A Visit to the New Museum of Contemporary Art

We checked out the Urs Fischer exhibit at the New Museum today. It took over all 3 exhibition floors there. While it had its moments, overall I didn't find it very interesting. What we *did* find interesting was the sunset view from the top floor of the museum. The museum is located on Bowery in the East Village and the top floor balcony provides nice southwest views of the village towards the financial district.

Electrolysis of Water

Pierce and I successfully extracted hydrogen and oxygen from water although, to our disappointment, we we did not manage to get enough hydrogen for a satisfying puff of flame. As usual, Pierce embellishes my instructional diagrams. The video is rather long owing the in-depth explanation of the processes taking place, the time taken to embellish diagrams, and the fact that one of our electrodes broke about half-way through the experiment which went undetected for a while.

If you want to see some highlights:

2:50 the water molecule

12:10 the equipment

19:15 applying power

27:20 how salt dissolves

42:30 discovering the broken electrode

50:20 no explosion :-(

Ian, Sean, Dylan, Greg and Pierce Visit the American Museum of Natural History

Ian and his two sons, Sean and Dylan, spent a couple of nights with us in Hoboken at the beginning of their week-long visit to NYC and DC. It was a warm and sunny day so we took a ferry across the Hudson, had a picnic in the park outside the Rose Center for Earth and Space and then let Pierce guide the tour once inside the museum.

New York Philharmonic Young People's Concert

We attended the 1st of the Young People's Concert series with the New York Philharmonic for the new season (our third year). While we enjoyed listening to selections by Britten, Purcell, Copland and Beethoven we missed the previous conductor Delta David Gier. Gier's passion was contagious as he interacted with the audience while the new format has a host speaking between selections rather than the conductor. It's still a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon in NYC. We also enjoyed the new fountain at Lincoln Center which has been under construction forever but well worth the wait.