Monthly Archives: March 2016

More Fun with Easter Eggs

By Vladimir Brezina

The solid colors of the PAAS Easter-egg coloring kit, while very suitable for serious scientific investigation, were really just a little too plain by themselves. Fortunately the kit also included four paint-on colors and a couple of brushes. So I had a go.

Now, I can draw a stork carrying a baby as well as anyone… on a piece of dry, flat paper. But it wasn’t quite so easy on the wet, slippery egg. The paint was taking forever to dry, and guests were coming in an hour…

This is what I ended up with:

Painted Easter eggs 1 Painted Easter eggs 2 Painted Easter eggs 3

As you can see, I somehow gravitated toward fertility symbols—funny how that happens at Easter with the onset of Spring. I did think of including a few goats and maybe the great god Pan—or just naked female figures—but there wasn’t time. Maybe next year!

Our Easter Egg Science Project

By Johna Till Johnson and Vladimir Brezina

Easter egg science project 1It was bound to happen.

Take a scientist and an engineer, add a kit designed for children, and you’ll end up with a science project.

A few days ago (on the first day of spring, to be exact), we decided to color Easter eggs. We’re not sure whose idea it was (each of us says it originated with the other), but regardless: There we were with 14 hard-boiled eggs and the same PAAS egg-dyeing kit that Johna remembered from childhood. (In Czechoslovakia, too, a country nominally communist but where Easter traditions were hard to uproot, Vlad had something very similar.)

We set to work. The dye tablets fizzed in the vinegar, the appropriate amount of water was added, and the first six eggs were happily soaking in their colors. And then one of us noticed something:

“Hey, what are those lines?” As the dye deepened, several of the eggs were showing white lines, two per egg, circumscribing the eggs and trisecting them neatly. Why was this happening?

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Come One, Come All… to the Ghostship Ball!

By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson

Vlad & Johna (photo by Larson Harley)We are getting our presentation ready!

It’s billed as “True Tales of Mystery, Majesty, and Mishap Mere Inches from the Water”. We think we can supply all of that…

Ghostship Ball

… and if the prospect of hearing us share our kayaking adventure stories isn’t enough, come for the live music, acrobats, and a growing roster of additional entertainment.

Hope to see you there!

Half-Light

By Vladimir Brezina

Half-Light 1

From the molten dyes of the water
Bring the burnished nature of fire
… Rain flakes of gold on the water

—Ezra Pound, The Alchemist

Half-Light 2Half-Light 3

A contribution to this week’s Photo Challenge, Half-Light.

Dance

By Vladimir Brezina

Dance 1.

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Seen at the 2013 Coney Island Mermaid Parade

Dance 2

A contribution to this week’s Photo Challenge, Dance.

Squares

By Vladimir Brezina

Squares lead us onSquares 1Squares 2

… squares and sometimes triangles

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and we are by no means the only ones to appreciate their presenceSquares 3Squares 4

A contribution to Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge, Square.

Harmony

By Vladimir Brezina

Harmony

A contribution to this week’s Photo Challenge, Harmony.

State of Mind

By Vladimir Brezina

Before the big paddle into the unknown: first tension—

Tension

then fear—

Fear(OK, she’s acting out for the camera, a bit)

and then pure happiness on the last day…

Happiness

Yes, long-distance paddling is all about the State of Mind!

This was the 2014 WaterTribe Everglades Challenge. Not coincidentally, the 2016 Challenge starts in a couple of days…

A contribution to this week’s Photo Challenge, State of Mind.