Read Educated and Get Educated

While it's hard to think much more than "The horror! The horror!" while you're reading Tara Westbrook's memoir Educated-- the tale of a girl (barely) raised and (barely) homeschooled by a fanatically religious, preparing-for-the-apocalypse, fighting Big Medicine, scrapmetal-baron nutjob of a dad; while she is mercilessly manipulated and bullied by her older brother, and mainly left to fend for herself by a brainwashed, homeopathic midwife mom . . . the twists and turns of Westover's life and-- more importantly-- her mind, as she confronts the reality beyond the mountains of Idaho are wild, awkward, painful, and nearly beyond belief, but despite her lack of formal education, she makes her way to BYU, then on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where-- after a pit stop at Harvard-- she finally earns her doctorate in historiography; I'm not sure which tales of violence, fanaticism, and familial neglect to take with a grain of salt, and in the end, neither does Westover-- and that is the real theme of the book: Westover gets her degree is historiography, as she is interested in who gets to tell the story-- history is written by the winners, the losers, the monks, the fanatics, the believers, the scientists, the laity, and the skeptics . . . and this is what the book is, an investigation into the murky recesses of memory, whether it be the mundane details of a dysfunctional family, a family where memory is controlled by one ranting biased zealot . . . or whether it is the influence of various cultures and religions on the evolution of the family unit in America, the subject of Westover's doctoral thesis: “The Family, Morality, and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813-1890,” in which she synthesizes Mormonism-- which is often ignored-- into the bigger narrative; in the end, while this book is a scandalous, tell-all page-turner, it becomes more than that because Westover is so smart, and so weird, and so obsessive, and so candid and sincere . . . a must read for all of us East Coast agnostics.

Read Educated and Get Educated

While it's hard to think much more than "The horror! The horror!" while you're reading Tara Westbrook's memoir Educated-- the tale of a girl (barely) raised and (barely) homeschooled by a fanatically religious, preparing-for-the-apocalypse, fighting Big Medicine, scrapmetal-baron nutjob of a dad; while she is mercilessly manipulated and bullied by her older brother, and mainly left to fend for herself by a brainwashed, homeopathic midwife mom . . . the twists and turns of Westover's life and-- more importantly-- her mind, as she confronts the reality beyond the mountains of Idaho are wild, awkward, painful, and nearly beyond belief, but despite her lack of formal education, she makes her way to BYU, then on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where-- after a pit stop at Harvard-- she finally earns her doctorate in historiography; I'm not sure which tales of violence, fanaticism, and familial neglect to take with a grain of salt, and in the end, neither does Westover-- and that is the real theme of the book: Westover gets her degree is historiography, as she is interested in who gets to tell the story-- history is written by the winners, the losers, the monks, the fanatics, the believers, the scientists, the laity, and the skeptics . . . and this is what the book is, an investigation into the murky recesses of memory, whether it be the mundane details of a dysfunctional family, a family where memory is controlled by one ranting biased zealot . . . or whether it is the influence of various cultures and religions on the evolution of the family unit in America, the subject of Westover's doctoral thesis: “The Family, Morality, and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813-1890,” in which she synthesizes Mormonism-- which is often ignored-- into the bigger narrative; in the end, while this book is a scandalous, tell-all page-turner, it becomes more than that because Westover is so smart, and so weird, and so obsessive, and so candid and sincere . . . a must read for all of us East Coast agnostics.

We Are Home (and the Natives are Back to Their Usual Antics)

I'm going to do an informative post with pictures about our trip to Costa Rica, in case anyone is heading to places we went-- but the trip was incredible and went very smoothly, despite our (generally) impulsive, impractical and incompetent children; today we are preparing for another vacation-- a trip to the Jersey shore with my extended family-- and so I was running some errands and on my way home-- just as I turned onto the far end of my road-- I saw two children sprinting awkwardly down the street, sprinting awkwardly because they were wearing pool slides, and then I noticed that they were my children and I asked what they were doing: why are you sprinting? why are you wearing pool slides? and they said that they got so wrapped up in their chores that they forgot about their barbershop appointments and now they were rushing there-- they both had 12:30 appointments and it was 12:36, but the barbershop is a good mile from our house so I grabbed them and gave them a ride and advised them next time to take their bikes, not rush out of the house in pool slides, or even better, keep tabs on the time, and then when I got home, I took in the situation and surmised that they weren't wrapped up with doing chores, they were wrapped up selling old toys on eBay . . . and so while I am proud of my children for not doing anything rash and stupid while navigating the jungles, hot springs and rugged coastline of Costa Rica, I have to recognize the fact that we are back in Jersey and they are returning to their native ways ( and so am I, as I totally forgot the overarching laundry rule, which is: do NOT do my wife's laundry . . . I threw it in, with good intentions, and shrunk some stuff and tie-dyed some other stuff . . . then the kids and I miscommunicated about a ride and they ran to the wrong person's house in the rain before figuring out the situation . . . we are definitely back home).

We Are Home (and the Natives are Back to Their Usual Antics)

I'm going to do an informative post with pictures about our trip to Costa Rica, in case anyone is heading to places we went-- but the trip was incredible and went very smoothly, despite our (generally) impulsive, impractical and incompetent children; today we are preparing for another vacation-- a trip to the Jersey shore with my extended family-- and so I was running some errands and on my way home-- just as I turned onto the far end of my road-- I saw two children sprinting awkwardly down the street, sprinting awkwardly because they were wearing pool slides, and then I noticed that they were my children and I asked what they were doing: why are you sprinting? why are you wearing pool slides? and they said that they got so wrapped up in their chores that they forgot about their barbershop appointments and now they were rushing there-- they both had 12:30 appointments and it was 12:36, but the barbershop is a good mile from our house so I grabbed them and gave them a ride and advised them next time to take their bikes, not rush out of the house in pool slides, or even better, keep tabs on the time, and then when I got home, I took in the situation and surmised that they weren't wrapped up with doing chores, they were wrapped up selling old toys on eBay . . . and so while I am proud of my children for not doing anything rash and stupid while navigating the jungles, hot springs and rugged coastline of Costa Rica, I have to recognize the fact that we are back in Jersey and they are returning to their native ways ( and so am I, as I totally forgot the overarching laundry rule, which is: do NOT do my wife's laundry . . . I threw it in, with good intentions, and shrunk some stuff and tie-dyed some other stuff . . . then the kids and I miscommunicated about a ride and they ran to the wrong person's house in the rain before figuring out the situation . . . we are definitely back home).

Nosara: Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your hands Upon the Wheel (if you can)

There is so much to see in Nosara, but if you are driving, it's hard to look up from the pothole strewn gravel and rock roads; the drive from Samara is an hour of bumpy winding coastal back roads and then you hit the rough stuff, but it's well worth it; I'm not sure which is better, the wildlife or the people watching-- my son Alex would say it's the surfing, and the surfing is great, especially on Playa Guiones, the giant scenic beach with endless breaks; I rented a board and rode a few waves along with my son, until my sternum got sore, then I just enjoyed the scenery: super-toned expat yoga/surfer women . . . I've never seen more perfect bodies in my life; perhaps these folks-- like Lady Gaga-- fly in to Nosara, as there is a tiny airstrip; it's quite a collection of people, we went to a outdoor charity lunch bonanza for the firemen of Nosara, because the French lady who owned Villa Mango, the bed and breakfast we stayed at, was married to a Costa Rican fireman, and so we really saw the local crowd; Costa Rican couples and entrepeneurs; expat retirees, surfers, business people; and wealthy folks just enjoying the situation (there was an especially entertaining group of four hot middle-aged women getting drunk and acting like they were in Eat Pray Love) and the Villa Mango is highly recommended: you can walk to Playa Pelada, the teak and guanacaste tree deck is beautiful, and we saw loads of monkeys from the porch and the pool; there is also a semi-tame coati who has been hanging out for a few months, you can hand feed him and he naps on the couch; the dog doesn't even bother him; while Alex and I were surfing, Catherine and Ian went kayaking up the Nosara river into the mangroves, and they saw black iguanas, Halloween crabs, lots of rare birds and Catherine even got a quick glimpse of a saltwater croc; the food was excellent, especially at El Chivo and Al Chile, where we got a close up view of a hummingbird ( Alex took a pic with his phone that rivals my owl) so despite the bad roads, a great place.

Nosara: Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your hands Upon the Wheel (if you can)

There is so much to see in Nosara, but if you are driving, it's hard to look up from the pothole strewn gravel and rock roads; the drive from Samara is an hour of bumpy winding coastal back roads and then you hit the rough stuff, but it's well worth it; I'm not sure which is better, the wildlife or the people watching-- my son Alex would say it's the surfing, and the surfing is great, especially on Playa Guiones, the giant scenic beach with endless breaks; I rented a board and rode a few waves along with my son, until my sternum got sore, then I just enjoyed the scenery: super-toned expat yoga/surfer women . . . I've never seen more perfect bodies in my life; perhaps these folks-- like Lady Gaga-- fly in to Nosara, as there is a tiny airstrip; it's quite a collection of people, we went to a outdoor charity lunch bonanza for the firemen of Nosara, because the French lady who owned Villa Mango, the bed and breakfast we stayed at, was married to a Costa Rican fireman, and so we really saw the local crowd; Costa Rican couples and entrepeneurs; expat retirees, surfers, business people; and wealthy folks just enjoying the situation (there was an especially entertaining group of four hot middle-aged women getting drunk and acting like they were in Eat Pray Love) and the Villa Mango is highly recommended: you can walk to Playa Pelada, the teak and guanacaste tree deck is beautiful, and we saw loads of monkeys from the porch and the pool; there is also a semi-tame coati who has been hanging out for a few months, you can hand feed him and he naps on the couch; the dog doesn't even bother him; while Alex and I were surfing, Catherine and Ian went kayaking up the Nosara river into the mangroves, and they saw black iguanas, Halloween crabs, lots of rare birds and Catherine even got a quick glimpse of a saltwater croc; the food was excellent, especially at El Chivo and Al Chile, where we got a close up view of a hummingbird ( Alex took a pic with his phone that rivals my owl) so despite the bad roads, a great place.

They Live in Pairs? Excellent . . .

I woke up early this morning, tip-toed into the bathroom-- as we are all sleeping in one room at the Villa Mango-- and was confronted by a Costa Rican scorpion . . . so I flattened it with my sandal; it happened to be on the bath mat when I did the flattening, so I dragged it out of the way but left it out so my wife and kids can see it when they wake up; I just looked up the species and apparently the sting is painful but not deadly, the only disconcerting thing is that, according to this site, they live in pairs, so if you see one then the other one is probably nearby . . . I am up on the veranda listening to the birds and monkeys as I write this, perhaps soon I will hear a scream from our room below (either when my family sees the dead scorpion or when they encounter the irate partner).

They Live in Pairs? Excellent . . .

I woke up early this morning, tip-toed into the bathroom-- as we are all sleeping in one room at the Villa Mango-- and was confronted by a Costa Rican scorpion . . . so I flattened it with my sandal; it happened to be on the bath mat when I did the flattening, so I dragged it out of the way but left it out so my wife and kids can see it when they wake up; I just looked up the species and apparently the sting is painful but not deadly, the only disconcerting thing is that, according to this site, they live in pairs, so if you see one then the other one is probably nearby . . . I am up on the veranda listening to the birds and monkeys as I write this, perhaps soon I will hear a scream from our room below (either when my family sees the dead scorpion or when they encounter the irate partner).

No Crocs But A Plethora of Sea Slugs

Our last day in Samara we went in search of megafauna and drove down a dirt road to Playa Buena Vista-- a primitive driftwood covered beach across an estuary reputed to contain saltwater crocs; I watched a local net fisherman wade across and followed him and I was not eaten by a croc, but my wife and kids were having none of it and occupied themselves on the rocks while I investigated the beach and river mouth; no crocs to speak of so we headed back to the tidepools of Samara and found colorful dories, triggerfish, loaches, eels and sea slugs-- intriguing but minifauna, not megafauna . . . however, on the way home from dinner we encountered Costa Rica's largest amphibian: the giant marine toad (also known as the cane toad).

No Crocs But A Plethora of Sea Slugs

Our last day in Samara we went in search of megafauna and drove down a dirt road to Playa Buena Vista-- a primitive driftwood covered beach across an estuary reputed to contain saltwater crocs; I watched a local net fisherman wade across and followed him and I was not eaten by a croc, but my wife and kids were having none of it and occupied themselves on the rocks while I investigated the beach and river mouth; no crocs to speak of so we headed back to the tidepools of Samara and found colorful dories, triggerfish, loaches, eels and sea slugs-- intriguing but minifauna, not megafauna . . . however, on the way home from dinner we encountered Costa Rica's largest amphibian: the giant marine toad (also known as the cane toad).

Can I Look At It? No . . .

A few days ago I thought Samara beach was the most beautiful and idyllic spot in the entire world: warm water, a fantastic view, soft sand, a two mile horseshoe shaped black sand beach protected by a coral reef so the waves are groovy for both surfing and swimming . . . but then everyone said we had to drive 7 kilometers south to Playa Carillo because THAT was the most amazing, uncrowded and picturesque beach in Costa Rica-- and they were right; Playa Carrillo is an undeveloped four mile horseshoe with even softer sand, even more palm trees for shade, even nicer water for swimming and barely any people BUT a local guy told us about a super secret beach called Playa Ezquerda, you have to drive a dirt road, hike through the jungle and then descend some dilapidated and dangerous cocrete steps down a cliff-- long ago someone planned on building something here but stopped after making the steps; so we followed the instructions-- Alex almost got run over by a stray horse-- and we made it to the most superb beach and there were only two lovely young locals there, sunbathing in bikinis, and the cliff shaded the beach and the tidepools were full of tropical fish, weird sea stars, sea slugs, and lots of other creatures . . . but I'm not sure where this ends-- perhaps a beach in the spirit of Nigel Tufnel's special guitar that he has never played and won't even let Marti DeBergi look at, a beach so wonderful that you can't even go to it; on this same theme, we've seen some monkeys on this trip, but this morning in the tree across from our window we saw a baby monkey . . . the only thing better than that is two baby monkeys.

Can I Look At It? No . . .

A few days ago I thought Samara beach was the most beautiful and idyllic spot in the entire world: warm water, a fantastic view, soft sand, a two mile horseshoe shaped black sand beach protected by a coral reef so the waves are groovy for both surfing and swimming . . . but then everyone said we had to drive 7 kilometers south to Playa Carillo because THAT was the most amazing, uncrowded and picturesque beach in Costa Rica-- and they were right; Playa Carrillo is an undeveloped four mile horseshoe with even softer sand, even more palm trees for shade, even nicer water for swimming and barely any people BUT a local guy told us about a super secret beach called Playa Ezquerda, you have to drive a dirt road, hike through the jungle and then descend some dilapidated and dangerous cocrete steps down a cliff-- long ago someone planned on building something here but stopped after making the steps; so we followed the instructions-- Alex almost got run over by a stray horse-- and we made it to the most superb beach and there were only two lovely young locals there, sunbathing in bikinis, and the cliff shaded the beach and the tidepools were full of tropical fish, weird sea stars, sea slugs, and lots of other creatures . . . but I'm not sure where this ends-- perhaps a beach in the spirit of Nigel Tufnel's special guitar that he has never played and won't even let Marti DeBergi look at, a beach so wonderful that you can't even go to it; on this same theme, we've seen some monkeys on this trip, but this morning in the tree across from our window we saw a baby monkey . . . the only thing better than that is two baby monkeys.

Moonball Fire Ant Justice League

Despite us urging him not to do it, Alex tried to bounce Ian's moonball off the thick palm tree next to the infinity pool, the plan being to bounce it back into the pool, but the shot was near impossible and the ball ricocheted off the big tree and then caromed off a little tree and shot into the jungle; Alex tried to retrieve the ball, but was karmically stung by a horde of fire ants, a deserved and entertaining punishment for his impulsiveness; we also took a lovely boat ride and saw Ridley turtles mating, caught a small, brightly colored dorado fish, and rode next to countless tropical spotted dolphins, most at close range and many breaching . . . but who wants to hear about that stuff?

Moonball Fire Ant Justice League

Despite us urging him not to do it, Alex tried to bounce Ian's moonball off the thick palm tree next to the infinity pool, the plan being to bounce it back into the pool, but the shot was near impossible and the ball ricocheted off the big tree and then caromed off a little tree and shot into the jungle; Alex tried to retrieve the ball, but was karmically stung by a horde of fire ants, a deserved and entertaining punishment for his impulsiveness; we also took a lovely boat ride and saw Ridley turtles mating, caught a small, brightly colored dorado fish, and rode next to countless tropical spotted dolphins, most at close range and many breaching . . . but who wants to hear about that stuff?

Glasshouse

If I were a free person in the 27th century cosmic war crime prison of Glasshouse, the Charles Stross sci-fi mindbender I just finished, I'd probably use a T Gate assembler to back myself up, then create a duplicate version of myself, have my duplicate write this sentence while my other self took a stroll on the beach, then merge the two neural nets into one version of me that contained both sets of memories . . . but before any of that, you have to solve Curious Yellow and the polity; a good fast read, as long as you don't get bogged down in the technical jargon; an exponentially advanced and precocious baby of The Matrix and Inception.

Glasshouse

If I were a free person in the 27th century cosmic war crime prison of Glasshouse, the Charles Stross sci-fi mindbender I just finished, I'd probably use a T Gate assembler to back myself up, then create a duplicate version of myself, have my duplicate write this sentence while my other self took a stroll on the beach, then merge the two neural nets into one version of me that contained both sets of memories . . . but before any of that, you have to solve Curious Yellow and the polity; a good fast read, as long as you don't get bogged down in the technical jargon; an exponentially advanced and precocious baby of The Matrix and Inception.

Samara

We made good time on the long and winding road to Samara-- no student protests, luckily, as there were major delays in San Jose and at the airport; the drive around Lake Arenal was beautiful, the road snaked up and down through small villages, including one with a German bakery with delicious stuff full of coconut and honey, and there were windy heights with views of the lake and the surrounding windmills and lots of one way bridges; Alex assumed shotgun/navigator for the second half of the ride and heroically hooked up the AUX cable to my phone so we could listen to music but soon after he directed me onto a back road which led directly into a river and a failed river crossing voids the car insurance-- so though we rented a 4wD Daihatsu Rush, an amazing light stripped down SUV-- I turned it around and took the paved route; a few hours later we made it to paradise . . . our Airbnb condo has an absurd view of the horseshoe shaped Samara beach, the water is warm, the kids took a surf lesson and caught countless waves, we hiked to the tidepools, ate fish and drank beers at the restaurants on the sand, found a Mexican joint that makes incredible beer, etc etc . . . once you get to Samara there's not much to say, it's a safe relatively undeveloped tropical beach town at the edge of the jungle, sheltered by a reef, and the beer is cheap and the surf instructors are excellent . . . my wife says it's the Highland Park of Costa Rica, it's small and very chill and you can walk everwhere but I think it's a little better because the 84 degree ocean water is nicer than the Raritan.

Samara

We made good time on the long and winding road to Samara-- no student protests, luckily, as there were major delays in San Jose and at the airport; the drive around Lake Arenal was beautiful, the road snaked up and down through small villages, including one with a German bakery with delicious stuff full of coconut and honey, and there were windy heights with views of the lake and the surrounding windmills and lots of one way bridges; Alex assumed shotgun/navigator for the second half of the ride and heroically hooked up the AUX cable to my phone so we could listen to music but soon after he directed me onto a back road which led directly into a river and a failed river crossing voids the car insurance-- so though we rented a 4wD Daihatsu Rush, an amazing light stripped down SUV-- I turned it around and took the paved route; a few hours later we made it to paradise . . . our Airbnb condo has an absurd view of the horseshoe shaped Samara beach, the water is warm, the kids took a surf lesson and caught countless waves, we hiked to the tidepools, ate fish and drank beers at the restaurants on the sand, found a Mexican joint that makes incredible beer, etc etc . . . once you get to Samara there's not much to say, it's a safe relatively undeveloped tropical beach town at the edge of the jungle, sheltered by a reef, and the beer is cheap and the surf instructors are excellent . . . my wife says it's the Highland Park of Costa Rica, it's small and very chill and you can walk everwhere but I think it's a little better because the 84 degree ocean water is nicer than the Raritan.

Monkey Beats Ant

Yesterday we finally saw a monkey, while we were hiking at Mirador el Silencio-- a private nature reserve which I highly recommend because the admission is supercheap and because we saw a spider monkey swinging through the dense jungle, doing all kinds of monkey antics, and then the trail ascends out of the jungle into the cloud forest and finally ends at the 1968 lava field, where it is cold and cloudy-- a real winner of a place and we were the only people there so we had all the trails to ourselves for the three plus hours it took to navigate them; we then got snacks, plantain and yucca chips, and then descended the 500 steps the the La Fortuna Waterfall, an epic tumbling cascade of cold water that plunges straight out of the jungle; we swam in the river below the main falls, in a plethora of pacu, then we ate lunch and headed back to Los Lagos to enjoy the pools; we ran into the supernice one upper again and talked sports, we learned he was Tracy McGrady's point guard in high school and has his contact in his cell phone and then after a bit more one upping he left and we talked to some professional sporting parents from California who were so successful at raising up their giant atletic progeny that they didn't need to one up-- they talked strategy and made us feel like amateurs: their oldest son just got a full golf scholarship to Illinois and got endorsed by Foot Joy and Titleist and they retained their younger son once and were planning on doing it again so he could excel at football; both kids did not attend public school, instead they did sport specific schooling and these parents pursued all sorts of scholarships and funding, pretty wild and way out of our league; then as we were walking back to our cabana, the one upper drove by and yelled some amazing one upmanship info out the window: "I heard Soda La Hormiga, The Ant, has the best food around! Eight dollars a plate! A local guy told me . . ." and he drove off and we actually considered going there but first we needed gas and the station in town ran out so we had to wait in a line out of town and then La Hormiga was closing so we went to another place and it's a good thing because we saw the one upper's wife at breakfast and she said her son got sick from the food and it was lucky we didn't follow her husband's advice and then we sat next to them while we ate and the one upper mapped our route to Samara on his phone for us.

Monkey Beats Ant

Yesterday we finally saw a monkey, while we were hiking at Mirador el Silencio-- a private nature reserve which I highly recommend because the admission is supercheap and because we saw a spider monkey swinging through the dense jungle, doing all kinds of monkey antics, and then the trail ascends out of the jungle into the cloud forest and finally ends at the 1968 lava field, where it is cold and cloudy-- a real winner of a place and we were the only people there so we had all the trails to ourselves for the three plus hours it took to navigate them; we then got snacks, plantain and yucca chips, and then descended the 500 steps the the La Fortuna Waterfall, an epic tumbling cascade of cold water that plunges straight out of the jungle; we swam in the river below the main falls, in a plethora of pacu, then we ate lunch and headed back to Los Lagos to enjoy the pools; we ran into the supernice one upper again and talked sports, we learned he was Tracy McGrady's point guard in high school and has his contact in his cell phone and then after a bit more one upping he left and we talked to some professional sporting parents from California who were so successful at raising up their giant atletic progeny that they didn't need to one up-- they talked strategy and made us feel like amateurs: their oldest son just got a full golf scholarship to Illinois and got endorsed by Foot Joy and Titleist and they retained their younger son once and were planning on doing it again so he could excel at football; both kids did not attend public school, instead they did sport specific schooling and these parents pursued all sorts of scholarships and funding, pretty wild and way out of our league; then as we were walking back to our cabana, the one upper drove by and yelled some amazing one upmanship info out the window: "I heard Soda La Hormiga, The Ant, has the best food around! Eight dollars a plate! A local guy told me . . ." and he drove off and we actually considered going there but first we needed gas and the station in town ran out so we had to wait in a line out of town and then La Hormiga was closing so we went to another place and it's a good thing because we saw the one upper's wife at breakfast and she said her son got sick from the food and it was lucky we didn't follow her husband's advice and then we sat next to them while we ate and the one upper mapped our route to Samara on his phone for us.