My wife is injured by Mythbusters

Eryn got a Mythbusters' explorer kit for some holiday in the past, the Forces of Flight kit.  On the left you can see Jaime and Adam preparing to defy danger with a rocket pack and a beret.  The kit comes with a number of experiments, including a pull-string, plastic toy helicopter.  To launch the helicopter, you mount it on its stick, yank the pull string, and it takes off across the room (or yard), demonstrating how rotors work.  That's what should happen.  But usually what happens is all the blades go flinging off in different directions, and you have to listen very carefully to hear where they land so you can retrieve them from under the refrigerator, behind the cupboards, under the recycling, etc.  Unless they hit your wife in the head.  Then they're really easy to find, because they're right there, on the floor, under the red welt.  The truism that all good science experiments can benefit from safety glasses holds with experiments around torque and Bernoulli's Principle.

I'm not sure how obvious it is in this picture, but it was incredibly obvious in person.

Hospital Visit

Pooteewheet went to the hospital for surgery yesterday. If you're a Facebook friend, you've probably heard at least a few bits and pieces. She's doing as fine as can be expected given they cut into her to move around some nerves that were entrapped by tendons and bent over bones and she's supposed to be back home sometime tomorrow. Eryn and I hung out while the surgery was underway, mostly playing hangman online. She was partial to the Harry Potter set, although we only scored a B grade. A great kid site.

The hospital my wife is in is great. Attractive, modern, wifi, open spaces, and a lady who distributes free cookies and sodas while you listen to the live piano or harp music. The only downside is they won't take a credit card in the cafeteria. But there are plenty of places to eat nearby.

I came home to a broken water heater, which explains my lukewarm shower this morning. Negative: broken water heater. Postive: I'm taking care of my wife at home for the next two days (well, four), so I can have the fix it guy come figure out why the pilot light only flickers. Almost looks like the tube has blockage.

Some of my favorite things from the last two days:

Driving home to get Eryn and bring her back to the hospital today, the passenger in the pickup in front of me kept rolling down her window, holding a brush outside, and then flicking something out that would bounce off my car. It took three rounds before I realized she was simultaneously cleaning her brush and giving my car a merkin.

If you're an expert in therapeutic horticulture, what you really do is not nearly as interesting as I thought it was on first consideration.

Touch therapy is downright weird. And it's difficult not to laugh - although it's possible if you keep your head down in a book - while a woman is waving her hands over your wife to live harp music. It looked like she was trying to push away farts.

Eryn enjoying the CT Scaning machine in the playset area: