I'd hoped I would have a big announcement to share with everyone as the year came to an end. There's a new award, sponsored by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Children's Book Council, for books with mathematical themes. You'd think I'd be a natural, right? Well, I thought so too, and convinced the folks at Royal Fireworks that we should go for it. But alas, it was not to be. Maybe next time.

I told myself I wasn't going to let it bother me, but of course it did. I've been processing it slowly over the past couple of weeks. As someone who always did well in school (not to mention the son of two teachers), I think I've always paid too much attention to awards and prizes. It's not healthy. And in this particular instance, I pinned too much of my upcoming marketing strategy around winning, or at least making the short list. What's that they say about counting your chickens. Now I have to come up with Plan B.

Meanwhile, though, in my publisher's holiday greeting he said he's very pleased that we have three Mathematical Nights books out now, and I just got a Christmas card from an old college friend who said she was happy to hear that I'm persevering with my math stories. Those were much better things to hear. But the experience of the past month has been the latest teachable moment for a lesson I still need to work on.

Why do we write? Why do we do anything, really? Whenever I think about that, and really get down to the core of the question, there's only one conclusion I can reach.

The work is its own answer. The work is the only answer.

The world today is way too obsessed with "winning." If you don't believe that, look no farther than the Donald Trump presidential campaign. But "winning" depends on a lot of things that are beyond any one person's control. So many other people are involved, and so many other random things are happening - to be a "winner," you have to have all of them line up just right, and to stay a "winner," you must somehow keep them all lined up. Don't get me wrong - it's fun to win. But it's also easy to get so caught up in "winning" that you forget what you were originally trying to do.

On the other hand, if you focus on giving your best to whatever it is you feel drawn to, you can find your way to your own "success." It doesn't matter what your thing is - it can be writing or engineering or caring for others or building a family or whatever. The one thing you need to remember, though, is that it can't be about you. In my case, it's about creating better stories, and not about whether other people recognize me for them. If you want to get spiritual about it - and I often do - it's about responding to your calling, to something beyond yourself that's more important than yourself.

It's Christmastime, which means there's a lot of talk about what we're going to get. But maybe we need to spend a little time considering what we already have, that can never be taken away.

Add a Comment

Every once in a while, people ask me why I always write female main characters. It makes me a little self-conscious sometimes, like I'm violating some kind of forbidden gender barrier.

When I was younger, I didn't write female characters very well. My ex-wife taught me how to do that when we wrote together, and then during my spec script phase, when I was trying to break in to Hollywood, I started connecting with some of the female characters in the shows I was trying to write. Some of the women in the various Star Trek series, mostly, but also Dana Scully and both Ace and Benny from the Doctor Who novels of the 90s. And then came Buffy, which changed everything. (Interestingly, Buffy had a female main character and was initially written by a man. I may have some big philosophical differences with Joss Whedon, but we also agree on some important things.)

These days, I write female main characters because they're the ones who talk to me. It's like they represent a different part of my personality that uses my writing to express itself. (And actually, when that part of me shows up in my dreams, it always has a female face.) The younger generations with their ideas about "gender fluidity" may understand that notion, but those ideas aren't exactly what I'm getting at. My reasons are much more abstract.

One of the things that struck me about anime and other Japanese storytelling is that in Japan it's very common for men to write stories with female main characters. (It's also common for women to write stories with male main characters, in case you were wondering.) There are many different reasons why these stories are written, though, and many different roles these characters play. And some are better than others.

Obviously, a lot of these characters are fantasy fulfillment of one type or another. There are the busty girls who like to take a lot of baths or who get their clothes torn in strategic locations while fighting monsters. There are also the moe girls, for guys who want someone to protect and nurture like a pet or something. I've learned how to recognize both types and stay away from them. There are other variations on this theme, though, and some of them are actually interesting. A few years ago, there was Moshidora, a story in which a teenage girl uses a classic book on business management to guide her school's baseball team into the national tournament. Wish fulfillment for middle-aged businessmen, to see a cute high school girl embracing their ideals? Sure. But at least it's something different.

My own personal role model, though, is Hayao Miyazaki. He's written an action heroine like Nausicaa or a more traditionally girly character like Kiki. He's written young characters like Ponyo and Mei, and old characters like Yubaba and Zeniba (or Sophie Hatter, who managed to be both). My own personal favorite has to be Spirited Away's Chihiro. There's a lot of her in Jasmine Wu, my main character in Unswept Graves, but she shows up in other characters as well.



Many people have asked Miyazaki why he's written so many female main characters, and he had this to say:

"I don't logically plan it that way. When we compare a man in action and a girl in action, I feel girls are more gallant. ... At first, I thought "this is no longer the era of men. This is no longer the era of taigimeibun. [i.e. justification, justice, or a big good cause] But after ten years, I grew tired of saying that. I just say 'cause I like women.' That has more reality."

Okay, so the moral of the story is... if a big, fancy explanation doesn't work, go with something plain and simple. I'll have to remember that.

Add a Comment

Fear, fear, fear! I'm sick to death of it.



The loud, noisy, Reality TV side of our political process wants us to be afraid all the time. So does the news media. Be afraid of Muslims, be afraid of LGBT people, be afraid of vaccines and genetically modified foods. (Don't be afraid of climate change, though, or mass shootings committed by white guys.) And at a more personal level, my own brother has become so paranoid about who sees pictures of his kids that he's mad at me over my Christmas card.

I understand fear, of course, and like anyone else, I've been afraid plenty of times in my life. When I was a kid, we once had a tornado scare so bad that for a time after it I would hide under tables whenever the sun went behind a cloud. Even well into my teenage years, a big thunderstorm would send me into a panic. But then I grew up and faced my fears, and now storms don't scare me any more.

And if you ask me, these are times when a lot of people need to do some growing up. Okay, so we're at war with ISIS, or even with "Radical Islam" if you want to use that term. So what? Is that a reason to run around freaking out? Last night's Republican debate made me think of Winston Churchill's speeches to the British Parliament during the London Blitz. What would Donald Trump or Ted Cruz have sounded like in that situation? And at the time, the British were facing the full force of a Nazi army that had already conquered most of Europe, not a bunch of two-bit punks like ISIS.

I've said this before, and I'll go on saying it. I'm not afraid of ISIS or AL-Quaeda or any of those other groups. I grew up during the Cold War, when it seemed like at any moment someone over in Moscow could push a button and wipe out the whole country. The terrorists we face today can do a lot of harm, to be sure. So can a tornado, but I've learned not to be afraid of those. Being smart and alert is enough.

The long-term goal I have for my writing - my "vision statement," you might say - is to help kids understand a little more about things like reasoning a problem out, evaluating risks and using good judgment. If more people are able to understand the *real* hazards they face, and not just the ones that politicians or cable news wants them to be afraid of, then maybe there will be a little less fear in the world.

It's a dream I have, anyway.

Add a Comment

The past few years have seen the Christmas season completely engulf my writing world and shut me down for several weeks.  I wasn't happy about that.  This year had to be different.  My writing was already behind the pace I wanted, so there was no way I could afford another unproductive season.

Fortunately, luck has been on my side.  Luck and some work and planning.  I did much of my gift buying done in time to take presents to Michigan with me.  I picked out my Christmas card early and got them sent out.  With two weeks to go, I'm just about done.  Apart from singing, anyway, but that's the part I like to focus on.

And as for my writing, I finally hit that tipping point, where you suddenly go from feeling like you'll never write again to feeling like you'll never stop.  One of the hardest things to do as a writer is keeping yourself planted in that chair, waiting for your creativity to find its rhythm again.  It often feels hopeless, and you have to have faith that the moment will come.

The other thing I've done differently this year is try to block out more of what's going on in the world.  My sister's household is largely a politics-free zone, and I find myself wanting to carry that with me after I visit.  I'll admit that I'm not really all that successful at it - I've always been interested in what's going on, and right now there's a lot to follow.  But I have managed to cut back some, and that's something.  I tell myself that writing books to teach kids reasoning skills will do more for the world than arguing on Facebook.

At the moment, I've just finished another chapter, and I'm waiting for the mechanics to finish up with my car.  Then it's back into the action.

Add a Comment

There's a little something extra I watch for on the new Supergirl series. Whenever they go up into the mountains to fight bad guys or do some kind of secret testing, I check out the background to see if it's someplace I recognize. I haven't spotted anywhere yet, but I'll keep looking.

I've lived in Southern California for roughly half my life now, but for the most part, I still feel more Midwestern than Californian - with one exception. I do love my Southern California mountains. If I ever moved away from here, I would miss them.

On paper, Conejo Mountain doesn't seem like one of the more noteworthy peaks around here. At only 1,813 feet, it's nowhere near the height of the mountains I've been hiking in the Angeles Forest. It's not even as tall as 2,825 foot Boney Peak, which rises above the nearby Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa Park. But if you've ever been on the Oxnard/Camarillo plain, it's still an impressive sight. Conejo Mountain looms over it like those mountains of Middle Earth that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about. The 101 freeway runs up alongside the mountain at a steep grade, connecting the farmlands below with the suburban communities above.

The Santa Ana winds were blowing the weekend before Thanskgiving, and I wanted to get one last hike in this year before cold weather and holiday mayhem rolled in. It had to be a short hike, though, because I didn't want to wear myself out before my trip to Michigan. Conejo Mountain seemed like an ideal destination.




When I last hiked this route in 2010, the top of the mountain was too overgrown for hiking, and so the trail stopped well short of the peak. That all changed when the Springs Fire burned everything up in 2013, and now a rudimentary trail picks up where the old established one leaves off. Someone has even planted a flagpole on the summit.

From that vantage point, you can look over at Boney Peak, out across Camarillo and Oxnard, or down toward Point Mugu and the ocean. It just shows that you don't always need a lot of elevation to get a good view, if you have the right location.



The primary route up Conejo Mountain is called the Powerline Trail, for obvious reasons. (Since "conejo" is Spanish for "rabbit," I suppose you could call it the Bunny Trail - but that would be silly.) A lot of the landscape looks like something from another planet. Actually, it may very well have been used to represent another planet, back in the days of 1950s and 60s scifi TV and movies.



This is my last uncommitted weekend of 2015, and even if I'd been planning a hike, the weather probably wouldn't let me do it. I've got plenty of plans for 2016, though. The only question is how long El Niño will keep me from getting back out there.

Add a Comment

It's Thanksgiving time, and I've been at my sister's house in Michigan. Two years ago, we tried doing the family Thanksgiving here, but were foiled by some health issues my dad was having. This year, everyone is in good shape.



I got here a couple days ahead of everyone else, so I could make an Author Visit to my niece Leyna's fifth grade class. It was something of a challenge - fifth graders are a bit younger than the kids I usually talk to, and I was trying out some new interactive math stuff in my presentation. Plus I didn't want to disappoint Leyna. But it all worked out. The kids were lively but not too rowdy, and they jumped right into the math stuff I gave them. It's given me some new insights into what I should be trying to do with my Math Fiction writing. Just what I need as I'm trying to get my next book going.



As much as I love my family, though, by the end of my visit I always become all too aware that I should not stay in this environment for too long at a time. I thrive when I'm on my own, in my own space where I have room and time to focus on the things that I do. I can't stay in that bubble all the time, of course, but I start losing myself when I'm away from it. There are two different manuscripts waiting for me right now. I'm deciding which one to work on - or if I might even be able to do them both in a reasonable time - but none of that is going to happen if I don't get myself squirreled away again, where I can think straight.

Which means you can imagine how I feel about the Christmas season coming upon us. I promise I won't be grumpy, but apart from the times that I'm singing, I doubt I'll be very festive. There's too much else going on.

Add a Comment

Imagine, just for laughs, that the Westboro Baptist Church went paramilitary on us, and rallied enough followers to take over a large chunk of Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, maybe even stretching into Iowa. They were so ruthless and terrifying that National Guard troops in places like Kansas City and Lincoln dropped their weapons and ran away, allowing the Westboro militants to arm themselves with a large supply of captured weapons.

Next, imagine that these Westboro militants decided to call their territory "The Christian States of America," and declared that it would be a place where their particular interpretation of the Bible was the law of the land. Imagine they had dreams of uniting all of Christendom under their banner, and their followers were so devoted to the cause that they were willing to go out and die in spectacular attacks. Suicide bombers began blowing themselves up at places like the Mall of America or the National Cathedral. Fear and panic spread across America, and refugees started showing up in Canada and Mexico, as people tried to get away. But even that wasn't enough - they had to spread their attacks overseas too, to show the world how powerful they were, and to recruit new followers to join their crusade. Soon Westboro militants were hijacking planes and crashing them into Shanghai skyscrapers, or going on machine gun rampages through the streets of Rome.

The world wouldn't stand for such things, of course. People wanted to feel safe. Their leaders resolved to intervene and put a stop to the terrorist menace. China and India began flying drones over American territory. Russia set up secret prisons where they took captured Christians for interrogation - not just the Westboro militants, but anyone they suspected of being a Westboro militant as well. Brazil set up military bases along the Rio Grande and tried to negotiate for flyover rights with Texas and Oklahoma. World leaders gathered for summit meetings to discuss what they would do if the Christian States of America ever captured the nuclear missile silos near their territory.

And lastly, imagine that the word "Christian" came to be regarded as a synonym for "terrorist." Imagine that talk-radio around the world started saying that Christianity was really a religion of war, and that all Christians were taught in special Sunday Schools to go out and kill heathens. Imagine that the Pope had to go on worldwide media and apologize for every single Westboro terrorist attack, even the ones made on Catholic churches. Governments around the world debated laws that would close churches or ban wearing crosses in public. Eventually, people could be persecuted just for "looking Christian." If you looked white enough, people would refuse to sit next to you on buses or harrass you in airports, because they couldn't be sure you weren't a terrorist.

But of course, all that is just plain silly. It would never really happen. Would it?

Add a Comment

A few years ago, Japanese TV ran what I thought - and still think - is one of the most peculiar stories I've ever heard of. Moshidora is the story of a girl who becomes the equipment manager of her high school's baseball team. Wanting to learn more about how to do the job, she goes to the bookstore and asks for a book on management, and the confused sales clerk gives her a copy of Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices by Peter Drucker, one of the classic books on business management. Even after she learns that she's got the wrong book, she decides the ideas it contains are so interesting that she uses them to take over the baseball team and run it like a business, propelling them into the national high school tournament.

Granted, that's a pretty wacky setup, written, I suspect, primarily for middle-aged Japanese businessmen wanting to imagine cute high school girls who appreciate what they do for a living. But it's not unique. It seems the Japanese entertainment industry routinely produces stories about the world of business, where the drama comes from the business situations themselves and the heroes are businesspeople doing their jobs. This year, I've come across two drama shows that resonated with my day-job career as an engineer and quality manager. A few months ago, there was The God of Risk, about the crisis management team at a large corporation and the challenges they face from defective products and shady executives. Now there's Shitamachi Rocket, about a small manufacturing company trying to play a role in the development of an all-Japanese spaceflight program.

These are not small niche-market programs. The God of Risk included actress Erika Toda, who has track record of successful shows. Shitamachi Rocket stars Hiroshi Abe, one of Japan's most popular actors. And they're not alone. I've seen postings online for shows about people working at bookstores, restaurants and other businesses. On American TV, the only way you could produce a show like that would be to drop all references to the drama of actually running a business and instead focus on the characters' dysfunctional sex lives. To be sure, Japan has those kinds of shows too - but that's not what all their shows are about. There's a mix. That's why I've become such a fan of Japanese TV over the years. The wider range of stories gives me a better chance of finding something that interests me.

Meanwhile, the UK also continues to be a good source of interesting shows, too - and not just because the new Doctor Who season is on the air. For those of you who liked Broadchurch, ITV is now running Unforgotten, the story of detectives investigating a 39-year-old murder case and the people who were involved with its victim. And like Broadchurch, the star is someone from the Doctor Who universe - Nicola Walker, who plays the Eighth Doctor's current companion Liv Chenka in the Big Finish audio dramas. She even gets to make a Dalek joke in one episode. And she's also starring as a ghost in another series on the BBC right now. I'll have to track that down and check it out.

Add a Comment

Halloween! Fall! Crisp weather, leaves turning colors, people bundling up, right? Not in Southern California, where it was still approaching 90. This weekend will probably be my last hiking opportunity of the year, and I didn't want a heat wave getting in my way.

Fortunately, there was the Backbone Trail, which runs through the Santa Monica Mountains, from Point Mugu in the west over to Will Rogers Park in the east. A five-mile stretch in the middle climbs 2000 feet up to Saddle Peak, one of the highest points in the Santa Monica Mountains. I went there in March of last year, coming up from Hondo Canyon in the east, and it messed up my feet so much that I had to stay off the trails for almost three months. I hoped coming up from the west would be better.



Saddle Peak looms above Malibu, and the hills are dotted with ridiculously large and expensive mansions. I found a large rock that stuck out from the peak and offered a view of all the places I could never afford to live in, with the ocean and Catalina Island beyond. It was strangely satisfying to look down on them all for a while.



Back in the days of the Nike Missile bases, there was a radar installation up on Saddle Peak. Alas, there's nothing left now, not even the foundation slabs you can find at some of the other old sites. The administrative buildings have been converted to another LA County Fire Camp, and the old missile bunkers are still there too, but all that stuff is down the mountain on the outskirts of Malibu. I was able to spot it from the peak.



But while the peak was a disappointment for Cold War history buffs, it had plenty to offer geology fans. The Santa Monica Mountains are made of sedimentary rock layers that have been pushed up at all sorts of crazy angles and eroded into strange shapes. Up close they're full of small embedded rocks and little holes and caves. There was a lot to see.




Depending on the weather and the preparations for my Thanksgiving trip, I might be able to squeeze in one more short hike before the holidays. But chances are this is it for my 2015 hiking season. It's been a good one, but I also have some trails in mind for 2016.

Add a Comment

Back in my screenwriting days, I read that you should always be able to explain your story to someone as briefly and concisely as a TV Guide blurb. Today, there are probably young people out there who have never even seen TV Guide, but the maxim still holds true, and for more than just screenplays.

I should have known the story I was working on was in trouble all the way back in June, when I couldn't describe it to my publisher in that fashion. I never did find the right hook for it, and that's why it fizzled. I'd still like to pick it up again someday, but not unless I can find the right hook for it. Until then, it won't be ready to go.

Fortunately, I had several other stories on the back burner, and now one of them is coming together very quickly. It does have a TV Guide description - "Kids use math to help their school's sports teams win." It also has good series potential. But I'm behind the writing pace I wanted to keep, so I've got some catching up to do.

Meanwhile, the other day I saw something from Neil deGrasse Tyson. He'd been asked about this week's Republican presidential debate - specifically, about the way so many Republican politicians today hold positions that flatly contradict established science, yet are supported by voters who willingly embrace the nonsense. "I think maybe one of the solutions is when we teach science," he said, "you don't teach it as a satchel of facts to be tested on later. It's a way of probing what is or is not true in the world. And if you're empowered with that knowledge then you're less susceptible as an adult to people just handing you things to say or do or believe that have no correspondence with the natural world."

That stuck with me because it's the way I've tried to depict math in my Mathematical Fiction books. Math isn't just a set of facts to be memorized for a test. It's a way of thinking and of approaching problems that helps you understand the way things work. I have some ideas in my head for stories about kids doing science, and it fits Dr. Tyson's description of science very well. The kids in my future stories won't just be memorizing facts. They'll be trying to figure out what's going on around them.

Is it the glut of testing in today's education system that's put such an emphasis on memorizing facts? Or has it always been this way and I'm just not remembering my school days clearly? I suppose I could make some political commentary at this point, about how it was the Republican education program that produced this emphasis on memorizing facts for tests, and how Republicans are now the ones decrying the Common Core, which tries to shift the emphasis onto understanding processes and why you do things. But I won't.

Add a Comment

I used to have recurring nightmares that my teeth were falling out. Those went away after I started wearing a dental guard at night. These days, my dreams have two different themes that come around on a regular basis. In one of them, I'm in an enormous building of some kind, going up and down elevators, stairs or escalators to find my apartment, which is somewhere inside. In the other, I'm back in school and about to fail all my classes because I'd never gone to them.

That failing-all-my-classes dream has come up a lot lately, and at least some of that was because of the struggles I've had with my new manuscript. Despite months of effort, it simply hasn't come together. I like the characters and have a mathematical subject I like, but there's never been a story to go with them. I tried many different ideas for a narrative goal or direction, but none of them worked. Some people are able to take a bunch of characters, start them off and then just see where they go, but I'm not one of them. If I don't know where a story is going ahead of time, I can't write it.

Admitting that a story idea didn't work is hard for me. In the past, it's triggered all sorts of existential anxieties, as if the collapse of one story meant my creativity had dried up for good. Fortunately, these days I've been writing long enough to feel a lot more secure. But there's still the matter of lost time to contend with. At the slow pace I write, it can take months for me to realize that a story isn't working, as it did this time, and those are months I can't get back. It's hard to know when to give up and stop throwing good time after bad. But now that I've admitted the story isn't working, thoughts of it have almost completely evaporated from my mind, replaced by thoughts of what to write instead. That's probably the best sign that it was time to change course.

There are currently three story ideas on my mind. The one drawing the most attention is a manuscript I was working on before I started writing Math Fiction, a World War II story that's a companion to Unswept Graves. It's got less than a third of the book to go, so it wouldn't take me that long to wrap it up - but Math Fiction is the "brand identity" I've been working on, so marketing something else could be a challenge. The other two ideas are both Math Fiction, but they've still got big gaps in their development that I'd have to fill before I could start writing. Without good, solid story outlines in place, neither of these ideas would work any better than the one that just failed.

I'm going to give myself the rest of this month to see what I can do with each idea. My hope is that I'll be able to get a sense of which one is working best for me, and then I can start writing it in November. The others will go back on the back burner to wait for their turns. It's frustrating to have a writing pace so slow that ideas have to wait years before I tackle them, but that's the world I live in right now. Someday I'll have more time, and my pace will pick up.

And as for the story I'm letting go, it's not necessarily dead forever. The characters certainly aren't. They may return in a different book. That's what Lennie Miller did, and now she's the star of her own series. In writing, unlike in my dreams, failure is never final.

Add a Comment

Here I am in day-job land, where we're waiting for the regulatory agency to show up for our re-certification review. They initially said they'd be here by 1:00, but now they're saying 2:00, and we're guessing it will actually be closer to 3:00 - if they show up today at all. When it comes to this particular agency, this is normal.

This review is easily the most important thing I do in this job. It comes once every three years. Kind of like the Quality Manager Olympics. Only a lot more likely to mess with your mind.

It's times like this when I can relate to the complaints about "burdensome regulation" you often hear from conservative politicians. Only it's not the regulations themselves that are burdensome. They're tough, yes, but I understand why they're there. The problem is the way those regulations are enforced. The people who show up to do these three-year reviews expect to be treated like royalty. One time, I was lectured about how rude we were because all the executives didn't show up to the reviewer's opening meeting. They spend the bulk of their time nitpicking the wording of our procedure manual, and surprisingly little time verifying that we actually do the things we describe in that manual. And then there's this little check-box they have on their audit form, which says "Affects past Code jobs." If they check it, that means you have to go out and re-inspect every single product you ever built under the regulations.

Basically, these people never want you to forget that they have the power to shut down your entire business. And while I understand why there's a need for them to have that power, I don't like having my nose rubbed in it. I deal with people from agencies all over the world. Some are tough and some are easy, but they're almost always professional. This particular agency is the only one that acts this way on a regular basis.

I don't need this. I'm quite capable of playing mind games on myself. I don't need other people doing it for me. I've been struggling with my writing lately, trying to get my new manuscript going. I'm trying to add another dimension to my Mathematical Fiction concept, and the story still hasn't come into clear enough focus for me to know exactly what it is. Self-confidence is hard to maintain whenever you're writing - just ask William Goldman - and a difficult story like this one can unravel everything if you're not careful. Kind of like the little check-box that says "Affects past Code jobs." You end up re-examining everything you've ever done.

So which is worse? Having a regulator mess with you or having your own self mess with you? At least I'm more familiar with myself. And I won't be offended if the company executives don't show up to meet with me.

Add a Comment

Three weeks ago, I tried to hike up Mount Gleason for my birthday hike, only to find that the road I needed to take to get there was still closed from the 2009 Station Fire. At the time, I wondered if Mount Gleason could be reached from another direction, and figured I'd try to find that out next year.

Well, I should have guessed I wouldn't wait that long. It's been pretty stressful in day-job land as we get ready for a big regulatory agency audit, so I needed to get away from everything this weekend. But we're in the middle of a triple-digit heat wave in Southern California, so I needed to go someplace in the mountains where it was cooler. Cue a return trip to Mount Gleason.

Unfortunately, access to the mountain is even more cut off from the west side than it was from the east side. I would have had to hike 11 miles just to reach the starting point of a 6-1/2 mile hike to the top. No way would I be able to do that. Fortunately, I had a backup plan in mind. A few miles back down the freeway I'd gone up was Placerita Canyon and the road back to Bear Divide, which I've visited twice already this year. I'd left some places unexplored on my last visit, so I ventured back up Los Pinetos and returned to the old LA-94 Nike Missile Base, much of which is now in use as LA County Fire Camp 9.




A Nike Missile Base had three separate sections - the area where the missiles were stored, maintained and would have been launched, the radar installation that would have tracked any incoming Soviet bombers, and the administrative area, where the offices and living quarters were. At Los Pinetos, the administrative area became Fire Camp 9. The missile area is across the canyon from the administrative area, and is fenced off, while the radar installation is on the peak past the administrative area. My first goal was to get up next to the fence around the missile area and see what I could see.



It turns out you can only get to the fence in one section, where you can see the access hatches leading down into the missile bunkers, but not the elevator doors. There's also a crane, although that may have been added later by whoever took over the property when the base was decommissioned. I poked around a little more, but that was all I could see.

You have to walk through the fire camp to get to the radar installation. On my last hike, I was too concerned about firefighters yelling at me to try it, but this time I went for it. I guess the firefighters are used to it, because they took no notice of me. Up on the peak, the radar installation is still in use - although not to track Soviet bombers any more, of course. It's fenced off, but you can circle all the way around it and get plenty of good looks.




I couldn't help noticing that the radar platforms looked a lot like the one at San Vicente Mountain Park, which was the radar installation for LA-96. That was fun to see.

I've only got one more hiking opportunity before winter sets in. It's been a great year of adventure, which I hope to finish in style a couple of weeks from now.

Add a Comment

Back when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors melted down, there was a panic here on the US west coast about radiation drifting across the ocean and contaminating us. I made jokes about people rushing out to buy iodine tablets, and thinking nothing about driving down the freeway at 80mph to do it - possibly even while texting.

People have a hard time understanding what risk means. All too often, "risk" is seen as whatever scares people the most, not what actually stands a reasonable probability of harming them. Radiation half the world away? That's scary. It must be a risk. Driving down the freeway at 80mph? Happens all the time. Never mind that traffic accidents related to speeding have killed more people than radiation many, many times over. The scary thing is perceived as being more of a risk. And our TV news industry does nothing to change that perception.

So today, along came an article on our latest national mass shooting tragedy, which pointed out that people are more likely to be shot by an ordinary gun owner throwing a temper tantrum than one of these mass shooters. Someone I know took exception to that, demanding evidence that "large numbers of ordinary people licensed to carry guns" tend to "fly off the handle and randomly shoot people." Between that article and that comment, I found - a teachable moment.


Let's run some numbers, shall we? There are 330 million people in the US, give or take. After the Oregon shooting, a number of news outlets reported that there's been almost one mass shooting - defined as having four or more victims - per day for the last thousand days. So on any given day here in the US, we have:

1 mass shooter
329,999,999 non-mass shooters

Next, let's look at those non-mass shooters. How many of them own guns? A quick Google search gives you numbers in the 30% to 40% range. Let's say it's 35%. That means we have:

115,500,000 non-mass shooters with guns
214,499,999 non-mass shooters without guns

Okay, next comes the tricky part. On any given day, what percentage of those non-mass shooters with guns are liable to "fly off the handle" and shoot someone in a fit of anger?

One percent? That would mean we'd have 1,155,000 temper tantrum shootings per day. So no, not one percent.

How about 0.01%? That means 99.99% of the gun owners are safe. It also means we'd have 11,550 temper tantrum shootings per day. That's still a lot.

How about one in a million? In other words, 99.9999% of the gun owners are safe. That still amounts to 115 temper tantrum shootings per day. And even at that small percentage, you're still 115 times more likely to be shot by an ordinary person having a temper tantrum than you are to be shot by a mass shooter.

The truth is, I don't know what percentage of ordinary gun owners would fly off the handle and shoot someone, and I don't really care to argue about it. My point is that the percentage can be very tiny, and we can still have a lot more shootings than the mass murderers of America can dish out. And the National Rifle Association's answer, that more guns is the solution, would actually make things worse. Maybe arming more people would deter some of the mass shooters, but just going by percentages, we would expect the number of temper tantrum shootings to go up - and go up a lot faster than the rate the mass shootings would go down.

Alternately, let's look at those numbers again. What if a temper tantrum shooting is a one in a million thing? In a country this size, 115 shootings in a day isn't so bad - unless you're one of the 115, of course. Even if that number is bigger - say, the 11,550 you'd get with a 0.01% chance - the probability that one of those shootings would happen to you personally is pretty small, only 0.0035%. Isn't that a small risk to take in the name of your Second Amendment rights?

I don't know. Is it? I have my own views, but I'm not here to push them on you. I'm simply pointing out the importance of knowing what the real risks are. Not what scares you, but what's actually likely to happen, and how likely that is. Once you know the risk, you can decide for yourself whether that's a risk you want to take. Once we as a country know the risk, we can vote to decide what risks we as a country are willing to accept. If we don't understand the risks, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the extremes on both ends of the political spectrum, who will use fear and confusion to pull us their way. We can do better than that.

Every one of my Math Fiction books so far has a probability problem in it, and the manuscript I'm working on now has probability as its main theme. I think it's an important concept for people to understand, and I'm doing my part to bring that about. I can't say what my chances of making an appreciable difference may be, but I want to make all I can of them.

Add a Comment

When I was a kid, my parents somehow instilled in me an intense fear of being egotistical. Back when I was in therapy after my divorce, my therapist said she had never seen anyone with that particular issue. Maybe it was necessary. I catch myself sometimes and wonder - and hey, I am a writer, after all. But every now and then I'll come across someone with real ego problems, and I'm thankful I was kept off that road.

At the moment I'm wrangling with someone in day-job land who has told me, in all seriousness, that his job was the most important one at the company and that he was the only person who knew how to do it, therefore no one could tell him what to do. When I brought this claim up later and said it had been all I could do to keep from laughing, he thought for a moment and then said, "But all of that is true!" So I laughed at him.

Happy thoughts... think happy thoughts... and stay in my nice cozy corner cubicle where I can watch the airplanes fly over on their approach to the airport.

I do have my books to keep me sane. At this point, I don't know what I'd do without them. The finishing touches are being put on the next one, I'm two chapters into the one after that, and I think I may have found the research prize I've needed for the one after that.

I have my choir, too. Days like today remind me why I drive 100 miles round trip every week. I still wish I didn't have to, though. Maybe someday I'll find a way out of it.

Speaking of choirs, the Japanese TBS network just finished running a drama series about kids in a high school choir. It was cheesy, but fun. I prefer cheesy to the slick Hollywood look of Glee. Here's a sample:



Plus there was a Super-Duper Blood Moon Armageddon the other night. It's a wonder we all survived, don't you think?

Add a Comment

For my birthday hike this year, I'd planned something a lot easier than last year's trek up Mount Wilson. Mount Gleason is deeper into the Angeles National Forest, and is quite a bit higher in elevation, but according to the internet, there was a trailhead about three miles away and one thousand feet down from the summit. Much more manageable.

Unfortunately, when I got there, I found this:



What the internet neglected to mention is that the road was closed after the Station Fire in 2009, and never reopened. I was stuck more than ten miles from my goal. Much too far away.

Luckily, there was the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs close to the same route as the road. If the weather stayed cool enough, I could make it all the way to my secondary goal, a place near my intended trailhead that I'd originally just planned to stop by. It was a longer hike than I'd planned, but it seemed doable, so I gave it a shot.





Back in the 50s, the Army built another of its Nike missile bases on Mount Gleason. When the base was decommissioned, the part where the soldiers lived and worked was turned into an LA County Fire Camp, similar to the one still in use at Los Pinetos, where I visited in June. (Mount Gleason had a crew of prison inmate firefighters, though, whereas the crew at Los Pinetos is all professional.)

On August 30, 2009, the Station Fire overran the camp and destroyed it. Everyone there got out (except for the camp dogs, who panicked and ran into the dining hall just as it collapsed), but two of the commanding officers were killed while out scouting the fire's progress. Today, the camp is abandoned - which is why the road is still closed. Nearby is a memorial to the two firefighters who were lost.







I'd still like to get up to the top of Mount Gleason someday. That's where the other section of the Nike base was located, and there are some scientific instruments up there now. It may be possible to get there from the opposite side of the mountain, but I'll have to research that a bit before I try again. It'll probably end up on my list for next year.

Add a Comment

Where have I been lately? Where haven't I been lately? Okay, I can answer that one. I haven't been posting on my LiveJournal. I keep getting bottled up in one project or another, and I spend so much time trying to work through those that I don't have any time left to writer something here.

I've started my next manuscript (Totally Random is the working title), and it's not coming out as I'd planned at all. That shouldn't be a surprise, really. I made several attempts to set up the story back in the outline phase, and they kept falling through. Now I'm just seeing that same process continue into the writing phase. I had one concept of what the story is supposed to be, but the story and the characters have had another.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It would be bad if I tried to force the story into the shape I wanted and manipulated the characters into my pre-conceived ideas. It's better to let the story and the characters go the way they want to go - within reason, of course. After all, when I refer to the story and the characters, I'm really talking about another part of my own mind that's independent of my conscious thoughts. Rather than fight myself over the story, I should try to get the different parts of myself working together.

Easy to say, right? Not so easy to do. It takes a while, and involves a lot of staring at the computer screen, trying to avoid distraction. Last night, I closed my web browser when it was time to write, and I put on my headphones even though I'm the only person living in my apartment. I needed to block out the outside world that much. For me, working out a story also involves writing a lot of things out by hand, which means they wouldn't show up online even if I wanted them to - which I don't.

NPR did a story the other day about interruptions - recent studies indicate that you actually take longer to re-focus after an interruption than you might expect. They even go so far as to speculate about "shock helmets" that provide electrical stimulation to parts of your brain to restore your focus. I wouldn't go so far as to wear one of those, but I do see the value in blocking distractions out. With this book, that's going to be a must.

On a related note, every September I promise myself that I'll pay less attention to the football season, and yet by playoff time I'm just as wrapped up in it as anybody else. The way the Colts have started the season, though, I might have a lot less reason to get involved.

Add a Comment

I've developed a fascination with the Cold War and the "Atomic Age" - that is, the time from the late 40s through the early 60s, when nuclear energy was new and scary and exciting, all at the same time. By the time I grew up in the 70s and 80s, the pessimism of Three Mile Island and Mutually Assured Destruction had set in. In the earlier days, people didn't know better.

My exploration of the various Cold War relics around Los Angeles got me started, and I've also found an amazing assortment of pictures and recordings online. But there's even more out there that can't be found online, including an appearance by Moorpark, my current home. And that's what took me to The Paley Center for Media in the middle of Beverly Hills.





In November 1957, Moorpark's electrical grid was connected to the Sodium Reactor Experiment at the nearby Santa Susana Field Laboratory - a place I've visited several times - and for one hour, it was the first community in the world to run entirely on nuclear power. A crew from Edward R. Murrow's legendary program, See It Now, was there to cover it. You can't find that episode on the internet, but the Paley Center has it. I managed to record some of the audio (with a bit of background noise from other visitors) and snap a few pictures of the screen. Here's what I ended up with:



There were other interesting recordings to check out, including live TV coverage of atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site. They put it on the morning show, hosted by Betty Furness! It boggles the mind. I think what fascinates me is the innocence/ignorance of those early years, when people didn't know much about radiation and didn't realize what they were doing. It was also a time when people had a passion for knowledge, and a belief that exploring the frontiers of science would lead them to all the answers. They hadn't yet learned that you can't win a nuclear war, or even have much chance of survive it. They hadn't started to realize how big and complicated the universe really was, perhaps more than they could handle.

These days, we need that same passion for knowledge and innovation to solve the problems we face, but one of our two major political parties actively tries to repress learning and discovery because their big-money donors see it as a threat to their power and status. We can't allow that situation to stand. People in other parts of the world aren't going to stand around waiting for us. They're going to pass us by and move ahead, and then where will we be?

There are books out there somewhere, brewing in all the research I've done on this time period. I haven't found them yet, but I can sense them out there. Someday, they'll make an appearance. Writing about those days might be just the thing to inspire some kids living in these days.

Add a Comment

I had to laugh a few weeks ago, when I drove by the Presbyterian church along my route home from day-job land and saw their upcoming sermon topic.

"They Won't Listen If We're Jerks."

There are a great many Christians who need to hear that message. Heck, there were times back in my Fundamentalist days when I could have used it. Christians are called to bear witness to the Gospel, but it's very easy to make ourselves the message instead. And that's always the wrong message.

And that brings me to Kim Davis, county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, who has now chosen to go to jail rather than issue marriage licenses to gay couples, or even to allow her deputies to issue marriage licenses in her place. She claims that she's acting under "God's Authority." I imagine she now sees herself as walking in the footsteps of Paul the Apostle or Martin Luther King or others who have gone to jail for upholding the Gospel. But that's a dangerous attitude to take. It gets people in all kinds of trouble.

Ms. Davis claims she's acting on "God's Authority." So did Osama bin Laden and the followers of his who crashed airplanes into buildings. So did the people who have blown up abortion clinics or murdered doctors who performed abortions. So have lots of other people who have done very ungodly things. Just because you think you have "God's authority," that doesn't mean you do. For starters, I'd expect anyone exercising "God's authority" to reflect some of the traits that God wants us to have - things like mercy and compassion, and refraining from judgment.

In the Gospels, Jesus warned his disciples that all nations would hate them for following him. A lot of people have gotten that warning backwards. "People will hate me for following Jesus. These people hate me, therefore I must be following Jesus." But it doesn't work that way. The logic doesn't go in both directions. All rabbits are animals, but not all animals are rabbits.

What Ms. Davis has done is make this incident all about herself. Not the couples whose rights she's denying. Not the law she took an oath to uphold. Not the God she professes to believe in. Kim Davis has gotten everyone's attention focused on Kim Davis. And now that she's chosen to make herself a martyr, it's as if she's trying to take Jesus down off the cross and put herself on it in His place. (Just an aside: Some people suspect that Ms. Davis is doing all this just to cash in on the conservative media circuit. Personally, I don't think so, which is not to say that she won't cash in eventually, but it's not her goal. The people looking to cash in right now are all the conservative and Evangelical action groups out raising money for a "Davis persecution fund" - and no doubt keeping a handsome profit for themselves.)

They won't listen if we're jerks. Compare Kim Davis to, say, Pope Francis. He doesn't approve of same-sex marriage any more than she does, but he chooses to focus on things like justice and mercy and helping the poor. You know, things Jesus actually preached about. And guess what? People listen to him! Francis will leave a long legacy of helping people and changing lives. A year from now, no one outside the FOX News/700 Club/Focus on the Family crowd will remember Kim Davis. Personally, I can't wait for that day to come.

Add a Comment

I've been watching Japanese anime and drama online for more than a decade now. I like the differences in the way Japanese and American writers handle storytelling and character - and there's one other thing. The Japanese aren't shy about putting real math and science in their TV shows.

Take a look at this little comparison I put together:



The Japanese program, Tantei no Tantei ("Detective vs. Detectives"), isn't an educational program on a PBS-like channel or anything like that. It's a mainstream show. Its star, Keiko Kitagawa, is a pretty well-known name. The show chose to take two minutes out of a fifty-minute program to work through a math problem as a vital clue to the mystery.

What exactly does this comparison tell us? Perhaps nothing. It's only one episode from each country. But it's consistent with trends I've seen elsewhere.

In Japan, it's assumed that math is something everyone can do. Notice that in the clip, not only is the detective working out the problem, but the other characters around her are able to follow it - and the audience is expected to follow it, too. I've seen the same thing on other shows. I've even seen a bumbling, "Inspector Clouseau" style detective character show flashes of mathematical insight. And the same is true in science - once I saw a character talk about the ice geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. I'm not sure anyone in Hollywood even knows what Enceladus is.

On American TV, math and science are reserved for the "intellectual one percent." The nerds go off to their labs and perform their arcane rituals to figure everything out, and when they have the answer, they have to give it to the heroes quickly and concisely as possible, because heroes don't have time for that kind of stuff. And as for the audience... well, they don't want to sit through all that, do they? They'd rather see the heroes go off and shoot guns or something.

This is the world I have to deal with in trying to write Mathematical Fiction. I have hopes that my stories will be entertaining enough to draw in someone who doesn't like math and show that person math isn't so bad after all - but I might end up being read by the math and science nerds instead. But I can live with that. It's easier than moving to Japan.

Add a Comment

People around the world know of Mulholland Drive from its appearance in songs and movies, and from all the celebrities who live there. What people outside Los Angeles probably don't know is that a seven-mile stretch of the road was left unpaved. "Dirt Mulholland," as it is known, was established back in the 70s to give hikers and mountain bikers a scenic route above the San Fernando Valley.



Just off the eastern end of Dirt Mulholland is San Vicente Mountain Park, formerly known as LA-96C, the radar installation for a battery of Nike anti-aircraft missiles that defended Los Angeles in the 1960s. The old radar tower and some of the other structures have been preserved as a historical site. You can read the various signs and markers and check out the Cold War relics.




I first went there a couple of years ago, but back then I hiked up a trail out of West LA. This time I started at the west end of Dirt Mulholland and trekked the 6+ miles to get there. There wasn't much elevation change, and the marine layer hadn't burned off in the morning, so I was able to cover the distance in a little more than two hours. Then it was time for a little exploring.





Coming back was unexpectedly difficult. The sun had come out and the temperature had gone up, and it looks like long distances affect me more than going up and down mountains. Something important to remember when I plan future adventures. But I made it back in one piece, and apart from a couple of blisters I've recovered nicely.

There were 16 Nike bases surrounding Los Angeles in all. I've been to five of them this year, and I have plans to visit a sixth next month. It's been a real surprise to learn how much Cold War history is in the mountains around here. I never would have guessed it.

Add a Comment

The audit is done, and we survived in one piece, but I've needed much of my weekend to recuperate. Not only did we spend all week running around to every part of the factory, but I had to deal with several problems that came up with parts that we buy. One supplier was trying extra hard to convince us that their parts were good:



I'm not even sure what that means. It certainly didn't mean their parts were good, because they weren't. The factory was having to test each one again. Would that make them 300% calibrated?

The label became a running gag through the audit. Our auditor decided that since we're supposed to review our entire quality system ourselves, before he got there, he must be the 200% calibration. And every time we came across a problem, we'd say, "It must not have been 200% calibrated." As I mentioned before, I've known this auditor for 20 years, so we get along well and work well together. It makes a big difference. I won't have that luxury when the regulatory inspector shows up in October.

Speaking of which, there's a lot to do between now and then. Several of the problems that came up have to do with parts that are critical to the regulatory inspection. Just as I was ready to move forward with some new projects, I've got trouble to deal with instead. I'll just have to find a way to balance everything.

Add a Comment

I realized yesterday that I've driven over to LA County at least once every weekend since sometime in May. The entire summer and then some! But my schedule for August is different, and it looks like I'll get to stay on this side of the Santa Susana Pass for a while.

Things will still be busy. There just won't be as much driving involved. Tomorrow kicks off a week-long visit by the ISO9001 Auditor for day-job land's three-year quality system reregistration. I've known this auditor for twenty years now, and we get along fine, but the audit is still going to be a lot of work. The past few weeks have given me the usual assortment of things to get cleaned up and worked out, plus some interesting developments on a couple of new things to do once the audit is over. And then there are the times when I feel like I should have a psychology degree instead of an engineering degree. There are always plenty of those, but this week I was faced with a prima donna engineer who had his narcissism turned up to eleven.

Meanwhile, it's time to get my next book going. Past time, actually. The story has taken a while to come together. I've known that I wanted it to be about the uses of probability, but I've gone back and forth on ways to put that idea into a good narrative. My initial idea fell apart, and then I experimented with a few alternatives before finding something back more in line with where I started. The good part is that my main character has gotten much stronger over the course of all that development, so I'm in much better shape now. I just have to start writing it.

This is by far the busiest summer I've had since I moved out to Ventura County in 2003, and it's not over yet. But at least I'll be a little closer to home now.

Add a Comment

Mount Markham sits right in the middle of the cluster of mountain peaks you can reach from Eaton Saddle in the Angeles National Forest. It's not the highest one, but it's the toughest to climb. When you see it from the Eaton Saddle trail head, it looks pointy, but when you see it from Mount Wilson, it looks like it has a flat top. That's because the summit is really long and narrow, as you can see from this view:





Instead of hiking directly to the summit from Eaton Saddle, I started from the old Red Box Ranger Station - now a Native American Cultural Center - a mile or so down the road, so that I could hike up the north face of Mount Disappointment and get another look at it. Mount Disappointment is my sentimental favorite among the peaks in the area. It was named by some disgruntled surveyors who didn't like having to carry their equipment over to San Gabriel Peak when they realized it was slightly taller. Then it got its top blown off by the Army Corps of Engineers, so they could build a Nike Missile base up there. There's still an antenna farm on the summit, along with a serviceable helipad, which makes it very interesting to me.



I'd gotten a late start, so it was already getting warm when I reached the trail up Mount Markham. I use the word "trail" loosely, because it's steep, rocky and overgrown. There are spots where you really have to look to figure out where you're going. But the view was worth it when I finally reached the top and walked across the narrow ridge line.




But getting to the top wasn't the end of the adventure. Getting back had challenges of its own. For starters, I had to get back down the same steep trail I'd used to reach the summit. Then I had to go back up the side of San Gabriel Peak to reach Mount Disappointment, in the mid-afternoon sun. Fortunately, I planned ahead and conserved my water supply, and then I had a nice breeze to help me much of the way up. Originally I'd thought about exploring the two peaks a little more on my way back, but I was too hot and worn out. I'd been there back in February, so I chose just to head home instead.

At the beginning of the year, I bought an "Adventure Pass" that allows me to park inside the Angeles Forest, and I've been making the most of it. There are two more hikes I'd like to do out there, with plenty of summer left. And now that I'm through all the weekend events I had this summer, I should have plenty of chances.

Add a Comment

Last month at the Homeschool Conference, my publisher's top-selling author asked me how I managed to write female characters. He said he's always struggled with it, but he noticed that all my books have female main characters, so he thought he'd ask if I knew some kind of trick to it.

I had to tell him that I don't. None that I'm aware of, anyway. Unless you count the fact that when I dream, my subconscious uses a girl's image to represent my writing creativity - but I wasn't about to get into that conversation.

The person who taught me the most about writing female characters is my ex-wife. When we first met, I'd just finished a script which had, I must admit, nothing but two-dimensional stereotypes where the female characters should have been. She rewrote the first act, and the scales fell from my eyes. The years we spent together were pretty miserable in almost every way, but at least I learned one useful thing in that time.

Essentially, my attitude is that "women are people and should written as such." Female characters should have three dimensions, just like male characters. They should have strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams and goals, fears and worries and anxieties... the whole nine yards. My approach is a bit limited, because I don't know how to write an especially "girly" character without straying into stereotype-land - but then, my stories don't really have much need for "girly" characters, so it's not a problem for me.

The most important thing a male writer needs to watch out for is a female character who exists solely to meet the needs of a male character. The "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" of movie trope-dom is a good example. If the character has no life of her own, but is only there to boost the leading man's confidence or teach him how to "live in the now" or some other important lesson, she shouldn't be there. Likewise, if she's there primarily to elicit some kind of response from the male audience - such as, for example, the anime characters who are "moe" (whatever that means) - there's something wrong. I sometimes see the way a female character is written and imagine her stepping through the fourth wall, Roger Rabbit-like, to go off and complain to her union rep about it. That's never a good thing.

Basically, crossing over the boundaries and writing a character who's a different gender, race, religion, sexuality or whatever, doesn't take a literary genius. It just takes a willingness to see that person as a person, and to imagine what the world is like through that person's eyes. Which is what writers are supposed to do anyway, isn't it?

Add a Comment