I’m still here. I know it may not seem like it seeing as how I haven’t updated this blog in nearly four months. I can’t believe it’s been that long! I’ve been so busy with Twilight Teez that I am quite literally out of energy by the time I have any time to even consider posting. But this morning I thought I’d make an exception for a particularly exceptional reason - I met Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson for the very second time in my life.
It’s funny how meeting one of your heroes can cause you to have the mental capacity of a turnip.
No, really, I am nearly 40 years old and I still feel like a fanboy teenager at these types of things. In case you’re not aware, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson are both authors, and I had about 6 bazillion books for them to sign. They were both at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ promoting their new book, Science Fair
The presentations was a lot of fun to watch, and they gave us (the audience) a brief history of how the story came about. I was particularly interested in the discussion of the important scientific experiments that happened in real life that were pertinent to the book, including the experiment that levitated a real, live frog. They then proceeded to demonstrate, in real life, one of the experiments that happens in the book; the famous Mentos/Diet Coke Theorem of Showering Things With Sticky Soda.
This was particularly amusing, especially when Ridley became the unwitting subject of a soda shower. Earlier that day, Dave and Ridley were demonstrating this exact theorem at a middle school gymnasium, which had a very tall ceiling. They dropped 5 Mentos into the Diet Coke, and produced a fountain high enought to touch the ceiling. Because of this, and the fact that the ceiling in the Poisoned Pen was only about 7.5 to 8 feet high, they decided to scale back the number of Mentos to just 2.
The fountain they produced was impressive…and managed to spray the ceiling anyway. The containment field that they set up was breeched, and the table, floor, and the first row of attendees were splattered with Diet Coke. This would probably have been very troubling to the owner of the store, had she been there. I do hope that these two guys are invited back again next year when they release their next Peter and the Starcatchers book.
The photo below is my wife and I with Dave Barry.
Key Scientific Quote Of The Evening: "I’m still dripping!" -Ridley Pearson
The evening was a lot of fun, and I’m very glad that my wife and I made the journey to meet these two very funny guys. It was a great date for my wife and I, and we got a ton of new books to read to boot.
Incidentally, and yes I have to plug this, the shirt I’m wearing will be available soon on our web site over at Twilight Teez in the coming week or so. It is part of our new line of officially licensed Dave Barry t-shirts. I’m very excited to be able to work with Dave on this endeavor.
-Brian
