Peter chafes at absurd rules, and one of these is the rules that we can’t buy or shoot off fireworks for the fourth of July in our Californian town, despite the fact that budget cuts have also cancelled the annual downtown festival where we had a public display. So, one recent weekend, he drove all…
Author: cjbickford
Conway Pere et Fils and Neil and Me
Neil recently came up with some puzzles (and art) for Gary Antonick’s Numberplay column in the New York Times. It was really cool and as part of it, Antonick includes a picture of Neil with one of his heroes, Stephen Wolfram, whose book The Art of Science, introduced Neil to cellular automata, the Game of…
Guido the Business License Tax Enforcer and Other Nuisances
I was working in the office yesterday when in Guido from the city came in, asking to see our business license. Guido is not his real name, but he had the air of a low-end mafioso. I had no trouble showing him our license, since it’s prominently posted in the break room, and we’d recently…
Rant on the 2011 Closure of California State Parks
I have an entire blog about the upcoming, er, proposed, closure of selected California State Parks, but it is out of context without a rant about the cynicism, demagoguery, and manipulation of the members of the California State Legislature. We have, after all, been at this point before. In 2009, our then-governor vowed to close…
The Crowds and Cost of Yosemite
A few years ago, we saw Disney California Adventure’s Grizzly Peak Recreation and mocked it for being a weak imitation of one our favorite redwood destinations, Big Basin Park. As it turns out, I was wrong. It’s clearly a Disney-fied Yosemite National Park, albeit missing the massive crowds and cold climate. Inarguably, Yosemite Park has…
Our Visit to Yosemite
We just spent two days in Yosemite, enjoying its spectacular beauty. We drove up to Inspiration point and enjoyed the view: We drove further up the mountain near the Badger Point and played in a huge fresh snowfall, throwing snow balls at one another and creating all sorts of snowmen, from a wizard, to a…
A Tour of Dale Seymour’s House
At Gathering for Gardner 9, Dale Seymour gave a presentation of his spectacular house as well as of sculptures he’d brought to Tom Rodger’s estate. When I found out he lived in nearby Los Altos, I promptly asked him if there was any chance we could come over and see them in person, since Neil…
Three Strikes for Kill Hannah
We just sent video to the San Jose police department, showing the footage our video cameras captured of a skeezy guy in a hoodie casing our cars and breaking into mine and taking some stuff. Normally, the police simply take a report, but this was an exception. Since the guy in the video looks an…
Eek, Mr. Skeezebag is Still on the Loose!
In October, a skeezy white guy named Andrew Clark Bergman was caught red-handed in Peter’s PT Cruiser, which had been stolen 6 weeks early. I called him Mr. Skeezebag in my posting, assuming he would be quickly convicted and sentenced, but not wanting to have anything skew the case. This morning, after finding security tapes…
World War II Timed Essay Showdown: Neil vs. Carolyn
A few years ago, when we first started homeschooling, Neil and I wrote persuasive essays with opposing points of view, and I posted them here. Neil is an excellent writer, though he sometimes loses sight of this fact. So as part of his final test on the World War II unit we’ve just completed, I…