Work or Play?

I wanted to give everyone a taste of what I do on a regular basis, so here are some images from a recent show I developed about Superheroes.

For a discussion of Wonder Woman and how she bends light, a laser shining through a 2L bottle and into a falling stream of water. Instead of continuing through the stream, the laser reflects off of the edges and remains trapped in it. I'm holding my hand in the stream, where you can see the dot from the laser pointer. The second photograph highlights that even better.

This detail shows the laser beam reflecting off the stream right after it exits the hole. You can see the second reflection as a vertical green line shortly before the water starts to fall.

Relatedly, here is my hand in a Rochester Invisibility Cloak. It's a four lens setup that bends light (hence the related portion) around objects so that you can see the background behind the object. You can see the soft horizon across the upper part of the lens.

 And the last one in our repertoire is pyrex lab equipment in vegetable oil. In the animation below I'm dipping a test tube into the oil. Because the oil bends the light at the same angle as the pyrex lab equipment the pyrex appears to...disappear when dipped into the vegetable oil.

My final stop in our virtual tour is the fire piston. It's a tube setup that can ignite kindling when the air inside is compressed quickly.  

First Day of Summer in Austin

Yesterday was the last day of school, which means today is the first day of summer vacation! It also means that I have way too much chocolate as that seems to be the most popular thank you gift for teachers. This one I thought was especially cute, and don't worry, none of it will go to waste :).

My plans for next year are still unknown. The position I am currently in is being cut to half time, so I will definitely be doing something different. I have applied to two middle schools in Austin that have open orchestra director positions. Murchison (my current school) suggested I teach .5 orchestra and .5 band for them. Since I have already signed a contract, I will have a full time job, but I may be at a different campus or even multiple campuses. We shall see.

James is at a convention in Nashville, TN. Hopefully, it gives him a chance to rejuvenate a little bit as he has been really busy at work. The last month has been full of interviews and negotiations as he filled the three vacant positions in his office. Once he gets back from Tennessee he will be training new staff members and eventually reducing his work load back to one person's job from the two or three he has been covering :).

We will be heading to Denver at the end of June to tour the local breweries, camp and hike in Rocky Mountain National Park, and explore the Mile-High City. I was just reading about the campground we will be staying in... they have bear lockers to house food overnight... this should be fun...

Rimsky loves boxes!

My first project for the summer was to assemble our new chairs. Of course, I had lots of help from the kitties! 

Duncan explored each new piece as it was added :).

It wasn't long before Rimsky joined Duncan.

Final setup, whew! Now we have a few more seats for when family and friends visit, yay!

 Happy summer to everyone! Hope to see you all soon!

Not too late....in Pacific Standard Time

Greetings from a splendid solace in Seattle!

Those you who truly know me, you will know that I am not a huge fan of boats.  Particularly, I do not ever remember having interest in joining the Cruise Ship trend nor do I have any plans for that in the future.  But, when a Orca is involved....you never know what might happen.

I'm getting ahead of myself.  I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change closed on May 3rd after selling out 7 of 8 performances.  That is nothing sort of amazing.  Though, I must say I was extremely proud of the work that was done on the stage.  I think with these visuals, you'll agree that something right happened.

For those of you who weren't able to make it, it was downright hysterical.  Thanks to all of you who made time to see the production.  Your support means a lot.

I've been mostly playing catch up since the show closed but I finally took some time to myself and am in the middle of a vacation in Washingston state.  Here are some pictures from the Whale Watching trip that I took today with my friend Estelle Cowie who joined me from her home in Alaska.

A female orca whale of J-Pod

The Male Orca of J-Pod "Mike"

Needless to say, it is some much needed time off.  I'll be around Hutchinson for the summer and I am looking forward to enjoying some quality time at Double K.  Happy summer!

Signs of Spring and other things

Spring has finally arrived along with some rain.  It rained all day on Saturday and today again it is a beautiful day.  There are so many beautiful flowers this year-decided to just share a few pictures.  The birds have been quite plentiful too.  Grandpa and I spend a lot of time bird watching.  The one below is an oriole.  We have had two kinds of  woodpeckers, brown thrasher, American finches, several kinds of dovesand others.

Iris

Mothers Day supper at the Shooks

Playing with Aunt Vicki's toys.

Some of Grandpa's roses.

And last but not least. A squirrel that I befriended when he was  a baby appears by my feet periodically for his hand-out