Australia -- October 6, 2026

For the extended family: Heron Island Research Station. Link here. Our middle granddaughter Olivia is currently studying abroad -- down under -- Australia. Her AFROTC commitment allows her only one quarter to study abroad. She invited herself to join a research group on Heron Island, part of the Great Barrier Reef.  For perspective, my college research was in the Arctic. LOL. Map and one photo: 

The research team: Olivia has the star on her top, and, I believe, that's a snorkeling tube over her left shoulder. Oh, yes, she and others are wearing fins, so they were snorkeling. She qualified for dive-certification when she was twelve years old but didn't get the certificate because she was not old enough to qualify. She is comfortable in and around water.

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Stanford Engineering

 Link here: https://ughb.stanford.edu/jobs-resources-opportunities/overseas-opportunities.  

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Miscellaneous

 

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Book Review

Link here: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/tune-in-drop-out-start-up/. 

The Claremont Institute is located in Upland, California: link here. Upland, CA, is in southern California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. The institute sits midway between SH-210 and I-10, west of San Bernardino on Foothill Blvd.

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The Great Barrier Reef
 

 

 

Next Step After AF ROTC Field Training -- August 21, 2026

Query: 

It appears that some cadets are called back to be a trainer / instructor at Maxwell the following year but she would like to continue with engineering opportunities. I suggest she work with the USAF to find another summer opportunity such as a engineering "sabbatical" at some engineering slot in the USAF. Thoughts?

Reply: 

What AF ROTC Field Training Means For Olivia -- August 21, 2026

Query: Aren't all AF ROTC student required to complete Field Training at Maxwell AFB, AL?

Reply:  

Follow-up question: 

I'm asking because we got a strange letter from the Air Force saying that our granddaughter had been selected to recieve a coveted and well-deserved Enrollment Allocation to attend Field Training this summer. This is not just a next step -- it is one of the most significant milestones in a cadet's journey .... and it goes on. How can it be such a coveted and well-deserved allocation when every ROTC must attend Field Training? 

Reply:

Comes Home Today -- Three Weeks -- AFROTC Field Training -- August 20, 2026

 

ROTC -- Maxwell Air Force Base -- Alabama -- July 31, 2026

 Three-week field training begins.

Olivia's bag.

ROTC -- Edwards Air Force Base -- California -- June 17, 2026

June 12, 2026:

Grandchild #2 -- jet fighter flight today. Some weeks ago, Olivia, shaved her head to the scalp. Think Demi Moore. LOL. 

I see she is letting her hair grow out. T-38 jet / F-5. She's at the USAF test flight base, Edwards Air Force Base. She arrived at Edwards AFB the day the B-52 crashed, killing eight members on board. She was scheduled to take this flight on June 15, 2026. Because the runway was closed after the B-52 crash, her training took her back into the simulator. 

Her jet fighter instructor start out in life as a helicopter pilot. What an incredible model.

I flew many, many flights / sorties in the F-15D practicing air combat maneuvers, the F-5 fighters from  RAF Alconbury, England. So, "it has" come full circle.

Later:

Four USAF ROTC cadets on the ramp of a C-17.

 

 

June 15, 2026:

Olivia is attending Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, studying electrical engineering, on an AF-ROTC scholarship.

This summer she was selected for a highly-sought-after three-week tour of Edwards Air Force Base, California, a test site for the Air Force.

She drove down from Palo Alto, California, on Sunday, June 14, 2026.

On Monday, while being fitted for a helmet and g-suit to fly in a jet fighter -- probably an F-16 or F15, the ROTC students were hustled out of the building, change in plans.

Because the runway was closed and due to other requirements following the mishap, the planned jet fighter flight was postponed. However the students got to "fly" in a jet fighter simulator.

Olivia's grandfather was a crewmember of a B-52 back in 1982 or thereabouts when he was stationed at Grand Forks AFB, ND, as a flight surgeon / pediatrician. 

He had only flight in the B-52. It was a night mission, eight hours long, flying low-level (500 feet off the ground) through the Rocky Mountains. Terrain-folllowing, night flight.  

YouTube report: link here. 

Olivia On Her Way To Edwards AFB -- Three-Week Summer Program -- Posted June 15, 2026

Lewis Terman -- Stanford Psychologist -- Posted June 15, 2026

Lewis Terman. 

Link here. 

Father and son.

Lewis Terman. The father.

Frederick Terman. The son. President of Stanford.  

The lede: 

To the Los Angeles juvenile authorities in 1923, Edward Dmytryk was an ordinary runaway trying to escape a vicious father who tore up his schoolbooks and clubbed him with a two-by-four. Mr. Dmytryk wanted his 14-year-old son back—if only, as the caseworker suspected, because Edward brought home vital income.

While the authorities deliberated, a letter arrived from Professor Lewis Terman, the nation's most famous psychologist and the man who had planted the term "IQ" in America's vocabulary. He wasn't a relative or family friend; he had never even met the boy. But the Stanford professor believed Edward deserved a break because he was "gifted"—a word Terman coined to describe the bright kids he devoted his life to researching.

Edward's high score on an IQ test had qualified him for Terman's pathbreaking Genetic Study of Genius. Terman, who had grown up gifted himself, was gathering evidence to squelch the popular stereotype of brainy, "bookish" children as frail oddballs doomed to social isolation. He wanted to show that most smart kids were robust and well-adjusted—that they were, in fact, born leaders who ought to be identified early and cultivated for their rightful roles in society.

Though the more than 1,000 youngsters enrolled in his study didn't know it at the time, they were embarking on a lasting relationship. As Terman poked around in their lives with his inquisitive surveys, "he fell in love with those kids," explains Albert Hastorf, emeritus professor of psychology. To the group he always called "my gifted children"—even after they grew up—Terman became mentor, confidant, guidance counselor and sometimes guardian angel, intervening on their behalf. In doing so, he crashed through the glass that is supposed to separate scientists from subjects, undermining his own data. But Terman saw no conflict in nudging his protégés toward success, and many of them later reflected that being a "Terman kid" had indeed shaped their self-images and changed the course of their lives.

Thanks to Terman's timely letter, for example, Edward Dmytryk went to a good foster home. You may have seen his name in the titles for The Caine Mutiny, one of the 23 films he later directed.

Forty-four years after Terman's death, the study is still going on. About 200 of his "kids" are alive, still completing periodic questionnaires on their health and activities and returning them to Stanford's psychology department. The Termites, as they're fondly nicknamed, have been tracked for nearly 80 years now, through nearly all the milestones of life. It's the longest-running survey ever carried out. And although Terman didn't conceive it as such, the study established a powerful new research approach: the longitudinal investigation, in which scientists follow a group of people over many years to learn how factors in early life influence later variables such as health and longevity.

Marred by design flaws, the genius study yielded few momentous conclusions beyond reassuring Americans that it's okay to be smart. Yet the archives have a value that Terman never envisioned: they provide an unmatched record of lives that spanned almost all of the 20th century. Researchers have pored over the Terman files to explore historical phenomena (did World War II veterans suffer lingering effects of combat?) as well as broader questions (does personality influence life span?). Social scientists have called the archives a national treasure because they tell the life stories of so many Americans.

A story of a different kind emerges from Terman's own writings—a disturbing tale of the beliefs of a pioneer in psychology. Lewis Terman was a loving mentor, yes, but his ardent promotion of the gifted few was grounded in a cold-blooded, elitist ideology. Especially in the early years of his career, he was a proponent of eugenics, a social movement aiming to improve the human "breed" by perpetuating certain allegedly inherited traits and eliminating others. While championing the intelligent, he pushed for the forced sterilization of thousands of "feebleminded" Americans. Later in life, Terman backed away from eugenics, but he never publicly recanted his beliefs.

Looking back, what are we to make of the man and his work? That's a question Al Hastorf has been grappling with. The former Stanford provost and vice president is the third director of the Terman study (he succeeded psychology professor Robert Sears), overseeing the project from his office in Jordan Hall. An amiable and restless man with a wry sense of humor, Hastorf has been pondering Lewis Terman's legacy for a chapter he's writing in a book on pioneering psychologists.

"There's a certain delicacy about talking about him," Hastorf begins, "because he was probably one of the first really big names Stanford had."

To most people at Stanford, the name Terman evokes another person entirely: Fred Terman, '20, Engr. '22, the engineering professor, dean and provost who helped launch California's electronics industry in the 1950s and who was Lewis Terman's son. But while Fred got his name inscribed on buildings on and off campus, Lewis probably had as much impact on people's lives, because he almost single-handedly introduced IQ testing in America.

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Gemini

Query:

Recent articles on Lewis Terman. How is he viewed in 2020s? 

Reply: 

AFROTC Achievement Award -- May 14, 2026

 A note from Olivia, May 14, 2026:

I got an the AFROTC Achievement Award (given to about 6 cadets) and a pin from the Reserve Organization of America (given to 2 cadets) recognizing my contributions to the detachment. The last certificate was given to many students for maintaining 3.5 GPA in college and a 4.0 in our ROTC classes.

The whole night is awards, but it was nice to get a few recognizing my time as PFO. 

In ROTC (specifically Air Force ROTC), PFO stands for Physical Fitness Officer. They are cadet leaders responsible for planning, organizing, and executing PT (Physical Training) sessions to prepare cadets for their physical fitness assessments. PFOs focus on leading workouts, including running, strengthening, and calisthenics.

Marshall Islands -- Summer Of 2026

Update, May 14, 2026: this will have to wait. AFROTC interfered with Olivia's plans.

Original Post 

When we learn more about it, find out if the professor is from Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability or the Haas Center. 

AI Query: What's the likely flight route from SFO to the Marshall Islands?

Reply: