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I saw this sign on the way home from picking up groceries today. Some clever person had modified the sign from its original text, which was something to the effect of “Forest Park Blvd. is under construction, expect delays,” to, “Free Mandela,” flashing over and over. How they did it, I don’t know, but I’m glad they did. Of course, Nelson Mandela has been free for over 13 years, but the sentiment remains. Even after his release from prison, there was a lot Nelson Mandela had to do before he could become free. And even today, as a father of a nation, and a symbol of peace and solidarity, whenever anyone is not free, Nelson Mandela is not free. I think the ‘editor’ of the sign intended for us to remember what Mandela went through. To that end, here is a nice biography of Nelson Mandela that has both a detailed section, as well as a brief bio near the bottom.

So lets obey the sign, and do everything we can to make Mr. Mandela, and all the people in the world that he cares about, free.

I had a very long day today, we were understaffed as it was, and then one lady called in sick. Two people, 5 galleries, the Discovery Room, and the Demo Site. Hardcore. We got it all taken care of, but it was stressful.

However, the day wasn’t helped by the fact that I woke up to a strange dream that had me a bit on edge from the moment of wakefulness.

I was in a forest, as part of an elite covert-ops team, all Rainbow Six style. I was in body armor and had bandoliers of ammo hanging off of me. I was tracking some guy through the forest, and he would shoot back at us periodically. Problem was, my gun was all messed up. The trigger didn’t work right, and would take a lot of pressure to pull down. Sometimes I’d pull it down and it would jam and I’d have to push it back out and try again. When the gun did fire, the recoil was erratic pushing the gun side to side as well as back and forth. The aim was terrible, and the bullets would just fly off some random direction. It was very frustrating.

It is also a bit of a recurring theme. Last week I had a dream where I was part of a training mission where we all had plastic training guns and had to ‘escape’ from a little compound that had been setup. My gun’s trigger was messed up, and it kept slipping out of my hands.

After chasing the guy through the forest for a while, I started to hear shouting. Someone was down! I ran back to see who had been hit, and found Barb kneeling over a computer. It wasn’t a whole computer, just a basic grey ATX case PC, with no monitor or peripherals or anything. Barb was fine, but the computer had two crossbow bolts embedded in it. She needed help pulling them out, so I had to open the case and pull out the bolts. Then we needed to fix the computer, right there in the field. There were a bunch of wires that had been disturbed, each of which needed plugging back in. As I plugged them in, I realized that they were forming the shape of that big green guy from Shrek (I haven’t seen the movie, maybe the green guy’s name is Shrek, I’m not sure). I had to plug the wires into the right spot to make the picture of the green guy, otherwise the computer wouldn’t work.

Then, I was in a different place, and I was trying to put together a puzzle of the Hulk, using Tangrams, the geometric toy set that has two little triangles, two big triangles, a medium sized triangle, a square and a parallelogram, I’m sure you’ve seen it, its a standard geometric puzzle set. Problem was, my set had all the regular pieces as well as a circle. The circle wouldn’t fit anywhere, of course, because it had round edges. I was feeling incredibly frustrated because I couldn’t get the image of the Hulk made with the Tangrams I had.

After that, I have a vague memory of someone telling me that it wasn’t working because I hadn’t cut the pieces out right, and that I had to cut them again.

Thats when I woke up. Its not a good way to wake up, with the taste of frustration fresh on the mind. Also, I wonder what the whole non-functioning gun symbology means. If you are a psychologist or a dream interpreter or something, don’t tell me what it means unless its something flattering.

Today Madalene and I are going hiking up at Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, which is apparently a very nice place. It was formed when erosion wore deep tracks in volcanic rock, creating an ‘enclosed’ area of swimming, hiking and fun. We’ve never been there, but we have gotten several strong recommendations from reliable sources, so we decided to go check it out for a day.

Ok, I don’t get it. Search engines just don’t seem to work well with this site, because clearly I should not show up on THIS search, and certainly not as the first result! Anyone who’s seen me in person can vouch for the smallness of my breasts.

Update: Damn, it seems Google has the same problem... I guess it makes sense because the AOL search claims to be ‘enhanced by Google.’ I can’t wait until Google reindexes this site, and starts sending even more Sam’s breast searchers streaming in once it sees this post. Oh well, whatever brings in the readers.

In a fit of late night creativity, I decided to compile all the brewing data I’ve generated thus far, and make a webpage out of it. If you’d like to see what we have brewed, how it turned out, and the recipe we used, check out the Brew Log! It is also a link on the top navigation bar now.

Also, I’ve added a nav-bar link to the Gallery which has been up for some time now, but in an experimental state. We are now actually using it, so feel free to check it out. There probably isn’t much in there of interest, unless you were one of the people hanging out with us recently while we were taking pictures.

I worked both Saturday and Sunday, so I didn’t have much in the way of weekend excitement. However, on Saturday night we were able to get Billy and Karen to come with us to see The Eye, which is a good psychological thriller made in Thailand. The movie is about a woman who gets a corneal transplant, and then begins to see things that aren’t there. She has to unravel the secrets of the donor before she goes insane. Its pretty scary, though not very gory. If you liked The Sixth Sense then you’ll probably like The Eye. Be forewarned, it is subtitled in English, and it may be hard to read the subtitles while you are clenching your eyes closed out of fear.

After exiting the movie, we decided that a beer was in order. Instead of the ‘usual suspects’ we decided to walk over to Brandt’s market and buy two of the strangest beers we could find. We ended up with a Lindeman’s Cassic, which is a form of lambic, a beer style fermented not only with yeast, but with numerous forms of wild bacteria, and flavored with fruit. The style is very strange, and only loosely considered beer. If you gave one to your average Bud drinker, they’d probably spit it out in shock. We only got about halfway through the bottle before deciding to save the rest for another time. The other beer was a Delirium Tremens, a Belgian strong ale. It was very strong, and came in a wine-sized bottle. The ale was very good however, and we’ll probably try some of Delirium’s other offerings. The bottle was very unique as well, it was white with black spots, and adorned with images of pink elephants and dancing crocodiles. Very strange offering from a brewery that has been around since 1654.

Billy, Karen, Madalene and I ended the night by playing Taboo, which is a pretty fun game. I’m not normally into games, but Taboo moves quickly enough that it keeps me interested.

For your pleasure, we would like to present a series of limericks highlighting the goodness of our friend Dennis on today, March 20th, his 22nd birthday.

The History of One Young Man Exhibiting
His Principle Eccentricities and Amusements
By Madalene & Sam

I know a guy named Dennis
Who loves to drink lots of Guinness
He’ll sing and dance
And perhaps even prance
But doesn’t have frothy business

In fact, I know he has got
Something most find quite hot
I never got to watch,
But he has a bionic crotch
I asked to see, he said “Certainly not!”

We appreciate his congeniality
And he brings fun into our reality
We love him so
And his music, even though
We don’t understand counterpoint or tonality

So we want to tell him now
Dennis, darling, take a bow!
Drink a beer
And give a cheer,
Happy Birthday, you’re 22 now!

Madalene and I started a batch of White Zinfandel brewing the other day. It is progressing nicely, and is already quite drinkable. Because it is in active fermentation right now, it has become quite carbonated, and very sweet. Its like a cross between champagne and that ‘non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice’ you see in stores around Thanksgiving. It still tastes a bit ‘yeasty’ but that is to be expected, given the vigorous fermentation. In a week or so, we’ll be moving it to its secondary fermenter for about 3 weeks, and then bottling. We had to buy a case of wine bottles, and 4 one gallon growlers to accept the large 23L batch. We also had to get a corker and a bag of corks, which are anything but cheap. Oh well, each batch we do requires slightly less equipment purchase than the batch before, and soon we’ll have everything we need without having to buy ingredients as well as some new piece of equipment. The problem so far is that we’ve done champagne, beer and now a still wine, all of which have a few specialty bits that are only needed for that style.

Also, we are starting a new rule! We aren’t giving out wine and beer anymore, we are trading it for bottles! Bottles, oddly enough, are just about the most expensive part of this whole process. Originally we asked that people return the bottles to us when they were done, but it turns out that most people wanted to keep the bottles because of the charming label we designed for them. So instead, we are now asking for any bottle in return, or a few bottles if possible. If its not convenient, or you live far away, don’t worry about it, since we aren’t going to be very strict, but we are asking that if its convenient, people save a few bottles for us. We are in need of the following types of bottles:

• 12 ounce, 16 ounce and 22 ounce glass beer bottles. They must be ‘pop top’ style returnable bottles, twist-offs do not work with our capper. Also, amber is the only color that will work well for me. Light makes beer taste ‘skunky’ and green and clear bottles make that process much swifter. Also, if you have any Grolsch style swing-top beer bottles, those would be great!
• 750mL or 1.5L glass wine bottles. These can be green, amber or clear, but need to be the kind that takes a cork, not a screw-cap.
• 1 gallon, 4L, 3L or 2L glass growlers. These are generally large clear jugs, and often come with a small handle on the neck. You see them most often in stores on the bottom shelf of the wines, brands like Carlo Rossi and so forth. The ‘jug-wine’ inside them typically isn’t very high quality, but its cheap, and the bottles are good (filling one 4L bottle saves us 5 regular bottles!). These typically use a screw cap, which is fine, but make sure the cap is in good shape and not torn up. We can get replacement caps for some sizes, but not all.

• Champagne bottles. These are usually 750m, and green. They need to be the kind that took a champagne style cork (the kind that looks like a mushroom) and a wire cage over the cork. Screw caps don’t work for us. The original cork could have been real cork or plastic, either kind will work for us. We don’t need the cork or the cage, just the bottle.

  For all bottles, the easiest for us is if the labels are already removed, and the inside of the bottle is rinsed clean. The best way to remove labels is to simply soak the bottle in hot water for an hour or so, after which the label will slip right off, and you can use a plastic scrubby pad to remove the bit of glue left behind. For cleaning the inside of the bottle, the best way is to simply rinse the bottle immediately after use, and then you don’t have to worry about it again. If there is caked on stuff at the bottom, then soak in hot water and a weak detergent solution. In either case, if there is a stubborn label that won’t come off, or something weird stuck to the bottom, or if you just don’t have time to clean them or remove labels, don’t worry about it.

  So anyway, in a month or two we’ll have Zinfandel ready, and as soon as the Zinfandel moves to the secondary fermenters, I’ll fill the primary again with a batch of California Common (Steam) beer, which would be ready in 6 to 8 weeks. This is a fun hobby!

Yesterday I was scooting along, going to pick up my friend Lee from the hotel where she was staying. She was visiting town with her brother and mother. Her brother is starting graduate school at Washington University in the fall, and so they came out to help him look for housing. Anyway, as I was scooting, I was cut off by a man in a Buick (what is it with these Buick drivers anyway?). I gave him a little beep of the horn, and drove on. I was pretty angry, because so many people don’t bother to think about anyone else. Its not like its a big deal to look into your mirror and use your turn signal. Its really not that hard. You learn how to do it when you are 15, and yet somehow people forget.

However, a few blocks up, he was still in front of me, and we got caught at a long red light. He opened the door of his car, stuck his head out and said, “Hey, I’m really sorry, I didn’t see you back there, I hope I didn’t cut you off too badly!” He seemed very sincere, and I was happy that he apologized. I accepted his apology, and forgave him. So, score one for the goodness of humanity.

Water is pretty amazing stuff. It is the source of all known life, and essential to our existence. Water, because of its unique chemical structure, possesses numerous properties that are quite unique, and all contribute to its ability to support life. It is properties like these that lead us to believe that there is a high probability that any other life in the universe would be based around water.

One of water’s more unique properties is a very high boiling point, and a high vapor pressure. This prevents water from evaporating easily, letting us stay liquid at a large range of temperatures. Also, the high energy required to reach vapor pressure means that when evaporation occurs, it cools us down quite a bit, which becomes a valuable tool for maintaining our temperature.

Water also has a very high heat capacity, much higher than most other liquids. This lets water absorb a lot of energy while only increasing its temperature by a small amount. This lets water act as a heat sink, keeping us a constant temperature. This fact also means that the ocean has very little temperature change around the world. This lets the ocean act as a giant heat sink, keeping temperatures mild. If it weren’t for the ocean, the arctic would be much colder than it is today, and the equator would be incredibly hot. We can thank the ocean for keeping temperatures within a livable band throughout most of the planet.

Water’s uncanny property of expanding when freezing is also unique. Water reaches a maximum density at about 4 degrees C. Below and above that, it expands. When most liquids freeze, the entire substance reaches the freezing point, then as the stuff on the top, exposed to air, begins to freeze, it falls to the bottom. Soon the entire container is frozen. Water on the other hand, due to this property of having a max density at higher than its freezing point, forms layers. The surface freezes first, and then stays floating. This insulates the lower layers, which get warmer as you go down. If it weren’t for this, fish would not survive winters in ponds, microbes could not survive under the ice of antarctica, and life probably would not have had an opportunity to develop.

Water exists in numerous different phases, and has no less than 5 different liquid forms, and over 14 different solid forms. Its unique V shaped molecules have high levels of hydrogen bonding, meaning they can produce a dizzying array of crystalline structures, and can wedge itself into nearly any molecule to dissolve it. Proteins could not form the numerous different three dimensional shapes that they form in our bodies to perform their duties if it weren’t for water’s unique ability to become part of the structure. If it weren’t for water’s incredible ability to dissolve nearly any ionic compound, we wouldn’t have a mechanism for all the ion transfer reactions that support our cellular processes.

I could sit here and talk about the greatness of water all day, but why don’t you read for yourself! People have known it since the very beginning, and with each scientific discovery we only come closer to the inevitable conclusion. In the deepest reaches of the ocean, and buried far underground, life lives without oxygen, and without the light and heat of the sun, existing on minerals, methane and geothermal heat. It has even been theorized that life could exist without carbon. But nowhere does life go on without water. Water is life.

• Water structure and behavior – Very detailed explanations of water’s properties, including an interesting and detailed look at thirty-eight anomalous properties of water.
• The Floating Island – An interesting article about “Pykrete,” a substance formed from wood pulp and ice, that was investigated for use as a ship building material during WWII. Water’s unique properties would have made for some very interesting ships, had the plan come to fruition.

• Unfreezable Water – A short essay about some conditions where water might not freeze, including supercooling, hydration, and solutes.

  This is a ‘living entry’ that will be updated as I get new and interesting links!

On the way into work this morning I passed a garage sale, and my eagle eye spotted an Apple monitor amongst the merchandise. I almost stopped, but then realized that I would be late to work, so I sighed and drove on. On my way home from work, I remembered the sale, and saw it was still running. I pulled over, jumped off my scooter, and ran over to find that my suspicions were correct, and that there was indeed an Apple monitor for sale, and it still hadn’t been sold! $15 dollars later, I was the proud owner of an Apple Multiple Scan 20 monitor. Its 20”, and supports 1280×1024 at 75Hz. Score!

I also bought a nice Swiss Army laptop bag, which was also $15 and brand new (it still had its original product tag on it). Its a very durable and cool bag, and I’m sure I’ll find something good to do with it. I even picked up a pair of shoes I thought would fit Madalene, because they are pretty sweet shoes. However, they were a bit too small. No big deal, I’m sure we can find someone that they will fit, they are a women’s 6 1/2.

I had to scoot home and get the car in order to pick up the monitor, but it was worth it. 20” of goodness is now gracing my PC. I’ve got a bit of a quandary now, because I have a very nice Hitachi 19” monitor on my Mac, which supports great resolutions and looks wonderful, but now there is this multiple scan 20” which doesn’t support as high of resolutions, and doesn’t look quite as good, but is still larger. The higher resolutions of the Hitachi aren’t in use right now, because I don’t have a very good video card in the Mac, though I’m planning on getting one at some point. So which monitor goes on which computer? Well, for now, the 20” will stay on the PC, because the slightly larger size doesn’t fully account for the slightly lower visual quality. Also, I like to watch movies on the PC, to keep the Mac open for real work, and the larger monitor will look nice for that, despite the fact that it isn’t as well converged.

Either way, I’m happy.

Just to let everyone know, I’m not dead. Billy and I got back on Sunday afternoon from Schwagstock without incident. I proceeded to sleep for a very long time. The past few days have been interesting. It has been raining incredibly heavily, and our house even leaked a little bit. Its something I’ve been getting used to out here, weeks of endless precipitation.

I got a few beers in the mail. Through homebrewing forums, I hooked up with a guy who wanted to trade some beers he could get locally, for some beers I could get locally. I sent him a few New Belgium beers which he could not get on the east coast, and he sent me a few local brews he was proud of. It was a fun trade, and I got to try some interesting beers, a Yards Extra Special Ale, and a Flying Fish Dubbel that was quite charming.

I also received some scooter parts in the mail, which will help me improve the performance of my scooter a little bit. Not much, but a bit.

Today I worked 13 hours, starting at around 9ish this morning, and ending around 10pm. There was a whole day of gallery stuff that needed to be done, and then a special event in the evening where a group of salespeople had reserved the planetarium for dinner and drinks. I got to shuttle them up and down in our ‘star shuttle’ elevator, which is basically an elevator souped up with plasma displays, launch timers, scads of switches, controls and buttons, and a little speech I give where I describe our launch to the planetarium space station, and then our subsequent return to Earth. It is quite entertaining, but it gets tiring after a few hours.

On a plus note, I got a whole handful of glowing customer comment cards from my presentations today. I give short presentations about science to kids as part of my job, typically 4 a day, lasting around 15 to 20 minutes each. The presentations are stimulating, exciting, interactive and quite cool, if I do say so myself. There is a customer comment box next to the demo site, and when I emptied it out at the end of the day, it was full of cards from my shows. They were all 100% satisfaction, with great comments written in little kid handwriting that said things like, “Now I love sound more than I used to!” There was even one from an adult that said, “Great show, I’m really starting to appreciate the sounds we take for granted!” As you might have guessed, my shows for the day were about sound and vibrations. It feels good to know that people are getting something out of what I do. Its all simple stuff, with very little emphasis on facts or details. I try to make people love science as much as I do, make them love discovery, and the wonder of the universe around us. Science isn’t about facts or numbers or equations or laws. Science is about a willingness to open yourself to new possibilities and a desire to examine the truths we take for granted. The universe is a giant onion, and the act of peeling back a layer and seeing what’s underneath is a very special one, and its something I’m excited to be a part of, at least for a few kids a day. After you peel back a lot of layers, you eventually need numbers and equations in order to actually talk to people about it, because it has gotten very complex down there, but those are secondary to the actual peeling. You can peel a long way without needing a single equation. The end result of any scientific discovery is not an answer, it is not a solution. It is just a door to more questions. Science needs no ‘end goal’. The act of discovery is the reason. The journey is why we do it. The destination, if one even exists, is inconsequential. Enjoy the peeling.

Its like a story my dad told me once about a young monk who was trying to understand the universe. He went to his master and asked, “What is the true nature of the universe?” The master told him, “The universe is like an onion, as you peel back each layer, you arrive closer to the true meaning.” The young monk mediated on this, and was satisfied. But many years later, the monk was getting older, and getting very frustrated. He returned to his master and asked, “Master, I’ve been peeling back layers for many years, and I do not seem to understand any more than I did the day I first came to you! What is wrong?!” The master calmly replied, “Well, it is a very big onion.”

Billy and I are off to Schwagstock 18 today. It starts on Friday, but we’ll camp for fun for a few days. Since we are car camping anyway, we decided to go all out, and are bringing video projection equipment, computers, fancy decorative lights, homemade beer on tap, etc. The projection equipment will be fun, but don’t worry, we won’t be using it for TV or movies or anything, mostly to operate the computer for music (at times when bands aren’t playing) and for visualization programs. Very fun.

Anyway, we’ll be back on Sunday, so we’ll see you then!

Today I had to flee my house for 5 hours while a man came and sprayed deadly poison around my apartment complex. I drove to Dan and Caroline’s house, but no one was home, so I went to the UPS place and picked up a few packages. Then I went shopping. But I still had to wait two hours for my house to be safe enough to enter. I went back home, ran inside holding my breath, grabbed my umbrella and ran back out. Armed with the umbrella to protect me from the rain, I walked down to Cicero’s for a pint of Fat Tire. When I arrived and ordered my pint, about 3/4 of the pint got poured before the keg ran out. The bar-lady gave me the 3/4 pint and said, “Here, sip on this for a minute while I go change the keg.” I sipped on the mini-pint for a few minutes until she was able to go change out the keg, after which she poured me a full pint. I was only charged for one pint of course, which is one of the nice things about a friendly pub. If a keg runs out, you’ll probably be on the receiving end of some free beer. Of course, this means I drank more than I had been intending to. Good thing I walked. Then, having waited long enough to enter my home, I walked back, opened all the windows, and had some food.

I need to go over to Billy’s to test some video stuff for this weekend, and then I would like to go see Caroline and Dan and probably Barb over at Caroline’s place. However, the beer I consumed requires a delay, during which I will make this post and do other crap around the house until I am sober enough to drive to Billy’s. Oh yeah.

Recently my scooter has been acting up a bit. It was suffering from weak acceleration between 25 and 40 mph. The scooter would jump off the line nicely, but would slow down at around 25, and then crawl up to 40 mph. At 40 mph it would either make it up to 43 mph and then begin firm acceleration up to its top speed of around 60 mph, or it wouldn’t make it over 40, and just sit at that speed. Very frustrating.

After consulting with some experts, I pulled out the pneumatic tools and disassembled the transmission. The roller weights were a bit worn, though the belt and pulley surfaces were in good shape still. The culprit ended up being a large white spring called the contra-spring that controls the rear pulley’s tendency to close itself up. The spring had become a bit soft, negatively affecting the scooter’s acceleration at certain RPM ranges. I replaced it with a new white spring I had left over from my previous scooter, cleaned everything out inside the transmission, and gave it a test drive. Problem solved! I feel like I’m really starting to understand how this thing works. CVT transmissions, like those used in scooters and some Audi cars, are pretty complicated at first glance, but work as a very delicate system to control gear ratios. Unlike a traditional automatic transmission, there are no discrete gears, rather, the ratio adjusts itself smoothly based on speed and engine RPM by changing the shape of the pulleys. This allows the vehicle to stay in its most powerful and efficient engine power band all the time. I’m glad my scooter’s CVT is functioning properly.

In other news, Madalene will be returning from LA on tuesday evening. Berg was staying here last week to look for housing, so I wasn’t lonely, but today has been a bit boring. I worked on the scooter and got other good stuff done around the house, but I got used to having people around all the time. Last night I went out with Jen, Caroline and Barb to see Raiders of the Lost Ark which was showing as a midnight movie at the Tivoli theater near my house. I was quite the stud, taking three girls out with me on the town. Actually, its just that they pitied me and let me come along with them. It was Jen’s birthday even!

Next week I’ll be going to Schwagstock 18, a repeat of last year’s hippy-type music festival in the woods. Jam band style music isn’t my favorite, but I enjoy it live. Plus, the camping is very nice, and the weather promises to be fabulous. Realizing that this isn’t real camping in the backpacking sense (which is quite nice too), Billy and I decided to go all out this year. We have reserved a campsite with an electrical hookup (normally for RVs), and are bringing up crazy lighting equipment, a huge CRT video projector, a laptop computer for music and lighting control, and a set of speakers. When music isn’t being played on the stage, we can enjoy our own, and the lights and projector (used to display psychedelic patterns and fractals up into the trees) will provide the ambience. Its basically the kind of thing you get when you put a few audiovisual geeks in one place and let them loose.

We are going up two days early to enjoy the woods nearby and the excellent river swimming and mountain biking. We leave on Wednesday afternoon, and the festival itself is Friday and Saturday, with people leaving for home on Sunday. Want to come? We may have room in the van, let me know if you are interested in trucking with us.