amusing me and he/she probably has no idea that I'm having fun. I should tell them. Possibly.
My brain needed the intellectual workout. Having the kids home means I have seen "Finding Nemo" about a dozen times. I really liked the film to start with. Now if I hear Ellen DeGeneres once more I will either scream, weep or flee. The other thing about having lots of children around you is that your brain starts to work in odd ways. They ask questions that the adult mind simply isn't prepared for. Like "Why is cheese?" Work that one out without saying "because it is".
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Latest reply: Jan 5, 2004
Crimble in Arizona
Posted Dec 19, 2003
I thought I would round up a few impressions of the major differences between the UK and AZ.
First, nobody in England decorates cacti. Nope. But in AZ they do. There are decorated succulents all over the place...except the Suaro, of course, because they are Federally Protect and the FBI will come and scowl at you if you do ("No, Ma'am, we at the FBI do not have a sense of humour that we are aware of" - Agent K, M.I.B). A lot more houses have elaborate illumination. Most of them look great, some of them beggar belief...there are houses around here that make the Blackpool Illuminations* look like a tawdy string of fairy lights...BUT the important thing to say is that some of the lightshows are subtle, clever, beautiful and nothing at all like the overblown extravaganzas the media in England lead me to expect.
So, unexpected taste and delicacy from holidaying Americans aside for a moment: the Gradientlings have spent their last day at school for this year and are all profoundly happy about this. of course, now they have to put up with my company for two weeks, so they'll be happy to get back to education.
The ever wonderful Mrs Gradient has next week off work, so we're planning to do the last of the Crimble shopping then. This takes some pressure off us to go out in the insane evenings. The stores are heaving with consumables and those about to consume, but the days are a little easier to handle.
(Oh, and my dentist- who today extracted two of my teeth, and then repaired two more while he was at it - is a genius. The perfect antidote to years of hideous dentistry in the UK, the man works without leaving a mark. Two extractions and all I feel is a sore spot where the anaesthetic went in (BIG jab) and a slight headache. This has nothing to do with Xmas except that I'd like him to have a very merry one! Cheers, Doc F!).
One major change between UK and AZ is that thus far small groups of children have not turned up at the door expecting money for singing half a verse of "Jingle Bells." Now that I like. If I want Christmas Music, one of the local radio stations is playing All Christmas Music All The Time. Top stuff.
Xmas decorations are different two. South Western christmas wreaths involve more chillis than I am used to seeing. Got to get one of those for this year.
And, because I'm bored and not allowed to smoke for 24 hours and running out of patience I shall wish anyone and everyone who reads this a Merry Christmas!
*I used to think that the Blackpool Illuminations were a series of revelations given to a Northern Guru. Honest. Why can't we footnote in Journals?
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Latest reply: Dec 19, 2003
Petty annoyances
Posted Dec 17, 2003
Last night, the delightful Mrs Gradient sorted some entries on a spreadsheet I had been working on. What she, and I, didn't know is that the results the sheet was supposed to generate were now scattered at random. Ho hum.
The youngest Gradientling is a very poor liar. She can't keep a straight face, she can't keep her facts straight and I can't tell her any of this in case she learns to be a good liar.
Something I have been meaning to complete for a while has vanished. It was a piece of fiction, I have no idea where it might be and no idea who might have moved it. All I know is that it's gone...and since I'm the one who does the cleaning it's probably me that moved it.
Christmas is coming and I'm in a "Bah, Humbug!" mood, which I will remain in until I get all the shopping done and the wife and I work out how we're going to pay for it all. However, the Gradientlings are all excited so that's the silver lining to the cloud.
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Latest reply: Dec 17, 2003
The Curse of Einstein
Posted Dec 16, 2003
So having got overmy bloggophobia....
(but not the sticky keyboard)
I have been thinking about adding another entry to Master B's "we didn't start the fire" project. This time, having covered Space Monkey, I thought I'd take a stab at Einstein.
The first draft was pretty good. I was happy with the way it was going. Then my PC, which is a little unstable, decided to die and I lost the lot. Promising myself I would save next time, i restarted and tried again. I did more research this time, spent a while scooting through entries on the Great Man drummed up for me by Google...I even went to some real paper books on the subject. Up came Notepad, I got to typing and was about to start some tentative GuideML (GuideML and I aren't talking at the moment and I only use it when I have to) when...Blue Screen Of Death!
Now every time I try to search for details on Einstein's life the pages take an age to be served and I am begining to suspect that I have a bad stickof RAM. So I am off to do some diagnostic work and see how expensive this is all going to get.
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Latest reply: Dec 16, 2003
Dark Side of the Goon
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