Dave and Gayle Visit

Dave and Gayle came up to Oregon at the beginning of the month. They headed over to the coast first and we joined them there over labor day weekend. We arrived Friday morning for a late breakfast after being delayed because of a road closure.

 

 Friday evening, we watched the sunset over the ocean.

 Often, the fog comes in and there isn't much to see as the sun sets, but we had a good one that night.

 Saturday we went out to breakfast and had a busy morning and early afternoon around town, checking out a favorite thrift store, the candy store, looking for quilt shops, and going by the car dealership. That evening Dave made killer lamb kabobs for dinner.

Joshua and I found this beauty on sale for an amazing price while we were at the thrift store, so we added it to the pile of things Dave and Gayle were planning to bring us in Eugene, mostly a third bookcase they brought up from California to match the two we already have.

Sunday, Gayle and I walked around Lake Marie. It is a beautiful lake and an easy one mile walk to get around it.

We came back to the house to find an intense game of cribbage going on; a common occurrence over the weekend. We even had a few games of five player cut throat cribbage, which was a lot of fun. We returned home Sunday after dinner, but then Dave and Gayle came out and stayed with us starting on Wednesday. We enjoyed eating more good food and showing them around Eugene. While I was at work on Thursday, Dave bought a car, so he ended up staying an extra day after Gayle had to leave. So we had a busy and enjoyable day with him on Saturday, buying and putting together a barbecue, racking our wine, bottling beer, and working on getting the entertainment center put back together (he and Joshua had cleaned and oiled it).

Saturday evening, we enjoyed the fruits of our labor by using the new barbecue to grill dinner while we tasted our in-progress wine.

Adventuring: West to the Beach

For my birthday, Joshua has been planning a couple day trips to go on this summer. We had our first adventure yesterday when we headed west over to the coast.

We started by driving through some pretty countryside to a road that runs along the Smith River. It was a beautiful drive, both to get to the river and driving along the river.

 We stopped at a favorite spot along the river which Joshua remembered from times he had been there with his family. One of the rope swings was still there, so we took turns swinging out over the river.

It was a beautiful day and so pretty and peaceful there by the river.

 We walked along the rocks and through the water to explore upstream a little way. Rivers are my favorite bodies of water and I was so happy to be near one again.

We saw lots of little fish and a few crawdads. After spending some time by the river, we headed further west and had a picnic lunch at a pullout by the ocean.

Then we went on the Hobbit trail through the woods.

It was a beautiful little trail with all kinds of overgrown side trails that looked perfect for hobbits. The trail exited the woods at Hobbit Beach.

We were both impressed by the beach. It was large with smooth sand, scattered shells and pretty rocks, and a cliff with rocks at the bottom that looked good for tide pools.

We sat and watched the waves for awhile, then walked along the water.

 A lot of the beach was pretty flat, so when the waves rolled out, they left a large thin sheet of water.

We headed to Old Town Florence for dinner and had seafood at Mo's. With our bellies full and feeling happy and worn out after our day of adventuring, we headed home.

Garden Update 8-25

I harvested most of our beets on Sunday and made a small batch of pickled beets. I decided to try a different spice blend this time, so we are looking forward to tasting them. I love how pretty they look.

Both garden beds have been enjoying the sunshine lately. You can see the rhubarb in the back is really getting large. The kale in this bed has been a real winner too, I'm surprised how well it continues to grow even though it has been warm lately.

Things are getting pretty wild in the larger bed, but we have been taking out the plants that are done producing, so things still mostly have room to grow.

We have finally started harvesting tomatoes and enjoying eating them. The first time we had fresh salsa was a particularly delicious treat.

So far we have been able to keep up with what the tomato plants are producing by eating them fresh. However, since we planted eight tomato plants and had this cherry tomato come up as a volunteer, we won't be able to keep up long.

Our cucumber plant decided to grow up the tomato cage on one side and through the row of yellow beans on the other side and is now growing out into the grass. It has started producing some delicious cucumbers.

The newest addition to the yard, our shade loving scarlet begonias, are doing well also.

Socio-Economic Mobility in the United States

According to Wikipedia, James Truslow Adams popularized the phrase "the American dream" in 1931:

But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement. [...] It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, [...] unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class.

Of course, we are all too aware that this is a dream, for anyone who suggests that the United States is a country in which one's abilities and achievements largely dictate one's success is likely to be met with a chart something like the following:

The idea is that we can test the degree to which economic success is a function of individual achievement -- ability, hard work, good decisions, etc. -- by measuring the extent to which economic success is instead predicted by the economic success of one's parents. If success is inherited, we live in thrall to the "barriers erected in the older civilizations"; if success is earned, we are living the American dream.

As compelling as this argument appears, however, I think it has a serious flaw that is frequently overlooked: the individual factors of ability and decisions that are most relevant to economic success are themselves highly heritable. For example, consider time preference, which is a measure of how willing someone is to forego an immediate good for the sake of a later, greater one (in one famous experiment, for example, children were left in a room with a marshmallow after being told that if they did not eat the marshmallow before the adult returned, they would receive two marshmallows instead). Someone who has high time preference is less able to be disciplined now in order to achieve a later goal, and this impulsiveness makes it very difficult to successfully save and invest resources, pursue advanced education, work slowly into a growing career, etc. Time preference (measured by impulsiveness in this study) is largely hereditary (significantly, shared environmental factors, like parenting and schooling, have very little effect on time preference levels). Likewise, conscientiousness is the standard personality trait that is usually considered to have the largest impact on economic success, and it (like most personality traits) is highly hereditary. Intelligence, perhaps the most genetically determined of the major psychological characteristics (~80% of variance), is of course similarly correlated with economic success, etc.

Thus, if the American dream describes the idea of a society in which one's success is due largely to one's intelligence, personality, and willingness to sacrifice and work hard in order to achieve one's goals, we would expect that those societies which most closely approximate this ideal to be those in which the success of children is well predicted by the success of their parents. The charts on inter-generational mobility are relevant, but in the exact opposite sense than that in which they are typically interpreted. If the economic success of the parents does not reliably predict the success of the child, such as in Denmark (in the chart above), this is evidence that economic success is not tied to ability, intelligence, hard work, sacrifice, etc.

What do you think?

Reedsport

Joshua and I headed over to the coast Friday and Saturday to visit with Grandad and escape the heatwave in Eugene. We took the bug to get it detailed by a couple guys from the area who do a great job at a very reasonable price and it was fun to drive it over to the coast.

Saturday we went on a drive down to Winchester Bay to see the boats and the ocean. It was a bit foggy still, but a beautiful morning.

Saturday afternoon the detailers came by and did a beautiful job on our car. They even got the matte paint shiny. After dinner with Grandad and Judy at the local Mexican restaurant, we headed home in style.

California Reception

Joshua and I made a quick trip down to California last weekend so we could attend Janelle and Tom's California wedding reception. We drove down to Modesto after I got off work on Wednesday and spent the day Thursday hanging out there.  

Friday we drove farther south and met up with Janelle and Tom in Exeter for lunch. It was nice to get to catch up with Janelle and meet her husband. After lunch we headed to Mom and Dad's house where there were some unexpected visitors. Uncle Craig and his daughter, Jenna, had been hiking in the Mineral King area and the ride they had arranged didn't end up working out, so Dad went up to get them and they hung out with us until Aunt Sharon made it up to take them home. It was fun to get to see them for a few hours. That evening we had birthday dinner for Jonah, a Mediterranean feast followed by lemon meringue pie.

Heather, her kids, and Emery spent the night, so Saturday morning we all hung out at Mom and Dad's. We picked grapes and played games and had fun together.

That afternoon we went to Janelle and Tom's reception. They had gotten married in May at a small family ceremony, but were having a reception for all their friends in California. It was fun to see pictures and a little video from the ceremony and get to visit with everyone. Natalie and I were wearing matching coral with white polka dots and have matching haircuts right now, although she was wearing her hair up at the reception.

Of course, I needed a picture with the bride. Janelle and I have been friends since elementary school and I was so glad we were able to be there to celebrate with her and Tom.