Statue of Liberty

While in New York, I also had time to take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  The cruise boat was only $15.  There is no charge for the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island.  The weather was cool and overcast, but it did not rain.

The skyline view of Manhattan is pretty cool.  Just like I expected.  I think if you look carefully, you can see the top of the Empire State Building.

The Statue is very big.  I only had a ticket to get to the top of the pedestal.  To go inside the Statue itself was booked for the rest of the month.  

Ellis Island is beautiful.  I did not have time to really explore it like I would have liked.  Inside are places where you can search to see if your relatives were processed through Ellis Island.  I did not have time to look.

This was such a short trip and I tried to see as much as I could, but there is so much.  I need to come back again.  I was very impressed with NY.  It was clean, busy, and noisy.  The subway system made it easy to get around and was not very expensive.  I bought a weeks pass for $29 and could ride the subway and bus as much as I wanted.  There was so much to see and do and eat and hear.  Central Park is gigantic and beautiful.  Things were much closer together than I had thought.  People were not rude to me.  It was not like what I had seen on TV.

NYC

I am in NYC for a NCWIT Summit on Monday.  But today I went sight seeing.  Took the train to Penn Station.  I love traveling by train.

Edward Tufte Seminar

May 14 my son, Brian came to visit.  It was such a nice visit and I really enjoyed spending time with him.  Monday we both attended a seminar by Edward Tufte on how to make better presentations without using PowerPoint.  He used several famous examples of great graphics, some of which were taken from his First Edition of Galileo's book

We also went to the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage and listened to this Belgium group that played very original pieces.  We loved it.  The Millennium Stage has a performance every day, 365 days a year.  It is always free and can be music, dance, or drama.

SEED School

One opportunity I have as an Einstein Fellow is to visit different schools.  Last week we went to the SEED Charter School in DC.  This is a public charter school where the students stay on campus Sunday night through Friday afternoon, only going home on the weekend.  They have about 300 students grades 7 - 12.  This is a college prep focus.  Everything is centered around preparing them for college with a heavy emphasis on math and science.

Administration Staff Appreciation Party

Last week was Administration Staff Appreciation Week.  Our division had a party.  All of the admin staff had a banner hung from the ceiling.  We had lunch and played Pictionary.  They even showed a video.  It ended with ice cream sundaes.  We partied all afternoon.  Who says computer scientists don't know how to have fun!

Then after work that evening, many of the office Program Managers (they invited me) went to an Indian restaurant in Vienna to celebrate the Indian New Year.  So it was a long day of partying and food.  Tough job some days.

Ford Theater

Monday, April 25, I attended a lecture by Carl Wieman, from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.  He is also a Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1995.  He talked about how to teach science.  The goal is to help students, "think like a scientist".

I decided to walk home.  On the way, I walked by the Ford Theater.  This is the actual theater where President Lincoln was shot.

Meeting Secretary of Energy

Several of the Einstein Fellows volunteered to score scientific abstracts written by students wanting their abstracts to be published.  We each read and scored about 45 abstracts.  The same day we also were invited to meet with Secretary Chu, Department of Energy.  He was very kind and answered questions about climate change and k-12 education.