For certain I am super pleased that I am home, but even more pleased that I went. This applies to my last trip during the past two weeks to Camarillo and Pismo Beach; and equally well to the myriad of preceding trips in the last ten years. Each and every journey provided a destination and a new perspective. Each provided fresh insights and a stepping stone. California, Colorado, Santa Fe, Paris, London and Portland were the main stops, but there were a thousand pausing stones between. I’m very glad I went, but I am ready to settle again.

Having seen virtually all of my surviving family in the past two or three years there is no need to wander afar anymore. Only one place besides my mountains holds magic for me. Perhaps ‘a day’ I will return yet again to Aix-les-Bains, but no other place holds much allure. I am tired and I want to rest, and soon to sleep. There is one last project I would like to complete. It will take at least a couple of years, maybe a little more to finish. Then, along with that old crooner Frank, I can say I did it all and I did it my way. After that I can fade from the scene reasonably proud and very happy. In the meantime a low profile, no travel, and just the pen for company suits me fine. Monthly installments of Cowboy will continue.

March 18, 2010 / End of the Road / OC pg 22, © 2010 / CIP 673, Mar 21, 2010 / BIOG, BTR

This is still a Cowboy in Paris which sprung into life in March of 2005 and was born out of Tricolors that first saw the dawn in October, 2000. Lately we have been wandering off in many directions. Often the subject matter has been some aspect of physics; and, even more often, some facet of cancer – death, dying, love, life, or even regeneration. Now we will be on occasion returning closer to our roots – England, France, Paris, Europe; and all from a Cowboy from Paris. It will be from a cowboy who is back in his mountains and reflecting on all of the above; and the setting sun.

February 26, 2010 / A Return to Roots / OC pg 23, © 2010 / CIP 672, Mar 21, 2010 / EUR, GOOD

Whenever you listen to a physics lecture that is presented with an audience of laymen in mind you will hear at least two or three times how many million times this particular proposition has been tested, authenticated, proven or confirmed. Often you will come away with the very clear impression that at least this physicist knows exactly what he or she is talking about – right down to the nth degree with a millionth, billionth or trillionth factor of accuracy. Almost always within the parameters of the specific sentence they do. Physicists are careful with grammar.

Of course, as we often find out in life, the devil is in the details. In the classroom and in the equations physicists are extremely precise. But then we find out it is all Greek to us – just a simple Greek letter, can change everything. Actually Roman letters are only a little better but at least they often are the first letter of the quality that they stand for. Other symbols muddy up the water further – excluding letters there are over 400 distinct signs in physics and only one of them is equal. Most of the rest mean not equal to – perhaps asymptotic, approximately, almost, or even equivalent to, but not equal. Other symbols mean precedes, succeeds, subset, superset, less than, greater than, or even much greater than – but still not equal. Many of them can have a squiggle here or there to mean not asymptotic, approximate etc etcetera; or double, or triple the value, or whatever; some of them are just vulgar fractions.

Master all that and then we come to some of the words. Screening, sum over, symmetry (gauge, local or otherwise), super-symmetry, entanglements, correlated properties, constants and conversions are just a few of them. The latter two are mostly solid and real and actually the source of the millions of confirmations noted above. I suspect though that in most instances even here we don’t redo the math every single time. Some physicists might even admit that the highest and lowest constants have, as one of their main functions, the avoidance of infinities. The rest of the terms come closer to averaging than anything else.

There is a little bit of larceny and a smattering of fraud here, but on average a smoothing of rough edges. When politicians use similar phrases we call them weasel words – at least when they are from the opposition party. When financiers do the same we label them Madoff or Enron or LTCM. Mostly we don’t notice it when physicists do it. Apparently we all need fudge factors.

February 25, 2010 / A Fudge Factor / OC pg 22, © 2010 / CIP 846, Mar 21, 2010 / OAR, BST

When it comes to hands three is better than one (or even two). I have never experienced four since I was about 15 – so I can’t speak to that. What I can say with some certainty is that having just one hand is only a small handicap. With 50 years of experience I know whereof I speak. For large segments of those 50 years I was married, and I counted myself as extremely lucky to have three hands when I need them.

For the remaining patches of time there were relatively easy ways around the problem. If you have scotch tape, a stapler, duct tape and WD 40 around - you can do virtually anything – at least temporarily. In my bookstore some of those fixes lasted 22 years. In fact I have often found that many handicaps are molehills unless you let them be mountains.

February 24, 2010 / A Small Handicap / OC pg 22, © 2010 / CIP 671, Mar 21, 2010 / BIOG, BTR

It appears to me that our news coverage in the 21st Century is close to 20% good news, 80% bad news, and virtually 0% normal news. By normal news I simply mean what you or your neighbor next door did yesterday. The interesting thing is that in our own personal lives the news is frequently 80% good, 20% bad and virtually 0% news. There in is the rub and the dichotomy.

This is written in remembrance of Charles Kuralt (1934-1997). For those too young to remember he spent the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s On the Road and provided us with the last 1% of normal news we ever got. I miss him.

February 20, 2010 / Normal / OC pg 19, © 2010 / CIP 795, Mar 21, 2010 / SHE, MXD

Today, through the magic of coordination, at 5:06 AM, Paris time, two candles will be lit. One of them will be lit close to where her ashes comingle with the earth – le Revard. It will be lit by the best friend a woman ever had, in honor of the best friend that woman ever knew. She spread those ashes just a few months ago.

The second candle will be lit by me at exactly 5:06 AM, Paris time - we are 9 hours earlier here in the Sierra Nevada. It will be lit in the place from which I journeyed forth in 1976 specifically to meet her. It is also where our two lives originally comingled in earnest in 1998. Actually it will be not 300 yards from our first home – the address is still the same.

Elsewhere, in Paris, les ptits loups will hold hands. At minimum they will hold hands in thought, and possibly they will hold hands in fact. They are now united with an unbreakable bond – together they spread her ashes into the waters of the world in les Antilles almost two years ago.

Fifty six years and half a dozen lives – Paris, le Revard, les Antilles et nous Sierra Nevada unifié. Two years ago I uttered the words: “She is at peace; and so am I. She earned her rest with a magnificent fight and an inspirational life. Her children will now carry on. At 5:06 AM on the 23rd of February a light went out on earth, and in my heart. Perhaps a star blinked on in the heavens. Its name was Minou.” Today two candles are lit. They combine the mountains, the oceans, two continents and us. Perhaps a light will go back on in my heart.

February 22, 2010 / 5:06 AM, Paris Time / OC pg 21, © 2010 / CIP 797, Feb 22, 2010 / SHE

It is around 5:00 or 5:30 Friday evening – the last cars are pulling out of the parking lot. Everyone has gone home. If it were summer, in about an hour or so, I might see a deer or two wander across the parking lot. The odds are I won’t see another human soul until about 7:00 AM Monday morning. Oh, to be sure, a few cars will drive by Saturday on the little adjacent aptly named Oakpark Way. They seldom venture into our parking lot and the street dead ends just a couple of hundred yards beyond here. On Sunday there is even less traffic. It is just me, the deer, two or three squirrels, a very occasional raccoon, and a lot of birds.

There are eight to ten trees within a few yards of my window – an oak, maybe three or four pines, a couple of others but best of all a tree, or very large shrub, whose name I could not tell you. This latter one reaches to within two or three feet of my second floor window and above. Literally, at its closest, it is about six feet from my eyeballs as I type this. From here I can reach out and touch my window and if I were the window I could reach out and touch the tree. The seemingly millions of small leaves are cinquefoil, green, and variegated – similar to Manzanita leaves but a little smaller and the wood is definitely much softer than Manzanita. Anyway its myriad intricate branches provide perfect cover for my birds.

You might have noticed in one short paragraph they have became my birds. They are of course free but most mornings I do go out and throw a couple of handfuls of seed around the base of the trees. There is on a regular basis a steller’s jay, two or three woodpeckers, a family of four or five robins and a group of around thirty to forty small birds. The latter group probably consists of sparrows, finches or thrushes but I can’t remember how you tell one from another. There are also a couple of coveys of quail that visit on a semi regular basis. I have heard an owl on occasion and once a hawk flew by. And then of course in season there are my humming birds. There are at least two but I think probably three of them. They could be Costa’s, Calliope, or Anna’s but I think it is the first. One of them has now, on at least four separate occasions, flown directly up to my window, looked in and hovered not six inches from the window for a protracted period of time.

I am almost never lonely. I have the perfect space to contemplate space and our place in it. I can consider temperature and time, and anything else that catches my fancy. I have the serenity of memory. I love my weekends.

February 20, 2010 / Weekends / OC pg 20, © 2010 / CIP 796, Feb 23, 2010 / SHE

Two years on is coming up on the 23rd at 5: 06 A.M. She is at rest, but she visits me every time a hummingbird comes up to my window. Undoubtedly she visits others in different ways.

Three years on it becomes apparent to me that it never was and never will be done any better by a mortal soul. There are presumably a few – very, very few – who may have equaled her grace, strength and bravery in meeting what we all must face. But I never met another such a person. So I honor her. Perhaps I saw her end a little clearer than some others because I participated.

In the end her mother and father were gone. Two people knew and loved the whole human being. Three people loved her as a mother. Half a dozen loved her as a sister. Many more loved her as a friend. The rest were lucky if they knew her as an acquaintance. I was the luckiest man alive.

Two years on her son produced a movie. It captured her and honors her. She will live forever.

February 17, 2010 / Two Years On / OC pg 18, © 2010 / CIP 794, Feb 23, 2010 / SHE

Could it be that -273.15° is close, but no cigar? Could it be that -333.333333° is closer still? I have a second, second number as a backup, but for now let’s stick with this because it is simpler. The first number is the odd number. Of course that is the accepted value of absolute zero temperature. Still, when one thinks of Albert Einstein’s dictum that everything should be as simple as possible but not simpler, it appears to be an odd number. In that light the second number seems a lot simpler.

We could even spin some yarns as to possible reasons why it might be so. Perhaps absolute zero has to go beyond where all kinetic motion of matter ceases. Perhaps it has to take into account quantum mechanical considerations.

February 6, 2010 / An Odd Number / OC pg 18, © 2010 / CIP 844, Feb 23, 2010 / OAR

Could we define the Big Bang as the event where the finite meets the infinite, where 0 and 1 coalesce and where temp-time--space-time both originate and end?

Isn’t it simpler and more elegant to have only one multi-verse at any given point in time?

Wouldn’t it seem logical and reasonable that if there was inflation in the very beginning second there would be deflation in the very last second at the end?

I sometimes wonder if temp-time sandwiches space-time

The Cosmological Constant could be viewed as when Time and Temperature fuse with Mass and Energy into the next Big Bang. Einstein wins again!!

January 22, 2010 / Hypothetical Musings / OC pg 17, © 2010 / CIP 844, Feb 23, 2010 / OAR