Busy things

I just started am email to someone to explain a lot of things that have been going on recently. I decided, this should be a blog post instead.

A doctor has been treating my mom for pressure sores (open wounds on the skin from too much pressure on a point) for several months. While he had always said surgery was an option he was trying less invasive treatments first. A couple of weeks ago my mom went to another doctor who is treating her for a fever she has had on and off for a while. The doctor said she had a bone infection and needs intravenous antibiotics every day for the next several months. However, he refused to start treatment until her pressure sores were closed. So, the other doctor proceeded with surgery. After 10 days in the hospital, my mom came home. However, the recovery will take a long time, at least two months. She is in a hospital bed with a special mattress and can do almost nothing for the next few weeks.

Classes at The Beach started back up last week. I still need to figure out what project I am going to do and what professor to work with. Right now I am in three classes that look interesting. I am blessed to have gotten the classes I want, since most of the people I know were unable to get into the classes they wanted.

Now for something fun. Before classes started, I went to Lake Arrowhead for a weekend with some people from Beach Newman. We did exciting things like played hide and seek in a cabin with all the lights off and scary music playing.

About the Missions

A week ago I finished reading Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions by James A. Sandos. I liked it.

I picked up this book because I wanted to learn more about the missions and early California history. Unlike many people I know, I did not write a mission report when I was in fourth grade. I went to school in Ohio, so I learned about the native peoples of Ohio and some early settlement around the French and Indian War. Instead of building a mission, I created a brochure that highlighted some Ohio tribes for a tourist back in the day.

As explained in the introduction, several studies of early California history view the Spanish missions as either the greatest or the worst thing to ever happen to California and the native people. Converting California looks for the truth which is somewhere in the middle. I will highlight a few things I found interesting.

The big initial reason for the sudden expansion into California was to secure the coastline for Spain against other powers, such as Russia.

There was conflict between how the Spanish military and the Franciscan friars wanted to treat the native peoples. Then among both groups, there was a variety of individual attitudes toward native peoples. There were some amazing friars and soldiers, but there were also some who shamelessly exploited the native inhabitants.

The missions and presidios brought the native peoples a common language. This allowed different tribes to communicate with each other in common goals, like plotting against the Spanish.

Fr. Serra was a good guy. He believed that he was saving the souls of native people by bringing Christ to them. Everything he did was to advance this goal. His personal actions imitated Christ. Before he went to Alta California, Fr. Serra said that if he is killed by the native people that they should be forgiven. When one of his brother friars was brutally killed, he urged mercy and forgiveness for the murders.

Native people who lived as part of the missions had a shorter lifespan than those who remained in their normal dwelling places. The friars were aware of this, but did not have a ready explanation. Diseases such as syphilis were easily transmitted. In the late Eighteenth Century, the germ theory of disease was not known. Common procedures like tattooing and medical treatments of the day including scaring skin transferred blood between people. I learned syphilis was present in the new world before European contact, but was then spread around by Europeans.

A Documentary
After I read the book, I watched Serra: Ever Forward, Never Back, which aired on EWTN in November. The docudrama was nothing great, but it complemented the book nicely. It focused on the parts of Fr. Serra's life the book did not. It also included some footage of where Serra grew up on the island of Majorca, Spain and where he was a missionary in Mexico. Some more information about the program, which was filmed in California, is also online.

Nov 24, 2013 was the 300 anniversary of Fr. Serra's birth. He is beatified, so he is one step away from becoming an official saint.

Weekend Excitement: Hollywood Sign, Beer, Quantum Mechanics

Last weekend was fun. I will start with Sunday, since it has a picture to go with it.

Hiking in Hollywood
On Sunday I went for a hike with some other people from Beach Newman. We went to Griffith Park near the Hollywood Sign. It was fun.

Below are the directions of how we hiked. Material in brackets is stuff I deduced from Google Maps after the fact or heard from people, but did not personally check out. Investigate more before you take anything in brackets seriously.

To get to the parking lot, take the Gower exit off of the 101, go north to make an immediate right on Franklin. Then make a left on Canyon Drive (a small street after a couple of lights) and follow it to the park. It looks like the address of 3200 Canyon Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90068 will get you there. Parking there was tight. It was mostly parallel parking on the street or a dirt lot. I found a spot in the lot because I was willing to dive all the way to a small space at the end. Getting out was harder. If it was not for the help of several people there directing me I would have steered my tire off the curb and had a costly and horrible day.

For the hike itself, start by continuing on the road (Canyon Dr) from where you parked. There will be a place where people skateboard on the right. Keep following the road. [Google Maps shows there are paths that go left or straight as the road bends right. These might be alternate routes.] Keep following that, and it will take up into the hills. After the road has climbed in elevation, there will be another dirt road that veers off to the right. [It looks like that will take you to Griffith Observatory.] If you want the Hollywood Sign, stay left. Since the Hollywood Sign is visible earlier in the hike, it should be easy to make this turn. A little further on, there will be a path that goes left and descends the hill. This will take you toward the horse stables. Instead of that, stay right for the Hollywood.

Eventually, the trail will dump you onto a paved road. We went left which will take you to a good, but not close view of the front of the sign. [If you take a right, the road will bring you to the back of the Hollywood Sign.] The picture below was actually taken on private property we were not supposed to be on (though many people were on it). However, we took a small shortcut and bypassed that sign completely. [It looks like the private road dead ends without a better view.]



There is space next to me so we can photoshop in the other two people who ran away before we took a picture. We went back the same way, which made for a 5.4 mile round trip. On the way back we had pizza at Fresh Brothers. We enjoyed their Hawian Style and Old School (meatballs layered with pepperoni and smothered with spicy Giardiniera) pizzas.

Quantum Mechanics
On Saturday I meet one of my friends from Beach Newman. When I last saw this friend (his name is Chris), I told him one of my goals for Christmas vacation was reading a book on quantum mechanics. He thought, it would be great if he could read it too and we could discuss it. We are reading Volume III of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. They are freely available online and designed to be easily read on any device. Chris is reading them on his phone.

We talked about the first three chapters of it on Saturday. While I took two semesters of quantum mechanics as part of my physics education, I did not understand things as well as I wanted to. I did not have a conceptual basis of what was going on that could help me figure things out. So far I am enjoying the reading a lot.

Some Beer
After that, I went to Ryan's house to celebrate his birthday. Since he is a fan of pale ales and Stone Brewing Company, I brought him some Goose Island Ten Hills Pale Ale and Stone Levitation Ale. I liked the Ten Hills, but the Levitation was not as good as I remember other Stone products being.



In case you cannot tell, we are playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64. Ryan got it for Christmas. I have never liked playing games on it because everyone is significantly better than me. I never had a gaming console growing up (I never wanted one), which might explain some things about me.