Heading for the Sunshine

The Southwest Beckons

Not without a mechanical hiccup or two, we made it to Albuquerque the second night out of Iowa. We spent two days and had a very nice visit with Barbara's father. Charles is getting quite stiff, and walks slowly, but she and he had some really good conversations (and he liked the cookies she had baked in the rig while we were there).

After another day's driving, we made it to Tucson, or actually through Tucson to the north side of the city and found a spot at Catalina State Park. This is a real gem, and we highly recommend it for our RV friends. The sites are widely spaced and the facilities are excellent. Campground "B", which we were in is only 2-3 years old and the hookups are excellent. During a 2 week stopover we had the chance to see Anne and RC in Phoenix and Karen in Tucson, as well as some friends in Saddlebrook.

I have been doing a fair amount of reading between work and travel, and for my birthday, Barbara gave me an Amazon Kindle . . a really "neat" electronic book reader. I am finding it quite useful, and though of course it cannot in its present form totally replace all printed books, I think the concept is here to stay. I'll give a report with my experience and opinion later.

Time to Head South

Here we are, loaded up and ready to jump in the rig and head south on Jan 11, 2008. It was just in time. The picture at the bottom of this post is only 12 days later while I was back in Cedar Rapids working.

I woke up this morning and there was not a town in Iowa that was not below 0F. As a matter of fact, the local TV station said it was 19 below 0 last night, and the wind chill factor as the sun rose was -45! Here is a youtube post from Mason City, Iowa on the task of simply getting to work some mornings, just to remind some of you why you live in the south.

Why do people even live here?
1. They were born here and all the family is here.
2. They like the low cost of housing, the good people and the low crime rate.
3. They have a good job that is only available here.
4. They like the Iowa Spring, Summer and Fall so much that it's worth enduring the Winter.
5. They really like bitter cold

I think it's probably a little of all of these (well, maybe not #5 so much). After growing up in West Texas, I have really come to enjoy the 4 seasons in Iowa, though I like to leave in the Winter as often as possible; the definition of a snowbird*. I don't think in retirement I will be in Iowa, but there is a lot here that I will really miss: of course the people, my radiology practice and partners, the planting season and emergence of spring, summer with every shade of green imaginable, and the fall with harvest, sweaters, and crisp apples.

*This term originally was adapted from the song Snowbird:
"So, little snowbird, take me with you when you go
To that land of gentle breezes where the peaceful waters flow..."


Jan 23, 2008

Our History is Within Us All

Darwin and The Origin of Species; An exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum.
Click here for link











In Chicago when recently visiting the Field Museum for an exhibit on maps, I had the opportunity visit a concurrent exhibit simply titled "Darwin." While it did use historical documents and artifacts to explain the sources of his seminal work, The Origin of Species, it just as importantly provided a glimpse into the personal life of this most remarkable individual. Trained as a theologian as well as a biologist, Darwin delayed publishing Origin for 20 years over well-founded concerns that he would draw a reaction "like confessing a murder."


Darwin told us what evolution was. One hundred years later, Watson and Crick told us how it happens. I hold these as the two greatest discoveries in biology.

My Own Biologic History?

Recent reading of a number of popular books about genetics and DNA (The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, and The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes), and discussions with Barbara about her new genealogy discoveries, sparked an interest in what might be our own ancient genealogic history. I was watching a National Geographic program and at the end there was a blurb about their "Genographic Project" that piqued my interest.

Ultimately, we have joined the Genographic project with buccal swabs from both of us, and we have also purchased kits from the Family Tree DNA company for Barbara, myself, and Barbara's father. (as it turns out, the University of AZ does the DNA analysis, y-DNA and mtDNA, both for National Geographic as well as for familytreedna.com.

We are trying not only to discover something about our distant roots, but also to establish the start of a DNA-based information file that I am certain will be a critical part of any geneaologic searching in the future.

Maps as History

Map of Treasure Island

1883

Robert Louis Stevenson

Barbara always includes a day at the Newberry Library for geneaology research when I attend the big radiology meeting in Chicago every fall. This year it happens that the Newberry had partnered with the Chicago Field Museum for an exceptional joint exposition from early Nov until Jan 27, so for the first time I joined her on a visit, first to the Newberry and then on to the Field Museum.

"In creating Maps: Finding Our Place in the World " the Field Museum has partnered with The Newberry Library, a world-renowned independent research library. The Newberry's extensive holdings include rare books, manuscripts, and 500,000 historic maps, making it a foremost authority on the history of cartography." (From the museum website.) For a 3-D oversight of the Field Museum exhibit click here.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we could not miss. We were allowed to inspect closely some of the most significant maps in the world, as well as some that were just interesting and beautiful.

The collection ranged from 3+ thousand year-old clay maps, to Garmin GPS devices and Google Earth displays. There was the first "map" of the internet (ARPANET - 1982), maps of currents and islands with sticks from the south Pacific, cosmological maps from religious traditions, and of course, many historically significant traditional maps.

The items ranged in size from a few inches to perhaps 20 feet. All were displayed in subdued light, but most still could be viewed from only inches away. (in the Newberry, they actually provided magnifying glasses.)

There were original maps by Leonardo da Vinci (of a town), George Washington (French military outpost on the frontier), Ab Lincoln (survey of a township), Thomas Jefferson (proposed map of new states (with names) between the colonies and the Mississippi), Ben Franklin, JRR Tolkien, Wm Clark (of Lewis and Clark), M Servetus (link), and Charles Lindbergh (the map/chart used in his transatlantic flight).

The "Great Map"

One map was particularly impressive. A year or two ago I read "The Map That Changed The World," a popular historical book by Simon Winchester. It is an account of William Smith’s life and his "great map." In short, Smith was the first real geologist, and his geological map of England set a totally new paradigm for understanding everything from topical geology to plate tectonics.

His map was right there, taller than me, and close enough to touch!

Few geologists or historians of science have ever seen a copy. Because of its rarity and its size, it is difficult to display and even more difficult to study. One is displayed on the wall of the private meeting rooms of the Geological Society of London (behind a shade) but I do not know anywhere that it is open to public view. Because watercolors fade rapidly under ordinary light, libraries and museums can only expose it only under exceptional circumstances and for short durations.

There were a few other related artifacts such as the chronometer Capt Cook used on his round-the-world voyage that were used to compliment the maps, but it was essentially just the maps, maps, and more wonderful maps.

There are actually entire websites and blogs dedicated to Cartography. You might want to visit The Map Room as an example.

Sharing more than thoughts . . .

"Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly."

M. F. K. Fisher

Bangers and Mash with a pint in an English Pub

There is a variety of ways to share food: giving to a food bank, taking a dish to a pot luck, asking friends over for a meal, and vice versa. The most intimate sharing however is when you say "this is really good," and pass to me a bite straight from your plate . . . on your own fork. . . and wait for me to take it to my mouth and render my own opinion. This is sharing yourself, as well as your bacteria, etc.

Now it should be no surprise that Barbara and I share bites of food all the time. I have a (pathological?) aversion to ordering the same thing as her (she?) when we go out to eat, since if I order the same thing we only get to sample that one dish, but if I order something different, the variety in our dining experience is doubled!

The other evening we were out with friends. (Yes we have a few.) Among the 4 of us we had 2 wines, 3 starters, 4 entrees and one desert, and each of us tasted most of these. The one desert was delivered, as we requested, with 4 forks. It wasn't quite a group of pacific islanders sitting around eating with our hands from a common bowl, but it wasn't far removed either. As we shared the food, we also shared experiences, thoughts, feelings, and plans. It all seemed natural, right, and pleasurable, and left us with warm feelings at the end of the evening.

Most friends seem eager to share an especially nice dish, some share with a little encouragement, and some just are not into sharing their food that way. One can usually tell if friends are the "sharing" types or not, and not sharing one's dinner makes them no less a friend.

Sharing . . . something we should have learned as children . . . can be a tremendous enrichment to this life, and that includes lunchtime.

Books into Movies

A number of years ago, I had more or less given up on going to movies of a good book I had already read. Even Remains of the Day, as good as Hopkins was, left me disappointed when the full power of the book just wasn't quite there for me. Then, several years ago, I decided to see The Shipping News, mainly because I'm such a Judi Dench fan, even though I could not conceive of how this Pulitzer-winning novel could possibly be transferred to the screen. I was most pleasantly surprised, and these days I have to keep open the possibility that a screenwriter and a director might have successfully transformed a good book into a just-as-good movie.

This week I have seen the ads for an upcoming movie "No Country for Old Men," and again I am mystified as to how it would be possible to bring Cormac McCarthy's book of the same name to the screen. Cormac is a good writer about a bad world. From Blood Meridian to The Road, the dark, depraved, bad (evil?) side of humankind dominates and overwhelms his writings, though the protagonist are, for the most part, good men. No Country is no different, and scene after scene of depraved violence fills the pages. Here, the worlds of evil and good are perhaps more crystal clear than in his other works, and maybe that is why we now will have the movie. Sheriff Bell is a quiet Christian (Presbyterian judging by his predestinationist philosophy), looking for the good while living with the bad, and contemplating regularly over his good fortune to meet and marry Emma, his wife of several decades. McCarthy emphaticlly separates these positive thoughts into completely separate, short chapters, printed entirely in italics. As the title of the book suggest, there is an alienation of this older man from much of current socitey, maybe that's what drew me into the book to begin with.

I find Cormac McCarthy books cannot be read in sequence, but need some space (years?) between them. There are brief moments of salvation in the perdition through which his stories wind, but you pay dearly to catch those glimpses. No Country for Old Men is not considered one of Cormac's top works, and is just a few pages beyond a short story (thus ideal for a movie script). Knowing the penchance of the movie-makers for overdoing graphical violence, I don't know if I will see this movie even out of curiosity.

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.