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Mostly the Weekend
Apr. 10th, 2018 01:16 pmCelebrity Death Watch: Cecil Taylor was a jazz pianist. Isao Takahata was a film director and producer and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. Eric Bristow was a hall-of-fame darts player. Donald McKayle was a Tony-award winning choreographer. Chuck McCann was an actor, including being the voice of the Cocoa Puff’s Cuckoo Bird. Daniel Akaka was the first person of native Hawaiian ancestry to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Soon-Tek Oh was an actor, most famous for voicing a character in Mulan. But his greater significance was in theatre. He played Tamate (yes, a woman) in the original Broadway production of Pacific Overtures. And, most importantly, he was one of the founders of East West Players, which has provided a lot of theatre opportunities for Asian-Americans, both as performers and writers / producers.
Baseball: The Red Sox are off to a great start, having won all their games after an opening day loss. Tonight, they start a three-game series against the Source of All Evil in the Universe. Yeah, I know, it’s only April, but I do love my Bosox. (I am, however, always worried about their bullpen.)
By the way, I don’t pay as much attention to the National League, since they don’t control the state of the world in the same way, but the Mets are also off to a great start.
Don’t Interpret This Dream: I was standing with some other people next to a river and it was really windy. Somebody said, "since we’re in Arkansas, we should go and visit the Gales."
Note: When I am awake, I know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas.
Speaking of Dreams: I read something recently that suggested that having dreams is a good indicator of the quality of your sleep. I don’t think I sleep particularly well, but I do dream regularly. Most mornings, I remember one or two dreams, though I tend to forget them within a half hour of waking up unless I either make a point of remembering bizarre aspects. Or, of course, write them down.
USA Science and Engineering Festival: I spent Saturday afternoon volunteering at the USA Science and Engineering Festival at the Convention Center. My assignment was as a Social Media Coordinator, which meant that I was positioned next to a large backdrop with a picture of a diver and a shark and encouraged people to take photos in front of it and hashtag them appropriately. In practice, much of my time was spent on two other things – directing people to various areas and keeping people from stealing the props we had for their pictures. The signs did not make it obvious that you had to walk through Hall D to get Hall E, where the Ocean area and NASA’s exhibit were. And there were a lot of people who wanted to meet a robot down in Hall B, which was downstairs. The staff member for our area yelled at us that we weren’t an info booth, but we were actually in exactly the right place to be one, since we were just outside the entrance to Halls D and E. (The official info booth was deep in Hall D.) And providing information was listed as one of the responsibilities on the sheet we had gotten when signing up.)
As for the props, we had things like silly glasses, a cut-out of a snorkel, an octopus, and so on. We also had signs people could hold up. The most popular one was one saying "Seas the Day." We also got several takers for "Feeling Fin-Tastic," including two little boys named Finn. Overall, it was reasonably fun, though I was exhausted by the end of the five-hour shift. I’m an ambivert and that’s a pretty good stretch of extrovert time.
I had only a little time to walk through the exhibits, so I don’t have anything to say about them. It was very crowded, which is a good thing. I should also note that my company did not have an exhibit. They have in past years, so that was disappointing to me.
JGSGW: There was a double meeting on Sunday for the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington. I wasn’t particularly interested in the afternoon session (on crypto-Jews) but I went to the morning section on genetic genealogy. I’ve found DNA testing to be a source of frustration, largely due to Ashkenazi endogamy. That is, coming from a population where cousins married, our relationships look closer than they are. While non-Jews end up with a couple of hundred matches, Ashkenazim end up with thousands. I don’t really have 18,000 cousins. At any rate, the speaker did a good job on the basics and explained the various tests well. I think my next step might be to upgrade my brother’s results, but there are also other family members I should get tested. As always, I really need to get more organized.
Soon-Tek Oh was an actor, most famous for voicing a character in Mulan. But his greater significance was in theatre. He played Tamate (yes, a woman) in the original Broadway production of Pacific Overtures. And, most importantly, he was one of the founders of East West Players, which has provided a lot of theatre opportunities for Asian-Americans, both as performers and writers / producers.
Baseball: The Red Sox are off to a great start, having won all their games after an opening day loss. Tonight, they start a three-game series against the Source of All Evil in the Universe. Yeah, I know, it’s only April, but I do love my Bosox. (I am, however, always worried about their bullpen.)
By the way, I don’t pay as much attention to the National League, since they don’t control the state of the world in the same way, but the Mets are also off to a great start.
Don’t Interpret This Dream: I was standing with some other people next to a river and it was really windy. Somebody said, "since we’re in Arkansas, we should go and visit the Gales."
Note: When I am awake, I know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas.
Speaking of Dreams: I read something recently that suggested that having dreams is a good indicator of the quality of your sleep. I don’t think I sleep particularly well, but I do dream regularly. Most mornings, I remember one or two dreams, though I tend to forget them within a half hour of waking up unless I either make a point of remembering bizarre aspects. Or, of course, write them down.
USA Science and Engineering Festival: I spent Saturday afternoon volunteering at the USA Science and Engineering Festival at the Convention Center. My assignment was as a Social Media Coordinator, which meant that I was positioned next to a large backdrop with a picture of a diver and a shark and encouraged people to take photos in front of it and hashtag them appropriately. In practice, much of my time was spent on two other things – directing people to various areas and keeping people from stealing the props we had for their pictures. The signs did not make it obvious that you had to walk through Hall D to get Hall E, where the Ocean area and NASA’s exhibit were. And there were a lot of people who wanted to meet a robot down in Hall B, which was downstairs. The staff member for our area yelled at us that we weren’t an info booth, but we were actually in exactly the right place to be one, since we were just outside the entrance to Halls D and E. (The official info booth was deep in Hall D.) And providing information was listed as one of the responsibilities on the sheet we had gotten when signing up.)
As for the props, we had things like silly glasses, a cut-out of a snorkel, an octopus, and so on. We also had signs people could hold up. The most popular one was one saying "Seas the Day." We also got several takers for "Feeling Fin-Tastic," including two little boys named Finn. Overall, it was reasonably fun, though I was exhausted by the end of the five-hour shift. I’m an ambivert and that’s a pretty good stretch of extrovert time.
I had only a little time to walk through the exhibits, so I don’t have anything to say about them. It was very crowded, which is a good thing. I should also note that my company did not have an exhibit. They have in past years, so that was disappointing to me.
JGSGW: There was a double meeting on Sunday for the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington. I wasn’t particularly interested in the afternoon session (on crypto-Jews) but I went to the morning section on genetic genealogy. I’ve found DNA testing to be a source of frustration, largely due to Ashkenazi endogamy. That is, coming from a population where cousins married, our relationships look closer than they are. While non-Jews end up with a couple of hundred matches, Ashkenazim end up with thousands. I don’t really have 18,000 cousins. At any rate, the speaker did a good job on the basics and explained the various tests well. I think my next step might be to upgrade my brother’s results, but there are also other family members I should get tested. As always, I really need to get more organized.
