Last night was “Back to School” night at Van Nuys, so in that spirit, some chum organized around my daughter’s schedule:
- Period 1: Honors Biology. CNN has an interesting article about how hydrogen sulfide gas is being used to put mice into suspended animation.
- Period 2: Honors English. The LA STage Tix listing I received today alerted me to the fact that the Lyric Theatre in Hollywood (where we saw “Into the Woods” last year) will be doing Antigone from 11/13 to 12/6. LA Stage Tix tickets (half-price) are $3.75 to $7.50. If you prefer Shakespeare, the Ark Theatre at the Hayworth is doing “Much Ado About Nuthin”, an “Appalachian” spin on Shakespeare’s crowd-pleasing comedy, from 10/1 to 11/21. LA Stage Tix tickets (half-price) are $5 to $11. ETA: P.S.: I seem to be missing some of my Moonlighting DVDs, in particular the Season 3 DVD with “Atomic Shakespeare”. Did I loan it to anyone reading this?
- Period 3: Dance. There’s an interesting dance going on between Microsoft and Family Guy. Specifically, M$ is teaming with “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane to sponsor a variety show to air on the Fox network on Nov. 8 that will run without commercials, and instead promises to feature “unique Windows 7-branded programming that blends seamlessly with show content.” The working title is “Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show”
- Period 4: AP World History. This period allows me to plug the upcoming Meeting of Minds on Sun 10/25 at 7pm. This episode features Gary Cole (Steve Allen), Mark Moses (Martin Luther), Ray Abruzzo (Voltaire), Harold Gould (Plato), and Sharon Lawrence (Florence Nightingale). The page now also indicates that the November episode will be 11/22, which should be an interesting day, as we have “M*A*S*H” at 2pm in Saugus, with a talk-back afterwards.
- Period 5: AP Statistics. It is amazing what statistics tell you. For example, did you know that women deal with life changes by buying new cars. An August 2009 survey of 500 U.S. women ages 18 and older asked, “Of the following life events, which is the most likely to prompt you to purchase a car?” with the following options to choose from: new job, retirement, pregnancy, divorce, an empty nest and children becoming drivers. 60% of the women surveyed indicated that career changes, including a new job (37%) and retirement (23%) would most likely to prompt them to buy a car. Women ages 18 to 34 had a close tie between pregnancy (41%) and getting a new job (44%) as motivations for car buying. 11% of all women cited a new child driver as an impetus.
- Period 6: Technical Theatre. One of the things I noticed recently on our street is that the street lights had changed to LED lighting. So, I did a search and found some information on the project. In September 2009, LA approved retrofitting 140,000 of its high pressure sodium street lights with LED light fixtures, and BetaLED, a division of Racine-based Ruud Lighting Inc., is one of two companies that will supply the new fixtures. By switching to LED street lights, Los Angeles is expected to save about $10 million in energy costs and maintenance per year. The statistics about lighting are interesting. An article on the East Hollywood Street Lighting Yard notes that Street Lights workers repair or replace about 75 light poles each month that are damaged or destroyed by motorists in auto collisions. There are approximately 400 different street light fixtures used on the 5000 miles of LA streets that the Street Lighting maintains. They store approximately 200 of those fixtures at the East Hollywood service yard.
- Period “7”: More Technical Theatre. Tonight we’re going to Valley College, near the high school, to see the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. They did a good job with “Alicen”, so it should be interesting to see what they do with Spelling Bee.
