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Since we took our vacation during spring break instead of the summer, I started my summer book reading in April. I’m writing about it now because I didn’t realize the book I took was the first of a trilogy (i.e. this is a review of 3 books, enough for its own blog post).

It was The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer.

The book had an interesting setting, and interesting characters, and in general it was a good read.

It did stand on its own and had a good enough ending, but there are two other books after it.

Those are The Land of the Silver Apples and The Islands of the Blessed.

I’m just going to review the series in one lump – no need to get into the specifics of each book. If you like the first one, you’ll like the other two.

One note: the first book had a good ending, but the end of the third book left a lot open and much more of an expectation of another story. If you don’t like that to-be-continued feeling, stop at the first book.

No plot recap here, that’s what basically all the other reviews are for.

If you’ve seen any of the Marvel movies about Thor, you’ll understand a bit of what’s going on in these books. Or I suppose it could work in the reverse – if you’ve read these books, you’ll understand a bit of what’s going on in the Thor movies. If you are undecided about the order though, I recommend seeing the Thor movie first, if only for the reason that you’ll know how to pronounce Jotunheim when you see it in the book.

I saw one review blip that said the story has a bit of Star Wars in it, and I’d say that’s true. And that aspect of the story is the main concern with it – the spiritual aspect.

The story asserts that all religions are different, say, facets of the main “force”. That implies that the life force is the real religion, and all others are built off it. The story weaves together Norse mythology annd Christianity and Picts and elves and hobgoblins and it all gets jumbled together, to further the idea that they’re all different leaves on the same tree.

Oddly enough, this tree that is the provider of the life force in the book is known as the “tree of life” which sounds a lot like what was in the Garden of Eden. I’d go so far as to suggest that the author substitutes the Tree of Life for God. Yes, she took it from the Norse traditions of Yggdrasil. I’m just saying the way it’s presented in the book (calling it the “tree of life”) reminds me of a corrupted version of Genesis.

Whether that encourages or discourages you for reading the book, I’ll let you make that call.

This is kind of a part 3 of our spring break trip to Texas.

The trip home from Texas was mostly uneventful. We got home, we unpacked somewhat, went to bed no problems, got up the next day, had breakfast, attended church, did some relaxing (day of rest) in the afternoon, bedtime, morning again – nothing out of the ordinary.

Partway through Monday, Some Wife needed something out of her wallet and when she opened it, she noticed she did not have her drivers license in her wallet. She checked the rest of her purse, then she checked her carry-on bag that unpacked already, then we checked the other carry-on bag.

Nothing.

I checked the van. I checked the luggage again. I checked the van again.

Nothing.

I blame TSA.

We knew she had her license when we got on the plane, because we had to show ID at the gate, as well as at security to get into the terminal. Our flight had been randomly chosen for a secondary check. So she had to scan her boarding pass as well as Gamma’s and Delta’s boarding passes, and show her ID, then carry all her stuff through the plane to our seats.

My plan was that she would take one kid and I would take the other, but we were all together and she was first so they asked her for the boarding passes and she had them all so she obliged them. I had to scan my own boarding pass, and Alpha and Beta were responsible for themselves too.

Anyway, in all the hustle and bustle of the extra ID check at the gate, stowing the carry-on luggage in the overhead bin, getting settled in the right seat, and making sure the kids were doing the right thing (in-seat entertainment screens for everybody, so no problem getting them to sit down), her drivers license didn’t make it back in the wallet.

Ok, back to Monday. I called the airline for the items-lost-on-the-plane department. Their phone menu has a selection for that, but all it does is direct you to the website. I don’t know that you could talk to a person about that if you wanted. So I went to the website (it’s actually a third-party company that seems to run that type of stuff for them and maybe some others) and put in our information. I figured the item was easily identifiable enough – if they found it they would know whose it was. I got an email saying they got the request. And I checked on the status later that day and they were still looking for it.

That evening, I looked into what it would take to get a replacement license. Actually, I was looking to see if I could even get her into the SOS (Michigan’s DMV) to get a new license. Next appointment was weeks away.

But they did happen to offer some online services to renew things, and a replacement license request was one of the services. And it was only $9.00, so I decided to go that route. If the airline did find the license, we’d be out only $9, and if they didn’t find it we’d be all set.

It was mostly the unknown that made me decide to order the license. Otherwise it would be a guessing game – how long do we wait for them to find it? how long can we go with my driving everywhere? But if I ordered a license, there’s no more unknown.

So I ordered the license that night. I was able to print out a temporary license that was valid until her actual license was received, so she was never inconvenienced at all (since we had no plans to go anywhere that Monday anyway). A few days later, her new license showed up in the mail and all was good.

Then a couple days after that, she got a letter from someone we didn’t know. With her full name on it. She opened it up and some person from New York had found her license and returned it. It was mailed from NY, so that person must have been on the next flight in that plane, and found it and decided to be a Good Samaritan and return it to its rightful owner.

That explained why the airline was having trouble finding it; I cancelled the lost item request to help their system out. And I saved the old license in a safe place (because to order a replacement license you have to know your license number, which we didn’t know without her license, which was a bit of circular logic until I remembered somewhere I had documented her drivers license number).

And while I do appreciate the finder of the drivers license being kind enough to send it back, I do think that was not the best thing to do.

The moral of this story: if you find something that has been lost on and airplane or at an airport, please turn it into the authorities there.

Since we didn’t discover it was missing until our second day home, I’d bet if that person had turned it in when they found it, it would have been registered in the system by the time we put in our request, and we would have been matched up with it fairly quickly. We might not have gotten the license right away, but we would have known right away where it was and that we were able to get it back.

I was glad to get it back though, even if it was already replaced by the new one, because then I didn’t have to worry about someone putting her license to nefarious use and her getting implicated for something, or us having identity or credit problems later. So if you are the person who mailed the license back, thank you.

Subtitle: in which I improve the government’s records

Allow me to introduce to you the 2020 SFS List of Baby Names that Combine Similar Pronunciations. That baby name list is the place to go in case you are wondering what are the most popular baby names in 2020 regardless of how they are spelled. The Social Security baby name list does not adjust the rankings based on alternate spellings (like Catherine/Katherine), but SFS does.

It was just Mother’s Day, so the SSA released the name rankings for 2020. Last year’s champion, Jackson is again the most popular boy’s name in the US but just barely. Last year it had a lead of just over 1800; this year its lead is only 140ish.
No controversy for the girls – it’s Sophia again, and by a similar margin as last year.

Some Stats

• The top 3 names for the boys are the same, but Oliver jumped past Aiden into 4th place, and Elijah passed Lucas for 6th.
• The top 8 names for the girls are the same as 2019, and in the same order.
• Again, Liam has the title of the highest-ranked boy’s name that has no spelling variations, at number 2.
• Again, Emma is the highest-ranked girl’s name that has no spelling variations, at number 3.
• Girl names still have more spelling variations than boy names (269/1000 vs. 178/1000 alternates)
• Kayson once again took the prize for the most spelling variations for the boys at 8.
• For the girls, Adaline and Madelynare tied for the most spelling variations at 6.
• All the top boy spots had their numbers go down last year, as did all the girls. I wouldn’t make too much of it without further analysis, because I don’t know if the total numbers went down too.

2020 Improved Baby Name List

Click on the link above and peruse to your heart’s content!

This is continuation of last week’s blog post about the start of our spring break trip to Texas.

Now on to the chronological recap:

Day 4: Cave Day
There a number of caves around the San Antonio area. There was a big tourist-trap one that I avoided due to cost reasons, and I ended up picking Cascade Caverns.

It’s a smaller affair, so if you like a low-key tourist event, I’d recommend this one. The lady sold us our tickets, then locked up the building so she could be our tour guide, then went back to the building after the tour and we bought souvenirs from her. And we were the only people on the tour.

Here are some photos. First up, the gift shop:

We had a few minutes between the ticket purchase and the start of the tour, so we went on a short (1/2 mile?) hike in their trails on the grounds. Not much notable on that hike, other than some informative signs about native fauna. Plus we saw cactus growing wild. That’s something of interest to a Michigander who sees cactus only in special buildings.

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Like most people in Michigan this year, we took advantage of spring break to leave Michigan for warmer pastures and to find out what it’s like to dine in at restaurants.

Unlike most people in Michigan this year, we went to Texas, not Florida.

Since it was only a week, we chose to fly rather than drive to Texas. Our destination was a VRBO house with a pool. Staying for a week, and with kids that can be loud, we figured renting a house was the way to go. It had 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, which is a good layout for a family of 6. Plus a kitchen, dining room, living room, washer/dryer, and back patio and pool. Better features, less crowded, and a similar price compared to staying in a hotel.

Now on to the chronological recap:

Day 1: Travel Day
We left our home around 10:00am, flew to Austin, got a rental car, and headed out to San Antonio. Direct flight to Austin, that’s why we didn’t fly to San Antonio. The rental car process was easier than I remember. The only mishap was that the Alamo and National counters were manned by only one person so there was only one line, but they didn’t tell you that until you went through the ropes course and got to the front of the empty Alamo line, only to be sent to the back of the National line. How hard would it have been to put a sign at the entrance to the Alamo line saying “Go over there to National” or something?

Anyway, we arrived to San Antonio just before dinner their time. We stopped at the Costco just outside SA to get some supplies for the week, plus a Costco pizza for dinner. The only real traffic we had was getting into SA.

All in all though, I’d say Texans weren’t bad drivers. I didn’t have a preconceived notion of Texas drivers, but for the most part they were competent. Which is above average if you check in other states.
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One of the sayings that I didn’t understand for a long time was “You have to know the rules in order to break them.”

That and Outback Steakhouse’s slogan “No rules just right”.

But I always thought it was easier to break rules if you didn’t know them, because how are you supposed to obey something if you don’t know what it is. In fact, it seemed more likely to me that you would break the rules if you didn’t know them, and knowing the rules would spur you to follow them. But the phrase was meant for guidelines and I was applying it to laws.

Then I learned something from Picasso. I now get to share my favorite illustration (literally and figuratively) of that concept. Pablo Picasso was an artist who was known to not follow standard rules.

First off – a quiz! Which of these pictures was drawn by Pablo Picasso?

Figure A.

Figure B.

Figure C.

If you answered B, you are correct.

And if you answered C, you are correct.

Also if you answered A, you are correct.

Those pictures are from a sequence he drew to demonstrate his process for reducing an object to its essential elements. In order for him to draw abstractly, he had to be able to draw the items “correctly” in the first place.

In other words, he had to know the rules and be able to follow them, in order to be able to break them.

But they aren’t rules, so he didn’t break them. He just understood his discipline well enough to know how to change things to accomplish his goals.

Complete this phrase: Rules were made to be ________

Did you think “broken”? If so, no hard feelings, but you’re wrong. I guess most modern Americans would complete that phrase that way, probably without even thinking about it. For some reason that phrase has stuck.

But it isn’t right.

Rules were made to be followed. That’s kind of the point of rules. Rules were made to keep things working well, keep you safe, and prevent problems.

Gee thanks dad, for that life lesson. That’s just the background information; that’s not the whole blog post – stick with me for a bit.

If your first instinct is to try to break the rules, then you’ve been trained wrong and life will be more difficult than it needs to be. Not that rules can never be broken, but now we need to delve into some nuances.

I’d like to remove the word “rules” and use “laws” and “guidelines” instead – split the term into those two general categories. If you think of rules that way, then it helps to understand when you could try to break them.

People have used the term “rule” in such phrases as “rule of thumb” or “unspoken rules”. I would put those into the category of guidelines rather than laws. A rule of thumb is a guideline that you follow if you don’t really know what you’re doing, or you do know what you’re doing and thus you know it’s not worth spending time to do a proper analysis on this minor part of the project.

Also unspoken rules aren’t real rules.

There are other rules that would fit better in the category of laws – things that are prohibited for a reason. Things such as “no glass in the pool area” or “fire door – keep closed”. If you know the reason for the law, you understand that it doesn’t make sense to try to break them because nothing good can come of it.

But guidelines, on the other hand, if you know the reason for the guideline then it helps you to know when not to follow the guidelines. Things such as “don’t go swimming within 30 minutes of eating” are good ideas but once you know it’s to prevent cramps from strenuous exercise with a full stomach, you know you can splash in a pool right after having a snack. Some people might call that breaking a rule, but I don’t like that phrase because it gives people the attitude that they know better than the rules in general, thus it diminishes the law-types of rules.

And I do believe there can be a time for breaking law-types of rules, but that requires a consideration of risk vs. reward (or consequence of breaking the rule vs. consequence of following the rule). An example would be breaking traffic laws in the case of a medical emergency – is that right or wrong?

In summary: if you don’t know what you’re doing and why, then just follow the rules.