Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

The deadline for the Lake Manitou Association 's annual calendar photo contest is this week, and I haven't picked out which photos I want to submit. The limit is three, and last year all three of my entries were chosen. Here are the shots I'm considering. Anyone want to help me narrow it down? So, which three would you choose?

I needed a break, and I knew it. Between audit preparations in day-job land and the online class I'm doing at home, I needed a day to get away from everything. So a couple of weeks ago, I booked another trip to Santa Cruz Island - my third one, only this time I'd be going to Prisoners Harbor, on the border between the National Park side and the Nature Conservancy side of the island. Fewer people go there, so it's a good spot for solo adventuring. Things got off to a fast start, as we found a dogpile of sea lions on the buoy marking the Channel Islands Harbor entrance. Another sea lion wanted to join them, but couldn't find an open spot, and so it swam around the buoy barking loudly. After we left them, it wasn't long before we encountered several small groups of dolphins. Most swam by and went on their way, but a few came up to the front of the boat and briefly swam alongside. I was standing up in the bow, my preferred spot to prevent seasickness, so I got ...

I may be in the midst of chaos these days, but I couldn't let the introduction of a new star for Doctor Who go unmentioned, especially since they've cast a woman, Jodie Whittaker, in the role for the first time. The choice was both a surprise and not a surprise. Jodie Whittaker worked with incoming showrunner Chris Chibnall on Broadchurch , and for months people had been suggesting Chibnall would choose an actress from Broadchurch - just not this particular actress. I hadn't heard her name come up until right before the decision was announced. But I still think it's a good choice. Her Broadchurch character was a victim for the first two seasons, but then rebounded in the final season and started to take back her life. It made for a good range of acting challenges. Predictably, the internet exploded after the choice was announced. To be honest, the mix of people who were excited about the choice and people who were angry about it was more-or-less what I...

Does anyone else (probably my age) remember an ABC Afterschool Special called The Wave ? It was based on the true story of a California teacher's social experiment in 1967. His students couldn't understand how the Germans had all gone along with Hitler, so he fabricated a bogus fascist movement called "The Wave" and was able to get all the kids to buy into it. The movie exaggerates what happened, but apparently a mob mentality really did set in and things got out of control. The big climax of the movie is when the teacher calls a special assembly, promising to show the kids the leader of the "Wave" movement. He shouts, "Here's your leader!" and a film of Hitler speaking appears on the auditorium's movie screen. The kids are shocked into silence. I feel like we're in a similar situation in America these days. I feel like the Trumpocalypse is some sort of weird social experiment gone terribly wrong. Someone's going to cal...

If you hear loud, panicked screams coming from the direction of Ventura County over the next couple of months, it's probably me. Over the next ten weeks, my life will be dominated by two major endeavors, neither of which I'm really sure how I'm going to pull off. Over the next ten weeks in day-job land, I have to get the company ready for the big transition audit to the latest version of the ISO9001 quality standard. That would be a challenge under normal circumstances, but these days we've got a new General Manager we're all still adjusting to, projects that are behind schedule and other things happening that I won't go into details about. The bottom line is that everyone is already busy and would just prefer that I get the company through the audit for them. But quality systems don't work that way any more, so I've got to find a way to hand-hold everyone through the process. Meanwhile, my publisher Royal Fireworks has started an Online Learning...

We are all ignorant at various times in our lives. We all need to learn. Sometimes our ignorance can be hurtful. Not on purpose. It just is. When I first got the idea for my book, Unswept Graves , I thought Asian immigrants to the US had experienced more or less the same things as European immigrants. I assumed they came here for the same reasons, dreamed the same dreams, and overcome the same challenges. Then I started researching and discovered the truth, that they had faced hostility and government-sanctioned prejudice. Then I knew better. When the Black Lives Matter movement first started, I too wondered, "Don't all lives matter? Why do we have to single out black lives?" I hadn't realized just how different the African-American experience of this country is, even in an age when we had gone so far as to elect an African-American President. Someone had to explain it to me. Then I knew better. After the shooting in Ferguson MO, when the news sudden...