home causes him grief ("Pandora's Box"). Initially he is agitated by Charlie's renovations to the home. Like Don, he enjoys baseball. He has attempted to persuade Charlie to take up golf like him, delighted that he can at least teach his brilliant son something. He sometimes works on puzzles to occupy his time when not busy, continuing his wife's hobby and allowing time for conversing with Charlie's colleagues, Larry Fleinhardt and Amita Ramanujan, over pizza. He also enjoys an occasional game of chess with Larry and was surprised at his friend for his love interest in Megan Reeves and his nomadic lifestyle. Before he was with his wife he was often a "rail bird" at the horse races. His recent involvement in his sons' lives has been extended to aiding the FBI more frequently with his expertise in urban planning ("Under Pressure") and traffic engineering ("Money for Nothing"). Don at first was averse to his father getting involved with his line of work, but Alan asked him to show more respect. He provides further help to Don with his knowledge of an elevator system in "Chinese Box". Alan is auditing a mechanical engineering class at CalSci for fun, but Charlie is disappointed that he could not interest him in advanced mathematics after all these years ("Velocity"). Alan being on campus has Charlie note the similarity of the situation to that of Back to School. Being very busy, Charlie fails in helping to teach his father the engineering material, as all he does is solve the thermodynamic problem set from this class for him. Alan seems disappointed. Since then, Charlie has made notes to help him more later, and feels that this will make up for all the times missed with his father getting to help him with homework. On the other hand, Alan recalls all the dioramas he created with him. At the beginning of season five, Alan encourages Charlie to fight for his clearance. An old park that he and Margaret designed becomes scheduled to be torn down. Alan first begins to protest city hall's decision. After looking at the plans, Alan decides that the new park would be better. He later finds that CalSci has agreed to let him design a new mechanical engineering building. He overhears a conversation between Don and Larry about Don going to temple. He later offers to help Don with the prayers. David