Science Olympiad is a competition for middle and high school students who get excited by math and science. These are the geeks and hackers of our future; the kids who are good at math and are not ashamed of it. Last Saturday I attended the Bay Area competition, where 500 or so kids competed in events like Science Crime Busters, Ornithology, and Mousetrap Vehicle. Plenty of excitement and love for math and science seen in broad daylight on a weekend; not a common sight.

The picture above is from the closing ceremony. What do we see here? the future of Silicon Valley. Look closely – who do you see in the picture? Happy kids and families from Asia, mainly China and India. This is a self selecting group of people who demonstrate their love for science and math through their deeds, not their words or good intentions. And where are the Caucasians and other ethnicities hiding? They aren’t hiding, they simply didn’t bother to show up. An event like this would interrupt their busy Saturday schedules, and besides, it’s so un-cool. The entire crowd had maybe 10 non Asians.

Why does it matter? It doesn’t, really, but isn’t it amazing that they amounted to about 2% of the crowd, an order of magnitude less than their makeup in the Bay Area population?

I risk sounding racist here, but nothing is farther from the truth. I’m writing this out of sheer admiration to the Asian parents who encourage their kids to participate in the Science Olympiad. Largely an immigrant generation, they made it to the US by virtue of their education, not through a birthright. These brave people arguably understand the value of education far better than the “natives”. Being enterprising newcomers, they leverage the excellent schools and the volunteer workforce to better their children’s future.

I’ve seen the future of Silicon Valley, and I’m happy to report that it’s multicultural, passionate, and hard working. I’m so glad that at least one group of people cares enough about science and math, as this is the greatest hope for this area and indeed the entire country.

My 6 year old daughter has a new idol – the British pop phenom Mika and his hit song Lollipop. She watches it over and over on YouTube, and seems like she can never get enough of it. Yesterday I told her “I see that you really like this song. I’ll go ahead and buy you the album”. Her reply puzzled me – “but why, dad, we already have it!” I wasn’t sure what she means, so I said “no, I didn’t buy it yet” to which I replied “but we already have it on YouTube, daddy.”
Ahh, got it.
It never occurred to her that music has to be purchased. And really, why bother when it’s all available online? I guess either we or YouTube or both break some law by playing over and over, but than again maybe not. Since bandwidth is basically free and sites like Pandora and Last.fm stream the music I like, there’s no real reason to buy music anymore except for maybe to help some starving artists.
The interesting part is that I knew all that for a while now, but needed my 6 year old daughter to help me connect the dots…

Well, turns out we where way too ambitious; we didn’t even cross into Oregon. We ended up at the City of Mt. Shasta, at the foothills of Mt. Shasta (duh…). It’s a wonderful little city with a special atmosphere. Lake Siskiyou, next door, is mesmerizing and serene, providing for dramatic views with the snowy mountain at the backdrop. We spent most of our time at the Lake Siskiyou Resort and Campground, celebrated Fourth of July with the locals, and watched the fireworks over the lake. Can’t wait to go back again.

We’re going on a family vacation driving an RV to the pacific northwest. We don’t have any firm plans – just a desire to hit Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Not sure we’ll make it that far though. We’ve been there 10 years ago, and can’t wait to visit again. It was before the age of digital cameras, so the photos are fading away in some old misplaced album. Besides, it should be fun to take the ferry from Port Angeles to the island. I’ll post some pictures when we’re back.