My Florida adventure

Holmes Beach, my home for the past week.

As soon as we exited the plane, I knew we were in trouble.

I am typing this blog entry both pool side and beach side, so I guess I don't have much to complain about. But from the moment I got onto the jetway and felt toy the hot blanket of moist air seeping through the seals, I could tell we'd be fighting the humidity -- as bad, or worse, than what I experienced during my last trip to the tropics (Darwin, Australia). And we did, the whole week.

We've spent the last week visiting Florida, mostly in an around the home of my grandparents in the Tampa Bay area. But we also spent some time in the Miami area, St. Petersburgh and Legoland in Central Florida.

We arrived at Fort Lauderdale airport shortly after 6 a.m. and it was already hot, as described above. After an adventure in and around the airport, trying to figure out how to get to our rental car, we finally got on the road. The first stop was Miami Beach, where we watched people watching what Miami Beach is famous for:



We then had breakfast at a beachside café, where we were given complimentary mimosas post-meal. The alcohol did not help our exhausted state after a red eye seated next to a baby. I did hope that we'd run into the crew of Burn Notice while in Miami, but no luck.

While I'm in Miami, wondering if it would be practical to have a mojito with Sam Axe aka Chuck Finley aka Bruce Campbell. #BurnNotice

— John C. Baker (@jcb10) August 7, 2012

Next, after a detour into Hollywood, Fla., for a car sick member of our crew, we got somewhat lost -- to our chagrin in these days of GPS and smart phones. Instead of cutting west onto Alligator Alley, somehow we ended going north, curbing along the north shore of Lake Okeechobee along rural roads. Moreover, Google Maps on my iPhone directed me to take an exit off the Florida Turnpike that did not have a cash toll plaza -- only a Sunpass (similar to Fastrack in the SF Bay Area) lane. Of course, we did not figure that out until already on the exit. So we are expecting a large fine in the mail when we get home.

Upon our arrival, Ian went straight into the pool. A pattern that was repeated later that evening and again and again and again over the next eight days.

My grandfather, Ian, myself and Charlotte during one of our many pool trips.

Most of our week was spent at my grandparents' condo on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico in Holmes Beach. What a condo! Great view of the Gulf out the back window, pool in the back and sufficient air conditioning!



(Update, Nov. 16, 2013: OK, I admit this post won't be updated. Suffice it to say, a fine time was had by all.)

My Wikipedian train of thought: Kuiper Belt to Oscar Wilde

What do beavers, Oscar Wilde and deep-space rocks have in common?

One of the worst, and best, things about Wikipedia is how it can become such a colossal time suck.

You go onto the site to look up one thing, and through a series of links and "Hmm, I'd like to know more about thats" you end up somewhere completely different.

Take this morning. I visited Wikipedia out of boredom and saw that the featured article was about the Kuiper Belt. Being an amateur astronomer, I began reading the article.

That took me to the article about Makemake (left), a plutoid with such a funny name that I had to visit.

When it was first discovered, close to a certain holiday, Makemake was given the code name "Easter Bunny," so I had to visit the Wikipedia article about that particular holiday icon.

I learned that easter bunnies were associated with colored eggs because of the abundance of eggs due to abstinence during the spring celebration of Lent, which led to that article.

Reading about Lent, I was astonished to discover that some churches allowed the consumption of beaver tails during the normally meat-free (except for seafood) period. So I read about beavers.

Finally, on the beaver page, there was a famous picture (left) of Oscar Wilde in a beaver fur coat. So I ended up reading a bit about the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray -- an article I somehow refrained from reading.

Neutrinos faster than light would have profound implications

A small portion of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Switzerland. Flickr photo by Ars Electronica.

A discovery was announced today that will either revolutionize science or be one of the biggest busts since the Fleischmann–Pons experiment in cold fusion, if not attempts to turn lead into gold.

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (known by its French acronym, CERN), announced in a paper to be released soon that they had measured subatomic particles that seemed to travel faster than light. Essentially, scientists launched neutrinos from a source near Geneva, Switzerland, to a detector in Italy about 453 miles away. The neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds (0.00000006 seconds) faster than a photon (the particle [or wave] that makes up light) would have.

First, this discovery is somewhat shocking because it violates Einstein's theory of special relativity (you know, "e=mc squared"), which states nothing can travel faster than light. Relativity has been proven correct in experiment after experiment for more than 100 years. It's as if someone told Newton that there wasn't an equal but opposite reaction after every action.

Part of the CERN research center.
Flickr photo by dirtybronson.

The discovery is still doubted by other scientists, perhaps due to what would have been the sheer ludicrousness of proposing it before today. In fact, Occam's Razor (given multiple explanations, the simplest is the most likely) applies here. For example, "superluminal neutrinos are much much less likely than subtle systematic errors in a complex experiment the length of a country."

One might ask, "OK, but why is this important?" There are several reasons, although the ultimate effects -- if the experiment pans out -- might not be seen for years, if not centuries. Certainly, the everyday life of people alive today is unlikely to be affected. But the long-term effects may be enormous:

• First, the implications for computing are significant. Think quantum computing will be fast? Then, what about computers that solve problems almost before they're entered?
• What about astronomy? If neutrinos can go faster than light, one day we might have detectors that can almost literally see back in time to the beginning of the universe.
• And not even finally, but perhaps most profoundly, neutrinos going faster than light means that information (although probably not objects) can also be sent faster than light. If mankind is not alone (and with billions of galaxies containing billions of stars, being alone is unlikely), then we might have the means to communicate with other beings in a reasonable time frame.

But the best part of this business is how it demonstrates the scientific method. These scientists came up with an idea, tested and experimented it into a hypothesis (that neutrinos can travel faster than light under some circumstances), and submitted their work to be peer reviewed for more experimentation en route to forming a theory. In fact, they basically pleaded with scientists from the United States, Japan and other scientifically advanced countries to try to replicate their experiment to make sure they didn't make a mistake.

The results may or may not pan out (probably not, I must admit). But the scientists' efforts at confirmation are a huge relief in times when those on both the left and the right often refuse to recognize the teachings of science because it doesn't fit their social or religious agenda.

Edit (Feb. 22, 2012): It appears that a faulty GPS reading caused the distances between the two sites to be overestimated, accounting for the unexpectedly short time it took for the neutrinos to hit the detector. Again, this shows the wonderfulness of the scientific method and its system of checks and balances.

Earthquake memories

Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti served as a reminder that today (Sunday) was the 16th anniversary of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake -- the largest I've ever been in (also, it was the 15th anniversary of the more-devastating Kobe Earthquake).

The Northridge quake offered me a fascinating insight of how both public safety and journalism react during a crisis. My experience:

I was living in with a roomate and two cats in a small house in Glendale, Calif., in January 1994. My roomate was in Santa Barbara with his then-girlfriend and I had stayed out until about midnight the evening before. I was sleeping at 4:31 a.m.when I heard a low rattling. The window above my bed was shaking and -- because we had had a very small temblor just a week or so before -- I immediately knew we were having an earthquake.

As soon as I was conscious enough to think "earthquake," I felt an acceleration upward then a quick drop down as the shaking began in earnest. I covered my head with my pillow, but not before seeing several blue flashes, no doubt caused by arcing powerlines touching. I think I said something to the effect of "Oh, crap, it's the Big One!" just before the earthquake stopped. I ran to the doorway of my room (much too late, of course) then into the living room, where I turned off the heater, worried about a gas leak. I then went to the bathroom and used the toilet, having drank about two liters of soda the evening prior.

I then flipped on my police scanner, which was kept next to my bed. I heard the Glendale Police conducting a unit roll call (all checked in OK) and heard the Verdugo Fire dispatch instruct its units to check their districts for damage. I heard about a collapsed parking garage behind the Glendale PD's station and began picking up LA County Fire radio traffic, including a discussion about the collapse of the intersection of the Interstate 5/Highway 14 intersection.

I decided a walk about the neighborhood would help calm my nerves, and of course the cats ran out the instant I opened the door. Going outside, I was surprised at how dark the sky was with power out across the Los Angeles Basin -- I could see the Milky Way for the first (and only) time in LA proper. I also noted a lot of my neighbors coming outside, crying and getting in their cars. I lived in a heavily Armenian neighborhood and many of my neighbors had either suffered through or lost family in the 1988 Armenian Earthquake and were justifiably traumatized.

After about a half-hour outside, I went back in and listened to the radio on the living room couch -- I even fell back asleep. I woke up when my mom called about 7 a.m. to say she was OK (I felt a little guilty later, because I think I told her something along the lines of "We should save the phone lines for emergencies."). The power came on shortly thereafter and I watched TV coverage of the disaster for a while before heading into the offices of the Glendale News-Press, where I worked at the time.

The newsroom was already in full swing, as you might imagine. The city editor, Steve Rosenberg, asked me to go with a photographer to a Luckys store in north Glendale, where I interviewed residents who were stocking up on canned food and bottled water ("A little late," I thought, and besides, the water system was fine). I also went over to the then-new Red Lion Hotel where I caught a couple out-of-town visitors and interviewed them about their first earthquake and a local restaurant, which was doing good business serving to rattled customers. I ended up having a couple bylines in the next day's paper, one under the headline of "Residents react with panic, panache."

I also did a few follow-up stories the next few days, dealing with the public transit situation (specifically the impacts on Metrolink) and the first day of classes two days later at Glendale College. I ended up getting a lot of extra work thanks to the disaster (much like after Sept. 11, 2001, where I earned a lot of extra money as a security guard at Candlestick Park).

As an aside, the one-year anniversary on Jan. 17, 1995, was also memorable for me. I was staying at a hotel in the Union Square area of San Francisco while I was house-hunting with my then-girlfriend in preparation for my upcoming move to the Bay Area. I had stayed up late the night before watching the pilot of "Star Trek: Voyager" on the hotel TV and woke up sleepily late that morning to see earthquake coverage. I initially thought it was a one-year retrospective until they made clear there had been a disaster in Japan that morning.

Through the Red Centre, Part III

My Red Centre tour group.

The last time I arose at 4 a.m., it was 1989 and I was a poor student working at a McDonalds in La Crescenta, Calif., and needed to warm up the grill before the restaurant opened. Thus it was with some difficulty that I arose Saturday so we could see Uluru at sunrise. It was even more difficult as the rain had continued most of the night and I knew it was still cloudy.

An additional source of disappointment stemming from the clouds was the inability to see the stars. From the time I was 11 years old, I had always hoped to examine the southern skies, and seeing a whole new set of constellations that can’t be seen from the Northern Hemisphere (in fact, I had usually imagined seeing them from central Australia).

For example, I had hoped to see the Southern Cross — which features prominently in the Australian flag. I had also hoped to see the constellation Centaurus, which features Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth.

But the clouds were being frustrating. Moreover, the moon was nearly full — spoiling the view in the few clear patches. Luckily, I had a clear night the week previous (although also partially spoiled by moonlight) on my drive from Albany and had seen the unseen-from-the-north bright star Canopus and had gotten a glimpse at the amusing site of seeing familiar constellations (specifically Orion and Taurus) upside-down.

While I never did get to see the Southern Cross, the clouds finally parted enough to give me a glimpse of Alpha Centauri — my favorite star since reading an old Isaac Asimov book in 1983.

After a quick brekky consisting of muesli flakes, we drove to the sunrise viewing area at Uluru and, thanks to the clouds, saw the sight of the dark blob of Uluru become the bright blob of Uluru. A bit deflated, we drove to the Rock itself, and began a foot trek halfway around.

As I wrote before, it’s difficult to gauge the enormity of Uluru from pictures. When you’re up close, the former Ayers Rock presents a much more massive profile than you might expect. While I hadn’t planned to climb Uluru, I was a bit gratified to see that the climb was closed that day because of the storms in the area (it apparently gets very slippy when wet), frustrating some of the rather insensitive European boys in the group who very much wanted to climb. Below: A detail of some of the cracks on Uluru.
There were a number of sites around Uluru’s perimeter where one could walk up to the rock and lay hands on it. A surprising number of gullies went down the side, but the rain had broken briefly and there was no water flowing down. We found some more Aboriginal art sites, a water hole and — in a rare concession to Aboriginal beliefs — a couple areas of the rock where photography was absolutely forbidden (left), and enforced by a $5,000 fine, because those areas were considered sacred by the Aborigines.

We spent a couple hours at Uluru, where the flies were taking advantage of the refreshing rain to jump on anything resembling a spring flower — such as my bright yellow shirt (below). The group then headed off to nearby Kata Tjuta, about a half-hour away.
Kata Tjuta, also known as “The Olgas,” is a group of ancient giant rocks that have been eroded over the past 300-plus million years into an undulating series of hikable canyons, valleys and gullies. My tour group took the five-mile hike into the famous “Valley of the Winds,” where a sudden crack just below the summits of adjoining peaks creates a wind tunnel, difficult hike and amazing views of the valley below.
Exhausted, we hiked back to the van, had a short lunch back at the campsite, then began the long haul home. Most everyone, worn down by the two hikes and early rising, slept on the drive. I only awoke when Natalie swerved the van to avoid a kangaroo nonchalantly hopping across the road and when we stopped at a roadhouse to refuel.

Knowing that our group mainly consisted of poor university-age students, Natalie suggested that the group dine for the night at Annies Place, a hostel in Alice Springs that had a built-in restaurant where the meals were only $5. Sounded good to us. Arriving back into town, we were dropped at our respective lodgings. I checked in at my hostel, showered then walked across town, figuring I didn’t know anyone else within hundreds of miles so I might as well join them.

The restaurant was cozy, but served good food for $5 (I had the fish and chips). The deco consisted mainly of classic Italian movie posters and front pages of newspapers (below), usually highlighting some misfortune that happened to a tourist in the area — shoes melting on Uluru, dying of horrible diseases and pleas to “Help Bring Back Virgin” (Virgin Blue Airlines). With beer and tequila flowing amply, I learned a bit about my fellow travelers.
For example, Kirsten, the Scottish girl, did her thesis on geese counting on the Isle of Islay. Patricio, the Italian, drove a big fast motorcycle back home, but had to sell it. Matteo (one of the Swiss boys) and “Heidi” (aka blonde German) were in the process of “hooking up” (if you know what I mean … but why was I the one who felt pressured to let her wear my Montréal Expos jacket because she had decided to wear a white tube top in the rain?), etc.

After finishing dinner, we walked up the street to Alice’s most hopping nightclub, Bojangles, which seemed to hold everyone in town between 18 and 35. After a brief misunderstanding at the bar (I ordered “a midi of VB [Victoria Bitter]” but somehow ended up with both a VB and a Carlton Mid), we settled in front of the dance floor for some conversation.

I found a pair of off-duty Aussie soldiers next to us and (no doubt sounding buzzed as I was) thanked them for “helping us with (stuff) we couldn’t finish ourselves.” “We’re all in it together, brother,” was the kind reply, accompanied by a number for a cab company.

Returning to my travelling companions (right, at Bojangles), I ended up spending a lot of time with the Irish contingent of our group and found out two things: they considered all non-Guinness brew inferior and apparently Irish people have a secret hand signal or something, because my new friends from Cork were briefly joined by an unknown fellow from Dublin.

With the hour getting late (almost 2 a.m.) and my needing to catch a train the next day, I excused myself and exchanged very friendly goodbyes with folks I had known for less than 72 hours and would likely never hear from again, despite the sharing of a couple e-mail addresses.

That led to the surreal moment I mentioned in Part I of this tale — walking home at 2 a.m. in a residential area of Alice Springs in a driving rainstorm after a night of clubbing (all parts of that being atypical behavior for me).

The next day, after taking pictures of the rain-swollen Todd River (bone dry for something like 360 days per year), I caught the train to Adelaide, met my Internet friend Helen and slept at another hostel before catching the train on Tuesday to Sydney, upon which conveyance I write this entry.Me at Kata Tjuta.