Last weekend I had a great gig with the Smithsonian Institution that took us to Phoenix Arizona. In their ongoing effort to bring the Smithsonain to the people (instead of the people always having to go to Washington DC) they put on a huge event called Culture Fest, in Phoenix and the surrounding area, with 10 experts from different fields. My role was to be the second half of a one-two punch with historian David Shayt. David and I presented several different versions of the program, but the overall format was that David would do a powerpoint presentation for the first half of our set, and I would close it out with demonstration and teaching. David’s presentation was really good, was what the adults wanted to see, and it was just long enough that kids could still get through it if they got bored. Then I hit ’em with the action-packed parade o’ skills! I have always tried very hard to have a show that is fun for adults AND kids, so the Culture Fest audiences were great for me.

One of the best parts of the weekend was hanging out with my juggling and yo-yoing friends. The last time I was in Phoenix I spent some time with Dave and Athena, and I did get to see them Thursday night before they headed to California for a juggling convention, but most of my time was spent with my yo-yo buddies Hans and Julius.

I think that my time with those guys could be summed up as “cool cars and yo-yos”. Of course there was a lot of yo-yoing, there always is. In addition though, Hans (aka Yo Hans) is also a car nut. He owns several awesome cars, and one night we went to the longest continuously running weekly car show. That’s right… weekly. Every Saturday night hundreds of car, truck, and motorcycle people get together and hang out. It’s awesome. The whole range is there. You have the import tuners, monster trucks, classic 50s & 60s cars, Corvettes, and even the Model A guys. I finally got the chance to pick the brain of a real Model A guy! He answered all of the questions I could think of. It was incredible.

I took a whole bunch of pictures that I will post when I get home on Monday. This weekend I am in Ithaca, New York at the Cornell Jugglefest serving as the MC for their public show.  It should be fun.