Life + Times of Fenton et al.

  • Democracy Gets What It Deserves; Or, How Five Minutes with the Average Voter …

    Suppose two politicians are running for president, and one goes through the farm section and is asked, “What are you going to do about the farm question?” And he knows right away – bang, bang, bang. Now he goes to the next campaigner who comes through. “What are you going to do on the farm problem?” “Well, I don’t know. I used to be a general, and I don’t know anything about farming. But it seems to me it must be a very difficult problem, because for twelve, fifteen, twenty years people have been struggling with it, and people say that they know how to solve the farm problem. And it must be a hard problem. So the way I intend to solve the farm problem is to gather around me a lot of people who know something about it, to look at all the experience that we have had with this problem before, to take a certain amount of time at it, and then to come to some conclusion in a reasonable way about it. Now, I can’t tell you ahead of time what solution, but I can give you some of the principles I’ll try to use – not to make things difficult for individual farmers, if there are any special problems we will have to have some way to take care of them,” etc., etc., etc.

    Now such a man would never get anywhere in this country, I think. It’s never been tried, anyway. This is in the attitude of mind of the populace, that they have to have an answer and that a man who gives an answer is better than a man who gives no answer, when the real fact of the matter is, in most cases, it is the other way around. And the result of this of course is that the politician must give an answer. And the result of this is that political promises can never be kept. It is a mechanical fact; it is impossible. The result of that is that nobody believes campaign promises. And the result of that is a general disparaging of politics, a general lack of respect for the people who are trying to solve problems, and so forth. It’s all generated from the very beginning (maybe – this is a simple analysis). It’s all generated, maybe, by the fact that the attitude of the populace is to try to find the answer instead of trying to find a man who has a way of getting at the answer.

    – Richard Feynman, Lecture III: “This Unscientific Age”

    Here we see that democracy can be self-defeating in solving its constituent’s problems if/when the populace tends to pre-select simple non-solutions to complex problems. Or as post-elected Donald J. Trump once said, “nobody knew that health care could be so complicated”.

  • Christmas 2017

    Who doesn’t love a good protest?

  • Christmas 2016

    Christmas is all about family … and running through them to score a well-worked rugby try.
    White Christmas. Though I’ve never dreamed of it, Utah does a pretty decent job of making sure it happens.

    plus a couple more photos taken this festive season.

  • Giving Thanks Near a Hole

    Thanksgiving is one of the American holidays that I really enjoy and wish there were equivalents in other cultures and countries – closest in some sense in Australia might have been the short-lived Family Day in Canberra, now Reconciliation Day – that at least focused on gratitude in the title, even if not in function. But not being tied to strong family traditions in how one celebrates it, Ari requested/desired/directed we use that time to see Something Significant™️. That turned out to be the Grand Canyon.

    It was a reasonable drive of ~7 hours to base camp at Flagstaff, Arizona, giving us time to chat and listen to the now-mandatory-for-road-trips Cake‘s Comfort Eagle album. I’m also partial to Paul Simon’s Graceland for long trips.

    Before even getting to the Big Hole, there are plenty of other interesting sites to see in the area, including the Wupatki National Monument, which we visited the day before Thanksgiving. This place is full of Native American archaeological sites and a very interesting geological blowhole (with air continuously escaping from a cave system). There’s plenty to learn from a people who could live in such an environment, though it’s not a day-to-day existence I really envy.

    This is how we conquer national monuments, apparently. Stylishly and with photographic evidence.
    To be honest, it was like that before Bryna got there.
    Ruins on the way to more ruins at the top of the hill.
    This place even had a sports arena.
    An underground cavity with a permanently exiting wind makes for a lot of fun and some dramatic hair.

    Thanksgiving Day itself saw a trip the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Being from the Southern Hemisphere, I’m used to November being a time of warming weather. Despite the clear and sunny skies, it was definitely on the cooler side and one of the children kindly loaned me their beanie. Or placed it on my head for safe keeping. Sometimes it’s a fine line between receiving charity and being a functional hat stand.

    We are not joking, it’s huuuge.
    We did our best to liven the place up but it’s pretty impressive just by itself.

    Of course, travelling with Gaynor means no celebratory family dinners go unrequited and she, once again, found and organised some delicious comestibles to treat us. Another upside was, given the weather, no fridge was needed to keep the opened food from spoiling.

    Not your traditional or much-storied American Thanksgiving dinner but neither are we.

    During the day we took in the various angles and sights along the South Rim (I mentioned it’s pretty sizeable right?) and we made our last stand on the far eastern portion as the sun was setting. Still cold.

    Golden but still cold-en.

    Before heading home the next day we managed a quick and informative visit to Walnut Canyon National Monument, a deep (110m) and fairly steep canyon featuring numerous abandoned dwellings in the cliffs from a pre-Columbian people. I understand they left the area due to the mobile phone coverage.

    Exploring the cliff dwellings of the Sinagua people and wondering where they kept their televisions.

  • Micah’s Eighth

    We were fortunate to be able to have a number of members of extended family and friends join us for Micah’s eighth birthday. Traditionally, in our faith, eight is the age at which children are baptised — formally joining the faith — and thus, a significant event for them and family. Though we had moved further away from some family (but closer to others), with enough planning family — including Rochelle and her family, my parents, Martin and his family, as well as Elijah — were all able to converge for a few days to help celebrate both events.

    We held a loosely-based-on-Star-Wars brunch party for Micah’s birthday on the day itself, settling into a favourite spot in Balboa Park. The party itself was a more traditional Australian fare, with homemade food and games that Gaynor and I had enjoyed as children and that we had done at many of the other children’s earlier parties. Gaynor baked up cinnamon rolls (a-la Princess Leia’s iconic New Hope hair), fruit platter, lolly lightsabers on the cupcakes, and Jabba the Hutt meringues. Ariana and Bryna were great at taking the lead in running the games, including egg and spoons races, pass-the-parcel, lightsaber battles (half pool noodles were a great hit, literally), a water bomb fight, and a homemade Jedi training remote piñata.

    Bryna & Micah teach the American children at Micah’s 8th birthday party a traditional British/Australia children’s game of Pass the Parcel (parcel itself is mid-child, upper left).
    The children’s homemade lightsabers (blue-painted broom handles with a grip-wrapped & decorated end) were put to good use, beating the snot (or at least candy) out of a homemade Jedi training remote.

    The baptism itself was a week later with some local-ish and not-so-usually-local friends (Oliver and Vanessa!) joining us for the service. We try to have this as a seperate event from the birthday as it’s significant in it’s own right but also so that the out and out fun of a birthday bash doesn’t become convoluted with the more solemn but joyful time of the baptism.

    It’s always good spending time just hanging out, chatting with family, generally catching up, and being in each other’s lives again in a more immediate way but attending the LDS temple together draws out another important, spiritual aspect of our relationships. Having the San Diego Temple only twenty minutes drive (plus traffic!) from our home is a marked benefit to living here. Occasions such as these remind me how grateful I am for family and friends and all that they bring to my life!

    Some family members who made the trek for Micah’s baptism (& 8th birthday celebration) gather outside the LDS San Diego Temple.

  • Travels and Farewells with the Children

    Part of the deal of moving back to the US was that Gaynor — who I had to do a lot of negotiating with — would get to see her children at least once a year. For those that we brought with us, that was never going to be a problem. For those that had their own lives already running in Australia, it would be more of a challenge. Josh & Mara flew over to spend some time with us from Thanksgiving through to Gaynor’s birthday in mid-January. It coincided with end-of-academic year and summer holidays for them, so it worked out well. Apart from the usual sparkling banter, we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with some family on the same continent …

    The also now traditional Thanksgiving Day Dinner. Glad to be had with family!

    … played some cricket …

    We couldn’t find a nearby cricket field and so a little used baseball diamond with ‘natural’ wickets was the order of the day.
    Micah has a go while Ari is prepared in case he really connects with it. Josh tidies up behind the stumps.

    … enjoyed a tour of the Anza-Borrego Desert with friends …

    We tried to stand there and enjoy the grandeur of nature but just couldn’t stomach it for very long. We are shallow people.
    Just like the Mormon Battalion may have tried, everyone has a go at getting out vertically.

    … and spent time together at the beach.

    Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, even daylight. Gaynor’s birthday wish was a bit of time together watching the sun set at the beach.

  • 2015 in Review / 2016 Ahead

    Gaynor has been through a bigger year this year than many in recent memory. Apart from the turmoil at the beginning of the year with a husband looking for work and the uncertainty that meant of where she may end up living, Gaynor carried on with quite a few hours of part-time work at the local schools. Then I left for the US and she took on the tasks of organising to ship our goods, selling, throwing or giving away what we weren’t taking with us. On top of that, cleaning and final preparations for renting the house kept the stress levels at DefCon 4 until leaving for the US in mid-July. She seemed fairly happy to have me around again and so I took that as a good sign.

    The rest of the year was re-acclimating to southern California for everything that was the same as last time and acclimating to the new things about San Diego. Drivers licences, getting the children into school and dealing with that bureaucracy, setting up more of the house, unpacking our goods when they arrived, … you get the idea.

    This year promises to be not much less eventful than recent ones. Though she’ll still have all the children on the forefront of her mind with only three needing immediate, at-hand help she has a little more time available. She expects to fill that, initially, with volunteer work and — probably around late August, after the children return for the new school year — will be looking for paid employment. Exactly what is yet to be determined but she’s not a great fan of typical US employment practices.

    Joshua After a tough last half of 2014, Josh continued working on his comedy, developing and performing various shows at a number of locations around Canberra and Melbourne. He resumed his university studies in the second half of this year, moving in with a couple of friends after we fled the country. I think 2016 will be more of the same with shows at the Canberra Comedy Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival already on his radar, as well as running a room in Canberra that regularly hosts comedy acts. University may also get a look in as well, if nothing else, ‘to keep Mum & Dad happy’.

    Elijah continued his volunteer missionary work in New Zealand and is set to complete that late June/early July. He has been enjoying his time there and sends almost weekly updates about his activities. We look forward to spending more time with him again when he returns. Unfortunately, my work visa conditions means that he won’t be able to stay with us longer than three months unless he decides he wants to stay on his own terms, say as a student. I don’t think anything is set in stone at this point, so we’ll see how it turns out as the year progresses.

    Mara successfully completed her first year of university studies where she is undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance. She has really enjoyed the learning, the fresh challenges, and the performances. I don’t think she has enjoyed the regular early mornings so much, taking strongly after her father in that regard. Her and Josh were both able to join us in the US for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was just lovely to have them around, enjoying regular interactions again. There’s been plenty of laughing to be had. 🙂 Mara is looking at another year of the same — more challenges, more learning — as she develops her talents. Contrary to her opinion, I don’t think she needs to develop her chocolate eating skill set much further.

    Ariana closed out 2015 having starting Year 11 twice, once in Canberra and again in San Diego. As always, she’s been taking her studies very seriously — the common thread between both high schools was the International Baccalaureate program she enrolled in — and continuing to try her hand at all and sundry extra-curricular activities. In Canberra, outside of her school’s purview, she played cricket during the summer, representing the ACT in regional competitions as well as playing in a local boys team. In school in San Diego she’s become involved with the academic league (glorified trivia) and improv groups, and helping in the library. Outside of school she’s followed in her older brothers’ footsteps and has taken up rugby. They have a seven-a-side season first with a few high schools combining to field a team, followed by a full 15-a-side round of games. The latter most depends on how many girls they can recruit to join up. Having watched a lot of rugby over time as well as plenty of backyard mucking about with her siblings, she has a good sense of the game and how it’s played. Now she just needs to further develop the skills to go with that. With this year having two weeks away from home at Girl’s camp and FSY.

    Bryna enjoyed her last semester at her school in Canberra, participating in many sports as well as bringing home a decent report card. Ballet is still her main activity besides schooling and she’s keen to take that as far as she can. We loved her dance school in Canberra and part of the challenge of a transition to a new area is re-finding institutions of this nature that will be up to the standard — not to mention sporting the right kind of culture — that will enable reaching one’s potential. She’s been attending two different schools, with a class each, and it looks like one is more our style of place so she’ll continue there, picking up more classes.

    Micah didn’t find the first school we enrolled him in particularly satisfying. Lunch and recess breaks that were too short left him not enough time to make friends. Since Micah is a very sociable, this is, in our opinion, much more of an indictment on the system and format they had at the school. We managed to wrangle him into another nearby charter school that follows principles and guides much more inline with our preferences. They even offer German as the second language, which works well around our house. 🙂

    Fenton mostly feels like he’s been doing whatever has been needed to provide for the family. He finds it easier to think of this in the third person. 🙂 I think the new job should work out well on a long term basis — as long as they don’t fire me for incompetence — with plenty of opportunities in a thriving research environment. So, you know, should be good that way.

  • Christmas 2015

    Wishing all an enjoyable Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Also, this is how we regularly prepare dinner.

  • Odd Three Months

    I’ve been Stateside for a few weeks now and I’m looking down the barrel of another couple of months before Gaynor and the younger three join me. Due to a variety of circumstances — children’s schooling, house readiness, and a need for income among them — we are doing this move differently. I’m going ahead to start work, find a place to live, schools, vehicles, and buy half a household and Gaynor is staying with the children to sort, sell, throw, and ship our goods and to finish getting the house ready to rent. We’ve decided to not sell it. So much work has gone into it that, in short, I’m not ready to part with it yet. It will also be nice to have a sizeable asset we can return to at some point.

    Both Gaynor and I have our work cut out for us. I know Gaynor will get a lot of help from our fabulous friends nearby but I think it will still be very stressful for her. On the other side, I have a lot of research to do and big decisions to make and the don’t always lend themselves to an afternoon of cool, calm collectedness.

    I’ve also realised that the oddest thing about these three months is that it will be the longest I have ever lived by myself. Growing up with parents, grandparents, and six siblings in the same house you get used to always having someone (usually many someones) around or, on those precious few occasions when you are by yourself, someone about to be around. Given that our children showed up early in our marriage, that feeling never really went away. Though I do not doubt my self-sufficiency skills to survive in an apartment by myself, it will be strange walking into a room you have previously tidied and find it in the same state.

  • Into the West (by Heading East)

    One of the downsides of physics research can be the unpredictable nature of the funding. While there are plenty of instances where physics research can almost immediately be made into a commercial product (thus justifying its value in the minds of some, I’m sure), there are many others where the research is ‘pure’ or with such a long term before its intended payoff that, really, the only moneyed interest is a government.

    Our return to Australia was on the basis of a fixed contract, as part of a defined project. And while it has been extended on a couple of occasions, the short of it is, there isn’t sufficient on-going funding. This isn’t news to me — nor should it be to anyone in Australia with an inkling of the system here — but we had initially hoped that it would parlay into something more permanent. After all, you never quite know how things will pan out or where you’ll end up!

    During the past year, I’ve come to the understanding, with my position and skill set, that it would either be not physics or not Australia. Since we had bought a house and were generally living a good life, I spent considerable time pondering ‘not physics’. Teaching secondary school, a role in IT, patent attorney, physics outreach, and technology transfer were some of the opportunities I considered and pursued. And while I have no problem with working your way up from the bottom the couple I thought I would quite enjoy doing meant extra schooling and a significant cut in initial pay. So, though money has never been a main motivator for me, I did still have children to support and they don’t get any cheaper as they get older.

    As per my usual technique when I’m looking for employment, I told anyone and everyone. I’ve found offers often seem to come in the most serendipitous way when you are really chasing them down and this time was no exception. A 10 minute conversation with a collaborator of a colleague, who used my office during a short-term stay, meant he passed my resumé and relevant publications onto his colleagues in a different area of where he worked. They had a job advertised that had slipped through my searches. A call in January asked me if I was interested in pursuing a position with them. At this time, through other channels and means, I already had two other offers and so, eventually, it came down to three places that wanted to employ me for the skills I already had. To be sure, a nice position to be in, though not one of them was in reasonable commuting distance of our house.

    The decision to move back to the US — and San Diego is not a bad place to end up — was the most difficult one of all our moves. There was a lot of discussion, negotiation, and a few conditions put in place. And even though I believe it was the best long term choice and we’ve done it three times before, it won’t make the move really any easier. I do think, however, that it will likely be our last for some time.