This is just a short one. I was binging on the Radiolab podcast today, in so much as one can binge on Radiolab anyway. When I've finished one episode, I always feel like I need to stop and take some time to reconsider my outlook on life. Or at least to reconsider my outlook on my outlook on life, if you can dig that.
Last week I was at a family camp retreat with, not surprisingly, my family, amongst others. We go on this particular retreat most summers and this year I volunteered to keep the kids entertained for a hour every day. I got a group of four kids, including my own, that were all in the 7-9 age range. I've volunteered for this job many times over the years, and this time came in armed with a plan that we would do science experiments.
I was having a phone conversation today with a friend and we got around to the nuclear power plant meltdown at Fukushima and the cleanup and potential danger that it still poses two years down the line. What we ended up talking about was the difficulty in deciphering science from fiction in the news, and mainstream versus alternative media sources.
Conversation with the youngling:
"Remember that thing you were telling me about 'i' pants?"
"'I' pants?" Kids change topics on you at random and with frequency. We were talking about toothpaste two seconds ago. I have no idea where he's going with this.
"Yeah, you know, the blue ones?"
"Blue 'i' pants?" I've got nothing. I look at my husband. He shakes his head no. He doesn't have a clue either.
"Remind me."
"That make your eyes look blue."
"Eye-pants?"
Man oh man, did I ever need to get out of town. Last week was fairly nuts. Or the last few weeks... months. I don't think either my husband or I realized how much we needed to get the hell out of dodge until we woke up in a guest bed Saturday morning.
Do we all know Zeno's Dichotomy Paradox? That you can never to get from Point A to Point B because first you have to get halfway there? And before you can get to the halfway point, you have to get to the point that's halfway to the halfway point. And before you get there... You see where I'm going with this? Or not going? The idea is that because you can chop up any length into an infinite number of halves, the distance is, in a sense, infinite and therefore unachievable.
Chance took me past the Explorit Center last week – that’s the science museum for kids in Davis, which I believe I’ve mentioned to you before– and I decided I’d pop in and check it out.
The museum was closed this particular day but a lady who happened to be inside saw me peeking in the window and poked her head out the door to see if she could help me. I explained that I had a little boy and I thought that he might be just about the right age now.
“How old is your little boy?”
“Almost four.”
This is an SOS. The Explorit Science Center is in trouble. They're within a hair's breadth of having to close their doors, folks, and that's not good.
While listening to This Week in Science this morning (which was actually the episode from January 23rd - I’m behind, so sue me), I heard something that piqued my interest.
Shawn and I met up with some friends at The Tech museum in San Jose to check out the Star Trek exhibit they’ve got going on out there.
“Excuse me, you drove all the way to San Jose to look at Star Trek stuff?”
