Lift Up Your Hearts!

UPDATE:  The Second Edition of Phoebe's Quilt, corrected and expanded, is now available.

My sister-in-law found it in a trunk: an old, handmade quilt. Each block was inscribed with a name, often a city, and sometimes a Bible verse. The cities and many of the surnames were familiar, but no name was identifiable as that of someone in the family. Who were these people? Whose quilt was it, and when was it made? And how did it end up in Prudence's trunk?

Far be it from me to resist a genealogical puzzle, especially when it can be turned into a Christmas present:  I would use my genealogical resources to decipher the quilt, and turn my research into a book to put under the tree.  Little did I know how much of my life this little project would consume; I'm certain the quilt itself was completed in less time.

Did I say completed?  I doubt I've ever used that word in a genealogical context unless accompanied by "not" or "never."  But Christmas will come whether or not we are ready, and thus I was saved from my perfectionist tendencies.  The project is as done as it is going to get, barring a second edition. (More)

You read it here first:  Steven Perezluha, who this summer rode his bicycle from Florida to Alaska and back, has blown away the record for climbing the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning.  His uncle, Danny Chew, had held the record at 101 times; that was broken earlier this month by triathlete Diana Marongiu-Lutz.  I hope to have more details (and perhaps a link to a news story) later.

Steven's record-setting climb:  132 times!

UPDATE December 31, 2009

Nothing yet from the Pittsburgh papers, but Danny Chew's website has more details than you want to know and some pictures.  Several other people joined them for the climb; too bad the former record holder wasn't there to defend her title.

Steven and Danny began their climb at 6:00 a.m. on December 26, and finished 23 hours and 52 minutes later at 5:52 a.m. December 27.  Danny broke his own record by ascending 112 times.  Steven's record-obliterating climb was a Double Everest:  twice the distance from sea levelto the top of Mount Everest.

Not all sports photos show athletes looking their best.  But I think I'd look this bad after being awake for 24 hours—never mind climbing Mt. Everest twice.

Photo credit: The Perezluha Family

The trouble with being a reasonably regular poster is that people start to worry when you get too busy to write.  When someone in Europe asks your daughter if everything's okay because she hasn't seen you on Facebook lately...you have to start thinking maybe your online life has been a little too active.  Be that as it may, herewith a few highlights.  Recently we have:

• Awakened to a Winter Wonderland.
• Shovelled two and a half feet of snow.^*
• Zoomed down a hill on fast sleds.
• Enjoyed hot cocoa and a toasty fire.
• Played games.  Lots of games.
• Celebrated a nephew's first college acceptance letter.
• Finished (although that's a relative term) a huge genealogical Christmas present project.  (To be posted here eventually.)
• Enjoyed cello, clarinet, and guitar music (though not enough).
• Listened to Bartholomew's Passage.
• Made dream cookies.
• Ate dream cookies.  And kringle.  And M&Ms.
• Watched A Charlie Brown Christmas.
• Stayed up too late.
• Had a wonderful time visiting friends and family.
• Sneezed.  (Some of the friends and family had cats.)
• Played at the Connecticut Science Center.
• Enjoyed a few presents and a whole lot of presence.

And it's not even Christmas yet!

First, our daughter turns 30.  Then over Thanksgiving I had the privilege of taking my first nephew-driven car ride (and a great job he did, too).  And if that weren't enough, today another nephew received his first college acceptance letter!

John C. Wright is a science fiction writer, but his essay, On Writer's Block struck me for its wider applicability in his assertion that even the best advice can be counterproductive if it doesn't fit the personality of the recipient.  [The emphasis below is mine.]

Each writer approaches his craft in a different way, and advice from one writer to another is useful if and only if you happen to be a writer of the same method and temperament as the first.

Robert Heinlein famously used to advise would-be writers never to rewrite their first drafts, except at an editor’s suggestion. Unless you are a ditherer, that is, someone who wastes his limited writing time rewriting scenes that are already saleworthy, this advice is not useful, or indeed may be counterproductive. Heinlein was warning against the pitfalls of perfectionism. But if you are not a perfectionist, and not a ditherer, the advice is counterproductive, because writers who should rewrite are being told not to. Heinlein was a First Draft man: he could breeze off printable copy his first try. His books sold on the strength of their wittiness, readability, and speculative ideas: one strongly suspects he never went back to his first chapter to set up some plot twist he invented for the last.

If you do not write like him, merely able to breeze off finely crafted copy in your first try, then do not take his advice. Frankly, I thought this one of the worst pieces of writing advice ever, because I suffer the opposite vice. I write impromptu and I like to stick with my first instinct, and therefore I do not rewrite often enough. Hence Heinlein’s advice was the opposite of what someone like me should be told.

Every bit of writing craft advice is only good for you to the degree that it applies to your situation. In this example, Dithering Perfectionists should follow Heinlein’s advice, and never rewrite except at an editor’s suggestion. Impromptuarians should follow the opposite advice that all writing is rewriting.

The catch, of course, is that Impromptuarians are inclined to snatch at the advice best for Dithering Perfectionists, and vice versa.  Back in the late 1970s and early 80s, we were frequently urged to do less driving and more walking, advice that I followed with alacrity and even a bit of pride.  Alas, there was no virtue in my environmentally-correct response, since at the time getting behind the wheel of a car tended to bring on panic attacks.  What I needed to do, at that particular moment, was to walk less, drive more, and conquer my phobia.

The Franklin Insitute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I don't remember my first visit to the Franklin Institute; I believe it must have been on some visit to Philadelphia when I was very young; all I remember was walking through the heart.  Later, however, we moved to the Philadelphia area, and were regular visitors.  For two summers I worked in the Franklin Institute Research Labs in the building next door, and even more important to me than my paycheck was the ID badge that allowed me to take the tunnel between the buildings and spend most of my lunch hours in the museum.

After he retired, my dad became a Franklin Institute volunteer, and it was natural for him to take his grandchildren there when they came to visit.  By that time, the museum had grown an addition, with new exhibits that made it look like any modern science museum, but the kids' favorite, and my own, was the old building, with its greater educational content and more detailed, written information with each exhibit.  Now Dad's grandchildren have children of their own, and on our recent visit to Philadelphia we all looked forward to watching them delight in our old favorites.

The great-grandkids were happy enough, but the rest of us were somewhat disappointed.  To our delight, the heart is still there, as is the train that Dad used to drive as one of his docent duties (it's easier to keep a 350-ton locomotive than to get rid of one) but the "new building" style has now infected the old building, too.  Many of our favorite exhibits are gone, replaced by displays designed for shorter attention spans and lesser literacy.  The math room that had kept our kids entranced for hours was nowhere to be found, and when I finally asked a docent, "Excuse me, it's been a long time since I was here last, and I can't find the math room," he replied, "It has been a long time since you've visited; they took that out years ago."

It took a bit of effort, but we did find Newton's Dream, the kinetic sculpture that so entranced Heather as a child.  It's in a different place now, and has been cut down in size, but that didn't stop the children from following it with the same fascination.  Also riveting was Der Lauf der Dinge, a Swiss-made movie of a 30-minute Rube Goldberg setup with lots of pyrotechnics and impressive chemical reactions.  Thanks to the magic of YouTube, you, too, can see this amazing performance, albeit broken into three segments.  (Here are the links as well, since I note that embedded videos don't always show up in feedreaders:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Lest I be seen as a totally hopeless conservative who never likes anything new, the museum's newest exhibit, Amazing Machine, is also excellent, and we could have spent much longer playing with its cams, gears, pulley, and linkages had we not been nearing the end of our visit.  (Heather:  That's what I want for Christmas.  You can turn a mechanical engineer into a joyful homemaker, but the engineer is still there.)

The American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York

On my first visit to the American Museum of Natural History I was probably about as young as when I first encountered the Franklin Institute, but in this case nearly half a century elapsed between visits.  The AMNA, however, shows more respect for its old exhibits, and the wonderful dioramas that are all I remember from my first visit are still featured, with all their high information content and long descriptions to read.  I could easily have spent the entire day among them.  Porter found one, the African buffalo, that was sponsored by George Eastman, and remarked, "He sponsored the Buffalo because there is no animal named Rochester, but he should have sponsored the Kodiak bear."  Yes, we're still married; I happen to like that kind of humor.

The museum has several new exhibits as well as the old, most of which were quite good.  There was a bit of a "politically correct" feel in a few places, but it was not unbearable, and in general the educational value and written descriptions were sufficient.  Despite my primary concern for material to read, I am also particularly sensitive to the layout of displays—color, font, background, use and placement of images and other media—and this, too, the AMNH exhibits did well.

One disappointment was the Hall of Minerals, chiefly because whoever is responsible for lighting must have been on vacation.  For several months.  It was dark.  At first I thought the gloom was meant to provide contrast to the brilliance of the minerals and gems, but many of the lights that should have been highlighting the rocks were also out.  We very nearly missed the famous Star of India because it was in the dark.

In addition to the old favorites, we signed up for several special exhibits and shows.  Traveling the Silk Road was disappointing, but only because I had expected the most from it.  It was well done, but crowded, with not as much information as I had hoped and not enough time in the crowd to do justice to what was there.   The best part was the section on silk making and sericulture.

I believe Journey to the Stars was a better-than-average planetarium show (more information, less mindless entertainment), but unfortunately I responded the way I always do when faced with a movie or movie-like substance in a dark room, awakening only at the end.

The Butterfly Conservatory was interesting, though I think I've seen more fluttering in the butterfly garden at our own Leu Gardens.

Frogs:  A Chorus of Colors was great; Heather would have loved it.  Except the part where we learned about the devastation being wrought by the chytrid fungus.

Where Bd [Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis] thrives, generally in moist cool habitats, 50% of amphibian species and 80% of individuals can be expected to disappear within one year.... Currently it cannot be stopped in the wild and a minority of species seem able to survive with a Bd infection as larvae or as adults and these animals likely serve as a reservoir and vectors for future outbreaks. Notable among resistant species are worldwide invasive pest species including marine toads, American bullfrogs and African clawed frogs.