Archive for February, 2010

Learnin’ Science!

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

At the CSU Little Shop of Physics:
Brian Jones

Brian is a physics professor at CSU and for the past 19 years he has been engaging students with demonstrations utilizing all sorts of physical phenomena. Apparently Jones talks a number of undergraduate CSU students into volunteering for this big scientific open house at the Lorry Student Center with more than 250 hands-on experiments and seven interactive presentations. “It’s a science party, and everyone’s invited,” said Jones, wearing a tie-dyed ‘Little Shop’ t-shirt that all his volunteers at the show wear as well.


A Short Video Presentation

There’s nothing like the smell of ozone in the Lorry Student Ballroom courtesy of a one-million volt Tesla coil!

Note 1: Nikola Tesla began research on energy transmission in Colorado in 1899.

Note 2: Today’s Tesla coils are mainly used as entertainment and educational displays.

Bike Lab

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Bikes on display at the Art Lab

Art of the Bicycle

Electric Bike

Fish Bike

Jet Bike

Panda Bike

Rust Bike

This is Your Brain on Music

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

And why music is so important

Music makes your brain glow

Music stimulates specific regions of the brain responsible for language, memory and motor control. If you want to know more about music and brain function, just ask this guy:

Dr. Michael Thaut

Dr. Thaut is the Administrative Director and Professor of Music and Neuroscience at the CSU School of the Arts. He was on-hand today to talk about the scientific foundations and clinical applications of rhythm and music and it’s effect on the brain.


It’s not just words and numbers!

Of course around tax time it seems like it’s all about numbers but like most people, it’s also time to perform a little ‘song and dance’ as well. It’s also important to sing the praises of the arts when appearing before the university administration during budget request time.


To Compose and Improvise

It’s something we all do up until the age of six. Then it gets pushed away to some dark place while we learn all that other ‘stuff’ in school.


The parts of the brain for artistic skills

“With the advent of modern cognitive neuroscience and its new tools of studying the human brain “live,” music as a highly complex, temporally ordered and rule-based sensory language quickly became a fascinating topic of study. By studying the physiology and neurology of brain function in music, we can obtain a great deal of knowledge about the perception of complex auditory sound stimuli; time perception and rhythm processing; the differential processing of music and language of two aural communication systems; biological substrates of learning versus innate talent in the arts; and processing of higher cognitive functions related to temporality and emotion. The main goal is to bring the knowledge in the arts and the sciences together and review systematically our current state of study about the brain and music, specifically in rhythm. “

Haiti Hugs

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

A benefit for an Haitian orphanage:


Vicki Pompea entertained the kiddos!

It was a fundraiser called “Hugs for Haiti” at the Catalyst Tap Room.


Thanks to Dawn Markley Webster for getting this whole thing together! You rock!

Weld Water

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

Near the Poudre trail south of Windsor:

Old signs

I believe it says “CAUTION BURIED WATER LINE”

Air valve

Or stand pipe, something of that nature. Is it part of the Greeley Air Valve system?

Wear your life vest?

It is best that you don’t try to scale the two sets of 8-foot high fences. Heck, even if you do have a life vest, some machine will catch one of the loose straps and grind you into powder! Or is that poudre?

Poudre river pipes

If you are into urban spelunking, this is probably not the best place to start.

Covered Vertical

Uncovered vertical

With some steps going down.  NO! Do not climb down those steps!

Chemical storage

This is for a water treatment facility (maybe the North Weld Facility) located across the river.  Also, maybe about a mile south-east of here is the location of an old Atlas E series intercontenental ballistic missile silo. SAY WHAT? Hey, I better go check that out!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Fat Tuesday at Maya Cove:
Bloco @ Mardi Gras

Bloco @ Mardi Gras
A Samba band from Fort Collins showed up

Samba bands are made for parades and Mardi Gras is a great event perfect for extremely loud marching drum bands! This past Tuesday the famous mobile percussion group ‘Bloco em Foco’ paraded through at least one bar in Fort Collins to help celebrate  in a festive way reminiscent of Bourbon Street complete with beads, masks and face paint. If you were not there, you missed out!

LOVE is in the Air, Still…

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

In Loveland, Colorado, the Sweetheart city:


Valentines Central

You can  go to this post office before Valentine’s Day and send a card to your honey. But you gotta be in Loveland to do it and you have to drop it in the special pink letter box or this won’t happen:

A stamp of a little Loveland cowboy cupid and a schmaltzy poem.

…and this cancellation stamp with hearts on it.

OK, that’s cool, I guess. But in Loveland, there’s more:

There are Signs of LOVE within the town!

Jill is a lucky woman!

x

LOL!

It this it?


Cat! Has John seen this?

Apparently it has been a 40 year tradition to hang wooden hearts on the lamp posts around Loveland during the month of February.  The Thompson Valley Rotary Club sells the signs which are painted by members of the Thompson Valley High School Honor Society with proceeds going to help various children’s charities.

Happy New Year (again)

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

It’s the Chinese New Year celebration at CSU!

comedyduo

With comedy provided by Dajiang Liu and Gen Li

The link above is a very short video of the comedy team getting a few laughs. It’s in Chinese, so I didn’t quite get it.

And the Waist Drum Dance and the Happy Baby children’s dance!

..and much, much more. There were magic shows and dragon lion dances and sword dances. An acrobatics show and of course little children singing and dancing.  And free tea, soft drinks and cookies at intermission! All for the non-student price of $2.oo !

Happy Two Year!

Friday, February 12th, 2010

This Blog is TWO YEARS OLD TODAY

If it looks smaller than you would expect, it’s because this blog was recently changed over from Blogger to WordPress.  The OLD ROADSIDE MYSTERIES is still there, but those pages will no longer be updated. If you want to take a look at the old blog you can click HERE.  If you got to this page by clicking on your bookmark, you were re-directed to this page. DON’T WORRY! All those old posts are still around floating in cyberspace someplace! Ha ha ha!

We are new to WordPress so we will be doing all sorts of things while we play with our new toys. It’s been lots ‘o fun so far, so you all have fun too!


Bird Video, Take 1

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Test imbedded post