Science on a sphere

So Heidi had this great idea. We just got the Science on a Sphere installed at the Museum's planetarium and she thought it would be a cool April Fool's day prank to hang a model of the Enterprise (NCC-1701A thank you very much - D? As if ! But I digress)

What? You don't know what Science on a Sphere is? Ahhh. OK. It's this 5-foot diameter, er, sphere, that has four computers with projectors placed around it. The computers each throw up an image onto the sphere and animate it. The possibilities are limited to whatever picture you have that would look good on a sphere and is twice as long as wide (360° by 180°).

• Satellite weather photos


• Images of Mars


• Maps of the Moon


• Worldwide precipitation


• Plate tectonic boundaries

So back to Heidi's idea. Hang a Star Trek model and play music from the ORIGINAL SERIES. Well, only one place in town had a model of the correct version of the Enterprise (Star Trek: The Movie? C'mon!) but unfortunately it was $60 and 150 pieces (read: hard). So we procrastinated until we (ok, me) made an executive decision to change directions (see below).

April Fools

Yes complete with:

• Millenium Falcon


• T.I.E. Fighters


• Super Laser (the antenna thingie that shoots the death ray - found out that's the actual name - as names go it's Super LAME-er - heh)


• Soundtrack (Imperial March natch) with SW quotes




• "I've got a bad feeling about this"


• "It's time to demonstrate the full power of this station..set your course for Alderan"


• EEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW (T.I.E. Fighter zooming about)


• "That's no moon. That's a space station"

It was a pretty big hit though I'm not sure that people got that we were doing something out of the ordinary. Seems that actaully realizing that what you are seeing is a prank is pretty much the basic requirement of a prank. *Sigh* There's always next year.

Lizards creep on our papaya tree

This is not a code or trigger for secret black ops. Lizards creep on our papaya trees all day long.

OK. Here's the trigger words: Celebrate the birthday on the 7th with a red candle.

The kids new bed

The rain

Friday March 31 - 42nd day of rain - visibility 60 yards

Take a look at Dave's pic here.

Here's a picture of the INSANE water flow on the Big Island.

Waterfalls on the Pali Highway

I took Jacob on our usual trip to naptime up the Pali Highway on Sunday and counted dozens of waterfalls that I've never seen before. One literally took my breath away - a huge twisting spray of water at least 200 feet high.

I thought "I gotta turn around and grab a camera from home and get back up here!".

Then the water got higher on the road....and the rocks were football size in the road....and the water got higher...and the trees had branches falling off...and I was really happy to get home safely and stay there.

January was sunny - visibility 60 miles

(Pre)School Uniforms

Beards for all !

Rain = mosquitoes

Assembly begins

So we didn't do the Star Trek model, but I was in the model store and they had everything. I have never seen such a collection of models - planes I've never even heard of (Bf-109 T? T!?! WTH?). So I did what I haven't done in probably 30 years...

Bought the smallest easiest model of my favorite WWII fighter - the Spitfire.

OK. Not my favorite variant. It's the Mark I and I'm more partial to the Mark VIII but they didn't have it in my size (ie. small & easy).

Camouflage painted

Decals added

Completed model !