Snow

It was predicted we'd get up to 14 inches of snow, but what we actually got was about five, although there was a nice bout of freezing rain first to get a layer of ice under the snow.

Go Karting

I unexpectedly found myself overseeing a 10yr old and 6yr old, and their mother asked if I'd take them go-karting. There is a kart place on the outer ring of Lynnhaven, so we went; and the minimum age for a driver is 8, so I ended up as a co-pilot for the 6yr old in a side-by-side kart.
$20 and a Groupon gets you two races at ten minutes each. You put on a "head sock", a neck brace, and a helmet, and squeeze into the kart. They give you a briefing on red flag, yellow flag, etc, but in fact the only signals we got were "when the lights flash, take one more lap and pull into the starting row." The attendant pulls the starter cord and away you go. The helmet restricts your peripheral vision quite a bit, so if you don't look over your shoulder, someone can be right behind you and you won't know it. The karts can hit 45mph and (when someone slightly more expert than I am is driving) can drift and do a bootlegger reverse. Steering takes quite a bit of effort, although the attendant said the single seaters are easier. At the end, you get a printout which shows your fastest lap and average time per lap (yes, the ten year old beat my Fastest Lap by about half a second).

Year in review, 2016 edition

• Diana recovered from knee replacement.
• Birthday party for Eunhye
• Dominion removed the power line across the river behind our house. 
• Went to Australia to see all the inlaws and outlaws, with an unexpected side trip to Hawaii.
• Visited Kelson before he moved to Boston.
• Hosted Michael Kelen for a couple of days.
• Betina from Zambia stayed here for a couple of weeks.
• Semi-adopted Razvan and George, students here from Romania for the summer. 
• Visited Jonathan and Stacey at their "so new we haven't even found all the boxes, much less unpacked them yet" house in Columbia.
• I attended LibertyCon while Diana and Rachael toured Chattanooga.
• Rachael stayed with us for ten days of beach and surfing.
• Josh got his Australian green card.
• Drove to Long Island for a funeral and, on the trip back, uttered the utterly improbable phrase "Thank God we made it to New Jersey."
• Finished our "New World, New Sun" D&D campaign with Darci, Kris, Jesse, Jana, and Tom Paul.
• Started waltz lessons, which transmuted into lessons on foxtrot, bachata, milonga, and I know not what.
• Went to Vienna, Cesky Krumlow and Prague. Came back from Prague, reluctantly.
• Celebrated Gwen & Josh's first anniversary.
• One of the more...interesting...presidential elections.
• Visited mom and dad before they went back to Zambia, and played golf with dad.
• Diana went to Toronto and Montreal for pre-Christmas visit.
• Hosted a Christmas party for the D&D group and another for the neighbors.

Antonin Scalia

Nobody — remember this — neither Hitler, nor Lenin, nor any despot you could name, ever came forward with a proposal that read, ‘Now, let’s create a really oppressive and evil society.’ Hitler said, ‘Let’s take the means necessary to restore our national pride and civic order.’ And Lenin said, ‘Let’s take the means necessary to assure a fair distribution of the goods of the world.’

In short, it is your responsibility....not just to be zealous in the pursuit of your ideals, but to be sure that your ideals are the right ones. That is perhaps the hardest part of being a good human being: Good intentions are not enough. Being a good person begins with being a wise person.

--Antonin Scalia, at a commencement speech in 2010

Beautiful Theories

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
--Richard Feynman

Wedding

Josh and Gwen were married at St George's, Metis Beach, Quebec, with about fifty guests from the US, Canada, Australia, and England. The celebrant was Rev Malcom Evans, assisted by Dr James DeBoe; Emma Dillon was flower girl, and Daniel Rees the bell ringer.

Reception at Jardins de Metis.

Tank Museum

Josh and I took the opportunity to go to the American Armored Foundation tank museum in Danville on Run Day, which is when they have a couple of vehicles power up and drive around the display area. (One was an APC and the other was a self propelled gun, not true tanks, but we got the idea). Not as many WW2 tanks as I had hoped for, but they had a number of interesting things. Items of note:

• PzKpfw IV
• tiny Dingo II scout car
• slightly larger Ferret scout car
• M1917 Six Ton Special light tank
• Honest John missile, presumably without the 20kt nuclear warhead
• Mk 41 15cm Nebelwerfer (it werfs nebels!)

They also had a variety of uniforms, unit badges, posters, paintings, and other memorabilia.