First, I got to see a friend of mine from college who I haven't seen for a while - Bill Barber, or as I like to affectionately call him: Cutie Patootie Bill Barber, or simply "Billy". Both of which he hates. See, Bill was a senior in high school when I dated his older brother, Scott. So, I got to know him pretty well, thus giving me the ability to pick on him severely during his freshman year of college. So, I would constantly hug him and tell him how cute he was and started the previously mentioned nicknames. Oh what fun I had! Oh how Bill wanted to strangle me! And the greatest part of it was that he would turn bright red and the dimple in his cheek would stand out even more when he was embarassed - thus putting fuel to the fire! Here's a pic of the two of us - I look funny in it (what is up with my eyes??) but he looks good - and so grown up! He has a great beard!
Then, the evening proceeded with a science lesson from another friend from college - Jeremy Smith. Jeremy is a high school science teacher at a school here in Lincoln, and loves doing experiments... in fact, this is the second party where he has brought something out that involves electricity and typical household items. The first time was at our housewarming where he'd let people shock themselves with a contraption he built out of the equivalent of a nine volt battery and a transistor - thus making the output of electricity something like 3 times the input. I don't really get it, but it gave a great shock. That experiment ended when the boys tried to shock themselves with their hands in water to see what it would do, and the shock was so powerful that water ended up being all over our kitchen. Boys.
The experiment last night - Jeremy had created this strobe light that would give one burst of light when it would hear a loud sound. If you turn off all of the lights, and do something - such as jump - and clap your hands, the onlookers would see you suspended in mid-air. So, the flash of light allows you to see an instant of something that is in motion. So, Jeremy brought out balloons, and we turned off the lights, and took pictures of these balloons as they were being popped - very cool! Here are a couple of pics:
Then, we decided to add a little flour to the balloons - as the balloon pops, the flour (for the most part) retains the shape of the balloon before being popped.
After that, we tried to convince our host to let us try a balloon filled with water, and then breaking glass... but both of those ideas were shot down. So, we had fun taking pictures of each other doing things. Here's my roomate:
Then, Marcus attempted a Matrix move while we made the strob light go off several times in a row - it looks pretty cool:
Who knew science could be so much fun at a New Year's Eve party. I'm not sure if I should boast about this, or think about finding new friends!
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