It could be a plan or a pipe dream – I don’t know which yet. For now I prefer to dream of it as a plan. It may have seemed that in the last couple of years my interest in physics had waned. It didn’t – I just went back to school. I never had any formal training in physics; and never had any interest in the math except in the beauty of it. I just observed and read and gradually morphed into a few theories of my own. More recently I decided perhaps I should at least be able to pronounce my heroes names, and terms, and tenants. Perhaps even know some of the basics of basic physics. While I knew, for a layman, quite a lot about particle physics and quantum theory I knew nothing of the thousand rungs up to that point. I went back to school, Community College, Physics 101, 210, and parts of 102 and 211 – I heard the names and filled in outlines.

It was useful, but limited. Then I learned of physics lectures for free on the internet. MIT, Berkeley, Perimeter Institute, Cornell, ASU – all offering free lectures, some the entire course, very often by the topmost names in the field, and relatively current!! Recently (last month) I saw a live webcast from ASU with six Nobel Laureates at the same table discussing The Origins of the Universe – the Big Bang, the following seconds, and all the way up to today. Okay, there were only five at the table – Stephen Hawking fell ill that day in California on the way to the conference and had to send his contribution via an audio feed carried by his daughter. This is heady stuff, pronunciation, personality, cutting edge and all.

Now I am amazed at how many of my ideas are, at least in part, corroborated by the great minds. Of course often that just means I borrowed it from them in the first place, all be it unbeknownst to me. Osmosis works that way. And of course the symmetry isn’t perfect. I still can’t do the math, and considerable gaps in my knowledge still exist. I came by it from a different tack. Furthermore they are rightly patricians, they have earned it, and I am plainly plebian. That said, I still find most new theories are rehashes of things said in the past with a tweak here, a tweak there, or sometimes a recombination of the various elements. Did I mention they sometimes appear to just average. So there is no reason for me to not continue enthusiastically on my way. Okay, I’ll do it, that is the plan for now.

May 10, 2009 / A Plan Or A Pipe Dream / AFW pg 87 © 2009 / CIP # 828 / OAR

Three sets of windows – all double door – a man couldn’t be luckier. The first set was a narrow, elongated, 8th floor set of double windows overlooking the rooftops of Paris. There is no more beautiful city in the world and Haussmann arranged a bird’s eye view for me. By administrative fiat Baron Haussmann decreed all buildings in 19th Century Paris must be 7 floors or less. And even today they virtually all are. I was lucky enough to share, with the birds at eye level, an almost unobstructed view of large swaths of Paris. For five years I designed games, pursued physics, loved a woman and watched that world. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Unless of course you come home, set your-self down and look out a beautiful set of corner windows and listen to Edith Piaf – the Parisian sparrow of yesteryear. That is exactly what I am doing right now. Non Je Ne Regrette Rien – that is the song that is playing right now, somehow it seems quite appropriate. Deadwood towers right outside the right picture window, literally yards away. Outside the left window lupines and poppies bloom, quails and squirrels play with butterflies fluttering and bees buzzing – peace abounds. And yes, I’ve even seen a hummingbird outside that window. Except for missing that woman – who spent years with me under the shadow of my Deadwood before I spent years with her in her Paris – except for that ache everything is good. She passed, but we have already had the best of two possible worlds.

It is the third set of windows that may be problematical. That’s the set we all have – our own two eyes. They have served me superbly for 67 years, but it seems more and more likely that something might be happening with mine. It could be something that a doctor warned me of 40 years ago when he stitched up my right eye after an accident. That was actually very close to the last time I saw a doctor for me. It could be something an optometrist mentioned in passing a few months ago. It could be neither, and it could be nothing – just a product of an over active imagination. Time will tell, but in the meantime I will take no action. That too has served me superbly for 67 years. Finding natural balances usually works better than listening to the medical profession. No matter what I have seen more than most and it was exquisite.

I have read recently that most economists date the beginning of the current recession to December, 2007. Actually I read it again this morning in an article about Warren Buffet on AP/MSNBC – it was updated at 6:44 AM, so you have to believe it is current. I can’t help but reflect that my sweetheart fell ill for the first time in November 2007. She fought valiantly for 14 or 15 months but succumbed. I was ‘healthy’ but continued on the downward spiral for another 14 or 15 months. Only recently do we see light at the end of the tunnel. She is at peace and I am finally at home. It appears the worldwide recession might finally be bottoming out. Life and death imitating art – a Kabuki of sorts or perhaps I should say Kafkaesque.

May 4, 2009 / The Economy / AFW pg 82 © 2009 / CIP # 765

In the early months of la renaissance she told me. In those months when you talk of everything absolutely freely she told me she would die at 54. She repeated it more than once. She was afraid, but not morbidly so. She was more sad than afraid, but still quite sad, because she wanted more time even back then. I didn’t really believe her but I comforted her. And then we went on and happily built a life together, seldom if ever mentioning those early premonitions. She was born in 1954 so I knew that was a pretty good year.

It was the London trip that somehow still haunts me a little. Did she know? Did she somehow sense it had to be now? We had discussed it for years and she was well aware that I very much wanted to visit my father’s grave before I died. Still we had dawdled over the years because London seemed so close and easily accessible. Once we had even made plane reservations, but when we went to secure a hotel we found that London was full. We switched to Amiens, halfway to London – it was a good compromise and a fun trip.

Usually we preferred to go south towards Annecy, Provence, Avignon or our perennial favorite Aix-les-Bains. Occasionally we would head west towards Rouen or Normandie. Sometimes she would fly off to the islands with the kids – land of the sun and sand and golden tan. Every trip was a warm memory with a hundred photos, a thousand smiles and a hand to hold. Still we had never made it to England.

Then suddenly she started making serious plans – the plane, the hotel, the itinerary – the whole shebang. It was for my birthday and a surprise so I knew little beforehand. I am virtually certain I told her we didn’t have to go then, we could go next year, but she was set. She orchestrated the most magnificent trip I ever had. It was magic. The hotel was superb, the pictures taken, the goals all accomplished, and side trips completed. She seemed as happy as I had ever seen her, and I know I was. Just being with her and accomplishing my final goal was enough for me. Everything else was cake and there was plenty of that. Only in the aftermath did I begin to wonder if she could have possibly known. I don’t believe so – we were just too happy on that trip, but still it nags a little.

Then too, in the aftermath, the Litvinenko case took on overtones that gave pause. At the time we were barely aware of it, if at all. Only in the ensuing weeks did it become a cause célèbre. Still the poisoning by Polonium 210 took place at around 5:00 PM in the bar at the Millenium Hotel, Grosvenor Square. They also were in a bar that we had walked right past earlier. We were right in and all around that area all of that afternoon. Probably it was just coincidence. I asked three different doctors could there be any connection between that and the tumor that materialized a few weeks later? The answer was no, no, and no! Still it too nags a little.

Of course it is the 54 that I keep returning to most. Very early on in our relationship I had noticed the concurrence of her birth year and the 1954 National Football Championship UCLA won. I am a great fan of all their teams so I thought it augured well. Okay, we will now fast forward to the near present, actually just about a year ago. UCLA, in basketball this time, was playing extremely well and threatening another National Championship. I knew that 54 and 1954 equaled 2008. I knew my sweethearts condition. I remembered the prediction. For the first time ever I didn’t want UCLA to win. They didn’t. Now the year 1954 alone remains a great year.

February 24, 2009 / How Did She Know? Or Did She? / AFW pg 72 © 2009 / CIP 761 / Mixed / SHE

I awoke on the 21st ‘lighter,’ noticeably so, strangely so. A cloud had lifted. I was surprised. I had expected something closer to despair when I went to sleep. When you dread something, reality often turns out to be kinder. The 21st was the first of a series of anniversaries. A year ago today …. …. Mostly they were not pleasant memories. This would be the week when a world collapsed – day by day, by hour by sometimes seconds. It was the first anniversary of the end. And yet here I was in the first hours feeling ‘lighter,’ stronger, almost happy. Of course maybe it was because it was both the first and the last of the first anniversaries. Having survived both hers, and my, and her children’s ‘first birthday without her;’ and Christmas, and our Wedding Anniversary and every other first for almost 363 days, I only had to survive the anniversary of the day she died. Of course it was actually the anniversary of the start of the ‘Thirty Something Hours’, two days before she died.

Anyway, it started with a dream. This was before I awoke. I couldn’t remember or even see the faces clearly, but I knew one of them was me. I could remember the age, the ambiance, the rolling fields, the eagerness of youth, and the beauty of the opposite sex. Yes, I could remember them well, though I almost never dreamed of them now. We must have been late teens or very early twenties. We were running and rolling over the undulating fields – cavorting and wrestling as youth does – laughing and tumbling together and feeling the heat.

That’s when I awoke the first time. It was about 2:00 AM. I was damp and still pulsing. Somehow I had forgotten about those kinds of dreams, but hazily I knew one when I felt one. Groggily I turned over and fell back asleep. It had been a long, long time coming. Actually I had sort of assumed they were gone forever, like many of the other things of youth. When I awoke on the 21st I felt ‘lighter’. Could it have been my Sweetheart again? Did she send me first a poem, then some photos and now a dream?

February 24, 2009 / The 21st / AFW pg 72 © 2009 / CIP 5/8/2009 # 760 / Mixed / SHE

To my Minou and her Domi; to an angel, her brother, and her husband; to Minou’s three kids and their others; to my first family; and all the other others – Thank You. For the last year that we all survived; for the ten years of heaven; for the strength of twenty years that one of us endured; for the second life of 33 great years; and the first life of similar proportions; for a wedding, and another last year, and another this – Thank You. Everyday somewhere the sun came out and warmed us. Everyday a hummingbird flew free. It will continue. I am a lucky man and we were all blessed. I love you all. Thank You.

February 23, 2009 / Thank You All / AFW pg 70, © 2009 / CIP 2/23/2009 / Mixed / SHE

Recriminations are a waste of time but it is never too late to make amends. I’ll get to that in a moment. With the anniversary approaching perhaps it is a good time to take stock. Certainly at this very moment a year ago I was prouder of myself than I am today. My world was about to spiral out of control. Almost within hours the disintegration would begin. Still, right then I believed I had done fairly close to everything I was capable of doing. Save for saving her – and for a few weeks by then I had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither I nor any doctor was capable of doing that - I had done it all. I was proud of myself, probably even a little too proud.

While I thought I had handled it fairly well, I knew she had handled it infinitely better. It is inconceivable to me that any human being could handle their own demise with greater grace. The strength and determination she showed, the kindness and protection she offered to her friends and family, the incomparable example of beauty and bravery – all of these are standards most of us will never attain. For any of them she deserved to be saved. I couldn’t save her. Very occasionally, late, late at night her eyes would plead for an instant, but we both came to gradually know that I didn’t have the power. I could rock her, I could love her, I could comfort her, and sometimes I could even be as brave as she was, but I couldn’t save her.

And now the time was nigh. I had stayed by her, I had kept her home, I had kept her happy and I had kept her out of the hospital. That was all she had asked. A thousand people helped me help her along the way – her brothers and sisters, her children, her family, friends, coworkers, and a host of others. Now I was disintegrating. Three of them stepped forward – an angel, a doctor, and a son. They took her the last 40 hours and then she rested. She deserved that.

Sadly my disintegration continued, first for thirty something hours, then, in fits and starts, for weeks and on into months. On the first day the same angel materialized, and a couple of other people helped me greatly. Others tried but I was difficult to understand. I am still trying to make amends. Of late it seems to be going in the right direction.

February 16, 2009 / Save for Saving Her / AFW pg 68-9, © 2009 / CIP 2/23/2009 / Mixed / SHE

I had asked at least 3 or 4 different people, some of them multiple times, to please, please help me get the contents of my camera into my computer. Of course when I say ‘help me’ I am really asking them to please do it – push the buttons, get it done. I am deathly afraid of buttons now. I always push the wrong one, usually in the wrong order, often at the wrong time, somehow with the wrong pressure, and occasionally twice, or two buttons at a time. It’s a darn good thing I only have five fingers because otherwise I would be in twice as much trouble. None of my fingers work. Anyway, everyone said they would but nobody did.

It used to be easy. My Minou would always just do it. I never even asked. She knew how much I loved pictures. Then it finally happened. Someone did do it. Finally, there they were, the photos that capped my odyssey to France! As I was pouring through the newly created folder I happened to note the date created. February 14, 2009. My sweetheart has been gone now nearly a year, but somehow she managed to send me a poem on my birthday and a Valentine on Valentine’s Day!!

February 14, 2009 / It’s Serendipity or it’s a Sign / AFW pg 68-9, © 2009 / CIP 2/23/2009 / Mixed / SHE

The first stop was a layover. The second stop I hope will be permanent. It’s narrowed down to three – Forest Grove, Oregon; Camarillo, California; and my old stomping grounds The Sierra Nevada. All three have some advantages and all three would contain some aspect of a fourth transitory place. No matter where I go, I would like to spend considerable time pursuing physics and a place called Waterloo (no, not that one, it’s in Canada).

I gave up betting when I gave up backgammon but, if I had to bet, my money would be on my mountains. There is a visceral pull there. Not only did I spend 25 happy years there, but there were also two vital beginnings there. On July 1, 1976, and August 31, 1998, two stories started smack dab in my mountains; and they were both with the very same woman. Other milestones originated in Oak Park. They say you can’t go back, but I might try anyway. I never failed there. 33 and 10 years later I could come home to where it all began, and set sail to my final sunset.

February 16, 2009 / I’m Not Certain Where I’ll Set Yet / AFW pg 70, © 2009 / CIP 2/23/2009 / Mixed / SHE

What if inflation was simply propagation to the trillions?

Are all of our current basic particles secondary?

Could it be that the absolute basic particle is a ‘Stem Planck’ embodying the principle that Opposites Aren’t?

Maybe the Stem Planck is zero and all other current subatomic particles are one.

What if the golden mean was proportionate to positive and negative?

Could 3/3 be the sliding scale between 0/1?

Does 1, 2, 3 = 0, 1, 2 too? Is it as simple as that?

Perhaps zero and one are opposites just like hot and cold.

What if a singularity is simply the renewal or reversal of time and everything else is a temperate phase transition?

Could Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle pacify the storm by fiat? In effect should this be the first sub atomic axiom? Is it the first X?

Maybe the Stem Planck’s transmogrification into neutrons, bosons, fermions et al was inflation.

Humility and patience need to hold hands. The more educated one is the more so this is.

Musings are mostly just amusing but in amongst them there could be one or two foundational perspectives that might be worth pursuing.

February 09, 2009 / More Musings (5) / AFW pg 65, © 2009 / CIP 2/23/2009 / Best / OAR