Every once in a while both Olivia and Preston are smiling at the same time. Nice to see!
But it doesn’t always last. Olivia tends to like to “poke the Tiger”. Sometimes the Tiger pokes back, other times he’s stoic.
Happy Siblings
A Day at the Natural History Museum
A couple of weekends ago Preston and I spent a nice Saturday (March 12) at the Natural History Museum, in Washington, DC. This was the first time I had been since the new “Hall of Human Origins” was opened, and we spent a good bit of time in there. Preston loved all the skeletons/skulls. And of course, he loved the dinosaur exhibits – which hadn’t changed much since last time we were there (~2 years ago). He kept going from exhibit to exhibit: “what is this one? And this one?…” until it felt like I had read every caption in the museum. But he was very happy. Naturally, we had to stop and watch every video/movie presented in the various exhibits.
I did like the Hall of Human Origins; they have a neat entrance tunnel that portrays in a repeating video-mural the evolution of Homo Sapiens from earlier hominids. And the models of the various species of hominids are very life-like. I especially liked seeing a model of Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) as I had only previously seen (castings) of the (partial) skeleton. And I swear I’ve seen some specimens of Homo neanderthalensis walking among us; that model was particularly enlightening. Pictures of both are below.
This museum isn’t as hands-on as, say, the Baltimore Science Museum, but it still has enough to keep the interest of a 4-year old for most of a Saturday! Afterward we had a bite to eat at the restaurant out by the (temporary during winter) skating rink in the Sculpture gardens. Great way to end the day!
Click any of the images for a larger-size and slideshow. Enjoy!
Vienna Teng at Ram’s Head Annapolis
Kirsten and I went to see Vienna Teng at Ram’s Head On Stage, Annapolis, MD
March 4, 2011
As usual (we have seen her a number of times) she put on a very pleasing show. Vienna had her “bandmate”/ “collaborator”, Alex Wong accompany her with his percussion. Opening act was Matt Duke. Alex’s showmanship was quite good, and he kept the audience involved (ringing car keys in a “wave” around the stage for one tune – nice effect). If you get a chance to see her live, I do recommend it. However, it might be a little more difficult now as she started graduate school this past fall (dual MS/MBA degrees). Enjoy!
With Alex Wong:
Also with: Matt Duke
Edward Dolnick signing The Clockwork Universe
Edward Dolnick was at Politics and Prose bookstore tonight giving a talk on his book, “The Clockwork Universe“. Engaging speaker and an interesting talk. My son Brandon also came along and he was surprised to find it interesting enough to come out of the cafe.
The author didn’t do a reading from the book; he spent about 20 minutes giving a very interesting overview of the historical period in which Newton and contemporaries lived. We sometimes forget that these geniuses were living in a very different world from ours today; one in which basic hygiene and knowledge of how the physical world worked was about non-existent. London of the time (around 1660) was a very dirty, disgusting place to live. It certainly didn’t help that the Plague hit London in 1666, and within a year 1/5 of the population were dead (100,000 people) Mr. Dolnick also touched on how the people of the time *really* thought of God as someone pulling all the strings all the time- nothing at all happened in the world that was not directly due to God’s intervention. Newton et al. very much were men of their times, and as such assumed that everything was due to God; they were merely trying to “read God’s mind” as it were.
Fascinating history of the start of the Royal Society, the oldest Scientific organization in the world. Ideas were being thrown around those meetings: one minute they would be discussing whether or not a spider placed inside a circle of “unicorn dust” could leave the circle and the next they would be discussing astronomy and the orbits of planets. Oh, to be a fly on the wall!
And it’s still $150.00
I have to give credit to this bookseller- doesn’t hold anything back from the description of this book for sale. I’d be tempted if only for the historical bit, but I’ll pass…
And just for the record, accurate descriptions like this is one of the reasons I buy from this seller (and the fact that you can spend days lost in their physical store) :)
The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity 1st Edition
by H. A. Lorentz and A. Einstein and H. Minkowski and H. Weyl
New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1923. Octavo, 14.5 x 22 cm, 216pp. 1st American edition. Original blue cloth with paper label affixed to the spine. Boards are worn and soiled, with chipping and loss to the paper spine label. Hinges badly cracked; spine shaken; front free endpaper is partially detached. A spot stain to the top of the text block; some toning to the pages, especially the edges; name in ink on the front free endpaper; light pencil marginalia scattered throughout. Fair condition.