Where Does the Time Go?

The last two weeks sure went fast (at least in blog years). The nasty head cold that I'd been dodging all winter while people fell to my left and to my right finally caught me (and most of my family). With perfect timing, it came just before we were to receive a Japanese student to stay with us for five days. We took a lot of vitamins and Echinacea and green tea, and prayed. She arrived today, and is a total sweetheart. I know we're going to want to adopt her.

A week ago, the high school wrestling team had its annual end-of-season banquet. To my immense relief, someone else produced a video of season highlights, so I didn't have to. To my immense pride, my daughter Lexi (a graduating senior) received the Coach's Award for outstanding contribution to the team. She was taken completely by surprise, because she hadn't had a winning season. But the coach gave a very moving tribute to her hard work and discipline, and her willingness to compete head-on in a sport completely dominated by boys. It was a great moment.

I wrote a while back about the impressive work that Star Trek fans were doing in creating all-new Star Trek episodes. It seems that the producers of Battlestar Galactica have noticed all the fan activity, also, and have decided to facilitate it. They've created a video toolkit of special effects, sounds, etc., that anyone can use to produce their own four-minute BSG spinoffs. They've even got a couple of samples up. They're running a competition, and the winning piece will be shown along with an actual BSG episode. (Speaking of which, I'm a few weeks behind in watching, so don't anyone post any spoilers about what happened to Starbuck in the next-to-last episode!)

Finally, here's another interesting link, courtesy of my wife:

How about a dance club that's built their dance floor on top of piezoelectric elements, so that the bouncing of the dance steps provides the electricity to power the club? Go to http://www.inhabitat.com/, and scroll down a little ways to Sustainable Dance Club for a short video. Gotta dance!