Some years ago I read a Peanuts strip in which Charlie Brown and Linus were talking about a list of family contact information they had to fill out at school. In the final panel, Linus admits that he wasn’t sure what to write in the space for “Doctor”, so he’d written the name “Seuss.” Years later, I still remember that strip and I keep waiting for someone to ask me who my family doctor is.
Doctor Seuss – or, as his mother called him, Theodor Giesel (and no, I didn’t misspell either half of his name) – was born on March 2, 1904. And in 1957 he wrote The Cat in the Hat. So not only would this Friday have been Dr’s Seuss’ 103rd birthday, it can also be viewed as the Cat’s 50th.
I don’t know how long it’s been going on, but a few years ago I learned that March 2nd is celebrated as “Cat in the Hat Day.” This weekend, on March 3rd, my Jaycees chapter is going to participate in a Dr Seuss-inspired event called “Read Across America” (we’d have gone for the 2nd except that’s a Friday and everyone has jobs).
The big project for Tuesday evening was preparing a bunch of books that Nicole had convinced the Germantown Kohl’s to donate to the event, and then putting together a collection of “Cat in the Hat” hats that will be used as decorations for Saturday’s event. On the spur of the moment, I got out my cell phone and took a few photos of the result. In real life, the hats are red and white. But the cell phone camera, when combined with the fluorescent lights, results in photos that have the hats looking like we’re in a construction zone. 🙂
The Gaithersburg edition of “Read Across America” is Saturday, March 3rd at the Gaithersburg Library on Montgomery Village Avenue. The event starts at 9:30 and continues until 11:00. Approximately 200 kids will receive books donated by the Germantown Kohl’s, approximately 90 will receive the kit and instructions for making their own Cat in the Hat hats.
Category Archives: Photos
Entries with photographic accompaniment.
Gunfight at the Farpoint Corral
Say what you will about Peter David, but the man is anything but boring. My own choice of words usually includes things such as “entertaining” and “quick-witted.” I sincerely believe he’s one of those fortunate people who’ve managed to avoid growing up any more than absolutely necessary.
I had the fortune to be seated at the same table as Peter for the banquet at this year’s Farpoint convention. Peter was his usual self, entertaining us with such stories as his discovery that the Enterprise’s warp core is shaped like a coffee percolator (I don’t see it myself, but have no reason to doubt Peter when he says that Mike Okuda confirmed it).
Because this is the year 2007, the theme for this year’s banquet was 007, James Bond. The tables were decorated with a variety of James Bond themed knickknacks such as playing cards and poker chips (after all, James Bond does visit a lot of casinos). At one point Peter and Lew were exchanging stories of visits to various Star Trek sets (and I was wishing I had that kind of connections), when Peter looked up and realized there was a gun on the table. Continue reading Gunfight at the Farpoint Corral
Eyes of the Storm
One of the benefits of being involved “behind the scenes” with science fiction conventions is that I frequently know who the guests are going to be a day or two before the general public finds out. I sometimes wind up having photos emailed to me.
More than once I’ve opened a photo attachment without realizing it was a high-resolution scan. It’s a pleasant surprise to open one of those and suddenly find myself staring into a gorgeous, life-size (or larger) pair of eyes.
One of the downsides is that I sometimes find myself falling in love with someone quite unattainable.
Oh No! My T-Shirts Have Gone Stale!
One of the consequences of my new job was that I needed to buy some new clothes. I’m not one of those folks who goes out and buys a new wardrobe at a whim, but my first day on the job convinced me that the jeans and polos that been “business casual” at the old job weren’t going to cut it. (For the first day of the job, I’d worn a tie and jacket, and thus put off clothes shopping that much longer.)
While I was buying dress shirts and slacks, I also picked up some new T-shirts to go with them. Standing at the checkout line, I noticed something most unexpected about the T-shirts’ packaging. Along with the usual size and quantity, Hanes had also prominently labeled the shirts as “tagless.” I’d discovered a few years earlier that they’d stopped putting tags in the T-shirts (because they itch!) and that was enough to make me choose them over another brand. But what really got my attention was that the bag was also labeled as resealable.
Six weeks later, I’m still trying to understand the marketing angle on this. What are you going to store in it besides T-shirts? I could see using the bags to keep things dry on a camping trip, but that’s not a common use, is it?
All I can think of is the old commercials for Zip-Lock and Glad bags about how you could reseal the bag to keep the contents fresh. Is that a problem for T-shirts?
Safe House
Frequent visitors to Known Space are aware of the General Products Corporation. The company is entirely owned by the Pierson’s Puppeteers, arguably the most cautious species in the universe.
The company is perhaps best-known for building spaceship hulls. General Products hulls are built in four standard sizes, are transparent to light ranging from infra-red up into the ultra-violet range, but are otherwise impermeable and absolutely guaranteed to never fail.
The Puppeteer presence on Earth isn’t well known as of yet, but there have been rumors of a puppeteer sighting in Indiana. I’ve also found proof that they’ve set up shop in the eastern United States.
My house (photo below) seems ordinary enough…
but check out the name of one of the companies involved in its construction…
This is great news! My house can stand up to anything the universe dishes out!* That’s a great feeling of security.
*Well, almost anything. General Products hulls have been demonstrated to be vulnerable to anti-matter. Happily, there isn’t very much of that stuff available in all of Known Space and even less in Maryland.
Going Bump in the Night
This was my third year helping the Frederick Jaycees with their haunted house. It’s not a haunted house in the strictest sense, the past two years it’s been the “Haunted Hayride” at Crumland Farm, the year before that it was the “panic asylum” at Harry Grove stadium, but it’s still a lot of fun.
One of the recurring bits of fun is the teen couples. They tend to come in with the guys trying to impress their girlfriends with how strong they are and perhaps hoping the girls will be scared and hold on to them. The more the guy struts, the more likely it is that he’s going to be the ones who screams. 🙂
I’d been up to help out two weeks ago, and spent the evening on a scaffold, screaming and dropping a piece of pipe onto some other pipes, making a lot of noise and watching startled people jump from one side of the hay wagon to the other. On Saturday, I was in makeup out in the cornfield, chasing people with a chainsaw racing.
It had been a while since I’d worn makeup for this event (last year was mostly spent on a scaffold screaming and dropping a dummy that looked as though he’d been hanged), so I wound up with Anna helping me with the makeup. After I’d put on the base layer of pale, she added a bruise across the right side of my face along with dark circles around my eyes and a few other black lines as accents. Then she added blood rolling down my face. It looked quite ghastly, which was the intent after all. The blood never did dry, so over the course of the evening it became increasingly realistic. I did experience a brief moment of concern when it rolled into my eye, but the only problem that caused was that my eye briefly got stuck shut. (A fine example of method acting!)
The temperatures on Saturday were a little chilly, but I was prepared and had worn layers. In all, the weather was actually perfect for haunting – clouds racing across the sky, a constant wind through the trees and the corn, and cold enough to make sure you knew it was fall. I don’t know how many people went on the Hayride that evening, but even though I was near the end of the route, quite a few of them were startled when the maniac with the chainsaw started running toward them.
After putting everything away on Saturday, the group headed out for dinner at TGIFriday’s. Having a bunch of zombies walk in always gets a few people at the bar doing double-takes, and the people sitting in the dining room usually have the most interesting expressions on their faces as the group heads to a table. I arrived a few minutes behind the first group and when I walked in, the hostess took one look at me and before I could even look for them, she told me, “oh, your group’s over here.”
When we eventually left Friday’s, I stopped off for gas. Nobody else was at the gas station, so my appearance didn’t get any attention unless the attendant happened to look out from the booth. Next, I stopped at the 7-11 to get a drink so I’d stay awake on the drive home. Nobody noticed as I pulled up and got out of the car, but as I walked up to the door, I definitely got the attention of the two guys sitting in front of the store. Likewise, the cashier and the only customer in the store also stopped in their tracks when I walked in. (Naturally, I encouraged all four of them to get up to Thurmont on Sunday for the hayride’s final night. I’m pretty sure that at least one of them did.)
When I finally got home around 12:30, Wylie was quite happy to see me and wasn’t at all bothered by the make up. I took him out for a late walk, the whole time imagining what would happen if any of the people driving around that night happened to come by when I was under a street light. Unexpectedly seeing a zombie out walking his dog would probably make you wonder if you’d somehow stepped into a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 🙂
The final horror of the evening came when I stepped into the shower. The makeup was all water washable and as it went down the drain, it made for a wonderful recreation of the shower scene in Psycho.
It was a fun evening.
Visual Enhancements
Folks have been telling me lately that the way to get more visitors to your web site is to add some eye candy. I really don’t understand why that would make a difference, but who am I to argue?
So first off, here’s some eye candy.
And then, for those who want something a bit more raw, here’s some eye candy with nothing on.
I have no idea why this would draw more people to the site, but if you find this sort of stuff appealing, please let me know!
More things that go Foosh!!
Being the curious type, I did some more experimenting with the Mentos over the weekend. This time instead of the brand name soda, I decided to try generic soda.
The first test was conducted in the parking lot at work last Friday. The bottle was placed on the pavement and in went the Mentos. The soda jetted about 4 1/2 feet into the air and after a second or two the stream collapsed back on itself. Sethiya got it on video but it’s a bit more than 17 MB – not exactly a “reasonable” size. But a still shot, that’s not so bad.
During the Relay for Life last weekend, I launched a second bottle. No still shot yet, but this time the bottle was leaning against a concrete block and the soda stream went another six to twelve inches higher, possibly because the soda wasn’t falling back on itself.
Water
This is a fire hose hookup in one of the stairways at the office.
Because of the lack of snow over the winter, there are some concerns about the availability of water over the summer. So if there’s a fire, the fire fighters can try using a smaller amount of water instead of hooking up the hoses!
Tanks roll on Washington!
I was driving to work on Thursday when I spotted something most unexpected in the main lanes. Military hardware isn’t one of my areas of expertise, but I’m pretty sure I know a tank when one passes me in rush hour traffic!
My best guess is that Dick Cheney’s going hunting again.
(A moment of silence please for the passing of the Florida election joke.)