Sword Swallower Dan Meyer

Just getting ready to catch my flight to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in a few minutes.

If the volcanic ash is not too bad, I hope to land in Amsterdam on Saturday and spend the weekend there. Then on Monday, I will be traveling to the little Dutch village of Zeist, for a VERY special occasion!

I have been honored to speak at the 11th annual prestigious PINC Conference (PINC stands for People, Ideas, Nature, and Creativity). PINC is like a European version of the well-known TED conference, and the PINC board has invited me along with a small number of other speakers to speak on “out of the box” type topics… like SWORD SWALLOWING! What a HUGE honor! I am really looking forward to this trip and to meeting the other speakers!

Here’s a link to PINC.11

It looks like they have some other interesting speakers and entrepreneurs there as well! I am looking forward to meeting all of them!

After PINC, on Wednesday I will be heading to Rotterdam where I will be speaking at Erasmus University Medical Center with my friends Erwin Kompanje and Kees Moeliker, both fellow Ig Nobel speakers themselves. This should be a fun talk for the doctors and nurses in the area, as this is one of the aspects of my job that I really LOVE!

From Wednesday to Saturday, I will be visiting the Rotterdam Natural History Museum, the Rotterdam Zoo, the Kinderdijk Windmills, and the floating Noah’s Ark replica and museum that is on exhibit in Vianen in the Netherlands! And it looks like I will be doing some media interviews in various magazines, newspapers, and even the TOP Dutch TV show in the Netherlands!

Should be a fun trip!

If you’re on Twitter, please follow me for live updates: @Halfdan

Looking forward to keeping in touch with you, and if you’re in the Netherlands, I’m looking forward to meeting you!

Tot ziens!

Dan
http://danmeyer.tel

I’m getting ready to head over to Amsterdam, Netherlands this weekend if the volcanic ash doesn’t act up again, and then on to Zeist Netherlands to speak and perform at the 11th Annual PINC Conference next week.

PINC stands for People, Ideas, Nature, and Creativity, and is a Dutch convention with speakers made up of entrepreneurs, scientists, CEOs, and others who think creatively “outside the box”, similar to the renowned TED convention. It is a huge honor for me to be invited as one of the few featured speakers at such a prestigious conference, and I am really looking forward to it!

Here is more on PINC.11

And here’s information on some of the other speakers

From Zeist, I will head over to Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, where I will be giving a lecture for an audience of doctors, nurses, and medical faculty on our research paper “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects” that won us the 2007 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine and was the focus of a Dutch documentary last year.

Click here to download the flyer in Dutch!

From there, my hosts have plans for me to do some media interviews, a visit to the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, some windmills, and possibly even to visit a lifesized Noah’s Ark nearby!

To get live updates from the road, follow @Halfdan on Twitter!

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Footage from Ig Nobel Science Lecture Tour in Odense Denmark

Here are a few quick videos from demonstrations after my Ig Nobel lecture at the Festival della Scienza last week in Genova, Italy.

Watch the audience’s expressions! Priceless! Like something straight out of a Fellini movie!

Here’s a new Dutch documentary that just came out entitled

“Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects”
by producer Bahram Sadeghi

Let me know what you think of it!

Wow! What a wonderful past few days I’ve had! Met up with lots of old friends and new friends, reminisced about old memories, and made several new ones!

2009 IG NOBEL AWARDS AT HARVARD
Had another wonderful time at the Ig Nobel Awards Ceremony at Harvard. Got to meet all the new 2009 Ig Nobel winners (CONGRATULATIONS!) and got to see several friends and past Ig Nobel winners from past years.

I was honored to be the opening act in the 2009 Ig Nobel Awards ceremony by being called up to swallow a sword in honor of this year’s theme: “RISK”! Perfect for me! At that point, I had TWO Nobel Laureate Scientists come up and remove the sword from my throat - Wolfgang Ketterle (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001), and Martin Chalfie (who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year in 2008)

Then a few minutes later, I was called back up to RAISE that RISK and set a new world’s record, which we did by having NINE Nobel Laureates come up and remove a longer sword from my throat, with some of them using a whip!

Here are the 9 Nobel Laureates and one additional very distinguished guest:

• Rich Roberts (Physiology/Medicine, 1993)
• Wolfgang Ketterle (Physics, 2001)
• Dudley Herschbach (Chemistry, 1986)
• Paul Krugman (Economics, 2008)
• Roy Glauber (Physics, 2005)
• Frank Wilczek (Physics, 2004)
• Martin Chalfie (Chemistry, 2008)
• Orhan Pamuk (Literature 2006)
• William Lipscomb (Chemistry, 1976)
• Benoit Mandelbrot (inventor of Fractal Geometry)

Sword being removed by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman and a total of 9 Nobel Laureates at once!

What an honor it was for me, a kid from Indiana, to rub elbows with these esteemed scientists and learned academics! I am just thankful that they did such a great job of removing the sword without any incidents!

This photo was put out by the Associated Press newswire service and the story was picked up on by a number of publications around the world, including AOL News (twice!), Arab News, NPR, and several others!

Here’s video of the feat:

WALDORF COLLEGE 2009 DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
Then the next day, I fly to Iowa to take part in the Waldorf College Homecoming Parade and Alumni Banquet. On Saturday night I did a little demonstration for my parents, fellow classmates, faculty and friends, and was honored with a standing ovation! What an honor!

Then on Sunday afternoon, I was honored to receive the Waldorf Colllege 2009 Alumni Distinguished Service Award from Waldorf President Dr. Richard Hanson. I have to admit, after being surprised by so many friends and classmates that I didn’t expect, I was overwhelmed and a bit choked up in my acceptance speech. But the memory was one I will NEVER forget!

A special thanks to President Dr. Hanson, Rita Gilbertson, Nicole Lovik Blaser, Molly Lumley, Vaughn and Mary Ver Steegt, Eric Ver Steegt, Kim Campbell, mom and dad, and everyone else who made it a weekend I will never forget!

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