What Happens in Athens (Georgia) Stays in Athens (Georgia)

I am heading off to Athens for my niece's bat mitzvah. Maybe I will see some homage to the Athens music scene at some point?

What Happens in San Francisco Stays in San Francisco (again)

I am heading to San Francisco for a cousin's wedding.

Preparing to Teach Classes in Cyberspace

In preparation for online lecturing, I am practicing using Zoom with my cousin.

There appears to be a time lag. pic.twitter.com/GgRI95tku9

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) March 14, 2020

United States Ice 'Cube' Tray: Made in China

I don’t have an ice ‘cube’ tray while I wait for my Screamer ice ‘cube’ tray to be shipped along with the rest of my stuff. I was feeling a bit silly and thought this might also give a geographic conversation-starter with my nieces.

In addition to ignoring Alaska and Hawaii, there was a bit of coarse-graining done with the continental states. Who needs all 50 states anyway?

And the label ‘cube’ (on the front; not pictured) doesn’t quite work either.

Also: “Made in China”

(But at least I can now have some ice while I wait to have access to my Screamer tray again.)

What Happens in Copenhagen Stays in Copenhagen (2013 Edition)

This morning, I will be flying to Copenhagen to give a plenary talk at NetSci 2013 and also in an associated satellite meeting on Temporal and Dynamic Networks. On the morning of the last day of NetSci, I'll be flying off to New York City for a cousin's wedding.

Quote of the Day: Spoiler Alert

I think my best line from last night (after my cousin mentioned that she didn't want to hear info about the Steve Jobs biography before she reads it) was the following: Not to spoil the ending, but he dies.

You're welcome.

Like Father, Like Son

Tonight's Los Angeles Dodgers starting lineup includes 4 players whose fathers played in the Major Leagues: Dee Gordon (Tom), Tony Gwynn Jr. (Tony), Jerry Hairston Jr. (Jerry), and Scott Van Slyke (Andy). Hairston Jr.'s grandfather Sam also played in the Majors. Also on the Dodgers current roster are Iván DeJesús Jr. and Justin Sellers, whose fathers also played in the Major Leagues. So we could get up to 6 chips off the old block in a starting lineup at once. I wonder what the record is?

A Grammar Nazi Almost From Birth

Apparently, I was quoted as using the word "etc." (correctly, I might add) at the age of 22 months, and there is documented evidence of this! I can't say I remember this, but the evidence is certainly there, and I'll happily take credit for it. My mother gave my sister the baby book that she used for my sister during her first month of life, and there are some quotes from me contained therein.

I guess my life as a grammar nazi started very early indeed.

(Tip of the cap to my sister---and I'll spare her by not posting my other comments that went along with the "etc.")

Quote of the Day: Passover Seder Edition

Today's quote is awesome: "The Jews were not pussies." (My father, quoting from the bible at Passover Seder)

Hmmm...

I think that what is possibly one of my greatest strengths professionally is certainly one of my worst weaknesses personally---namely, that I seem to be incapable of feeling content and focus way too much on what I don't have even in cases where the things I do have are arbitrarily good.

I am capable of feeling happy---just not content, and I sometimes drive myself nuts as a result.

On the academic side, this can of course drive me to bigger (and ideally better) things. On the personal side, for example, I have a tendency to feel down when I don't get to hang out with my closest friends as much as I want (which of course is going to be the case a lot because I'm busy and they're busy, and only a very small number of them live close to me anyway). My best friends basically are who I consider to be my true family, and I would rather focus on the excellent times I have with them. Those times are my fondest moments in life, yet I have an annoying tendency to spend too much time thinking about the fact that I wish there were more of them when I think it would be much healthier for me to think happily about the good times themselves. And so I can drive myself nuts sometimes with this. (The flaw aspect of this also can come into play academically---by not being satisfied with certain things in a similar fashion---but I think it's the personal one where I can truly drive myself nuts much more than I'd like.)

There are various bits of subtext above---such as why my best friends are my real family and my genetic family really isn't---but I might have written about that before and in any event, I am planning on getting to work rather than on writing volumes now. There is also a reason that I am thinking about it this morning, but I will save that for another time as well.

In the meantime, I have some solution sets to correct, and I hope to go through a draft of a paper today that has taken way too long to revise.

Beverly Hills is not my home.

I don't think that Beverly Hills has felt like "home" for several years, and it really doesn't feel that way now. This is what assaults my feelings the most whenever I am in my parents' house. I just don't belong in this city anymore, and I'm not sure that I ever did. Ah well... (Caltech feels like home and so does Oxford, and I think that's about it.)

Maybe I'll write a longer entry about this at some point, but I'm really not sure what else there is to say.

Whenever I think about the early years with my family, I always feel that I have orders of magnitude more bad memories than good ones. (I have many good memories with my friends.) Maybe I'll eventually feel differently, but I have to be honest with myself and for now let me just say that I am so thankful that other aspects of my life (my wonderful friends, my career, etc.) have done a Hell of an excellent job of making up for any deficiencies in my life. This is the holidays and although being in the house of my childhood makes some of the bad stuff from the past come to the front of my thinking a bit more than usual, I will do my best to focus instead on all of the great things in my life---which (a) far outshine the bad things nowadays and (b) make me immeasurably luckier than most people. My deepest thanks go out to the people who have played such important roles in this.

My Sister's Visit

My sister Tammy visited me from Thursday afternoon until early this morning. (She left on the 6:30 am bus. I am still reeling from the pain of getting up at 6am today.)

Here is my picture album from her visit.

Our itinerary for Tammy's visit was as follows:

Thursday: Chilling, a bit of crashing for Tammy (and a brief foray to a seminar for me), and dinner and dessert with two of my best friends. Anyway, Tammy got to celebrate her birthday with my friends this year, but I'm sure she'll be having something with her buds back in LA.

Friday: Blenheim Palace, as recommended by one of my friends. Then we got back, had dinner, and went to see "A Serious Man" (which had its moments but was kind of disappointing... the IMDB ratings are shockingly high).

Saturday: London, including an awesome performance of "We Will Rock You" (the musical based on the music of Queen) and some cluster fucks in multiple tube stations. [I suppose that there are a couple of different ways to interpret my phrasing here.] We then had dinner back in Oxford.

Sunday: We took a day trip to Wales. The Brits seem to think that this was crazy. (Going between Oxford and Wales is comparable to going between LA and San Diego, so this seems perfectly reasonable to me.) Cardiff Castle was awesome! And I picked up a stuffed griffon along the way.

Monday: Today we toured Oxford. (I also had a brief foray to give my lecture.)

Quote of the Day

Today's quote comes from my father: "The internet is amazing."

By itself, this quote wouldn't be very interesting, but let's consider the context: First, my father is a luddite and is only just discovering the internet. Second, he doesn't go online himself. We were talking about the book "The Ascent of Man" and he wanted me to see how the author's name was spelled so that I'd be more likely to remember the guy's name. (I've heard of the book, of course, but not the author.) He had one of his office secretaries print out a page with the name---I was expecting to see the wikipedia page for the author, but it was actually the IMDB page---and that was when he uttered his comment. Maybe there is some hope after all, but there's another decade or so left to catch up... Anyway, the comment amused me greatly, given the context.

How to Interact with Airport Security

\begin{rant}

I think I am being uncontroversial in claiming that the following should be obvious: When at an airport (or dropping someone off at the airport), don't pick a fight with airport security. I'm not saying not to be annoyed with (or angered at, insulting by, etc.) some of the bullshit or to calmly ask for appropriate clarifications. I'm just saying that one shouldn't pick a fight when one isn't provoked. Simple.

OK, so one of my family members was dropping me off at the airport on Tuesday and our car was magically chosen for a very quick inspection (to open the trunk for a very brief look to make sure that we didn't have any dead bodies or counterfeit drugs in there). Fine. My reaction would be to have preferred not to be chosen but to take it in stride. The officer asked something like "Can I took a look in the trunk?" Notice the phrasing. It wasn't quite accurate because although he phrased it as a question, there wasn't really a choice involved (unless, of course, we were willing to just leave without my being dropped off). Now there are situations in which I might be anal if somebody phrased things this way (although in conversations I really only care whether I correctly understand the intended meaning), but this would not be one of them. My relative, on the other hand, decided to (a) try to answer no, (b) ask for a clarification and---in an extremely pissy manner---comment about the illusion of choice when there isn't any because of the inaccurate phrasing, and (c) be generally obnoxious. The officer asked very politely initially, so there wasn't any provocation with attitude, etc. (I have occasionally had interactions with rather insulting border patrol people, but my standard procedure even then is to suck it up and just do whatever action I think will get me through fastest. For such things, I am always attempting to do whatever optimizes how fast I get through---so not starting fights when they don't already exist is a good example of something I might do.) After the extreme pissiness, however, the officer was justifiably annoyed and was much less kind about things. We got through, and the look at the trunk took maybe 1/20th the amount of time as the unnecessary argument. Also, if one is going to express displeasure at such stuff (which I can understand), one can do it without picking a fight! Is it really so hard to be calm and polite when something doesn't quite go one's way? Sigh...

One of these days when I am at my parents' home, I swear I'm going to find the adoption papers that they've been hiding from me all these years...

\end{rant}

What happens in the Greater LA Area stays in the Greater LA Area

I am flying home to Los Angeles tomorrow and will be splitting my time between Caltech and Beverly Hills to visit friends, family, and collaborators. I arrive tomorrow evening and my plan for Sunday is to hang out with friends and eat meat.

Bring on the Fireworks

There are several reasons for celebration today.

On the familial side, my brother Adam turned 40 today (using decimal numbers). This round number is definitely worth a blog entry.

The official fireworks tonight were in honor of Guy Fawkes night, and like last year we had them in the Somerville quad. As I wrote last year, it's absolutely incredible to have fireworks in one's own backyard like this.

There were apparently also fireworks right after McCain's concession, but I was fast asleep and it didn't wake me up. After some conversations today, it became evident that the parties last night were in large part because of the expected outcome. The consensus over here is best summed up by a comment from one of my colleagues (which I am paraphrasing slightly because I can't remember the exact wording) during those conversations: "This election was a big victory for worldwide democracy." The general reaction here was one of elation, and that was from people from all sorts of cultural and world origins.

The one thing that seems to have gone wrong is the Prop 8 business in California, though I guess it's not officially sunk yet. (Hello, People? Others should be able to boink whomever they want and get the same legal benefits because it doesn't hinder your life in any way! Let them be!.)

What happens at Caltech stays at Caltech

I flew to California yesterday, and I am writing this entry from a couple of friends' apartment near the Caltech campus in Pasadena. I am here mainly for my 10-year reunion, though I have been sneaking in some work as well. I am attempting to remain in touch via e-mail and I am also having discussions with local collaborators (tomorrow especially will involve a bunch of research).

The reunion officially starts tomorrow. I will have a continental breakfast and (non-continental) dinner associated with it. On Saturday, I'll be going to an alumni bar-b-que and also giving a presentation on Caltech pranks (along with my Legends III coauthor and two of our contributors). While on campus today, I went to the campus bookstore to buy a copy of my own book. The person behind the desk managed not to notice. :)

One of my goals on this trip was to eat good beef, because that's a bit harder to come by in the UK. We were going to go to Gyu Kaku tonight, but we were late in the game getting our reservations in order, so we're going to Robin's instead. We're also going to be playing some Mario Kart for the Wii tonight, and I may sneak in some Rock Band as well. On Sunday, I'll be running a one-shot D & D game, and on Monday I will transfer over to Beverly Hills to spend some time with family and pre-college friends. On Monday night, I am going to the Dodger game against the Reds. (This will probably be the only baseball game I attend this year. Sigh...) I will fly back on Wednesday and arrive Thursday afternoon. I'll sadly have to almost certainly miss a talk I really wanted to see, but sacrifices had to be made. (I had to miss yesterday's Governing Body meeting, for example, which was such a shame.)

I still have some movies and mathematics articles to write about. I'll plan on trying to catch up on some of that when I get back. I also just had a BEC paper accepted today, so I'll blog on that one when the reprint is out.

The not-quite-regular cousin dinner

As some of you probably know, I have cousins. Lots of them, in fact. Among other things, this means that some of my ancestors apparently fucked like bunny rabbits. (OK, that statement's not technically accurate for numerous reasons, but I think it's funny, so it's staying.)

Occasionally, I even see my cousins---like tonight, when we got together for dinner at Island's in West LA. Islands is another of the restaurants I really like that I miss now that I am in the UK, so I was pleased when that was the suggested location. The group of cousins that met today were those on my father's side. This was the third of our "annual" dinners that has taken place during the last roughly 7 years.

On this occasion, only two cousins were missing: Brooke Porter, who is at home in New York at the moment (though we did talk to her briefly on the phone and passed the phone around the table); and Debbie Porter (the eldest), who has been AWOL for O(20) years. I'm pretty sure I actually met Debbie once. As far as I can tell, nobody even knows where or how to find her anymore. The youngest, Andrew Porter, is now in college at University of Arizona. His comment about USC was the best line of the night. ("USC is not a real school. It has a condom as a mascot!") Jeffrey Porter is the brother of Brooke, Andrew, and Debbie. Their father is Jack Porter, the youngest of the three original Porter brothers. (And, yes, they were "original" in some sense, because the family name was changed to Porter upon their entry into the U.S. for reasons for prejudice---that is, to try to avoid it---and pronounceability.)

The middle of the original Porter brothers is Abe, whose hair currently resembles that of Shirley Temple (except for its gray color). His kids are Scott Porter (the second oldest member of the family present tonight) and Leslie Porter.

My father, Samuel, is the oldest of the three original Porter brothers. My brother Adam was today's elder statesman. My sister Tamara (Tammy) was also present.

Among the Porter cousins, Adam, Tammy, Jeffrey, and Leslie live in Los Angeles. Andrew's official home is still here at some level, though he only comes back during college breaks at this point. Note that 7 of us came to dinner, and we used 6 cars to do it. I was the only one sensible enough to mooch a ride.

I'm tempted to make comments about the baldness rank-ordering among the males, but maybe I'll just get ahold of recent pictures at some point and post them.

Now let's see how long it takes for snarky comments to show up...

Father's Day dinner

I just got back from Father's Day dinner with my family at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. I had an excellent piece of cow and an excellent creme brulee, and I put up with the usual shenanigans from my family.

I'm not going to get into it because I'd mostly be repeating rants I've already made (with maybe one or two new twists, but I'd rather resist the urge to get overly ranty) and it's just not worth it (and also not that interesting). The short version is that the way I see it, my family wants to be part of so-called "high society". As I think all of you know, I piss on high society because it's such a bunch of bullshit.

Anyway, I'm going to stop now before I rant about the new twists. I need to go deal with my newfound toilet leak anyway.