Science After Hours: The Nerd Olympics
Friday night after work I attended an event at The Franklin Institute here in the phine (fine) city of Philadelphia. It was nearly one of the best nights of my life. I really did just have SO much fun. Or, as they say here in Philadelphia... That jawn was the jawn.
In that sentence the first jawn indicates what was the jawn... "That jawn" was The Nerd Olympics. The second jawn indicates what the jawn was. So "The jawn" is substituted for cool. That event was cool. But if you're in Philly you just say jawn was the jawn and people know what you mean.
So for example if you want sauce and fried onions on your cheesesteak... you say... put some jawn on that jawn... they know what you mean.
{The Arrival}
I left work at 5, made a pit stop at home to eat a quick meal I had prepared the night before and to feed my cats/give them their nightly meds. I changed out of my work getup and fired up the engine on my 2012 Honda Fit. The service indicator light also fired up, it did that yesterday morning on my way to work. I plan to take my car to the dealer for service on Monday as I'll be off from work in exchange for working today (Saturday). It needs a few things... Oil change, tire rotation, inspection, emissions, the LED light for the rear defroster won't come on with the night time lights, and finally, there's an airbag recall. So, I'll be there bright and early Monday morning to fix what I can have fixed/serviced and schedule a follow up for the rest that needs to be done. It's weird because I've been driving the car for years thinking my airbag is PERFECTLY safe... Turns out it's not. It could deploy incorrectly and cause more harm than good in an accident. Scary stuff! So, that needs to be fixed ASAP.
I parked my car at one of my two usual spots for the area of the city that the Franklin Institute is in. If you don't mind walking a mile each way--which is only about 15 to 20 minutes really, so it's not bad--you can park in one of two little sweet spots for the whole night without paying an astronomical amount of money for a parking garage. Spot number one is by the Eastern State Penitentiary. The entire circumference is a giant parking lot really. There's usuauly a spot there somewhere. The other is anywhere on Sedgley Drive off of Kelly Drive. From there it's a hop skip and a jump away to the Art Museum. And about a mile to the Franklin Institute. I parked there last night. The walk from my car to the Franklin Institute was about a mile, or 20 minutes. The walk back is well lit and there are nice wide pathways to walk on, so you don't have to run in and out of traffic.
I was instructed in my email to use the main entrance off 20th street. When I arrived there were many others also streaming in off the street. We were instructed to have our ID and tickets ready. I had my ID out and my ticket loaded up on my phone so that I could expedite the process as I was anxious to get inside!
The giant stone steps led me and others up into the main entrance of the building, exactly how I remember it from when I went on a class trip as a little kid.
Once inside things got crazy. There were booths setup with experiments and shows. It was a bit like a science fair. Or at least the science fairs you see in the movies. The little welcome table held the official ceremonial torch.
I decided, like many others, to head to the drinks stand first. It's like a wedding. We're just programmed to go right for the bar.
It's a 20/30 somethings thing I think.
{Step one, get booze}
Got my beer.
I went back over to the welcome table and picked out my team... History. Why the History team you ask? It just seemed like a cool team to join. The teams were really all made up. Like there are no scores or points. It's a bit like Who's Line Is It Anyways... There's no real score. So it was just something for fun... Kind of like an ice breaker. You walk around and if you see someone else with your team... You say hello. You had an instant connection.
Associations are strange like that. That's like... any organization that you belong to or might have belonged to. If you cross paths with someone that is in the same organization as you were... But you're with a lot of people that are NOT.... You instantly bond.
Let's say you were in another country and you found someone that went to your college... They even were in your same residence hall.
Instantly you feel warm fuzzes for each other. It's like...
"NO WAY!"
"WAY DUDE."
"NO."
"YES."
"YES... WAY!"
"NO WAY!!!!!!"
You went to the same summer camp as kids maybe... Or you went to the same... anything as kids. Sharing something in the past together is almost like you're family it seems.
Or they worked with you in the past. For some reason we like associations with things. Maybe it builds trust? You're one of me. You're in my club. I imagine any sociology department at any college probably has a class on it as part of their curriculum.
Back to the teams... The choices were
-Sci-Fi
-Gaming
-Fantasy
-History
-Sports
I thought, well I'm not big on Sci-Fi. I don't really watch Dr. Who or Star Trek or Star Wars. I know enough to get pop culture references but that's about it.
I don't watch sports.
I'm not a video game player... And I'm not much of a D and D type player either.
Fantasy maybe... I'm writing fiction and I also like to read fantasy books... So that was a close second.
I did enjoy almost every History class that I've ever taken. And I love to know the history of things, buildings. I love old art and buildings and old antique things... I love to know about the people of the past. I love to know where objects came from and their lifelines and all that stuff...
I'm certainly no history buff... But I think it's important to know the past and to know how things got the way they did.
Keep perspective. If there is no history.... The Franklin Institute is just a name. Who is Franklin? Why was it named that in the first place?
That's most of Philly. There's a rich history in Philadelphia.
History shows growth. It shows development. If you listen to early recordings of a rock star versus new ones... Can you tell improvement? If you read old writing... over new. Is it significantly different?
Compare and contrast. Is your work doing things better than they have in the past? History is there. I look at logs and ticket history at my job to see what work has been done on something and what things have been tried to resolve the issue so as not to repeat those actions.
Where did you come from? Where are you going? History!
After choosing my team I took a photo with the torch. I then downloaded the Scavify app from the app store and signed up for an account. I used their special code word to find the scavenger hunt. I only ended up getting about a half dozen things on the list. It was still fun though! I had 55 points when it finished as opposed to the leader with 155.
It was cool though, you could see who had how many points in real time. You could also see things like the photos that people had to take... For example you had to take a picture with the giant heart, and a selfie with Ben Franklin. Some of the stuff was pretty hilarious.
Real time social media is definitely the future of things. Real time use of social media but in things where people are also physically AT the space where the event is taking place.
I'm actually surprised that Facebook hasn't made a feature where you can see who is around you. Like see people you know, you might know, and people you have no mutual friends with that are currently also at the same event as you are.
I feel like it won't be long until Facebook implements some sort of feature like that. Facebook IRL (in real life). See who's around you.
I started my Scavify scavenger hunt while in line waiting to check out a science-y thing. In line... Online. I answered a couple of questions that were just general trivia.
They had all kinds of booths. Virtual reality. An old theremin. I had to ask the person operating the theremin what year the first one was built as part of the scavenger hunt. Rockets that launched after combining chemicals together. There were of course all the standard Franklin Institute exhibits. They had special shows. I missed some of the stuff. There was just TOO much to do. WAY too much to do. But it was fun.
I bought a second beer from an upstairs smaller little bar. They actually had a number of different places to purchase drinks. They even accepted credit card. So, I could get cashback on my purchase. Take the couple of penny's I got from my cashback on the beer I bought and invest that into a penny stock.
Or not a penny stock since I don't invest in anything that doesn't pay dividends. But I'll add it to my other dividends to eventually invest in a new stock to add to my growing stock portfolio.
I walked around and talked to different people randomly. Some had on full costumes. Super hero costumes. A girl had on box of Nerds. SO many witty things. Someone screamed at me... DROSOPHILA! And I screamed back. YOOOOO!!!!!
In every twist and turn of the way there were small booths to stop at. One had a create your own comic thing. Another had a sensory experience of the 5 senses. Another was a dance thing.
There was a giant robot that I ran into... Or... as I learned, it's a Dalek. From Dr. Who. I took an Instagram with it.
I made my way down to see a cover band in the Fels Planetarium after finding out the name of the pendulum. I never knew it had a name.
The cover band was hilarious. They actually weren't a cover band... They took the themes to various science fiction movies and super hero movies and added their own words. It was pretty funny stuff.
{Silence please! We're at the disco.}
From there I found the silent disco. This was BY FAR my favorite thing. The silent disco was, probably, the most popular thing there. By the end of the night EVERYONE had ended up there. It was in the train room. People were dancing all over the place.
With the headphones on you could hear what everyone else on that channel could hear. With the headphones off... You were standing in a room full of people dancing... To no music.
In addition there were multiple channels to choose from. If you didn't like the song playing... Flip the switch. The headphones changed color to indicate who was listening to what.
So if you saw Green, you danced with a Green eared person. If you saw a Blue eared person... You knew they were listening to that channel.
And then if you were on Blue and everyone started freaking out on Green. You switched over to find out what song they were going bananas about.
There was a third Red channel but it was only silence. Who knows... maybe they had it playing in a frequency that is outside the human hearing spectrum. It IS a science museum after all. I wouldn't put it past them.
It was super cool because if you wanted to talk to someone, you just took the headphones off. You didn't have to yell into their ear over the loud club music.
"WHAT?!?!"
"I SAID HEY!"
"OKAY?"
"NO HEY!"
"OAT HAY?"
"NO NOT OAT HAY. I SAID HEY!"
"ROLLING GOATS GOT BREAD EH?"
"JUST FORGET IT!"
"YEAH, I LIKE THIS BAND TOO! THE 'ROLLING GOATS GOT BREAD EH?' BAND. GREAT BAND! I LOVE THIS TRACK... JUST FORGET IT! YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO TELL ME THOUGH, I ALREADY HAVE THEIR ALBUM!"
Then you both just give an awkward thumbs up.
In the silent disco you can just take off the headphones...
"Look at that person over there."
"Wait where..."
"Jeans and yellow shirt. Look at what they--"
"Ohhhhh haha yeah. I saw that earlier."
"That jawn is classic."
"That jawn is the jawn."
"Yeah it is."
And the two of them high five and put their headphones back on and keep on dancing.
You got me feeling hella good so let's just keep on dancing.
And the people you're talking about can't hear you talking about them, which could be good or bad. It definitely adds to it. Then you take your headphones off and you're like...
"What did you guys say! TELL ME!!!!"
And they just put their head phones back and laughing.
The headphones cover the ears too so you're totally in the world of the music that is playing.
When it ended everyone complained unanimously with the same exclamation.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!
I found out that the organization is called Silent Philly. I'm going to check out more events from them and go to more silent discos. One of my biggest issues with traditional DJ and speaker setups, is that I usually put ear plugs in because it's just too damn loud.
With a silent disco... You control the volume. You put the headphones on and take them off to talk to people. There's no yelling in ears. It's just like a room full of people when you take the headphones off.
When you have the headphones on... It's like you're in the groove because everyone is hearing the same song at the same time. So you can dance together.
Well... Once the music cut off everyone was told to head for the exit.
{The Exit}
And that concluded my Evening Program for the week.
As I was leaving, I was talking and walking with a girl... But she had to go right and I had to go left. She didn't hesitate... She just kept on her way. I guess if she had hesitated I probably would have maybe asked for her number or something like that. But it was just... "It was nice chatting! I'm this way. Have a safe drive home."
And off she went.
And off I went.
The outside of the event reminded me a little of this thing at summer camp where I got the Evening Program term from called Traffic Circle.
The way Traffic Circle works is... mostly an administrative thing. But it has a camp culture significance to it. What happens is after EP... half the counselors that are on duty stay inside to do this break down thing... And the other half go outside to watch the campers for 15 minutes in... The traffic circle in front of the lodge.
Why can't the kids just go back to the cabin? Because half the counselors are off for the night. Every night they alternate. Since half the counselors of the ones that ARE on duty are inside cleaning up... that doesn't leave a counselor for every cabin. Or enough of them. Can't have campers alone in the cabin without supervision.
For example... If you have 2 counselors in a cabin. And 1 is off the for the night and not on camp property... that leaves 1 counselor for the cabin. If that one is in the half that is assigned to break things down...
That leaves no counselor for the kids in that cabin.
Thus, traffic circle.
Well... The outside of the Franklin Institute kind of looked like that. All the 20 and 30 somethings standing around... waiting for their Ubers to show up.
I walked back to my car at a nice leisurely pace to enjoy the fresh air. I also munched on a Cliff Bar as I walked the mile back to my car. As soon as I got home... I was asleep and dreaming of the next Science After Hours event almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Well there ya go! Here's a few photos from the event that I snapped on my Instagram account...
Scavenger hunting! #scienceafterhours #getnerdyphl A photo posted by Kenny (@kennywest82) on
Starwars/Startrek cover band! #scienceafterhours #getnerdyphl A photo posted by Kenny (@kennywest82) on
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