Science!

Yesterday was the annual Philadelphia Science Festival's culminating "science carnival," and Ben and I both brought our "littles" (from Big Brothers Big Sisters). We went separately and didn't even see each other there, but my little and I had a great time - she blew giant bubbles, played with cool underwater robots, and even made her own lip gloss. There was a giant inflatable brain you could walk through, a blimp, a zoo booth with a bunch of different animals, and even a Ben Franklin impersonator walking around (she couldn't quite decide if she believed he was "real" or not). Almost all of my pictures are of my little doing fun stuff so I can't post them here, but here's a picture she took of me with a model of the space shuttle:

Science party yesterday and Star Wars Day today - what a great nerdy weekend!

Sampler Don't Care

For a friend at work who jokingly refers to herself as "the honey badger" for her relentless pursuit of results:

Harry + Cherries

Our family friend is a librarian (or, as I called her growing up, "library mom"), and she told me about a traveling library exhibit on Harry Potter's World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine currently visiting Philadelphia. Today Ben and I finally got to go up to see it, and it was great. Among other things, I learned that Nicolas Flamel was a real alchemist rumored to have discovered a way to make himself immortal, and a whole lot about mandrakes. Also, it was housed at the Temple Medical School library, which was the fanciest library I've been in - it had one of those water fountain walls, and giant glass cell sculpture things hanging from the ceiling.

Learning things!

After we left Temple we walked up to the Schuylkill river and along its bank, since it's cherry blossom weekend and everything is blooming and beautiful (including, unfortunately, these trees too).

Ben is amazed by the beauty of nature.

Yay, spring!

Mini-project

I made a tiny project for my friend Emily, and now that I know she received it, I can post it here!

Story is here.

This was the tiniest hoop I have worked with yet, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out! I haven't actually been able to find a smaller one, but I am going to keep looking and see how small I can go...

Needles

We stopped by the needlepoint store yesterday while running errands to pick up some thread. Ben loves the fact that the store is located next to an acupuncturist, and always makes jokes about wondering if they use the same needle supplier, if they borrow needles from each other when one runs out, etc...

He is very pleased with himself about these jokes, and so I feel compelled to share his self-satisfaction with our friends.

Hey buddy!

I have been making lots of little projects for coworkers lately. Here's the latest:

Johann always answers the phone "hey buddy!" and he is obsessed with golden retrievers - he claims to have been raised by them (only child, spent a lot of time with his pets), and we often joke that he is a golden retriever based on his personality. Hence, this sampler!

FUTURISTIC SKY TRAIN!!

I am in Madison, Wisconsin for a conference - I flew in this morning via a connection through the Detroit airport. The connection was tight so I had to hustle between opposite ends of the airport, but I wish I could have lingered because holy cow the Detroit airport is awesome! Check it out, they have a driverless robot train that runs inside the terminal:

Picture from wikipedia because I was running through the airport.

Then, to get between terminals, you go through this groovy underground tunnel that has undulating lights and music as you move through it:

Another google image search picture.

My flight home has a longer connection, and I am dorkily excited to hang out in the Detroit airport!