The Physics Factory

4.24

This is the day we have all been waiting for: Science and Engineering Festival day one! I would be hard pressed to explain why it is that I am not always interested in chasing down details even if I am involved in the final version of a plan. All I am trying to introduce to you is that on Thursday I woke up, and found out that I was going to be riding the metro into the city with my step mom, and we were supposed to find our way to the convention center. Deal, no prob; I mean, I grew up in the grid system city of Tucson, so navigating DC (also grid) should have been a cinch. So, the two of us went out the door and made our way to where we would catch the Metro. After riding into the District with little or no effort, we emerge into the sunshine with little or no clue of what direction is north, south, east, whatever. Luckily, we looked exactly like the folks who needed a friendly push in the right direction, and that is just what happened: two seconds after looking up and down each street, someone nearby says “The convention center is that way.” Perfect, but my pride wasn't thrilled that someone knew I was a tourist seconds after getting out of the Metro.

We made it to the Walter Washington Convention Center with no further trouble, and pretty soon the rush of activity took the day away. We had the opportunity to give two separate performances, which were now being called workshops. The small difference between a workshop and a show is just the amount of time you take to explain how members of the audience might find themselves in our shoes: “We're not the myth busters,” my Dad explained, “you can try this at home.” The workshops went very well. In both of these separate cases the three of us got into a finely tuned rhythm, and the additional questions from the audience gave us the chance to provide greater depth than what we have become accustomed to. The only noteworthy punctuation between one show and the other was our Indian food lunch break: each of us was soon stuffed to the gills, and their curry was the perfect level of too hot to handle.

---

Tasty bits:

I had heard about the DC film festival while I was at the Embassy last night, so today I went off in search of some quality cinema. Just three city blocks from the convention center, I found the Goethe Institut where they were showing the film Cairo Drive. This is a must see Egyptian slice of life all done in the backseats of cars suffering from traffic in Cairo. Don't knock it till you try it.