Travels with Samantha Slide Show Page 19

Joel still stands 5'10" high on his stocky legs, hides his face behind a black beard, and wears the "physics wardrobe" (flannel shirt with one tail untucked hanging over faded jeans). At 35, he holds the same vaguely liberal political views; he wasn't even radicalized when his Ph.D. project, a terrifying room-size free-electron laser, became a cornerstone of the Star Wars project. Joel hasn't changed his taste in reading, still turning to English literature and the New Yorker. Although encumbered by home ownership, he's never bought a TV, decent stereo, or much else.

Joel was staying with Adi and Viola, two West German academics. We'd planned on going out for dinner, but Elke and her hostess Julie surprised us with a salmon feast.

Adi started off the conversation by waxing rhapsodic on how wonderful the Brave New World of computer software was. Joel, such a computer-algebra wizard that his first date with a Harvard girl was helping her with Macsyma, looked amused.

"Where is the innovation? Macsyma was written by MIT graduate students 25 years ago and is still better than any of the new commercial computer algebra systems."

"Electrical engineers have been so innovative that a business can be run with $1000 of hardware, but commercial software is such a mess that they'll spend tens of thousands on adaptations, hand-holding, and baby-sitting," I piped up.

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The Cascades

[BIG] are a beautiful mountain range, especially when one is accompanied by old friend Joel

and a couple of bikes for beautiful rides through the Yakima River Valley

[BIG]. (Looks pretty peaceful, considering it is right next to a weapons testing range and a nuclear waste site.)

Mr. Rainier, the fifth highest peak in the Lower 48, towers over western Washington State. [BIG] There are plenty of smaller-scale pleasures to be had in and around the mountain, however. [BIG]

Joel and I were not upset by a little car trouble [BIG] near Mt. St. Helens, which erupted in 1980, 13 years before!

Denise defies categorization, but I'd start with this: a charter member of the "Men; can't live with `em, can't shoot `em" Berkeley school of feminism. Joel and Denise comprise a virtually complete set of the world's knowledge. Joel knows physics; Denise knows everything else. She knows biology, nutrition, philosophy, literature, politics, history and the price of tea in China. Although she isn't either a lawyer, economist, or engineer, she regularly makes fools of all three in her court appearances on behalf of California's public utilities commission, which regulates utilities. She's studied at Berkeley and Harvard, but knows so much more than the run-of-the-mill credential-grubbers that it would be insulting to add a degree to her name.

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We picked up Joel's girlfriend and headed for the Oregon coast

[BIG]

Fog the next day [BIG] sent us inland to the Columbia River Gorge [BIG]

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