Astronomy for Beginners

See that guy's sweet face? He seems nice, but he is a killer. He's the guy who was not happy until he killed Pluto. No, he was happy. He has a very full life with love, marriage and fatherhood. He was sort of happy when he thought he had discovered a 10th planet. But his scientific brain wasn't satisfied until they had a good definition of what a planet should be. Well, actually, that's not true. But you have to read How I Killed Pluto And Why It Had It Coming to understand his dilemma once he and his group had found a celestial body that is bigger than Pluto.

One of the reasons I enjoyed this book is that he works at Cal Tech in Pasadena. Many of Adrian's best friends work or studied at Cal Tech. One is an astronomer. So I spent much of the book thinking about the connections and wondering if they overlapped with this story. Adrian's astronomer friend works at the big telescope in Chile that plays a big part in the story. He's only been there three years, so he got there after the big discovery. But these guys seem to always be looking for the next big thing, so he is probably helping with that.

Another reason I was drawn to this book is that I like scientists who write well. Richard Feynman also wrote his fascinating books while he worked at Cal Tech. Brown has a similar down to earth method of explaining things. Maybe I just like people who are able to explain complex things simply. You know, simple enough for me to understand. Brown also seems to have a good sense of humor. He named his dwarf planet Eris. That's her picture below. Finding Eris raised a real shxx-storm in the scientific community. It seems that the goddess Eris had that ability too.

Truth in Blogging

Now I've become interested in health care in China. After mentioning my reading at lunch yesterday, one of the women seemed to be quite knowledgeable, certainly much more knowledgeable than I was after reading one book. She says that China has/had health care for many of it's workers who worked in factories. She indicated that this has changed as situations change in China.

A cursory look at a Google search tells me that there is health care, but it is overwhelmed. I guess more reading and research is required. It seems, though, after reading one book, that circumstances are different in the cities and in the country. It also seems that local corruption may influence what really happens locally. We'll see.

The lunch was with three women from PALAC. One is my old boss Bill's wife, Jaine. Another is Audrey who barely remembers that we have met often. And Judy, another friend of Jaine and Bill's who has recently joined PALAC. We were inspecting the site of two wine tastings we are holding, one in May and one in August. It's an interesting location. The food is overpriced, but the wine seems to be fairly priced. They do cold storage there if you really love wine. The wine tastings should be a lot of fun. I know it was fun to chat with these three fascinating women.

But now I do really need to learn more about China.

Country Driving

Country Driving is a very good book. The first part is about driving around the Great Wall of China. That was interesting. Besides learning about the Great Wall, you learn a bit about Chinese bureaucracy and customs. I thought this was going to be a travelogue, but it isn't really. I think its a very good way to get a view of China outside of its cities. Look at the policeman in the picture above. He's made of plexiglass. This figures aren't just in the country, they are in the cities. All with the hope of taming Chinese traffic.

I know some of you have been to China and have seen that mess. Cars without dings are the ones that are coming off the factory floor. Everybody else has dings. Hessler rents a house outside Beijing in the second part of this book. He becomes attached to a family there, driving them to emergencies and becoming a part of their lives. And we learn about the life of one of the millions of entrepreneurs in this country. And we learn more about the role of women. It is as you would expect.

We also learn that China does not have universal health care. Aren't they Communists? Isn't that what we are afraid of becoming when we get think about health care in America? Once again, we are sorely misinformed.

Finally Hessler investigates a factory in one of China's Economic Zones. This is where American jobs are going. What's funny is that Chinese businessmen are like our impressions of American business owners. At least the greedy ones. No unions (aren't they Communist inspired groups?) and no regard for worker's health or well-being. Really, if you think about it, if you have hundreds of millions of casual laborers, why worry about losing a few?

Read this. Or read a different good book about China outside it's politics.

A PALAC Emergency

I think I'm losing my desire to B-log. There is far too much naval gazing going on in this house. So much so that I became infatuated with a very odd mushroom growing in the front yard. A fungus. Oh dear.

And we went on a wonderful trip weekend before last to the Bay Area. My eldest nephew and, more accurately, his wife, are expecting their first child. Pretty exciting. But no pictures. All the No Cal relations were there and besides Adrian and I, Jeff and Sandi flew up from San Diego. It was a wonderful event. The almost-grandmothers were there and thrilled. Mark and Trina looked happy about their pending son, who will arrive mid-May. Nice people are born mid-May, so I expect a lot of him.

But now we are home again. Mushroom gazing. We have new neighbors. I'd say aging hippies, but he is closer to 40 than the requisite 60. His wife thinks he looks like John Lennon. Humm. Not. But it pleases her, so okay. John Lennon.

It's not that life is boring. I'm listening to several books. I've decided to read Lords of Finance since Karen has now read it. Adrian has tried forever to get me to read it and I demurred. Reading. It's a skill I reserve for very few books. But now I'm thinking that I might hold a discussion group at PALAC if it's as good as K&A say.

On Saturday we had a PALAC emergency. I've started working in the office two days a week. Others are trying to publish the official handbook and had a Word problem. I jumped on my horse and rode to the rescue. Not really. It's just that the woman who was doing it hates Word. She had thrown in the towel, couldn't get the darn page numbers right. My solution? I deleted the page numbers. It's only 17 pages long. And those of us who use Kindles are used to not having page numbers. Maybe I should have put a little gauge at the bottom to show you how far you are in the text. Or you could look. See. They really need my skills.

Audible had a $5.00 sale of books. I bought a bunch of mysteries. two books about driving or training through Asia, esp. China, ScrewTape Letters, True Grit, old Swedish mysteries. Now I can't decide what to listen to. See, it's a pretty exciting life. If you like to watch mushrooms grow.