Parenting: The 4th-Grade Science Fair, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

We're fortunate to have three amazing children that have grown into amazing, successful adults. Before I lose recollection, I figure on sharing some of the stories of raising them.

Our youngest was in 4th-grade and came home one day to explain how her class... her 4th-grade class... was having a science fair, and she wanted to make a calculator. As tech-savvy as a young-for-her-grade child can be, I was not prepared for this.

Truth be told, I sort-of dreaded this day. I'd seen enough science fairs/class projects with the older two kids where parents were too involved. Not just involved, but far too involved. Parents so concerned with letting their kid fail, they focused on making them win. These class projects had become an arms race, few parents willing to take a chance on their child losing... err, not getting the highest grade in the class.

So there I was, faced with what should have been an easy choice. I needed to tell my earnest, enthusiastic, daughter, so serious, so passionate in her request, that she needed to pick some other project. Like, growing plants under different color cellophane, or growing meal worms, or anything age appropriate for a young 8-yo (she might still have been 7). I did not want to be one of those parents that did the projects for their kids.

However, I remembered those parents... are in an arms race. I wasn't worried about my daughter getting a A- ... I realized she was cannon fodder if I didn't help. In a snap decision, with a barely-concealed heavy sigh, I said "Sure, we can do a calculator. You'll have to learn what all the components are, explain what their functions are".

In that moment, I entered the conventional arms race with a nuclear warhead.

So, I built a breadboard-style calculator with exposed components, my daughter labeled the components, I wrote the code for the Atmel ATmega MCU, and it worked OK as a four-function calculator. Once you commit, there's little guilt. I'd launched the ICBM.

Daughter got an A. Her calculator was the star of the fair. The other parents saw me for the rogue nation I'd become. A couple of years later, that daughter revamped the calculator into something else entirely, and won that class invention fair as well. The other parents didn't look so surprised, but I still felt badly for the kids from neutral nations.

She went on to Electrical Engineering undergrad, accepting an offer from Texas Instruments (total irony?), where she now leads a team that manages external vendors. Today we say I was her first outside vendor on the calculator project.

Photography the hard way

A fine B&W photography artist recently posted this short "video rant" on Youtube. [Sadly, this video appears to be gone; no matter, you'll get the rest of this article]

I agree with, admire and applaud Adrienne's support for "doing it the old way because we want to".

However, about the notion that "people don't give a shit" about the details of photography:

Of course they don't, and of course that's to be applauded as well.

Anyone else here remember the good old days of broadcast television, when you might have to rotate the outdoor antenna for the best signal, then tweak the horizontal and vertical sync controls on the receiver to capture the picture? Color made it even more fun, with the 6+ other controls to adjust the color gain and tint. It was a lot like shutter speed and aperture - knowing how these things worked made you a master of the TV set. Suddenly, you were The One that could operate the TV for everyone else. I achieved that status when I was pretty young (I'm not yet 50 years old), and I was proud of myself for developing those special skills. My status was elevated because I was the guy that could tune the TV.

Today, I'm much happier to turn on the TV and be dazzled with 1080i video that doesn't flutter from multipath when a jet passes nearby and quiet multichannel audio. Toddlers can turn on TV and tune-in Jersey Shore all by themselves. No one needs my TV-tuning skills any more.

Another one of my interests is amateur radio. Back when I first got into it, you had to manually tune-up transmitters, even for relatively small frequency changes. I developed the skill to send and receive Morse Code by hand/ear. It took Real Skills to communicate by radio, and interconnecting a radio with a telephone was Black Magic.

Now, we pick up cell phones and call people most anywhere in the world. No skills required. No one needs my Black Magic radio skills any more.

Further, those phones even include cameras!!! Sure, I thought cell-phone cameras were ridiculous, and the vast majority of them produce images comparable to those cheap 110 cameras of the 1970s. Point-and-shoot cameras today, though, do an amazing job of balancing fill-flash, figuring out where the faces are, etc. It used to require a lot of skill to do what a cheap camera automatically does today.

As a result, anyone who wants to take pretty darn good pictures is able to today, at virtually no recurring cost whatsoever, so people take photos whenever, wherever, for whatever reason. It's not the old days when each snapshot cost at least the better part of a quarter.

Sure, there are a lot of really ridiculous/lousy photos being captured with no concern at all for technical details. People really just don't give a shit, just like Adrienne says.

So what have we lost? Mostly, practitioners of photography have lost the elevated status that our technical skills used to bring. Film has become a boutique item - and, let's just be brutally honest, photographic film is basically like plastic water bottles - added cost that conveys no value by itself. It's the image you really want (and there are better ways to archive images than silver halide film anyway).

Every time a wonderful, complicated complicated technology is developed to the point where anyone can successfully use it with virtually no training, that's progress, that's a good thing.

But - it always challenges those of us who were the Black Magicians to move on when no one gives a shit about our skills any longer.

Giro d'Vino 2008 100km

Some months ago, while looking at lists of organized rides in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, I spotted an intriguing ride called Giro d'Vino, which tours wineries in the Lodi appellation, and purported to offer wine tasting along with the usual organized ride features.

A little bit of research at MotionBased.com found logs of previous rides, which indicated the ride is as flat as I suspected. Little thought was required before signing-up for the 100km ride. Early on, I wondered "do they really taste wine during the ride?" but I never asked - I figured I'd find out soon enough, and I started thinking it would be fun to ride briskly from one wine stop to the next, taste/expel and move on.

This year, the 100km ride had stops at Jesse's Grove, Ripken, Micheal*David, Vino Con Brio, Harmony Wyneland, Vino Piazza, Chocoholics, Heritage Oak, with start/finish at Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi. Sounds like fun, eh?

I've made a number of new friends since I started cycling last year, surprisingly even on FaceBook - so it was an cool twist to discover that FaceBook friends Kimi and Julianne were also planning on doing Giro d'Vino.

After a very wet Saturday, I was happy to see a dry and relatively clear Sunday morning on the 60-mile drive to Woodbridge winery; parking and registration was smooth, with no delay. There wasn't even much of a line for the porta-potties!

Roll-out from Woodbridge, 8:44a

After meeting-up with the color-coordinated duo of Kimi and Julianne, we rolled out at a pleasantly moderate pace; it was still a bit cool and pavement was damp in many places, so I really wasn't inclined to push it much anyway (particularly after a spooky get-off the preceding Thursday coasting down a mud-slickened stretch of road, I didn't feel like crashing again). We averaged perhaps 15MPH and warmed-up a bit; finally, I promised to re-group at the next rest stop and kicked the speed up to something around 20MPH. There were a lot of riders on the road, and it was easy to find a paceline, and I just couldn't resist the temptation... kicking the speed up to 22-23MPH for a bit - before a railroad-crossing dampened my drive around 16.2 miles. You ever notice how freight trains are endless when you're waiting? OK, so it was only a minute and a half...

Jesse's Grove, 16.2 mi, in at 9:40a, out at 9:51a

I made a quick pit-stop here, only one hour into the ride, eating a chunk of banana and shedding my arm/knee warmers and my vest, stuffing it all into the back pockets, prepared for rain and cold that never materialized. Note that the driveway here is long; it took me 4 minutes alone just to ride in and out on the wet, rough pavement, with a stream of cyclists coming the opposite direction.

Ripken Winery, 18.7mi, in 9:59a, out 10:09a

Here I made a quick stop, tasting Ripken's very nice Rousanne/Marsanne, Tempranillo and Port. I was a little surprised that other cyclists weren't expelling as they tasted - I was the only spit-bucket user.

After rolling-out from Ripken, I found a good paceline to ride with, a couple of tandems and several one-up riders moving along nicely around 20MPH. Later, I hooked-up with another paceline where we traded pulls at 22-23MPH for a few miles. Did I mention this ride was *flat*? Before I knew it, we were rolling into the "lunch stop" at Vino Con Brio.

Vino Con Brio, 32.5mi, in 10:53a, out 11:03a

On rides, I'm not a believer in a single stop where you eat a lot. Your fuel needs are tied to the ride, not the clock, so you should eat approximately the same at every stop - loading-up with too much food will slow you down as blood is redirected to the task of digestion. So I ate another banana chunk here and a quarter of a peanut butter/jelly sandwich. Also, one of my Camelbak Podium water bottles was now emptied of Accelerade, so I filled it with water and added a couple of the Zym tablets thoughtfully provided. After chatting a bit with other riders, I headed-out to find the density of riders substantially drop after the 50k route turned-away.

It was a little more challenging to find a good paceline or even another rider at the right pace, and a light but persistent wind was kicking-up. Heck, I even found some rolling elevation change (though nothing that really counted as a climb). Nonetheless, I kept the average speed up over 18MPH on the way to Chocoholics.

Chocoholics, 47.1mi, in 11:51a, out 12:06p

I was sure tempted to buy a few chunks of the excellent dark chocolate doo-dads they were offering samples of; this alone was a pretty good reason to not give into the samples :-) Another banana chunk, some more water/Zym, and I chatted with a couple of riders that had crossed paths on Foxy's Fall Century two weeks earlier.

After rolling-out, I noticed the rider density had dropped quite a bit; the remainder of the ride, I'd basically be on my own, even as the nagging wind seemed to grow stronger, but I still managed to keep my average speed above 18MPH.

It was just a couple of miles after Chocoholics where I found the only real climb of the ride, a short grind that might have peaked at 10% right after crossing the Mokelumne River. My legs were accustomed to high-cadence spinning, so it was a bit of a shock ;-)

Eventually, I spotted a tank-farm off in the near distance, and I knew the end was near.

Roll-in to Woodbridge, 62.8mi, 12:58p

After loading my bike up and changing, I found a nicely-done pasta lunch and pleasantly good
Woodbridge Fish Net Creek Old Vine Zinfandel as well as a surprisingly nice Petit Verdot that I suspect was originally bottled for winery use (winemakers sometimes bottle component wines and hold multiple blending sessions - you don't normally find Petit Verdot bottled as a varietial).

I'm already looking forward to next year :-)

Foxy's Fall Century 2008

For the last few weeks, my regular riding buddies and I have been saying "we're going to ride Foxy's Fall Century at a moderate pace". We made a real effort to maintain a moderate pace on our mid-week training rides, sometimes we even succeeded.

Our riding group assembled (me, Doug, Roland, Scott and Joe) and we rolled-out into a clear, crisp but not too-cold morning.

Roll-out onto the course (725a)

At first, our moderate goal was easy to achieve. We rolled across the flat farmlands west of Davis around 16MPH while Scott kept dropping us, only to fall back and exclaim "you really are serious about going at a moderate pace!". Coach Doug started pointing out sights we would not have noticed had we already been hammering. Everything was going well, even as our speed crept up to 18MPH and my heart rate finally broke 120BPM after 7 miles or so. We were still moderate, and it was a badge of honor to watch one rider after another pass us up - especially when the father/son tandem passed us, and the 12-year old son asked why we were going so slow. Our egos were doing just fine.

So I still can't completely explain what happened around 15 miles, when a tandem motored past, towing a line of riders - they were only going a few MPH faster, but it looked like a perfect opportunity to pick up the pace while maintaining a moderate effort. I latched on and Scott followed; Doug and Roland were more faithful to the Vow of Moderation. Ah, well... it was a great ride, my heart rate remained in the moderate 140s for the most part as we cruised along between 22 and 26MPH, peaking over 28 in a slight descent.

Rest Stop 1 (25.1 miles, 1h 20m saddle-time, in at 845a, out at 900a)

As the slight rollers of Cantelow Road ended the pancake-flatness of the first 30-odd miles, we uttered words of encouragement to each other ("slow the heck down!" "why are you attacking?" "where did that come from?") and soon found ourselves turning onto Cherry Glen Road, where we all rolled the stop sign and looked up to see one of California's finest, who pleasantly waved at us - without citing us all for 22450(a) C.V.C.

Water Stop 1 (43.3 miles, 2h 19m saddle-time, in at 957a, out at 1001a)

Coach Doug called his wife to arrange our own private SAG stop for clothing drop-off (we were all ready to shed the arm/knee warmers and vests), water was topped-off, and we were underway into the increasingly challenging rolling hills of Hilborn Road. Once again, Coach Doug was our spiritual leader, admonishing us (well, Scott and me mostly) to maintain a moderate pace.

Clothing Drop (51.7 miles, 2h 45m saddle-time, in at 1027a, out at 1039a)

We stopped at Mankas Corner while our private SAG arrived to collect our now-unneeded clothing and dispense Cytomax (thanks again to Shelly and Stephanie).

Rest Stop 2 (61.7 miles, 3h 23m saddle-time, in at 1117a, out at 1143a)

It was here that I added two scoops of Hammer Sustained Energy powder to my water bottle. It tasted like... well, nothing really, maybe weak rice water but was good for 240 kcal and extra protein on top of half of a turkey sandwich. I figured, whatever it takes to keep energy up in the coming climbs through the prettiest part of the ride.

Cardiac Hill (72.5 miles or so)

It's not *that* bad - about 550 feet of ascent in 2 miles - but it's a steady attention-getting grind. Fortunately, the weather was perfect - temperature in the low 70s, sunny with just enough shade-clouds rolling past - and the climb was over before my legs started any real protests, and I recovered in the descent while doing 35-37MPH for the next couple of miles.

Monticello Dam (78.1 miles)

The Hammer Sustained Energy I'd been guzzling since lunch was kicking-in, and I was feeling it. I was trying to pull the line at 22-24MPH, but, without mentioning any names, not everyone (including Doug) had partaken of the Hammer Sustained Energy. Eventually I was reigned-in a bit as Roland sent Doug up front to "pull". Yeah, that's the ticket, "pull".

Rest Stop 3 (84.4 miles, 4h 43m saddle-time, in at 101p, out at 115p)

We regrouped with Joe for the final ride in, Doug found a second wind in the form of 12 ounces of Coke Classic, someone, probably Scott, suggested we'd finsh the last 22 miles in one hour, and the rest of us strongly disagreed. We were, afterall, still under the Vow of Moderation.

After slogging over a silly 115-foot climb that just reminds you to spend less time in the rest stop next year, we quickly formed into a paceline of 6 riders and kicked our speed up to 20-22 MPH; it was amusing to relatively smoke past other tired riders; some cheered us on (really!) and others managed to latch on. We collected, at one point, probably 20 riders. We were fighting a mild headwind for part of this, but fortunately it was never too bad (probably under 10 MPH most of the time).

We collected a few strong riders from Sacramento, and they rotated to the front about 12 miles from the finish, kicked the pace up to 25+ MPH and the three of them took very long pulls, essentially taking us back into town. I was 3 back from the front, knowing that I could pull at this pace for less than a minute but I never had to face that moment of reckoning.

Finish (106 miles, 5h 47m saddle-time, in at 218p)

Feeling positively great - tired, sure, but not hammered. Our moving average speed was 18.2 MPH, which sort of begs the question of how moderate we really were. Coach Doug noticed his heart rate was quite a bit lower for the Tour of Napa Valley even with 1500' more climbing. We certainly took it very easy at the start, and really did keep our hill-climbing pace down and even our final dash for the last 20 miles didn't push our heart rates up too high. Perhaps we just had a reminder of the value of a relatively steady pace, rather than hammering into overload and then lollygagging to recover.

Other than I would have liked more brownie bites at the rest stops, I have nothing to complain about. 3 rest stops was perfect for me with the water stop at Lyon Road. Those curious may look at the ride log at MotionBased.com.

See y'all next year.

Catchin' up - Mount Diablo Challenge 2008

Last year, my pal Bob talked me into a "nice, easy ride up Mount Diablo". With me on my heavy MTB and Bob on his svelte road-bike, it was a nice easy ride - for Bob. It took me over 2 hours to make the climb, but one thing led to another, and four months later I was one of 1000 riders participating in the 2007 Mount Diablo Challenge race, finishing the 11-mile, 3300' climb in 77 minutes.

This year's challenge proved to be a little more challenging - I managed to lose my timing chip before the start, so I did not get an official time, however, I finished directly behind a friend in 73 minutes, 2 second, precisely 4 minutes faster than last year. Looking at the log of the ride, I see that I kept my heart rate below anaerobic threshold for almost the entire ride - not as high as last year. On the downside, I did start to feel sharp little pre-cramps on the final very steep climb at the finish line.

Fortunately, I had generous sponsors for my ride, and I was able to raise $250 for Save Mount Diablo and score one of the very spiffy jerseys.

I'll be back next year, and this time I might even train before the event :-)