WTF History

This started as a conversation...as most of my eventual journeys down various rabbit holes do.

Blond haired, blue eyed kids at our kids' school are few and far between, but some of them are from the Ukrainian diaspora. So when Putin invaded and started the first land war in Europe since WWII (besides the breakup of Yugoslavia and ensuing ethnic cleansing? Civil wars don't count?), we had a few conversations about some of the historical background.

Much later---as in quite recently---in the wee hours of the night, before bed, Corrie and I put eyes on one of the Youtube programs we like: an episode of SciShow about a Persian silver horde found buried in England. 

In the episode, if you don't feel like watching it, it turns out that the Vikings buried treasure hordes all over their conquered or occupied lands. Historians aren't sure why, but one suggestion was that the treasure would be used to purchase favor when needed in their political shenanigans. One of the Vikings main bits of treasure was silver. They loved silver. One of the hordes recently dug up in England turned out to be from Persia. The science behind the isotopes in the impurities being a fingerprint from where it was smelt and cast was fascinating, and the Persian foundry was unmistakable.

And it turned out that the Vikings got around. Like, all over. 

Today the Scandinavians we tend to lump together and call "Vikings" never would have called themselves that, and that the term "viking" may have really been a term that meant "to arrive and murder." But one of these tribes that got far, like to the Volga far, called themselves the Rus. The Volga is the river that runs from Kyiv down to the Black Sea (and has headwaters even beyond Pripyat, if you're a fan of HBO's "Chernobyl"), and it seems like it was this group, the Rus, that traded with Persian traders north of the Black Sea for their silver during their travels and trade route developments.

This is where my ears perked up. The Rus?

I have a very cool history book, an Atlas of the Medieval World, that's very small and very dense, as it tracks Europe and the near East (today's Middle East) from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance. Each page is a crisp outline of language family incursions, invasions by all types (Magyar, Mongol, Turkic, etc), and one thing it said I always pondered in my own time. 

It mentioned that at one point the Western Slavic language branch (the closely related Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian) broke away from the other Slavic languages and became distinctly different. And I generally mulled that over in my head through the years...about how Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians were just that different from the other Slavs found in Europe proper...that seemed, I dunno, proper in some kind of way?

But seeing this show about a Viking silver horde in England, likely from the Rus, brought me back to the conversation I had with Cass a few years back.

See, as I told the Boy, the trio of Russia, their close allies in Belarus, and the Ukrainians all claim the Kievan Rus as their origin story. The Kievan Rus was the name of the original kingdom and lands held in the Volga valley around present day Kyiv, before the term Muscovite was coined around their newer homeland, Moscow (handwaving the details, certainly). They all felt like Kyiv was their origin spot, and felt like it was theirs to take back or defend with their lives.

These people were called Muscovites for a time, but the less formal general Rus was also used, and eventually that became the basis for "Russia" and "Belarus" that we've anglicized today.

But, it wasn't until just the other day that I understood that the Kievan Rus was just a gang of Vikings, and that they founded an empire and had their own familial lineage (the Rurikid) as the monarch from the year 862 until 1598, when Ivan the Terrible's feeble son died of dropsy and scurvy. For fifteen years that are called in Russian history courses "the Troubles" took place: after the last of the House of Rurik (Feodor, Ivan's youngest boy) fell, the Polish-Lithuanian empire invaded and occupied Moscow. 

In 1613, after driving out the occupiers, the council elected the next tsar, and it was Michael I, and thus started the House of Romanov, the family that was Tsar until the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. From 862 until 1917, with basically two family lines running all caps-RUSSIA, and the first was a freaking Viking.

And now the reason the Western Slavic branch being so different makes sense: it assimilated with a Northern Germanic/Scandinavian language.

Anyway, as I checked some of this stuff out, I learned that the Rus were also called, historically, the Varangians, which essentially meant "I agree to work for you." One group worked as the personal bodyguard to the Byzantine emperor, hence the records of their name. One of their bosses: Rurik...the same as the guy asked to settle disputes and run the show in Novgorod, founding Russia.

Most historians think this is apocryphal, or legend, but his brother Oleg could have been the true founder. Anyway...holy hell!

Vikings attacked France, and their king ceded beachfront land to them, these Norseman. They assimilated, became Normans after a French name change, and after a hundred and fifty years, invaded and conquered England.

They got around! But I didn't need to tell anyone that...

Camping at Pinnacles 2

Last year on the same weekend we went camping at Pinnacles National Park. That had been our second tent camping trip with the kids, and this was our third. Our spot was different, but we did, again, have to set up the tent in the dark.

But it was fine.

Last year, because of the drive and the sleeping in, we missed the long-ish hike at Bear Gulch Caves. This year, we made it. Last year I thought the area was pretty, but, like, sure. Condors...it's nice. Fine. National Park level, though?

But after doing the Bear Gulch Cave hike? NOW I get it.

One issue is that you need to take a shuttle up to the parking area, since it fills by 8:10 am, and maybe earlier. The road is tight and has just a single loop at the end, of a quaint parking area.

But the environs, as we went along the hike, were beautiful:

You start out along a wooded canyon walk, with striking red-rock walls:

But the walk is so nice, and the temperature was so pleasant, and the breeze was easygoing, and the elevation was minimal...so wonderful...

Then we got to the caves proper (after a quick fakeout), and the kids demanded to be in front. 

Flashlights or headlamps were necessary to navigate this cave, so I, with only my phone, followed close behind the kids, who each were given flashlights.

Certain spots you had to get down an your haunches or hands and knees to pass through, and our kids were fine with it, because, you know, small and bendy are kids.

After a while there was a nifty stairwell to mark the start to the way out of the cave:

And if you ever have questions about which way to go...there are handy directions:

After the stairs in the murky darkness, and the spray painted directions, you get outside proper, and a new stairwell shows up and slinks on up beyond a nerve-racking suspended boulder:

Up top there was a no-swim reservoir with nice reflections, and we got a chance to snack.

But the walk out was also very pretty:

After the reservoir and hiking back down, we returned to the campgrounds and relaxed. It was a fast, lightning trip, as we left the next morning.

One issue is that Pinnacles, along CA 25, is annoying for us to get to. We discovered it one day as we drove with a baby Cass from the Bay Area back to LA, and traffic along US 101 sucked, we jumped off at Hollister and leisurely headed south along CA 25. 

Nested between 101 and I-5, the area is neither the desolate base of the coastal range coupled with the Great Valley (I-5), nor is it the outer edge of the coastal range and seaside proper in places (US 101). It's firmly in between. It's scenic, rolling hills and oak trees, and this past weekend it was very green.

When we first saw a National Park along the drive, and it had a cool name---Pinnacles---we thought about making a trip there, and when we finally made plans with other people to make the drive, the idea was that it was halfway between our people living in the East Bay and us living in LA metro.

Our East Bay people have since moved to SLO-environs, so this drive---north to King City and then northeast for forty minutes to the spot, isn't such a challenge. For us, it's a bit further. The trip either has us going up and down the Grapevine, then to Coalinga, and then up from there; or, heading to King City up the 101, and over and up. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

Anyway, it was worth it! Getting to see friends, getting to meet new people, and they had a kid so all the kids got to play together, and sleeping in a tent makes for an interesting weekend.

I'll just leave this, the shot of Spring springing, lush greenery with ferns and all:

Genetics and the Basque

I was always fascinated by the language and ethnic group isolates in Europe, the Basque.

Living in the Pyrenees straddling the borders of Spain and France, the Basque people boast an insular cultural identity, as well as a language that is neither Indo-European (like Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Slavic, or Baltic) nor Finno-Urgic (like Finn, Estonian, or Magyar). It has no known larger family or connection anywhere in the world.

Mysteries abounded about the people, and they had their own stories about where they came from, about how they were the original people in Europe, how they took over the caves from the Neanderthal. Maybe I made that last part up.

But a recent genomic study showed that a modern Basque person's genome, once sequenced, was indistinguishable from Iron Age remains from a nearby necropolis. Multiple thousands of years later, at least a hundred generations, and the genomes were the same. This was from before the Celtic, from before the Roman and Greek, and, apparently from before the Proto-Indo-Europeans arrived.

It looks like they were from the first Europeans...at least remnants from one of the earliest waves of human arrivals, which is pretty cool.

And then there's the language. So different than any Indo-European language, so different from Finno-Urgic...I'm not a linguist, but maybe I would have been if things broke differently (at least that's what I've been told), and how languages work in their own context I've always found interesting.

I snatched this visual for how the Euskara (the Basque language) works, and while it's different, it seems logical:

Now, like other languages that are tenseless (and I'm not sure Euskara is tenseless), they use verb aspect to delineate whether or not an action has completed (essentially past tense), as well as the regular use of the ergative case, one of the more confusing grammar-related concepts around (that a deep-dive doesn't clear up as much as show how many grammar rules one has forgotten in thirty years).

Nowadays, my interest in the mystery of where the Basque came from has fallen off in favor of a different mystery: how, over the course of five- to six-thousand years, were they able to keep to themselves so diligently?  Historically, mountains slow armies, not keep them out forever. The Celts, the Romans, the Germanic-tribes, the Moors, even Franco's bullying and murder only led to losing some of their language heritage, which they've since gained some of it back. It has to have been a conscious effort. 

Today, the people and language have given us names like the Bay of Biscay, as well as the city name of Bilbao.

Kinda makes me want to see what other languages trace back so far in specific places...I'm thinking the Amazon basin, Papua/New Guinea, or maybe even the aboriginal languages of the Americas or Australia...

Magic Kingdom First Timers

It has been a long week. It feels like months have gone by since last Saturday. But that's mostly because of taking the kids to the Happiest Place on Earth, and still recovering nearly a week later. And what a trip it was. It certainly spoiled them and will forever alter their perspective on the Disneyland theme park experience.

Where's Waldo at Big Thunder Mountain

When I say it will spoil my kids, what I mean is that this trip was NOT a representative experience of 'going to Disneyland.'

What's the main state of being on any trip to a Disney theme park? Why, waiting in line, of course. What happened on this trip?

Virtually no lines!

Have you ever gotten a terrible sunburn waiting out here on this sunny plateau in line for Space Mountain seen below?

Me too! Some of my worst (in memory) sunburns I got right there in the sunny switchbacking second floor waiting, but on this day with my own kids I had to slow down the speed-walking just to take the picture.

I joke, but Space Mountain was the only ride with more than a fifteen minute wait...at maybe 17 minutes. We finished eating around 1:30 pm and were done with the Space Mountain experience by 2. So surreal.

Besides the Matterhorn, this was the last ride we wanted to do, and we finished by 2 pm!

Let me start over. This trip had been in the works for a while, and cousins were coming in from far away, as well as elders coming from further afield.

We didn't tell our own kids until the night before, at dinner. Like, "So...do you wanna go to school tomorrow, or go to Disneyland?" The Boy didn't beloieve us while our daughter lost her mind.

When we arrived at the Park, we met up with everyone else in Fantasyland---through the big castle---and essentially walked onto the Mr. Toad ride. This ride is a cult classic, as it follows Mr. Toad as he steals a car, dies, goes to hell, and eventually escapes back to the land of the living.

Peter Pan had a bit of a wait, as it's one of the better rides in the area, behind Mr. Toad, so we walked right up to and on both Snow White and Pinocchio, with zero wait time. Next we did Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, one of the best rides in the park. We walked right up to it, waited for two trains, and got on. UNHEARD OF.

Camille, Lorenzo, and Luna liked it so much that we all rode it again, and Camille had her hands up the entire ride.

Then Pirate's of the Caribbean---again walked right onto a boat. WHAT? Then to the Haunted Mansion. Walked right into the big mustering room where the ride starts. WTF? We walked right onto the former Splash Mountain/current Tiana's Bayou ride. I remember waiting 150 minutes for that ride the year it debuted.

Like a fuzzy headed doofus I put Camille in the front and sat right behind her, and both of us were soaking wet for a few hours afterwards. Rookie move...she was in tears, but came out of a funk soon enough.

Seven minutes of walking the snaking path up to Indiana Jones. Walked right by and got onto the annoying It's a Small World ride. Came back by to do Peter Pan. Star Tours was a walk-on. The laser-gun Toy Story video game was a walk-on.

We did all of this BEFORE LUNCH. I can't stress this enough: that's easily an entire day's worth of time, and we were sitting down to eat around 1 pm.

After Space Mountain, my mom wanted Cass to drive her around in the Autopia ride, so Camille was my escort, while Corrie got a chance to ride the very exciting Bench ride.

Driving Mr. Daddy

Family was behind us, too, and we got some cool pics of them

Sometimes the fact that it was quiet meant we were going to ride the ride, like It's a Small World. Other times, like with the Matterhorn, or the Star Wars Land, we were determined to do it.

The Matterhorn, despite new bobsled cars that separate you from your partner, still acts like a kamikaze chiropractic visit.

Eventually we weaved our way to the Star Wars Land. This was after heading to Toon Town, riding the nifty track-less cartoon ride, then letting the kids play for nearly an hour at the playground and ride the kiddie Gadget's Roller Coaster.

After that, we split up with many of our party, as they moved onto California Adventure. We didn't opt for the park hopper passes, and instead went to Galaxy's Edge, a corner of Anaheim with a few billion dollars sunk into it:

It's super serious. There are nominally two rides here, but experiences is a better term. One has your group snaking through the inner bowels of a base, being assigned roles (pilots/gunners/engineers) and then have you act out those roles during a flying-the-Millenium-Falcon mission.

But that was noting compared to the las ride/experience, Rise of the Resistance. In this, er, ride, you're pushed into an escape bus/ship with everyone else in line for the ride (about 30 people deep). But the ship is intercepted by the Empire, riders are then captured by Stormtroopers and sent to interrogation rooms, where they eventually escape because the droids controlling their transports are repurposed by the resistance. It's a silly, rip-roaring sequence of a movie that you, as a rider, are in.

It was an exhausting end to a rich day. We went to dinner and then headed home. We told the kids, over and over, that the reason that the multi-day park hopper tickets are the best value for locals is because you never get to ride this many rides on a single day. I never understood it. The park was busy and full, but we barely waited for anything.

We might've walked ten miles. It felt like we walked ten miles.

Cass took the map he had been using to guide us around and marked with an "X" all the things we did.

I'm tired all over again just looking at it.

What a day!

Morning Light and Fog on the Coast

Sometimes the light in the mornings looks like its playing tricks on your eyes:

But then the picture turns out okay, and you tell yourself that here's another day where we can trust our eyes.

Alyssa Liu, Hell Yeah! Olympic Notes 3

1

I was trying to explain to my kids about Alyssa Liu.  I normally loathe the tiny featurettes that showcase the backgrounds of the (only) American athletes at Olympic games (summer or winter), but I happen to put eyes on the complete four minute feature for the figure skater out of Oakland.

She was the youngest national champion? At 13? I've since seen that 2019 routine in Detroit...a little girl kicks ass at some highly difficult and highly technical things. It's...cool. The tension gets to her as she comes off the ice, and then again once her score is announced (first place! national champion!) and the tears flow both times. But she was a kid.

In 2022 she was at the games in Beijing, and she came in 6th or 8th, but, at 16, at her first Olympics, she showed up and did well, but didn't medal.

And then she quit. Retired...whatever. She wanted her life back. She traveled to Everest base camp. She pierced her own frenulum. It was on a skiing trip where she felt a kind of exhilaration, the kind of exhilaration that she used to get from skating, and so she decided to go back to skating.

I only summarize the video and common knowledge to give the context for trying to explain to my kids how this girls is so free, how she cares so little for placement and medals and tension, who only wants to show off what she is capable of. Unafraid of the results is when you'll be truly relaxed, when your brain is finally convinced it's not life or death, you can be free. Peak performance has such a better chance to follow when this level of zen is achieved.

Just look at how relaxed and chillin' she is:

This is from an interview with Mike Tirico after the event, and I get that it's easier to be relaxed after winning. She's wearing the gold medal, because of course. Watching her skate---both the short program and the free-skate---was such an experience when you see them in the context of everyone else. Stress...life or death...tears...tears of relief versus tears of gut-wrench...a weary stoicism...the gamut of post-skate emotions runs the relief-to-heartbreak racetrack.

Except for Alyssa. And that was what I wanted my kids to get, to feel. The lightness and the smiles and the relaxation. It may not be the only way to reach peak performance, but it's surely the emotionally healthiest.

All that, and I tend to support and follow my Nor-Cal people...your Marshawn Lynches, Dame Lilliards...even Aaron Rodgers up to a certain point. Add Alyssa Liu to the list!

2

A few years back I felt like NBC's coverage was about shoving snowboarding events down our gullets. I think it was early in the X-Games-ification of the Winter Olympics. Now with being able to stream the events I want to watch (Alpine skiing, short-track, women's figure skating), it seems like having curling shoved down our gullets this year is easier to mitigate. 

I mean, curling's cool and all, but yeesh...

3

Random things to finish up thoughts on Winter Olympics: 

1. Did you know that when you cross-country ski your heart rate is up to about 90% capacity? About 90% of what it can do as a human? WTF?
2. If I can stream the events that have passed, how come I can't stream ice dancing? Not that I want to, but I know it's impossible to find anyone other than the one American team...

One last thought that get's it's own bullet point:

• I heard the Winter Olympics described as: the overlapping of two supremely weird groups: the mountain people and the rich people.

Can you imagine? To be a giant slalom skier takes...money for outfits and skis and passes for the mountain. To be a sprinter you need...feet? Space to run? Jamaica is the top per-capita sprint running nation in the world. Would it be surprising that "poorest" slalom olympian in Cortina this year would probably eclipse the most well-to-do Jamaican sprinter is terms of financial security?

Skates of the Season: Olympic Notes 2

I love the differences in the same basic things. It's a nerdy proclivity I have. Anyway, I think I have a new favorite spectator Winter Olympic sport. All in due time...

I've been ice skating before! I even got Corrie ice skates for Decemberween! In both instances---the skates I got for Corrie and the skates I rented when I went skating---were of the figure skating variety.

Marc, one of our New York people (and star of the first year of this blog), had hockey skates and while I checked them out, I never wore them. I did, though, mentally spaz out at the differences and similarities between their designs:

Hockey

Figure Skating

But there's another style of skating I remember usually most often every four years: speed skating. And their skates are wild:

Speed Skating

I even found this cool graphic, and it's the kind of thing I would have enjoyed putting together myself if I was 1) more knowledgable about ice skating, and 2) artistically inclined for infographics:

But then I saw the different comparison chart/infographic. And it has the different styles for the different kinds of speed skating: so-called "speed" and "short track":

And that brings me to short track speed skating.

This could be the best thing to watch. There is a stressful pace, a ramping up of speed, true danger, cramped spaces, and a muted physicality that belies the awesome punitive and draconian rules: if you make a mistake and knock someone out, you get penalized and they move on. The finals of one 13.5 lap races (the 1500m) had 9(!) racers, because 3 had been 'advanced' because of other people's mistakes in earlier races. I rewatched it with Cass, and it had both of us wobbling on the couch like we were watching that chase scene from OBAA.

Also, shout-out to the Korean 17 year old half-pipe snowboard gold medalist, Ga on Choi. She beat her mentor and the heavily favored American Chloe Kim (from Torrance! (local shout-out)) after taking a terrible spill in a practice run, nearly doing a header on the way down from a big move.

She came back and nailed some huge moves and took home the gold. Chloe, to her credit, was very excited and ran over to embrace the newly gold-crowned and sobbing teenager.

Downhill alpine skiing and short-track speed skating are two of my new favorite things...