The breast show ever.

I had a bunch of scouts just come through here. It was actually two boy scout troops, and one girl scout troop all lumped in together. There were some siblings, and a couple were very small; infants, really.

And one of them was still breast feeding. This must not be Mom's first breast-fed kid, because she just plopped down, flopped out a teat, and started setting that kid loose. She could have waited TWO MINUTES, and the lights would have been out. I'm not anti-breast feeding, I just need to be warned before it happens. The baby was suckling as the lights went down.

As the lights came up, I was walking around answering questions, and the baby was STILL AT IT! Do they usually go for over an hour? I did notice that it was on the opposite breast. Number one must have run out.


In an oddly related story, as we were watching the mars Rover video, there is one part that shows the landing -- it shows the landing capsule bouncing down. It's entirely covered with airbags. Most kids say it looks like grapes or a raspberry. You can make up your own mind:



During this particular show, one of the boy scouts yelled out, "It's covered in boobies!!"

Back in the thick of it.

Well, I took an extended weekend, and have returned to four shows today. I am tired. Three are done, so I have one more to go. It will be starting in a few seconds, so I have only a little time to note this:

I knew it was going to be a bad day pretty early on. The first group had today (it was first graders) just made it to the bottom of the hill (15 minutes late, of course), and one girl said to the teacher:

"Miss Parker?"

"Yes, dear what is it?"

"I'm bleeding."

It can only go downhill from here.

It's not a planet.

All day I've had people run up to me and ask me, "Did you hear about the new planet??" It has happened at least 10 times already around campus.

It's a ball of likely rock and ice far away from the sun. This is kind of nifty -- but not much else is that exciting about it. Mainly because we don't know much about it yet!

Here is what is basically the best picture of this thing (we're calling it Sedna):



Wow.

It's a speck.

We don't know much about Pluto, and this thing is likely smaller, and about 4 times further away from the sun.

Here's what makes it interesting: it's the furthest thing from the sun in our solar system that we have seen and cataloged. That's pretty much it. We basically are pretty sure that there are tons of these things out there.

We don't know how big it is -- it could be as big as Pluto, it could be less than 1/2 the size.

There's stuff out there. BILLIONS of things. Planets, comets, asteroids, and probably other stuff that goes around the sun, basically like the planets do. This does not mean we 'found another planet.'

We're still deciding what we call a planet -- astronomy is a science in its infancy... we'll be studying these things for a long time.

We did not find another planet -- we found a far-off, big-ass snowball.

MARCH MADNESS!!

Ok, I'm not sure what the title means. I know I hear it in March, and it has something to do with sports, but rarely do I feel any Madness in March, to any real extent.

But the Planetarium is SWAMPED!!! Thus, I have not been updating...

Let's see if I can catch you up... this is just the highlight reel.


I had about 225 girl scouts over the weekend.


The first ones arrived, and one of the girls told me, with the utmost glee: "I've been to the school before! Last time I was here, I got attacked by a goose!"

The parent with her assured me, "She did. Bit her right in the butt."


During one of the groups, I was showing the Mars Rover Video (mentioned in a few hundred other Blogs), and when the Rover's robotic arm came out, there was a boy, a brother a girl scout, who just started chanting in a mechanical voice: "De-stroy! De-stroy!" It was pretty awesome.


Yesterday I had TWO groups of 3, 4, AND 5 year olds. THIS IS JUST TOO YOUNG to come to the Planetarium. Over the weekend, a woman told me that she does puppet shows for kids, and had just made up a show about the solar system. I am going to be forwarding the tiny child information to her from now on. A puppet show is a appropriate. A big, dark, scary room is NOT appropriate.

They weren't scared at all really. In fact the just laughed throughout the whole show. At the end, I ask whether anyone has any questions. The kids either continued to climb the seats like a playground, or look at me as if they didn't understand the request. After a minute or two one small boy raised his hand gingerly.

"Do you have a question?" I asked him. He nodded slowly.

"What is it?" I prompted him.

"I like horses," he told me.

"That's nice," I said.

"I like to watch them run," he followed up.

"Great," I said. "That's just great."

Oof.


One boy was in there named William; he was 5 years old. He had been here last year, when he was 4 (do the math, it works out). He knew just about everything I was going to say, and he said things out loud as I was about to say them. He even phrased things the same way -- a lot of times when the little kids are there, I tell them that the daytime side of Mercury is "at least 700 degrees. That's hotter than an oven! Can you live inside of a hot oven?" They all scream "NOOO!" excitedly. And I tell them, "So, you can't live on the hot side of Mercury."

I put up Mercury and mentioned that it was hot during the day, and he told the room, "It's hotter than an oven! And you can't live in a hot oven!" He went on to tell them what I usually say next... "And the nighttime side is WAY colder than a freezer! And you can't live inside of a freezer!"

Next time he comes, I'm going to let William do the show. The 3 year olds will probably pay more attention if their teacher is a 5 year old.

Jackpot!

After each show, I drift through the now empty rows of seats searching for things that people have dropped. I generally police the floor to just pick up whatever nastiness has been thrown on the floor. Usually it is just useless detritus.

But sometimes, there a keeper. And this weekend, after all the Girl Scouts left, I had one of those.

On the floor, under one of the seats, I found a brand-new whoopee cushion, emblazened with the logo of Captain Underpants.

I knew this job had fringe benefits.

A Captain Underpants whoopee cushion. Glorious!

The Great Sports Debate

I had a bunch of girl scouts here over the weekend. The local Girl Scout council has actually set up 24 private shows, all basically filled. That's over 1800 girl scouts. That's certainly a heap. And there are plenty of girl scout troops that are not part of this group that come, as well.

I never thought that a Planetarium show filled with Girl Scouts would degenerate into a debate about the legitimacy of certain professional sports. Silly me.

A lot of comments in shows come from when I show the Mars Rover Video (HEY! They now have it set to MUSIC!).

There is a part, near the end of the launch sequence, where some jets get the probe spinning. It generally confuses the kids, and I try to explain that "spinning helps to keep it going in a straight line. It's really the same technology used when someone throws a football."

They generally get a general idea at that point, and are satisfied with the explanation.

Not this bunch.

When I mentioned it being similar to throwing a football, one girl shouted out, "WELL, I don't like football!"

Another girl yelled, "I like hockey!"

Someone else, "I like volleyball!"

Another: "I like skateboarding!"

This went on for a long time. They missed about half of the video. And there was no stopping them.


When the Mars Rover lands, it is surrounded by airbags, and it bounces down onto the surface of Mars. Many times I will say something like, "I bounces like a basketball." This time, I decided it would be better if I mentioned no other sports by name.

TWO years later...

Well, I have just passed my 2 year anniversary of employ here at the college. It's just a bit less than that of doing shows (my first month was a lot of learning how things go), but as of March 8, 2004, I have been an Astronomer for 2 years. Crazy. Seems like longer.

Here are a couple quick stats:

I just (literally! 2 minutes ago!) did my 600th show.
I have had 24324 visitors in that time.

They certainly keep me hopping.

More of the Same...

This is more info on the two Blogs mentioned below...

They have made personalized t-shirts with NASA logos on them for every one of the kids.

Some kid has already broken the space shuttle model.

There is more stuff being set up that I really can't even describe.

The birthday boy is just sitting down there screaming, "Mommy! I'm talking to you, Mommy! Mommy! I'm talking to you, Mommy! Mommy! I'm talking to you, Mommy!"

But she's too busy setting things up to even pay any attention to him.

It's a zoo.

I'm So Scared Right Now.

I found out why this group was here WELL OVER an hour early. I just went down to the cafeteria where I told them they could bring cupcakes, and sit and have them after the program.

The first thing I noticed was the 3 foot high cake. I wish I had my camera. They have a cake in the shape of a rocket. I'm not exactly sure how it is standing up like that.

They have a space shuttle large enough for kids to sit in with little sound effect buttons on it.

They have a pinata in the shape of a space shuttle.

They have covered an entire wall with black paper. It's apparently where they are going to make their "space mural".

I cannot even begin to explain how many balloons there are in there. This thing is set up like a small wedding. It's out of control.

I am currently hoping that I will be stricken with a heart attack in the next 15 minutes or so.

OH! OH! I just remembered something semi-related. When I made this reservation I had a wrong preconception. The kid's name is "Misha", so I thought it was a girl. It's actually a boy.

The Dreaded Event.

Here I am again, about to do just that which I vowed to never do again -- a birthday party show.

I am really not looking forward to this. Right now the birthday mom is outside pounding stakes into the ground to support signs directing people where to go. Don't you think you might want to ask before you start pounding things into the ground? Isn't that common courtesy?

This is the mom who signed up (I may have Blogged about this before) for the birthday party, and as she was making the reservation asked me to shorten the program to 40 minutes (it's usually an hour).

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Oh, my son is only 5 years old. He won't sit still for that long."

"I've done shows for that age before, they seem to handle it OK."

"Not my son. He's been to your shows before she can't sit still at all."

SO WHY TORTURE ME BY BRINGING HER BACK FOR A BIRTHDAY PARTY?!?!

You Know What You'd Be Good At...?

I had a big group of girl scouts here last Friday night. There were 69 altogether. They were a large, lively, Friday night group, as would be expected of a horde of girl scouts facing a trip to the Planetarium leading them into their weekend.

I did a nice program for them, and they were all very excited.

They had LOTS of questions afterwards -- good questions. We talked about "Planet X", and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, and comets, and gravity. It was a great end to the week, really. The kids were engaged, and making connections. And my explanations seemed to make sense to them. I was pleased.

One girl raised her hand, and I acknowledged her, and she told me, "Wow. You know what? You should be a scientist."

Should be? I said it my best pouty four-year old whiny voice: "But, I am a scientist. I'm an Astronomer."

"I know, I know," she said. "But I mean a real scientist. One that does stuff."

"I do stuff," I said quietly, still whining and pouting a little bit.

"I mean science stuff," she said.

"I do science stuff," I really probably should have tried to sound more confident. "And I teach science stuff." I grinned and nodded my head in an attempt to convince her.

I don't think she was convinced.

"It's OK, we like you," she said. Even though you're not really a scientist, was the subtext.

I had no idea I was perceived as the "well-liked non-scientist". At least they like me, I suppose.

I have a high school group coming tonight. They're supposed to be here for 2 hours. Some of which was supposed to be outside using a telescope and looking at some real things in the sky.

I came in the morning to a beautiful blue sky, perfect for viewing.

Of, course, as always, as the sun has set, the clouds have moved in.

I hate the weather. The spiteful, spiteful weather.

Now I'll have to try to do 2 HOURS of stuff in the Planetarium... I don't think it's be possible. Especially from 7 to 9 pm! It'll be sleepytime for everyone involved. I might as well just put on some sleepy music and let the stars drift across the sky, and set my alarm for 9 pm.

Hmmm... that's a pretty good idea.

The Seat is Reserved.

I had a show of second graders last week (maybe it was 3rd). It was 2 classes... there were 45 or 50 kids, and two adults (the teachers for the 2 classes).

I usually stand at the door of the Planetarium, holding it open for them as them come in, and shut it tight behind them. So, I am usually the last one in. The seating method is usually self-explanatory.

I see that the kids are all seated, but I don't see the teachers! I am pretty sure they went in before me... hmmm.

I made my way around to the control panel, where I stand and make all the Planetarium magic happen. I keep two chairs back there, stacked on top of each other, just in case there are more that 80 people. It happens sometimes, as my loyal readers will attest.

The teachers had taken the chairs, unstacked them, and were sitting together talking in a manner reminiscent of two high school girls at the cool table. It was as if their teaching status had ceased to exist.

I just stood there, arms wide, look of incredulation on my face. They didn't notice.

"'scuse me?" I said. They kept talking.

"Ummm...." I said, rather loud and drawn out until one of them looked at me.

She just tiled her head slightly with eyes wide. It was a look that said, "Hello??! What??! We're talking here!"

They did stop talking for a second so I decided I'd better jump in. "You can't sit there!" I told them.

"Wha..? Well, why not...?" one of them said. Say it in a valley girl accent, with a little sneer, and you'll have a good idea of her tone.

"First of all, I will need to use the control panel. Second of all, those are just some extra seats we use in emergencies. Third, you will be unable to enjoy the program from back here, since you can't see the dome."

She huffed. She gave a little "Fssshhh!" sound. (I swear I am not making this up.) The other said, "Whatever." And they got up and went to sit in "actual" seats. They did end up sitting together, in a back row, kind of away from where the kids were sitting. And they did talk the whole time. A couple times when I was walking around, I stood directly behind them, and increased my volume just a smidge to purposefully annoy them.

Remarkably, it was a good group of kids.

They sure didn't get it from the teachers.

BUSY.

Eright, this is the busiest time in the Planetarium. The good: lots to blog about. The bad: no time to actually enter the blogs! Ah, the great Bloggery Paradox....

I'm trying. Trying hard. Really, I am.