The Bear's Progress
SkeptoBear's trip to James Randi's Amazing Meeting 2004
Day Twelve
Give me a museum among the gum trees.
SkeptoBear is a gregarious creature, and when he hits a strange town he likes to meet the inhabitants and get amongst the local action. After everyone else had gone to bed The Bear went downstairs to the Internet cafe in the hotel to check out what was happening in San Francisco, so when the team assembled for breakfast he announced that he was bringing a new friend along on the day's adventures. The friend was the pirate bear Robert James Ladd, who preferred to be called R. Jim Ladd for some reason. Jim had promised to take the group to Treasure Island, which was quite convenient as the day's itinerary involved a trip to Oakland and Berkeley and the island was on the way.
Treasure Island is in the middle of San Francisco Bay, and if you manage to get into the correct lane on the Bay Bridge you can drive onto the island. It seems to be off the normal tourist route, but if you are visiting the city a trip to Treasure Island is highly recommended as it provides spectacular views of the city, the Golden Gate bridge and the bay. There is a large naval base there, but more relevant to the travellers was the Treasure Island Yacht Club. Jim was a member, of course, and treated the team to morning tea. As soon as the group entered the establishment SkeptoBear started loudly calling "Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum", but as it was only mid-morning everyone else decided that "Yo, ho, ho and a cappuccino" was probably more suitable.
It had soon become apparent to SkeptoBear's companions that he had established an immediate rapport with pirate Jim, despite them only meeting for the first time that day. (It turned out that by a remarkable coincidence they had both flown from Las Vegas to San Francisco on the same flight, so perhaps their meeting had been predestined.) In fact, certain aspects of body language and glances between the two suggested that this could be the start of a very beautiful friendship indeed. When it was suggested to SkeptoBear that this seemed to to be slightly out of character for someone who had once been seen as a reincarnation of Errol Flynn, he merely offered the somewhat enigmatic reply that this was San Francisco after all and if people cared to look around they might notice that even the bridge to Treasure Island went both ways. Jim just winked with his unpatched eye and said "Not that there's anything wrong with that".
The next stop was to be the National Center for Science Education in Oakland. The very first thing that the team did upon arriving in Oakland was to get lost. They pulled into a convenient service station to ask for directions, and the first person who approached them identified them as both tourists and lost. As skeptics they doubted that he was psychic and, after a quick look at the faces and modes of dress of everyone else in the area, assumed that he had come to this conclusion on the basis of ethnicity. They were then introduced to a quaint local custom, when they were told that it would cost $9 for directions. Upon giving him a $10 note to cover the cost plus state sales tax, they were given precise instructions on how to get to where they were going. The instructions were: "See that red light? Turn right there and you will be where you want to be".
The directions proved to be correct, and the NCSE was located within minutes. It was then that something approaching a secular miracle happened. Actually two miracles, the first being that there was a vacant parking spot almost immediately opposite the NCSE office. SkeptoBear's male companion is almost unique in the circle of skeptics in which he moves in having no ability to perform magic tricks. (This is why SkeptoBear convinced him to stand in the middle of the dance floor at a party at Randi's conference and bend spoons. Spoonbending! In front of a collection of Randi fans! Thank you, Mr Beam.) The second miracle was that driving a strange car with the steering wheel on the wrong side he was able to perfectly park on the wrong side of the road using only one reverse movement followed by only one forward movement. Inspired by this, he immediately announced plans to master that magic trick where you make one rubber band pass through another so that he can do at least one trick that all his friends can do.
The NCSE leads the fight against the attempts to rot the minds of children by having religion taught in science classes. The team had seen the headquarters of the 
Institute for Creation Research in San Diego and the comparison between the buildings there and the modest accommodation of NCSE suggested that the good guys either had much less money to spend or spent it on more important things than fancy offices. Both, actually. The group had met Dr Eugenie Scott in Las Vegas and were delighted to have the opportunity to see her again and have a longer conversation. One depressing sight in the office was the large filing cabinet full of reports and legal papers relating to attempts to sneak creationism into schools. The depression was relieved, however, by the walls in the toilet, which are papered with copies of hate mail and other complaints from creationists and their supporters.
The next stop was going to be the Lawrence Hall of Science in the hills behind Berkeley University, but the team's driver seemed intent on driving around the Berkeley town centre looking for something. Suddenly, there it was in front of them. A street named after him, or so he claimed. The other occupants of the car groaned in anticipation of hearing about this ad nauseam and then all simultaneously started different conversations about unrelated matters.
Any Australian driving to the Lawrence Hall of Science will be sent into a fit of homesickness by the forest of eucalyptus trees which surround the place. To add to the feeling of deja vu, the building itself was used for the exterior shots in the film The Forbin Project (based on the novel Colossus by DF Jones) about computers taking over the world, although the whale didn't star in the film at all. The group arrived at the museum quite late in the day and the attendants suggested that they come back another day to give them time to see everything. After they explained that it was a very long way from home to here and it would not be possible to come back they were let in. As it happened, most of the place was being renovated and there wasn't much to see anyway. One of the team had been here before and was quite disappointed that many of the excellent displays that he remembered were no longer available, but when all the work is finished it will again be an excellent place to take children to learn about real science.
SkeptoBear has always agreed with Newton that the way to achieve progress is to stand on the shoulders of giants. He was really pleased to be able to stand on the shoulders of Ernest Lawrence and to look at the collection of awards (including a Nobel Prize) that Lawrence had received during his lifetime. He wondered what the collection of awards that had been granted to the "researchers" at the Institute for Creation Research would look like. Probably fit it all in a shoebox, he thought. Or maybe a matchbox.
On the way back into San Francisco, another cultural difference between home and away was noticed. The Oakland-Bay Bridge is supposed to carry more traffic than any other bridge in the world, at about 300,000 vehicle movements per day. This means that about 150,000 cars per day travel in the direction where a toll has to be paid. It was surprising, therefore, to see that there was only one lane at the toll gates which could be used by cars with electronic toll devices. To make matters worse, as the USA doesn't have coins for small-dollar denominations there were 
no automatic toll lanes and everyone had to stop and hand money to a human. Actually, that might not be true about the human because in the toll booth in the lane chosen by The Bear's driver there was a robot who refused to reach out and take the offered notes. She had apparently been programmed to be rude to tourists who stopped two more inches away from the booth than the length of the driver's arm.
Back in San Francisco it was time for dinner. The travellers had noticed a sign advertising an eatery named "Fuddruckers", and the name had brought up two questions: "Why would anyone want to eat in a place with a name like that?", and "When the company was choosing a corporate name, what was the second choice which was rejected?". A short walk up the street from the hotel took them to a Scottish pub, the Edinburgh Castle, which not only had Anchor Steam beer on tap, but sold excellent fish and chips (note - chips, not "fries") served in a real newspaper package. Better still, it was trivia quiz night. The compere pointed out that despite not knowing an expletive about American culture the Aussie Attack team did not come last, although there was some suspicion that they had received some assistance through generous scoring. (One set of ten questions about US state names received a score of 10/10 when all of the answers given were "Rhode Island". Perhaps these were the correct answers.) The organisers of the quiz were invited to come to Australia and participate in a trivia quiz, and they were assured that all questions would relate to cricket, rugby league, netball, federal tax legislation and the Aboriginal origins of town names.
Between the pub and the hotel was the tattoo parlour. The potential tattooees were returning from a night on the town and were therefore chemically primed to use the services of the tattooist. There was talk about tigers and lizards and where the pictures would go. Again, the tattoo parlour was closed. It was resolved to return when it was open and give the owner some marketing advice. He probably took his annual vacation when the fleet was in port.
At the hotel, it was time for a night of fitful sleep, punctuated by dreams of the agricultural produce of various US states, presidential primaries and baseball batting averages. SkeptoBear and pirate Jim were told to keep the noise down so that everyone else could sleep. There was another long day ahead tomorrow, and another museum.
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