Worth 100' of your time . . .

Randy Pausch giving his "Final Talk"

Recently a friend, Ranjan Jayanathan from Dynamic Imaging, sent me a link to "The Final Lecture" given by Randy Pausch. You may have already seen clips of this on 60 Minutes or elsewhere. There are not many things I read or watch on the internet that affect my life, particularly at my age. This is one of them.

Randy Pausch is 48, is dying from pancreatic cancer (he gets this "elephant in the room" out of the way quickly by showing pictures of his recent CT scan and then moving on), and in this last lecture he reviews the important lesions he has learned in his life in academics and industry. This is not some sappy, inspirational video, but an exceptional human sharing what he thinks is really important, perhaps the importance of actually "living" ones life; not just existing on this planet for as many years as possible.

It is around 100 minutes, and I don't regret I made the time to watch it. It was much more important than most of the TV I watch. if you decide to spend the time, don't skip the introductions nor the post-talk awards.
Here the link to the Video: mms://wms.andrew.cmu.edu/001/pausch.wmv
And also: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/front_im/pausch_9-18-07.wmv

Wikipedia link here
Randy's own website here

Postscript to the travel postings: My Trophy Hat

"Idaho Outdoors" Cap"

I'm not one for ball caps as a rule - I tend to wear a hat with a substantial brim, if anything. However there are exceptions.

The usual place I will wear a ball cap is when I am reading in bed, because the overhead reading lights here in Cedar Rapids or in the motorhome cause a glare in my glasses, and the cap works perfectly to shield that glare (this really drives Barbara crazy).

This "Idaho Outdoors" cap arrived today in the mail as a flashback to our recent trip. If you remember, we mentioned visiting the "City of Rocks" National Monument while in Idaho. The day we left, the Idaho Statesman newspaper carried their weekly "Where is this?" contest, and this week it was a picture of one of the rock formations in City of Rocks National Monument. Having just been to this out-of-the-way place, I recognized this particular formation, "Register Rock". I sent my entry in via email and . . . first prize - the cap! Now I can irritate Barbara in style with my new, fully anti-glare bed cap.

This is STILL an important book.

Today is the 50th year of the publication of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I have seen several articles about her and this book. It is critical for young readers to realize that in 1920 she moved from socialist Russia to capitalist America; this at a time of global evolution (not revolution) with uncertainty as to what form of society would become dominant. This novel was the best means Rand had for expressing her understanding of this conflict, and her personal philosophy.

We have seen the decline of socialism and growth of capitalism from the USSR to China to the western world. I, myself, see evils in the extremes of both, but I certainly know where I would like to live.

Capitalism, ultimately, has to be concerned with the welfare of the general population rather than simply brutal, short-term enrichment. For it to succeed, all must succeed, and the chance for that is better than the chances with socialism. The best of the reviews of Rand's book that I have come across is from the TIA, published HERE.

CELEBRATION!

Final Night of the Trip Together

(Click picture to enlarge)

Tuesday, our final road night together, the four of us celebrated the our trip with a glass of champagne. We had spent 36 days together, and it was a bit sad to come to the end of the trip.

We have followed the immigrants along much of the Oregon and California trails, traveled along portions of the Lewis and Clark trail, and seen much of modern urban and rural Oregon. Of course, we were really glad to get to spend some time with Matt/John and Rachael in Portland. We also serendipitously connected with RV friends in Astoria and Reno and met a few new ones. (When I turned our motorhome in here in Cedar Rapids for several small fixes, I was able to tell the young lady at the service counter that I had talked with her father at the RV park in Baker City.) The weather was exceptionally good to us overall.

Barbara and I have done a lot of traveling in our 36 years together, but it is still nice to know that we can spend essentially 24 hrs a day, 39 days in a row, in less than 400 sq ft and still get along fine.

Of course that is one relationship. Traveling with another couple, there are 4 relationships that have to function reasonably well, and they did so. We have done several RV trips with Bill and Dana, but this was the longest, and it was good to see we still do it well. It requires some compromises and a certain amount of tolerance, but the payoff is well worth it.

For those of you who have followed the journey on this blog, this is the last post. I will keep it active until the constraints of Google's limit on my blog account is breached, then it will have to go. It has been fun for me; I hope it has been entertaining for you. Thank you.

Near the end of the rainbow

Stopping for the night in Elco, Nevada

After a brief stop in Reno, we are heading east on I-80 towards home. We stopped in Elco, Nevada for the night, and the four of us had a nice dinner with grilled flank steak, fresh squash, Potatoes, and a bottle of Syrah from the HillCrest Vinyard in the Umpqua Valley (click for link). The dinners prepared by Barbara and Dana in the rigs have been wonderful; better than most of the restaurants meals we have had.

The drive across northern Nevada has been much more picturesque than I remember; even mostly in overcast or light rain. The remnants of the country's first titanium mine can be seen in the gost town of Comstock just off the road. Between 1916 and 1947, at its peak it produced most of the world's titanium.

We traveled to the coast more or less along the Oregon trail and some of the Lewis and Clark route, and we are returning along some of the Northern California trails. Earlier in the day, we had in about 40 minutes by motorhome crossed the "Forty Mile Desert", a dry stretch of alkali desert first crossed by the Walker-Chiles party in 1843 (click here for a link to diary entries of emigrants). Despite the hazards, this was the dominant trail used for the immigration to Northern California until the 1860s. This was a tough task to face after having just made it across 6,143' Emigrant Gap. In addition to the loss of thousands of mules, horses and cattle, there were at least 953 graves recorded along this short stretch of the California trail.

This is a really big country; I will die without seeing all of it (though there is no harm in trying.)

Small, but a community

Likely, California
The only place within at least 50 miles for Fritz to fill up with diesel.

The run from Bend to Reno on 31/395 is long stretches of lonely (but generally attractive) highway with a few tiny towns scattered at great distances apart. Here in the unlikely place of Likely, you could fill up with diesel (at a price), so long as you had your gas filler cap on the correct side. The four of us talked of the difficulty we would have living in one of these tiny, remote villages.
I do remember that I grew up in the small towns of Spur, Texas. The big City of Lubbock was 75miles (or almost 2 hours) away. There, everyone knew me, and I knew just about all of them. A preacher's kid, I had a prominent exposure as such, and I did try hard to not sully my father's reputation as the minister of a small, though generally liberal for the times, congregation.
I could walk to school, the grocery store and the post office. If old Mrs Alexander didn't answer her phones after an appropriate number of rings, then someone, or usually several ones, would immediately walk or drive over to check on her. If you were ill or injured, you would be quickly placed on the prayer chain as well as the casserole chain. There was no wait for a seat at the soda fountain in the drug store or in the restaurants (both of them).
I could go just about anywhere, anytime safely. This included both the town and the surrounding countryside. The schools were marginal in comparison to my children's schools, but I could "make" just about any sports team or instrumental group for which I cared to try out. The library was within walking distance of everyone except those who lived in the country. There were certainly gaps in my education, but in the end it really did not make any difference. I had the opportunity to know the local lawyer, dentist, businessmen, teachers and doctors on a close basis, planting the early seeds of what I would later become.
Almost every night I could step outside and see that view of our solar system we call the Milky Way. Meteors were common, and at the right time of year you could see dozens of them late at night. There always seemed time, if not always money, for whatever I wanted to do.
I am not volunteering to move to a tiny, remote town, and I know there is a lot of nostalgia here on my part, but on reflection I don't feel too sorry for these citizens; it's a trade off. With modern transportation and the Internet, the isolation is not what it once would have been. In such a place, you are part of a single society. What happens to one affects all. There is a community of individuals, and you have to maintain a certain degree of respect and charity for everyone, something perhaps more difficult in the urban milieu.

The best planning . . .

Well, as you can see, the trip has not been exclusively balmy weather. Yesterday we headed south out of Bend on 97, then veered southeast on 31, and picked up 395 which goes through Reno, where we will catch I-80 and head home. We stayed in the unlikely town of Likely, California that night. Before nightfall we had a brief snowstorm, a sure sign it was time to move south.
The also means that this travel blog is approaching its end. I anticipate perhaps one or two more post (was that a sigh of relief I heard?) See you on the web.

It's the journey, not the destination

Mount Thielsen, Forest, and B&D's Airstream

We have been fortunate to have lots of sun and warm weather since leaving on this journey. We have also had some beautiful drives when relocating our rigs. The drive from Ashland to Bend was one such day. In this picture that Barbara took through the windshield of our motorhome, towering above the forest, is Mount Thielsen. At 9,184 feet, it stands out in this range of mountains. This is a volcano, and the peak is actually the old magma core, harder than the surrounding lava flow which has eroded away. It is know as the "lightening rod" of the Cascades. It has received so many strikes, and strikes of such intensity that the rock at the top has melted.
After 4 days in Bend, we will start the journey home, heading south for Reno and then I-80 westward to home. This has been a great sabbatical; I am almost missing work!