I just remembered this.

I know this is the second Blog since I said I was not going to be Blogging for at least two weeks, but I just remembered a story from a horrid birthday party I had on Thursday night...

The kids were awful. Just awful. The parents really weren't any better. As they sat down, the mother of the birthday boy pulled out the glow sticks, of course. Why do people insist on bringing light-producing items into the Planetarium? Don't they get it?

Anyway, I told her not to do it, and she gave me a quizzical expression. She then went on to tell me that her friend, who recently had her own child's birthday party in the Planetarium, told her that she had brought them, and that it was a great idea.

I yell at EVERYONE who does this. Urf... people drive me nuts.

Anyway -- in the middle of the program when I was talking about Jupiter, I mentioned that it was a gas planet; it is completely made of gas.

One girl, about six years old, yelled out, "Wow! My dad has gas!"

I then heard an adult male voice from two rows back yell out, "HEY!"

I laughed and laughed.

It was really the only time I laughed through the whole show -- but sometimes the little things make it all worth while.

LOOK OUT BELOW!

I had my Holiday Under the Stars program tonight. It was the last program of the year -- I am off until next year.

During the program, while I was moving the sky around, there was a horrendous crashing sound, as if the Planetarium was actually collapsing. It happened in the middle or the room, which means the shape of the dome amplified the sound. Everyone in the room gasped, and I think I might have heard a child scream.

One of the planet projectors FELL OFF THE MACHINE in the middle of the show (it was the Mars projector, in case you were wondering).

Imagine a pair of binoculars, made of cast iron, falling ten feet through a metallic cage and crashing to the ground about 10 feet away from where you are sitting -- in a dark room in slung-back chairs. There would be no escape.

I know it startled everyone. Heck, I'm pretty sure I peed myself, just a little, because I thought the machine was crashing down.

It took 8 people to lift the support bar into place when it was installed in 1970 -- this thing literally weighs a TON. Two thousand pounds.

I figured I was about the witness the first Planetarium fatality. Oh, and friends of the family were sitting in the front row -- they would have been the ones to perish.

I think we need a new machine. Before someone gets hurt.

I need a vacation -- good thing it just officially started. Right... . . . . . . .


...

NOW.

Break time.

Sorry I haven't kept this up as well as I used to. I promise, next year, I will go back to my old, furious blogging ways (sounds like a resolution to me!).

And, this is my sign off-- I am taking the last two weeks of the year off. I will return on January twoth.

Have a wonderful, safe, happy, painless holiday season.

--- Mr. Astronomy Guy.

The ONE show I look forward to...

...was cancelled.

At 2:00 today I was supposed to do a show for a group of nuns. NUNS! The sisters came last year, and the show rocked. They were so awesome. How can you go wrong with nuns?

Anyway, they called and said that a bunch of the sisters were sick, and some others had to attend a funeral, so there would not be enough to make it worth while to attend the show.

The one show I WANTED to do.

How come a cancellation never happens to a birthday party?

I figured the nuns would definitely provide some wonderful blog fodder. Alas, it is not to be.

Sorry.

FIGHT!

I had my first fight in the Planetarium!

OK, it wasn't really much of a fight, there were a couple guys who maybe got in one swing each, but that was it. It was a little scary, though, and I knew not what I should do.

The program was for 16 high school special ed students. I was, surely, the smallest person in there -- for those of you who don't know, I am 6' 1", 210 lbs. Not a behemoth by any stretch of the imagination, but not a shrimp. It was like the Chicago Bears were coming in the door, when they were big. There was one year they won the superbowl, I think -- and they had that "Refrigerator" guy on the team....? Right...? They did that Superbowl Shuffle song...? Remember? Sure it was pathetic, but those guys were big. And THAT is the aspect of them that I am trying to convey.

Big. High School. Special Ed. Kids.

OK, I think you've got the picture.

They did ask some odd questions during the program, though nothing odd enough to be funny. They centered around the function of the machine, mainly.

Anyway, it's the end of the show, the lights are coming up, and the dome is being re-illuminated. As that happens, there are spots of shade and light that appear on the dome. It almost looks dirty, but it's just a function of the light and shadow across the room.

"It looks like it's cloudy," one kid said.

"It looks like inside the moon," another said. I don't know how he know what the inside of the moon looks like, but it's as good a thing to say as any.

"It looks like your mother," a third kid said.

Inside-The-Moon Kid leaps up with a gutteral growly scream, of sorts. The third kid leaps up, too, and in seconds fists are being pounded into heads. It was crazy. I thought they were going to start tearing up the seats, Irish-Soccer-Riot style. One kid, larger than the both of them grabbed Inside-The-Moon Kid's fist on its way to third kid's head. By this point, 2 of the chaperones, big fellas in their own right, were there to break it up.

"WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT?!" one of the teachers yelled.

"Nothin'," they said simultaneously.

"All right then. Now cut it out," he told them. THEN, his voice changed back to friendly: "Now go stand in front of the machine so I can get a picture of all of you."

And they did. Considering the way with which the incident was dealt, I can only imagine this happens often.

I don't think I could work full time in an environment like that.

Maybe the 5 year-olds aren't so bad.


Who am I kidding... I'll take randomly violent high school kids any day.

(tried to post this on Tuesday, but the Bloggy thing was on the fritz.)

He's BAAAACK.

OK, I had some dude write me a crazy e-mail a little while back. He did it again!

Here goes:

Hi again I had asked under different sn question.I have not been able to find artwork of a top-view of the spirals of MW with the ecliptic superimposed on.A drawing would be worth 1000 words.With Wingdings Font a -i =abcdefghiand ^_ ` as ^_` I had attempted to draw partial circular picture ,but was rearranged.I'm mixing various sources http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/sect 20/A2a.html link 2 Jerry Pool's on pg 18 maps.Again this is not about astrology and from that matter extraneous info.,I'm merely retaining 'zodiac',as it is familiar,visible,calendarical,and would guess somewhat close.

All the whitespace (or lack thereof) has been preserved. This was a simple cut-n-paste. I have a little more idea of what he is talking about, but it is still pretty incomprehensible. And the link he included didn't actually take me anywhere.

I'm thinking about writing back:

"The ecliptic MW view as requested prior of e-mail sent is a difficult in ponderance.I have spended time illustratively on decided thing for view of MW.In this illustration: http://fergusmurray.members.beeb.net/tor2.htm ecliptic goes 23 * from center when picked or viewed from 'top' which north might be construed for.As view from 75.76 ly in past views has been corrected by the correctors, you can see in the illustration the view and angle change by degrees.Instead of the double edge side view I chose the front side double edge wide compacted view in n-space,which I think illustrates the dip and thong of the contorting planes in the wisest basis.Some extra arrangement on the *54* ascension due to the Berra axiom translated as "It gets late early out here" suggests that the declination is correct for this and future times instead of past.For past 1000 yr view, watch picture for at least 52 mins and don't blink.I hope this is closest to thing that wanted to be."

It probably would answer his question.

Whoof. Four year olds by day, over-zealous astrophiles by night. Is there a happy medium out there!?

BIRTHDAY PARTIES. This is it. Last time. Seriously.

I had a birthday party today at 1:00. Yep, 1:00 on a Tuesday during the school year. I wondered how this could be! Weren't they in school?! I looked at the reservation form and found out: "Most kids should be almost 5." THEY WEREN'T OLD ENOUGH FOR SCHOOL!

Oh, man. I was in there getting ready to make the "Happy Birthday, [insert name here]!" slide, when I realized that the birthday boy probably doesn't know how to read yet.

They had reserved a room to have pizza and cake before the show. The father and his two sons showed up about an hour early at my door. They came in asking where the room they reserved was -- I don't have anything to do with that at all. I explained that to him, and told him that he could use my phone and call around to try to find out. He came in and his kids did, too.

On the back of my office door is a poster -- a topographic map of the moon labelling all of the major features. It's a nice thing to glance up at while I'm sitting here during the day. One of the kids wanted to take a closer look, and somehow ripped it.

HE RIPPED MY MOON POSTER. The father was dialing the phone, heard the rip, turned around and scolded his son like this:

"You probably shouldn't be doing that."

PROBABLY?! He ripped my poster! YOU probably shouldn't be a parent! Urk.

The show was what you imagine... 3 and 4 year olds asking when the lights were going to come back on.

Overall, it was a pretty sad afternoon.

Although, I did get one of the "goody bags" they were handing out to the little kids. I got a pencil case, and some stickers, and some glow in the dark plastic space-related things. And some candy. And a constellation guide.

I suppose a day in which I receive a pencil case can't be too bad.

Getting Old...

I had a group of girl scouts yesterday. They were pretty exciteable, but, as usual, it was Astronomy-related excitement.

So, at the end, during the Q&A, there was one girl who asked about Halley's Comet.

"When can we see that big comet again?" she asked.

"Halley's Comet?" I asked.

"YEAH! That one!"

I thought about it for a second -- "I think the next time we can see it is in 2061. So we have a little time to wait."

"Oh, great," she said. "By that time I will be over 70 and I won't be able to see anymore."

They Still DON'T Get It.

Why do I bother talking at all?

I had another person calling up to schedule a birthday party. She asked a bunch of questions which seemed to indicate she had never been here before, so I asked: "Have you been here before?"

"NO!" she said with glee and excitement.

"Well, just so you know, if you come here for a program, it will basically be me lecturing about the stars and planets. Sometimes people expect something more like a movie with special effects experience. We really don't have that here."

"GREAT!" She said, with even more enthusiasm.

"Sometimes kids want a more thrilling experience for a party than a college professor talking about the planets."

"RIGHT!" She was beyond excited. I was beginning to wonder if she was even talked to me, or someone else over on her side of the phone.

"So, are you sure you want to do this party?"

"OF COURSE!" She said.

The usual question I ask at this point, : "Is there any reason you picked the Planetarium? Does your son have any particular interest in Astronomy? Stars? Planets? Galaxies? Nebulas? Rockets? Anything like that?"

"I HAVE NO IDEA!" She told me, in the same tone as if she had just told me she had won the lottery.

"Then why the Planetarium?"

"SOMEONE TOLD ME IT WAS A GOOD IDEA!" She bubbled forth.

"I see. Well, maybe you could ask your son what kinds of things he would like to learn about in the Planetarium. There will be a place on the form where you can write in any topics you want discussed. Find out what he wants to see, and jot it down, and I'll try to include it."

"REALLY?" She squealed. I couldn't imagine how someone could have that much adrenaline.

"Yep," I told her. "Anything related to space... just write it, and I'll try to include it."

"WOW." She said.

This has happened before -- I think she was sort of half-listening. People just hear what they think they want to hear. I knew she was going to ask for something that I couldn't do and had nothing to do with space.... I couldn't wait to see....

[time passes...]

I just got the paperwork back from this person. She wrote down the following: "My son would like to see explosions."

The 15 minute Blizzard of '03.

As I was waiting for a group to come, the sky got dark, and all of a sudden I couldn't see ANYTHING. The wind was whipping, and sheets of snow just started barreling across campus. It was crazy. I wouldn NOT have been happy on a school bus in that weather. I thought the group might have turned around. I hoped they did (for their own safety, of course, not to get me out of doing a program! Banish the thought!).

But, a few minutes late, the kids came scrambling down the hill.

I know it wouldn't be pleasant -- let's check the score: This was a group of 6th and 7th graders; not a good start. It was the first real snowstorm of the season -- when it snows for the first time, middle school kids get all wonky. They can't think of anything else but snow. I used to teach 8th grade math, and one first-storm day I had gotten so sick of them just thinking about snow, I made up a math lab for them involving them going out and counting snowflakes (it was a lot better than it sounds -- there was some really good math in there, and they were happy to go out and play in the snow). OH! OH! And the snow was not very well predicted, so they were completely underdressed. Most of the girls had at least 3 inches of belly skin exposed.

So they were basically a zoo.

The teachers and I calmed them down a little before we went in. They settled in OK -- a little chatty here and there, but not too bad. Definitely on the dark side of bad, but I've certainly seen worse.

The bad part: one of the teacher's cell phones kept going off throughout the show. It must have rung 5 times. And everytime she would flip open her phone, the light would drown out most of the room. By ring 3 even the kids were getting pissed. I'm pretty sure she made a few calls, too.

At the end of the show, she apologized: "Sorry for the cell phone, I have a diabetic kid in here."

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?? Does her cell phone dispense insulin or something?

"Well, you gotta do what you gotta do," I told her. I'm not sure how she took it. I think she was unbothered -- she still seemed happy.


Darn.