dr_phil_physics | Entries tagged with events

Father's Day Weekend In Evanston

Basic cable's second most popular fake news host Stephen Colbert, both of him, gave this year's commencement address at Northwestern University.

NOW, AS YOU HAVE EXPLAINED TO YOUR GRANDPARENTS, MY NAME IS STEPHEN COLBERT, BUT I ALSO PLAY A CHARACTER ON T-V WHO IS NAMED STEPHEN COLBERT. AND I DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHICH OF US HAS BEEN INVITED SOMEPLACE. WELL, TODAY, I'M FAIRLY CONFIDENT THAT I'M ME. BECAUSE I WENT TO NORTHWESTERN AND MY CHARACTER WENT TO DARTMOUTH. SO HE WAS THERE FOR GRADUATION LAST WEEKEND AND HEARD CONAN. IT WAS A GREAT SPEECH. BUT HE WAS HOPING FOR LENO.

You can read the full text here. And here's a video clip:

Alumnus Stephen Colbert Addresses the Class of 2011 from Northwestern News on Vimeo.

And remember -- brothels.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: amused

A PBS Crowd

In 1993, documentary filmmaker extraordinaire Ken Burns came to Allendale and Grand Rapids to talk about The Civil War. We'd only been down here a year or two, but for Ken it was a homecoming, as his father taught anthropology and photography at Grand Valley State University for twenty years. We managed to make it both his talk downtown at Fountain Street Church and at the main GVSU campus. I seem to recall we were right up front at the Armstrong Theatre, and though I cannot recall how full the auditorium was, it seemed like an intimate personal talk at the time.

In 2011, GVSU is celebrating their beginnings fifty years ago, and Ken Burns came back to be their third speaker. Ostensibly his talk Thursday night was supposed to be about the next fifty years. But come on, the man is a historian. You know he wasn't going to talk about the future per se.

During the introduction, a comment surfaced from Ken's talk with students in the afternoon. "He talks in paragraphs!" Ah, the joys of literacy. (grin)

Ken Burns regaled us for about an hour, and then they took questions. Mrs. Dr. Phil asked about the book American Uprising, about the 1811 slave revolt of New Orleans that no one seems to know about. Not sure he knew the book, but finessed a philosophical answer about us versus the other and racism in America.

Tonight our PBS station did their WGVU Newsmakers program and Patrick Center had a half-hour interview with Ken. Much as in the two talks in 1993, I was struck with how well prepared he is to talk -- which means you hear some of the same prepared talking points. But of course. If you attended my PHYS-2050 course lectures in Fall 2010 and Spring 2011, you'd hear some of the same dialog, the same examples, the same jokes. It's called being good at what you do. That Ken Burns is a good speaker and tells good stories in person, in addition to his real day job as being a documentary filmmaker, well, that's just bonus.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: happy

Go Pack Go

It's Monday after the Super Bowl. And I'm wearing a Green Bay Packers World Champions hat that I bought at a Citgo gas station in Crystal Falls MI in the U.P. many years ago when the Packers had also won. Michigan's Upper Peninsula, despite being Michigan, is also physically attached to Wisconsin. So the local loyalties up there tend to favor the Tigers for baseball, but the Packers for football.

The Commercials

Yeah, I know. It's supposed to be about the game. But who knows if the game is even going to be good? For the last two years the economy has hurt the Super Bowl commercials. Better than usual lot this year. But still far too many stupid, juvenile and embarrassingly sexist ads -- also per usual. (sigh) Didn't see all the commercials, especially as I missed the pre-game show. Was there even a Clydesdales commercial? And did FOX mention that the game was on FOX? Which has a bunch of shows they want you to watch?

Everyone, it seemed, was talking about the VW Passat ad with the mini Darth Vader kid. Cute. I actually liked the beetle in the New 21st Century Beetle ad. The Chevy Silverado pickup truck in the Lassie role was pretty amusing. "I didn't even know this town had a volcano."

A lot of movie trailer ads this year. A lot. And why all the animated movies being advertised after 9:30pm in the 4th quarter? Who's the demographic? Half the trailers were ones I'd seen before, either in theatres or on TV. However, was intrigued by the Steven Spielberg/J.J. Abrams Super 8 trailer, as well as finally getting to see the Cowboys and Aliens trailer. (grin)

The surprise class act in commercials for the night, though, was the two-minute Chrysler 200 ad -- a love letter for Detroit narrated by Eminem. The tagline at the end, "Imported from Detroit", was a nice touch.

One Bright Spot

I timed my afternoon nap to end around kick-off. I was thankfully absent for Christina Aguilera's butchering of the national anthem. You know, I don't want to get maudlin about it, but I think the Cubs do it right -- many of their home games are sung a cappella by Wrigley Field announcer Wayne Messmer and sometimes with his wife Kathleen. Simple, basic, powerful, respectful.

Tron Takes Over At Halftime

Once again they spend millions to have a lavish halftime show, one without marching bands I might add, and then fail to get the mikes to work properly or balance the sound.

So Why The WMU Logo?

In case you were wondering why this particular LJ icon selection, it is in honor of Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings -- a former Kalamazoo Central High School and Western Michigan University graduate -- who scored two touchdowns in the Super Bowl. Go Broncos?

Oh, The Game?

31-25, Packers defeat the Steelers.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: amused

A Beautiful Day

After having seen earlier reports that Monday might be rainy, I had been worried about the weather. But Monday afternoon in West Michigan was blue skies and a high in the upper 60s. Lovely, lovely weather.

Presidential Arrival

Air Force One arrived at Grand Rapids' Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR) around 4pm. The press was told that it might be 10-30 minutes before the president got out -- the plane is a working mobile White House after all and it's not like he had to quickly deplane and get his luggage. But only about 10 minutes after they landed, President Obama trotted down the stairs and walked over to Marine One and flew to Kalamazoo. Marine One and its escort and decoy helicopters landed on Angell Field, which though it is next to Western Michigan University's campus and about a block away from WMU's Public Safety police station, is actually nearby Kalamazoo College's football stadium. Plenty of room for helicopters to land hidden from view behind trees. With the area locked down for security, right near the Public Safety station is a roadhouse whose rooftop deck was crowded with WMU students getting a glimpse of helicopters and motorcades.

The WMU field house had opened for KCHS at around 3:30pm, Obama was in Kalamazoo at 4:47. But his motorcade hopped downtown to the Radisson to meet with DNC people, two Michigan congressmen and some donors. Then back for the main event at 7pm.

The Commencement

Everyone had said the Commencement would start at 7pm, but when I flipped over to Channel 3 at 6:55, there were already things going on. I also found that WOTV-41/4 in Battle Creek was also covering the event live. Didn't check to see if CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC or FOXnews was covering it live -- none of them seemed to mention it later. Wasn't this news? Actually the principal and the superintendent gave excellent speeches of their own, as well as the valedictorian and salutatorian speeches. Obama pointed out to Simon Boehme, the salutatorian, that by the time he was 35, Obama would be well out of office and not have to run against him. (grin)

… I’m here tonight because after three rounds of competition, with more than 1,000 schools, and more than 170,000 votes cast, I know – and America now knows – what you’ve done at Kalamazoo Central.

Together as a community, you’ve embraced the motto of this school district: “Every child, every opportunity, every time,” because you believe, like I do, that every child – regardless of what they look like, where they come from, or how much money their parents have – every child who walks through your schoolhouse doors deserves a quality education.

And I’m here tonight because I think that America has a lot to learn from Kalamazoo Central about what makes for a successful school in this new century: Educators raising standards and inspiring their students to meet them. Community members stepping up as tutors and mentors and coaches. Parents taking an active interest in their kids’ education – attending those teacher conferences, turning off that TV, and making sure that homework gets done...

…meaningful achievement, lasting success – that doesn’t happen in an instant. It’s not just about the twist of fate, or the lucky break, or the sudden stroke of genius. Rather, it’s about the daily efforts, the choices large and small that add up over time. It’s about the skills you build, the knowledge you accumulate, the energy you invest in every task, no matter how trivial or menial it may seem at the time...

… don’t make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well.

The truth is, no matter how hard you work, you won’t necessarily ace every class or succeed in every job. There will be times when you screw up, when you hurt the people you love, when you stray from your most deeply held values.

And when that happens, it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Your professor was too hard; your boss was a jerk; the coach was playing favorites; your friend just didn’t understand. We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV.

This community could have easily gone down that road. You could have made excuses – our kids have fewer advantages, our schools have fewer resources, so how can we compete? You could have spent years pointing fingers – blaming parents, blaming teachers, blaming the principal or the superintendent or the government.

But instead, you came together. You were honest with yourselves about where you were falling short. And you resolved to do better – to push your kids harder, to open their minds wider, to expose them to all kinds of ideas and people and experiences.”

Obama congratulates salutatorian Simon Boehme.

We didn't stick around once they started announcing the graduates. We've both attended too many graduations as faculty and so moved on. But the President did shake every student's hand or give them a hug. And was still smiling at the end of the Z's. To me, the only surprising thing was that, being so used to college commencements, Obama wasn't in a cap and gown. Still, that Presidential seal does dress up a podium. (grin)

Coverage?

In writing this up starting at 2pm on Tuesday, there wasn't a lot of stuff I found easily online. Google Images failed to come up with one picture of Obama at the podium in front of the KCHS students with a series of perfectly reasonable search terms. Only MLive.com, a Michigan aggregator of newspapers, seemed to give decent coverage. The speech is excerpted here.

Instead, I find that there's a YouTube video of one member of the choir yawning during Obama's speech. No, I'm not linking you to that whole circus.

And the frothies had to make comments on the newspaper sites:

Between those that couldn't understand Obama's 'big words' and the A.D.D.'s that quit taking their Ritalyn it left precious few to appreciate his message.

Who wants to bet at least 25-30% of that graduating class won't be in prison within five years?

Another 15-20% will join the military. Another 10% will get a government job.

Therefore, us taxpayers will be supporting (and in many cases CONTINUING to support) 60% of them for the rest of their lives.

Sigh.

Still, not all is for naught:

I have not, and am not always an Obama fan. I'm not sure the blame for our messes, aren't more evenly divided among all politicians.

That being said, I found the President's speech to have been very inspiring, and well delivered. I was afraid he would turn it into a pitch for one of his agendas. He did not! He kept it about the students, graduation, and their futures. I was very impressed.It also appeared that the crowd and the students, acted in such a manner, consistent with the magnitude, of the event.

Congratulations again, to KPS and K-Central!

This is one person who I think actually watched and listened to the speech, instead of having their screed already written ahead of time.

And maybe that's enough. That and history being made on Monday in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: accomplished

Sunday Evening

It is 66°F, blue skies with only a hint of a breeze right now. Perfect. This in contrast to the gray and winds this morning -- or the heavy rains, winds and tornado watches 'n hail on Saturday night. We got rain, but Kalamazoo to Battle Creek got pummeled and a bit flooded. Lots of damage.

Why the concern about Kalamazoo? Because of Monday.

For The First Time...

... a sitting U.S. President is going to give a high school commencement address. Huh. I would've assumed that this has happened before -- certainly in the era before College became as big a game as it is today -- or even a President going back home. But, assuming my information is correct, apparently not.

Kalamazoo Central High School managed to win a national competition with a student produced video connected with the President's Race to the Top program. The Prize? They get President Barrack Obama as their commencement speaker! In order to fit the President's schedule, Kalamazoo Central agreed to move their commencement to Monday 7 June 2010 at 7pm. Then Western Michigan University offered them the use of their Field House, which is a much bigger space. In what I think is a classy move, in addition to the tickets issued to each graduate for their family -- seven? -- with the added space they also were able to give one ticket to every graduate of the other two Kalamazoo high schools. There were no "public" tickets given. This is, at its heart, a high school graduation. One with tons of national attention and press. (grin) But it has to be a thrill for the students -- my Greensboro (NC) Grimsley Senior High band was honored to play Ruffles and Flourishes and Hail to the Chief for a sitting President, so I know.

I'm Not Going Out On Monday

I'd thought that maybe the WMU College of Aviation would get to have a big thrill and be able to welcome Air Force One on their home turf at the Battle Creek airport. Something like the March 1998 event where a British Airways Concorde flew into Battle Creek bearing the first class of BA cadets for the WMU Aviation program.

But no, the President's plane is to fly into Grand Rapids. And I thought I saw footage on the news of the arrival of HMX-1 with the Marine helicopters needed for the transport to/from Kalamazoo. So I'll stay away from the southeast corner of G.R., as well as US-131 in case the weather requires them to go overland.

Of course we knew that Air Force One could land at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids MI (GRR), since Special Air Mission 29000 came here in January 2007 bearing the remains of President Ford home. (Actually there have been other times when Air Force One was here with President Bush.)

On WMU's campus, they announced:

As you know, Kalamazoo Central is holding its commencement ceremony in University Arena Monday, June 7, with President Obama as the principal speaker. This is the first time a seated U.S. President has spoken at a high school graduation, and we are proud to have this historic event take place at Western Michigan University.

K-Central students and guests will begin arriving on our campus at 3:30 p.m. Monday. To help alleviate traffic congestion around the West Campus, all employees not engaged in specific, scheduled duties will be dismissed at 3 p.m. Monday. Regular employees will not be required to use leave time for this early dismissal.

No activities have been canceled. Staff and faculty with scheduled responsibilities for orientation and other activities are expected to meet those specifically scheduled responsibilities.

No classes are canceled, except the few in the Student Recreation Center, as previously announced. Faculty members and graduate assistants with classes and other scheduled duties are expected to meet those scheduled responsibilities.

All other faculty and staff are asked to leave campus at 3 p.m. Monday, and those on the West Campus are encouraged to leave via Howard Street and avoid Oliver Street and the area around University Arena.

Yeah, I don't have to be on campus Monday. But there'll be live coverage 7-9pm on the local CBS station Channel 3.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: excited

Memorial Day 2010

Of course, to those in the know, Memorial Day in the U.S. is May 30th. The first such nationwide observance as Decoration Day was in 1868 to commemorate the Union Civil War dead -- now it commemorates much more. It only became a Federal three-day weekend Monday holiday effective in 1971 when I was in 7th grade. So we've ended up with Memorial Day on Monday, but some of the parades and events were on Saturday -- it's all confusing.

Frankly, since 1971, I think we've gone downhill with making Memorial Day a commercial event, one which doesn't have anything to do with honoring the service and sacrifice of those who've worn the uniform of the U.S. As someone recently pointed out, Memorial Day really isn't about selling furniture.

Dealing With It

We are not traveling on vacation or to visit relatives. We aren't crowd people and I don't handle heat very well, so we didn't go out to any of the parades or what not. Nothing at the cineplexes we were dying to see this weekend, so we left the malls and those crowds to others. It will be a quiet weekend here.

On television, since Friday, we've been flooded with war movies and major sporting events. The Indianapolis 500 is churning and wrecking even as I type. Friday night, though, there was nothing we wanted nattering on in the background or to watch, so I cracked open the set of Firefly DVDs I bought a couple of years ago. It'd been a while since we borrowed the series from a friend, so it was time to be amazed at how much fun that show was. FOX-TV's execs were idiots. And then there's History Channel's new series The Story of Us (U.S.) -- Saturday night they were showing the lead up to and including the Civil War.

I did not know that blacks served as equals on whaling ships. They had trouble enough getting crews that they welcomed anyone who would sign up. The Runaway Slave Act could catch free blacks, if someone lied, and without chance of a proper hearing, get sent South to "their owners". Shades of the Arizona immigration law, methinks?

And the telegraph "is like Twitter today". A point well made in the excellent little book The Victorian Internet.

Don't Get Me Started

The frothy side of politics wants to make a big smear about President Obama's decision to go to the Chicago area Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, rather than Arlington, tomorrow. Now don't get me wrong -- Arlington National Cemetery is an important place. And Vice-President Biden will lay the Nation's wreath there to represent us all. But there are America's honored dead buried all across the country. And Obama came out of Illinois for political purposes. He went to Arlington last year. And, though I've not verified the claims, this is the sort of thing I'm hearing which points to the lie of the frothies:

Before we get to the actual story, let’s take a quick trivia quiz. Who was the only President in the past 30 years to visit Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day every year of his presidency? It wasn’t Ronald Reagan, who spent one year in Normandy and at least one other at his ranch in California. It wasn’t George W. Bush, either, although he was also at Normandy the one year he missed. George H. W. Bush, a veteran himself, never attended ceremonies at Arlington, sending Dan Quayle in his stead. In fact, it was Bill Clinton who made eight Memorial Day appearances at Arlington National Cemetery.

Let us NOT make this a political statement, wringing our hands about our disappointment at not going to Arlington, but instead recognize that our nation's first black president is going to the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery to recognize our honored dead.

I can't speak for veterans, as I am not one myself, but nothing gets me annoyed more than someone's false sense of hurt in the name of their special snowflake brand of patriotism. Sorry, I had to say that.

Meanwhile, I will most post more on Memorial Day tomorrow, on the Memorial Day (Observed).

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: contemplative

Meant To Be Doing This Earlier

After posting at the Opening Ceremonies, I thought I'd do updates every day or so. I kept little notes as I watched. But I just couldn't justify the time. So... I'm going to just minddump my notes in what will probably be a couple of entries. It'll be a mix of impressions and rundowns.

Yes, I am an Olympics junkie. Both Summer and Winter Games. Always have been. Opening and Closing Ceremonies... I endure somewhat. But there is something about seeing all (most of) the athletes arriving, the host country putting up a good show, and then the happy party when everyone is done. Because most of the athletes are not taking medals home. They are representing their country and their sport -- and they really are "just happy to be there". No matter how rah-rah the NBC America First coverage is.

It Begins Last Sunday

Pairs Ice Skating -- It's both Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year. A Chinese couple is using a violin orchestral version of "Do You Want To Live Forever?" from Highlander. Or perhaps Valeria's taunt in Conan The Barbarian. (grin)

Men's Luge Singles -- New Math in operation. Before the death during training, the Whistler luge run was ranked as the world's fastest, with top speeds in the 90-95 mph range. Starting at the lower Women's start, and modifying one curve, was said to knock off 5-10 mph. Lock wins gold at age 20, youngest gold medalist in luge. He topped out at 94 mph. Let's see... 95 - 10 = 94. Yup. New Math.

Ads on NBC -- Keep Coal. It's American Jobs. vs. Switch to Natural Gas. It'll be new American Jobs. Self serving political energy ads anyone?

Aerials -- The problem with Moguls is that it's a sport predicated on "Watch This!" Which of course we all know is always prelude to disaster.

Agree With Frank Duford's NPR Commentary last week -- Current figure skating scoring has sucked all the drama and joy out of the event. You could look at a string of 5.8s and 5.9s and know who was better. Hell, bring back the East German judges. At least you knew where they stood.

Curling -- Have watched 3 matches so far, all 3 had 11 Ends. Just as I love extra value free baseball, I gotta love this. CNBC, MSNBC and USA getting the curling coverage, and they're doing a good job of explaining the sport to people new to it. Each team gets 73 minutes for 10 Ends. 8 rocks per end. How'd they come up with 73?

Women's Skiing -- Lindsey Vonn using men's skis for downhill and Super G.

Short Track Speed Skating -- is so nerve-wracking to watch. Anything can happen and anyone can crash or fall down at any time. Though I'm sure the Koreans hate him, I really like Apolo Anton Ohno. Much like an earlier generations Indy 500 cars, short track skates are offset with blade tips bent to make maximum contact with the ice while leaning over and turning. Apolo's inside hand glove has gold sliding tips. Oooh.

Women's Curling -- Last Sunday, USA v Canada. Came in on 3rd End, huge mistake for USA "airball". Cheryl Bernard scores 4 to go 4-1. Having the last rock in an end is called the hammer, which usually alternates between teams. Ah, but if you blank an end, take the hammer and not score with it, you get to keep the hammer for the next end. So not like having innings in baseball where one team always go second. Canada steals 2 more in 5th End, 6-1. You are entitled to concede after the 6th End. USA offers handshakes after 7th End, loses 9-2.

Hello? Hello? Is This Thing On? -- This is the second damned weekend of the Olympics, and there's too little on all these vaunted NBC networks. Hell, CNBC is doing fucking infomercials in the afternoon. You know, in years past the host network would put a whole TV guide in the newspaper. But our local newspaper has cut back so much, they aren't even including the Olympics schedules in the weekly Sports TV listings. And I'm not fighting with their websites, I'm just not.

Men's 15K Biathlon Mass Start -- Curling and Biathlon are my two favorite winter sports at the Olympics. I mean, cross country skiing and target shooting? What's not to love? Stumbled onto this race on NBC in the first 57 seconds. Yes! Russia Gold, France Silver (one of two brothers, this one had THREE penalties), Slovakia gets first biathlon medal, a Bronze. The Russian and the Slovakian are the only two to get through the shooting clean. The expected winner? Out of 10 shots, had to take 7 penalty loops -- finished 27th of 30 skiers. Expectations are grand, but at some point you have to have the competition.

Women's Curling -- Since USA conceded to Canada, got bonus coverage of Denmark-Great Britain. Madeleine Dupont of Denmark wins, 6-5.

NBC Fail -- Why doesn't NBC put up screen bugs about what is starting on the other NBC networks? They put up bugs advertising every other damned thing.

Nordic Combined -- US men get both an individual and a team Silver? Yikes!

... more anon...

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: thrilled

The 21st Winter Olympic Games, Vancouver BC CANADA

It's 10:15pm EST and the U.S. is just entering the venue for the Opening Ceremonies. NBC's coverage started at 7:30, but we wandered away and came back for the 9pm start. NBC is already annoying me for (1) talking over some of the announcements to explain things we've already seen and (2) a really stupid discussion of the Sauna competition while introducing the Finnish team.

Of course some of the buzz late this afternoon focused on the athlete who died on the luge track today during training.

And then there was a split between those who thought British Columbia could've spent the money on better things, such as Vancouver's homeless problem, and those who feel the First Nation cosponsorship of the games didn't represent all the peoples and was a sell out to the big corporations and against the environment. Welcome to the modern Olympics games.

The Olympics are never truly perfect and the system is flawed for sure.

But I love the Olympics, both Winter and Summer, and will revel in two weeks of grand competition and controversy which, in the long run, will be perfect.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: hopeful

And So It Begins...

Interesting that when you've been away from a machine for a little over three weeks, one sometimes has to look up a complex password, rather than depending on finger memory. (grin)

Yesterday, Monday 11 January 2010, my classes consisted of my usual shock-and-awe opening and an introduction to Dr. Phil which lets everyone know that (a) I'm crazy and (b) there's a method to my madness. Students never seem to believe me when I say I'm handing out a 14 page syllabus... Today we begin PHYS-2070 University Physics II (Electricity & Magnetism for Scientists and Engineers with Calculus) for real -- two shows at Noon and 2pm, I'm here all week -- and start doing some Physics.

Yesterday my office was toasty warm when it was 20°F outside in the morning. Today it was 19°F and not so toasty -- had to put my sweater back on. But it's sunny outside. Overhead murk from Allendale to 100th Street on the southside of Grand Rapids, then the sky opened up as in coming out of Mordor.

We did manage to snag a 50¢/gal discount slip from Family Fare on Saturday -- Mrs. Dr. Phil hadn't been sure we'd spend $100+ on groceries, but apparently that was no problem. And my fear that gas prices would irrationally spike by more than 50¢/gal did not materialize. Indeed, gas "dropped" to "only" $2.71.9/gal for regular, so the 50¢/gal discount actually amounted to something.

The deer were running this morning. I turned off Warner at 84th Avenue, but down the road by the campground -- now a KOA Campground -- I could see a trio of deer cross Warner in front of a car. Then two more. Then another. Then another, this one strolling across the road. Then I guess the car tried to move forward and three more deer wanted to cross, but turned away, followed by another clump of deer. Must've been a herd of a dozen or more. Great...

WLAV-FM is doing a bit of silliness -- they are clearing out 200 parking spaces at the Getty 4 Drive-In in Muskegon MI and will be doing an outdoor movie in the snow and a fish fry competition coming up. The movie? Fargo. In the cold outdoors. (grin)

*** UPDATE: (1) Fargo outdoors is for Saturday 23 January 2010, (2) the Getty 4 opens at 3pm, (3) the fish fry competition starts at 4pm, (4) Fargo begins at 5:30pm, and (5) I'll be at ConFusion 2010 on the other side of the state. (grin)

Let's hear it for irrational exuberance.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: bouncy

At Last Night's WOTF XXV Event

I didn't include this in my comments on the 25th Anniversary Writers of the Future event because I wanted to look stuff up first. But one of the things at the events are speakers who work in visionary industries. In 2008, they had the president of one of the civilian space launch firms. This year, when steampunk abounds in spec fic, they had the guy who dreamed up the World Sky Race. A race around the world in airships, over all the major cities and wonders of the world you can think of.

And how cool is this? The guy announced that the Gold Award winners for the WOTF (Emery Huang) and IOTF (Oleksandra Barysheva) contests would be given VIP passes to fly on the competition airships. One of the writers I met at WOTF last year posted this on Facebook early this morning:

Steven Savile They had a montage up of all 500 book covers from previous winners at wotf, familiar faces zipping by, a dance troop and Emery Huang just won a trip on the Cairo leg of the World Airship Race 2010 - how steampunk is that? Racing to the Pyramids in a blimp!

This Makes Me Smile

If you go to the race's homepage, you can see the computer generated video they showed at the event.

The other year somebody did a TV commercial which had whales swimming through the sky. This reminds me of that, which is why I say this makes me smile.

Absurd, you say? Sure. Aren't most races? Can they pull this off? Some of the web comments I saw listed in Google talk about World Sky Race 2010, and the emblem in the video has MMX (2010). But the header on the homepage now says World Sky Race 2011 -- and given that this is the first time I've heard of it, I'm sure an extra year will pay off.

The thing is, the visionary was saying they've got UNESCO support -- and permission from the President of Egypt to make landing just south of the Great Pyramids. "Is that a great parking space or what?" he joked. The other point they make is the visibility. You can't miss big colorful airships gliding over major cities -- they expect more people will see this competition live and in person in one day over, say, L.A., than saw the Beijing Olympics live in person last year. Something to think about.

You know, I was skeptical of the Red Bull Air Races the other year. Air racing in high performance propeller planes was huge in the 1930s, see The Aviator for example, but it has toiled in somewhat obscurity for decades. Yet this past year I saw the Red Bull Air Races showing live on TVs in sports bars, and my aviation students talk about how big it has gotten. But most people don't understand competitive air races over courses -- this airship race around the world is much more grokkable. And it will showcase tourist destinations everywhere, so I think countries really could get behind this. It could be huge.

If nothing else, it will be beautiful. Should the races really happen, I may have to make a trip to where I can see them. Live, and in person.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: indescribable

As You Know, Bob

My story "A Man in the Moon" was the sole Published Finalist in the Writers of the Future Volume XXIV anthology. As a result, I got to go to the WOTF Workshop with K.D. Wentworth and Tim Powers -- and a whole cast of guest speakers -- and also to the WOTF XXIV Event in August 2008.

Alas

Despite still having some eligibility, none of my WOTF XXV entries won anything, so I wasn't going to be sent to the big 25th anniversary bash that WOTF had planned for August 2009 (and the 19th year for the Illustrators of the Future). But... the other day they announced that they were doing streaming video live -- the 8:30pm PDT start translated to 11:30pm EDT.

A Lovely Event

So I just spent about two hours watching my laptop. Frankly, it's not the greatest way to watch video, but it's far better than nothing. (grin) Sound quality was excellent, but the video was running at less than full speed. I ended up refreshing the page for every speaker and every award, to keep them more in sync and to see the illustrations, etc. Don't know how much of that was my DSL/WiFi connection. Firefox worked better than Safari in Windows XP Pro.

There are twelve stories in this volume, meaning no published finalists. This year they presented the awards in author-illustrator pairs, in the order they appear in the volume. It was really nice to see the illustrations in context with the story titles.

In Case You're Dying To Know

Gold Prize Illustrator Award went to Oleksandra Barysheva.

Gold Prize Writer Award went to Emery Huang.

There were many nice stories, but I particularly liked the twelfth and final pair. The author told of submitting stories when he was a kid twenty years ago. When he got serious about writing, he looked up WOTF and found it was still around. The illustrator told of putting a drawing on the shelf fifteen years ago, rather than send it in. That was one of the drawings he submitted which won his award. Hear this out there? It's never too late.

But I Know These People

Between Clarion in 2004, WOTF in 2008, cons, LJ, etc., I knew a whole lot of the judges and people who run the contest. That's fun. And fellow 2004 Clarionite Amelia Beamer, now an editor at Locus, was there to present an award to the contest for being there for new writers for 25 years.

One Tiny Omit

At the end they played credits which listed all the WOTF and IOTF winners, starting with Volume XXV. Of course, my name didn't appear with Volume XXIV, because I was a Published Finalist and technically not a winner. Okay.

What? They listed the Published Finalists for Volume XXI and other volumes? And NOT Volume XXIV?

Aw, gee. I got gypped. (frown) The story of my life. (grin) I'll show 'em! (double-grin)

Anyway

I'm glad they ran the streaming video this year and hope they do it again in the future. Not the same as being there, but still -- it was nice.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: accomplished

Surprised I Didn't Write About This Last Year

I meant to. But back on Thursday 1 May 2008, we went to Celebration North Theatre #2 not to see a movie, but a live HD feed from NYU where Ira Glass was doing a theatre broadcast of This American Life. Actually, it was really for the SHOWTIME TV version, which since we don't get SHOWTIME, we were pretty clueless about. It was great fun and well...

See Ira Glass is one of the most dangerous men in America. Every Saturday morning we put on the local NPR station and doze, wakeup, eat, play with kitties, etc. to Weekend Edition Saturday, Car Talk, Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know? and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: The NPR News Quiz. From 8am to 2pm. But then it's a rush to get the radio turned off, before Ira Glass can speak at 2 o'clock. Because we have been sucked in too many times to count. (grin) And because of the nature of the stories, you really can't do anything else for an hour -- and then Saturday is truly shot to hell and beyond. We once sat in a grocery store parking lot for half an hour waiting for an episode of This American Life to end.

I suspect Ira Glass is amused by his strange powers over people.

This Year

The other week I heard a blurb on Michigan Public Radio on the long drive home about this year's event for Thursday 23 April 2009 (last night) and we were off to the web site and then ordered tickets.

Ira Glass will host an actual episode of the radio program, performed onstage by some of our favorite contributors. Dan Savage, Starlee Kine, and Mike Birbiglia will tell stories. David Rakoff and Dave Hill will conduct a ‘special investigation.’ Plus a new cartoon by Chris Ware, additional visuals by Arthur Jones, and a very special appearance by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! The performance will last around two hours. We’re going to capture the whole thing with a bunch of HD cameras, and send it live* to movie theatres all over the country.

It’s gonna be a fun night. We hope you’ll come.

So in reality it was about 90 minutes, which they'll edit down to under sixty. They showed some video segments which would clearly make zero sense on a radio show and then some comments about editing the show, etc., which also would be cut. But Ira is an artist. And once again the Grand Rapids Celebration Cinema North Theatre #2 was sold out and packed. Yay Public Radio people.

The theme of this episode of the radio show, to air locally on WGVU-FM at 2pm Saturday 2 May 2009 -- while I am at Penguicon -- is "Return to the Scene of the Crime." As is typical in This American Life, scene and crime and return are interpreted in many different ways.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Uh, so what does the 2008 Internet phenomenon have to do with all this? Well, Joss Whedon -- Dr. Horrible's creator and the force behind Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now this odd Dollhouse thing -- was invited to sing on the radio show. Apparently doing a musical Internet movie wasn't sufficiently weird, there is a commentary track on the DVD which is also written as a musical. Very meta.

I love the concept of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and am convinced that Neil Patrick Harris is the only person who could've been Dr. Horrible (grin), but this was the first time I saw any part of one of the episodes, which they played. See, I don't web with the sound turned on and I dislike jumping onto huge bandwidth sinks with everyone else, so I figured I'd see it later. Like when the DVD came out. Now I'll probably have to buy the DVD. Thanks, Ira. (evil grin)

There is definitely something surreal about watching them make a radio show over a 430-theatre live HD video feed which includes stuff from the commentary track of an Internet movie musical... This American Life indeed.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: geeky

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So Be Great -- No Pressure
An Evening With Ken Burns
A Relatively Super Super Bowl
President Obama at Kalamazoo Central High School Graduation
A Historical Event In West Michigan
Memorial Day - Part I
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Redux I
And So It Begins...
The Start Of The Semester
Zeppelins R Us!
25th Anniversary WOTF/IOTF Event
This American Life Live Part 2

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Those Who Lie In Wait, Dream Deep

Entries tagged with events

So Be Great -- No Pressure

An Evening With Ken Burns

A Relatively Super Super Bowl

President Obama at Kalamazoo Central High School Graduation

A Historical Event In West Michigan

Memorial Day - Part I

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Redux I

And So It Begins...

The Start Of The Semester

Zeppelins R Us!

25th Anniversary WOTF/IOTF Event

This American Life Live Part 2