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\magnify{1200}
\date {September 22}
\personal
\to {Recreational Services\cr
NAS\cr
Moffett Field, Calif.\cr}
{\noindent Gentlemen:}

As a (non-military) guest on the August 28th Yellowstone and British Columbia
bus trip, I can, perhaps, provide an outsider's view of this trip and
mention certain aspects of the trip that the regulars might fail to report.

Before the rather derogatory comments that I will make, let me hasten to say
that there were many good points about the trip.  The two drivers are both
excellent as drivers and they handled the inevitable problems that arose
with dispatch and always with the best interests of the passengers in mind.

The decision to have two drivers and no trained tour director was, I feel,
most unfortunate.  One goes on a tour rather than driving one's own car in
order to learn facts about the region, in the case of areas
that are devoid of centuries of history, about the geology and the
flora and fauna and about the geological forces that were responsible for
its formation.  Unfortunately, the drivers were less well informed than
were almost all of the passengers.  I, for one, sorely missed this
anticipated aspect of the tour.

I was also frequently distressed by the highly irregular meal hours
observed and by the poor choice of restaurants. The drivers had to do the
best that they could on the spot, apparently without there having been any
advanced planning.  This may be the normal procedure in this country but
certainly in foreign countries where I have been on many bus tours, meals
were always planned in advance, the restaurants were expecting us and had
a section of the restaurant set aside for our use.

As one horrible example, the day we left Victoria we leftour
hotel without breakfast at 5:30 A.M. and were forced to eat a highly
unsatisfactory breakfast on the ferry at 6:30.  We then stopped at a
McDonalds!!  at 10:15.  Not being a devotee of fast food establishments
and since I normally never eat between meals, I contented myself with a
cup of tea.  Unfortunately we never stopped for lunch at all, although the
driver had assured me that we would.  We did make two unscheduled stops,
one at a brewery and the second at a woolen-mill-seconds outlet store
(neither of interest to me) and we arrived rather late at our motel in a
very poor area of Portland.  The drivers tried to make amends for this by
taking the group to a well known but, to my taste, quite unsatisfactory
restaurant, leaving those of us who did not care for the choice to fend
for ourselves in an unsuitable neighborhood.

Before mentioning my next gripe,
let me hasten to point out that I was privileged to go at the same
rate that military personnel were charged although I would have been
willing to pay ten percent more as I had understood.

I do feel, however, that the charge of $\$$350 or $\$$25 per night extra
for single accomodations was quite excessive as will be apparent from the
following rate schedules for the motels at which we stayed.  

$$\vbox{\halign{#\quad\hfill⊗\hfill#\quad⊗\hfill#\quad⊗\hfill#\quad\cr
Motel⊗Double⊗Single⊗S--1/2 D\cr
Lovelock Inn⊗34.00⊗29.00⊗12.00\cr
Twin Falls Travelodge⊗39.00⊗32.00⊗12.50\cr
Wagon Wheel Village⊗47.00⊗33.50⊗10.00\cr
Old Faithfull Inn⊗37.44⊗37.44⊗18.72\cr
Best West. Warbonnet⊗44.00⊗36.00⊗14.00\cr
Best West. North Shore⊗48.50⊗42.50⊗18.25\cr
Cranbrook⊗44.00⊗40.00⊗18.00\cr
Kamloops Travelodge⊗36.30⊗36.30⊗18.15\cr
Nelson Place⊗60.00⊗46.00⊗16.00\cr
B.W. Olympic Hotel⊗58.00⊗46.00⊗17.00\cr
Portland Travelodge⊗53.00⊗43.00⊗16.50\cr
Thunderbird⊗50.00⊗42.00⊗17.00\cr}}$$

The figures quoted may not be those that were actually paid, indeed they
are probably high since no allowance was made for the group rates that you
undoubtedly were able to obtain (many also offered senior citizen rates)
and no exchange corection was used in reporting Canadian costs.  On the
other hand I have not included the tax.  The figures quoted were in some
cases obtained by asking at the desks, in other cases they were posted in
the rooms or taken from published rates.

Altogether, I enjoyed the trip and I am not at all sorry that 
I went but a little more planning would have made it much more enjoyable.

I think that it was indeed unfortunate that this was the first experience
for several people with Moffett Tours.  I was assured by several of the
regulars that this trip was much less well planned than is your custom.

\sign {\hfill Sincerely yours,\cr\ssqip\cr
\hfill Arthur L. Samuel}

\fin			 % C'est tout.
\end


\stanford  
\to {Ms. Lauren Bing\cr
Holland American Cruises, Inc.\cr
26th floor\cr
Two Penn Plaza\cr
New York, N.Y. 10121\cr}
{\noindent Dear Ms. Bing:}

Holding space on your forthcoming Silver Jubilee World Cruise, I am
considering the possibility of bringing a small personal computer with me
and of volunteering my services in giving a series of informal lectures on
computing for those fellow passengers who might be interested.

As to my qualifications --- I am an Adjunct Professor Emeritus (currently
recalled to active duty) in the Computer Science Department at Stanford
University.  Before I retired in 1966, I was with IBM for 17 years,
holding such positions as Editor-in-Chief of The IBM Journal of Research
and Development, as Consultant to the Vice President in charge of Research
and Development, and as Associate Director of Research. I have been on the
faculty at MIT, at The University of Illinois, and for the last 16 years
at Stanford University. I have lectured and published extensively and have
received over 50 U.S. patents.

I have already had one Rotterdam experience in doing this sort of thing,
on the 1971 world cruise, when I gave an impromptu series of lectures on
the Japanese Game of Go, chosen because Japan was one of the
countries visited on that cruise.

In all fairness, I must admit that this earlier series of lectures was
none too successful.  After initial meetings, with some 50 or 60 persons,
the attendence dwindled so alarmingly that I soon discontinued my efforts.
No advance planning or publicity was given to these lectures and many
people later in the cruise expressed disappointment that they had not seen
the one posted notice.  Obviouly, many people attended out of curiosity
and many with a real interest in the subject did not learn of the lectures
in time.  I would not want to repeat this experience and would only
consider lecturing if some advanced publicity could be given.

If you would like to talk with me about this matter, I can be reached during
California working hours on (415) 497-3330 or at home on (415) 851-2943.

I would appreciate hearing from you as to your interest in this proposal
in the very near future so that I will have ample time to procure a suitable
computer and to prepare for my talks.


\sign{Arthur L. Samuel} 
\fin			 % C'est tout.
\end

\date{June 22}
\to {Mr. Jack Dillon\cr 
The Sequoias\cr}
{\noindent Dear Jack:}

Thank you for your letter of May 22nd regarding a solar energy study here
at The Sequoias.

I have recently been able to see the extent to which solar heating is now
being used in several eastern Mediterranean countries and to observe the
wide variety of different types of solar panels that are used.  Most of
these countries are well ahead of the U.S. in their usage of solar
heating, particularly for domestic hot water heating.  I was told that 25%
of the private homes in Israel are so equipped and I can well believe this
figure.  Most of the installations were extremely ugly and seemed to
depend upon gravity circulation. This requires that the storage tank be
located higher than the solar panel.  Most of these tanks were
cylindrical, mounted vertically and bearing advertizing legends to
identify the manufacturer.  In many Israeli cities, there would also be
rectangular cold water tanks mounted above the cylindrical hot water
tanks, apparently to meet local restrictions against direct plumbing
connections.

In other countries, there were many installations with no visible storage
tanks where circulating pumps must have been used.  There were some
installations in which a cylintrical tank was mounted horizontally along
the top edge of the solar panel.  There were even some in which polished
metal (presumably stainless steel) covers enclosed the storage tanks and
joined them to the frames of the solar panels and hiding the piping.
These were quite attractive.  In fact, the contrast between the worst and
the best was so marked that I am moved to urge that we not accept any
proposal that would involve unsightly roof installations.

I also saw quite a number of installations on sloping roofs that did not
face south and where the panels were raised from the roof to improve their
directionality.  These were not nearly as unsightly as I had assumed that
they would be.  I now believe that we might well consider this arrangement
here at The Sequoias.

Since we already have a central water circulating system, we can do
without local storage although we would probably need additional
circulating pumps which could be installed in the utility rooms.

I believe that the proposal made in my memorandum of March 16, 1981 is
still valid.