George Hrab and Adventuring!

Hello hello!

So, last night I went to another Skeptic's in the Pub event. A few days ago, the site for London Skeptic's in the Pub said that George Hrab was going to performing on Friday, February 11th at the NPL Sports Club in Teddington. First, I freaked out. I don't understand how but pretty much all the amazing people in the skeptical movement are coming to London and I get to see them. Apparently it takes crossing an ocean to get to see my American skeptical heroes. George Hrab is a musician (drummer by day, skeptic/singer/songwriter/all-around-awesome-dude by all the time) and creator of the Geologic Podcast. I haven't listened to the Geologic Podcast in FOREVER, but it's hilarious and I need to start doing that again. Second, I went to Google Maps (it's the best, double true) because it gives me pedestrian routes and times. George would be performing around 7:30 and my Cellular Neurophysiology practical would get done at 5:00. Plenty of time for a lovely stroll over to a pub, right? To my surprise, Google Maps told me that it would take four and a half hours to get to the NPL Sports Club from UCL. This presented a problem. However, after a bit of searching and internet stupidity, I finally figured out that I could get to Teddington by train. So, I decided it was time for an adventure.

After hours of poking an earthworm with Kun-Wei, lab practical was over and I was ready to go. I took the Victoria line on the Tube to Vauxhall Station and then purchased a ticket for the for realsies train going to Teddington. It...uh...it took me a while to...um...figure out how the trains...uh...worked. I'm a little slow. But, after asking a train dude for train advice I figured it out (ok, fine, had it carefully explained to me) and hopped on the next one. It was a 30 minute ride and I saw some interesting people and flashes of towns. Teddington reminded me a lot of Claremont. It had a little bit of a small town feel, but not exactly. The NPL Sports Club was bloody hard to find, but I had plenty of time so it was all good. This gathering was a bit smaller than previous Skeptic's in the Pub events, but there were still a decent number of people there. For a while I just stood around, chilling. Thankfully, George arrived shortly after I did and his performance started not long after that. I got a pint of cider, which hit me a little harder than usually because I hadn't managed to grab dinner and the pub wasn't serving food. Everyone took a seat in a small room on one side of the pub and then MAGIC happened.

Oh my god, the show was SO COOL. George Hrab is one of those incredible musicians who actually sounds better in person than on his CDs and he sounds pretty good on his CDs to begin with. It was so cool. So so so cool. His lyrics make me so happy. They are smart and skeptical and funny and wonderful and just, man, the best. And I was sitting, like, 10 feet away from him. He was rocking an acoustic guitar attached to an amp, which made me miss Stu (my guitar) but sounded brilliant. Have I mentioned how cool it was? It was seriously cool. Dude is talented. I'd love to be able to manage those chord changes and strumming patterns. Goals set.

Towards the end of his performance, George told a story about losing his dog, Oscar. Apparently, Oscar was the first and only pet he's ever had, and got cancer a while back. Eventually, George had to make the very difficult choice to euthanize Oscar. He talked about how hard it was to find comfort, and how tested his world views were. However, he said something that really struck me and, to an extent I wasn't expecting, made me feel a lot better too. He said that he realized, while looking into Oscar's eyes as the boxer drifted to sleep, that Oscar would be expecting to wake up in a little bit and go for a walk or snuggle or do something awesome. And as much as it was going to suck to miss Oscar, Oscar would never have to miss him. I was choking up a bit at this point. He sang his song about it-Small Comfort (Oscar's Song)-and I definitely cried a little. It was ok though, because a woman across from where I was sitting had tears streaming down her face. I certainly don't mean to harp on Zoe, but this was by far the most moving part of the evening for me. It helped. I've been thinking about her a lot lately, which I think is a combination of seeing more schnauzers here than in Claremont and how much time I have with my own thoughts. I miss her a lot at night. But it's ok because "thinking [she'll] wake up and see us is [her] eternity." I love that.

It could have been the hard cider or the small venue, but I got up the courage to go say hi to him after the show. It was AMAZING. I mean, it was a very brief "thank you so much for your incredible performance, I'm from America too" conversation but it was SO COOL. I was geeking out SO HARD. Oh my god, I got to talk to him. I also talked briefly with some other skeptics there, which was neat. I'm starting to recognize people at these events! My number one reason in attending Skeptic's in the Pub events is obviously for the fantastic speakers, but my secondary objective is to get better at interacting with people that I don't know. It's especially difficult when I don't have someone else there as a safety net, but I think I'm getting less awkward. Maybe? I hope so.

In other news, I passed this sign in Teddington and was very confused. I suspect that Teddington maybe a little confused as well.

And if you needed proof that I actually took the train, here it is. The train was almost completely empty when I took it back. I guess I should admit that it took me one train passing through without getting on it to realize that you actually have to press a button to open the train door when it stops. So much CONFUSION. That is my reflection in the window. You can tell because of how silly the hair is. I mean, not really because you can't see the hair, but it was a little silly.

I'm just so happy about my night. It was fantastic in so many ways. :) On another awesome note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARLES DARWIN!!! Today is the birthday of one of the greatest scientific thinkers of all time. Not only was his theory of evolution by natural selection brilliant, but his dedication to the scientific method and careful accumulation of a wealth of knowledge make him an excellent role model for scientists everywhere.

Much love and cheers!