Ball Pit Mania!

This has nothing to do with us, but it was just too good not to share :-) The picture above is of an actual ball pit in an apartment. The people decided to buy playground balls and a cage to contain them instead of a new couch (seriously). I am deeply jealous and want a ball pit of my own! There is only one problem: my wife.

You see, Jen was never allowed to go in the ball pit as a child. Her mom didn't want her playing in the gross germs that inevitably get all over the balls. While this makes perfect rational sense, it is hard to reconcile with my fond memories of diving, swimming, and lounging in the balls in the ginormous play areas. Given our different experiences, it is not surprising that we have differing opinions about the ball pits.

However, it is still a really cool idea and gets 100 bonus points for originality! And once they figure out how to wash the balls efficiently, I am so getting a ball pit... if Jen lets me ;-)

Wired NextFest in LA

What a whirlwind, wonderful weekend! Jen and I had a great time exploring the frontiers of technology at the WIRED NextFest in Los Angeles, CA. Didn't know we were going? Neither did we until earlier in the week!

Jen was in LA all last week for more safety training with the Air Force. (She really liked the class and is enjoying all of the neat stuff she is learning at all of these various training courses.) Her plans were to come back to FL Friday night. I was planning to be out and about with Zero G flying teachers all over the east coast during the week [vid link] and then going to a personal development weekend in Sarasota (part of my Landmark Wisdom course).

I have wanted to go to NextFest for the past few years, but I have always been out of the country with SGC. Since we decided not to go to India this year, I realized this was my golden opportunity to attend!! Jen looked over the NextFest website and was excited to go too. Here's what we did: I flew out of Dulles on Friday as planned, but instead of Sarasota I went to LA! Jen changed her flight plans and stayed over an extra night in LA. We rode the Metro bus to save $$ and experience more of the real culture of Los Angeles. It was a great experience! I now understand why many people in the city don't have cars.

NextFest was a GREAT showcase of all kinds of entertainment, robotics, health, home, automotive, and space technologies. My favorites were the real human heart valve grown in a lab without stem cells and the living grass roof on the model home. Check out the pictures [here] for more neat stuff we saw and did, including the cute little restaurant we found while wandering the streets of LA.

Instead of flying out of LAX with Jen on Saturday night, I took the FlyAway bus up to Van Nyus, California for yet another Zero G flight! Turns out they needed a Flight Attendant and I was available--and close! Things worked out great.

This week it's back to work for both of us here in FL. Jen's birthday is this Tuesday (call her!) and we plan to have dinner with Mom. Things should be calm... until I head out to Las Vegas for another Zero G flight on Saturday and then off to Atlanta to make up the Wisdom course weekend.

We lead a crazy, fast, unexpected, improbable, absolutely blessed, fun and exciting life! Thanks for being on the journey with us :-)

Quick check-in

It's been almost a month and TONS of stuff has happened! We'll get a recap up soon. In the mean time, check out some new pictures on our Picasa site and this video of my mom, now available on YouTube.

Random Musings

I'll skip the formal blog entry and any justification or organization for this list:

• [link] transcript of Stephen Hawking's presentation about his life before his ZERO-G flight
• [link] a cool space-themed t-shirt from Amorphia Apparel
• [link] a paper airplane shirt from NekkidTees
• [link] lunar politics tee
• [link] hilarious flight attendant t-shirt from Defunker
• [link] Facebook. I'm addicted, and you should be too.
  
• [link] a comic about stoplights
• [link] NPR space podcasts
• [link] awesome pic of a kid looking at Earth
• [link] the place I keep all my bookmarks, tagged for easy searching