ClubJuggler

This is an awesome video of They Might Be Giants covering the song Tubthumping by the band Chumbawamba. (If you don’t see the embedded video, click the link to get to the original location for the video.)

They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

So, apparently last weekend at a Paul Simon concert, a fan named Rayna Ford yelled out a song she wanted Paul to play. Now, there’s nothing unusual about that. Fans at concerts do that all the time. Rayna however, also added that she had learned to play the guitar on the particular song she was requesting. What makes this story awesome, though, is what Paul Simon did then. He actually invited her up on stage, gave her his guitar, and had her play the song! How totally awesome is that? See the video Once she gets over the shock of being invited on stage, then being handed Paul Simon’s guitar, then having him encourage her to play the song, and then realizing that the rest of the band is playing along with her (!) she manages a pretty decent rendition of the song (or so I assume, since I’ve never actually heard the song before). Anyway, that’s got to be one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. Mad props to Paul Simon for making one fan’s day!

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

With Janell’s knee recovering from ACL surgery there’s no way we could do this right now, but next year I’d love to learn how to do this:

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

My son’s elementary school, Central Park School for Children started a program three years ago called Peaceful Schools that tackles bullying from a holistic perspective. My son’s teacher recently went on ABC 11 to talk about the program:

From a parent perspective, I really like the program. We haven’t had any problems at all with bullying at my son’s school and this program is a big reason for that. Right now it’s only at Central Park School and the Carolina Friends school, but it looks like they are looking to expand the program soon. I, for one, would be all for it.

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

Drawing of Orion Nebula

I took my telescope out for a bit this evening and managed to get a good view of the moon, the stars Betelgeuse and Sirius, and M42 (also known as the Orion Nebula). I managed to get a very nice view of the Orion Nebula and I decided to make a sketch of what I saw. This is from a 6 inch f/8 Newtonian reflector with a 12.4mm lens. I could clearly see the Trapezium (the four stars in the center of the nebula). Unfortunately, since this was in my front yard, and because we have a streetlight right next to our house (!), I was only able to see a bit of the nebula (the shaded in area) and all of it greyscale. At some point, I need to get the motor on my equatorial mount working so that I can try my hand a deep space astrophotography.

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

In the “Truth is Stranger than Fiction” category comes word yesterday from NASA that thunderstorms produce anti-matter! See the video for a better explanation.

Apparently, I forgot to post anything about various woodworking projects I did this past year.

First off, I built a bench for our foyer to hold all the various shoes that piled up there:

Then, I built an electric train table for my son:

Finally, I made a couple of end grain cutting boards I gave as gifts (one to a friend on her birthday and another to my mom at Christmas):

A few weeks ago, I also made a set of shelves to fit our VCR that got displaced when we got a new TV recently. I don’t yet have pictures for that but I’ll post some later when I take them.

Now I’m wondering what woodworking project I should tackle next.

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

So, lately it seems that I can’t talk about anything else. So, why change.

Here’s a video I did late last week with Nate Johnson of WRAL about the balloon launch that we did. This was recorded the day before we found our first balloon.

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

A vigorous debate: is Fox News “evil” or simply “stupid”?

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

We have gotten quite a bit more press coverage than I had anticipated. Here’s a list of what I know of so far:

• News and Observer: Raleigh balloon hobbyists aim for stratosphere
• News and Observer: Triangle group takes snapshot from near space
• We made the front page of the News and Observer yesterday
• WRAL: Triangle group enters competition to capture horizon on film
• WNCT in Greeneville, NC: Space Balloon Launch from NC
• News 14 had a segment on us, but I can’t find it online.
• WUNC had a brief mention of us on the news yesterday, but again I cannot find it online.

And, here’s video from a segment on WRAL’s 6pm news yesterday evening:

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.