Progress Report

This week I had the immense privilege of helping chaperone about seventy fifth-graders on a two-leg flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. We spent the week exploring Philadelphia, Valley Forge, and the Amish areas of Lancaster county. We met many fine historical re-enactors including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Betsy Ross, and some Scottish guy who apparently signed the Declaration of Independence and came to see us because Ben Franklin couldn’t make it. I could write pages about all the great stuff we saw and did, but I think the two things I’ll remember most are the butter pretzels and the extraordinary way the kids kept it all together in a grueling five-day marathon of travel, exploration, and study. So to Ms. Bilowitz and Ms. Felsinger of Palm Crest Elementary in La Canada, thank you for including me. It is clear your students would follow you to the ends of the Earth, and this week they pretty much did.

SO, of course this would also be the week I got a zillion inquiries about doing shows in the fall for a bunch of schools and museums in California, a couple of science teachers’ gatherings in Arizona and Kentucky, plus several conventions in Illinois, Georgia, and Massachusetts. I haven’t put most of them in the official calendar yet because I need to make sure I’ve got all the scheduling issues resolved. To those who I’ve been in contact with: if I’m slow about getting our dates confirmed, it’s because I was corresponding with you on my iPad while rolling through Pennsylvania and New Jersey in a large bus while debating the relative merits of representative democracy versus direct democracy with some super-genius kids and eating lots of hot butter pretzels. Thank you for your patience and if through my own mismanagement I fail to get back to you in a timely fashion please send me a quick email to remind me.

Finally, the wheels are turning faster on getting our non-profit status confirmed. We will be re-working a lot of stuff on this site as that happens. Again, thank you for your patience and you can always contact me with any questions unless I’m off riding a horse somewhere in Southern France, which I will be doing soon. I would not attempt to eat pretzels while riding a horse cross-country, much less type on a touch screen.

Oh, and the third album is pretty much done on my end. Getting the art finished and the CD’s burned takes longer; we should have it in hand by the early fall.