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!
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!
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:
World Record - Nobel Laureates Remove Sword!
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!
If you’re one of those new friends I met at Waldorf or Harvard, you can
I just found out about several recent and upcoming interviews this week!
Food Network
FOOD NETWORK: UNWRAPPED
If you’ve been watching FOOD NETWORK this week, you may have seen me on recent episodes of “Unwrapped” called “Food Magic” that has been airing all this past week! The episode is based on “Food Magic” and the premise of me swallowing a “sword sandwich” of 5 swords.
What you might NOT know is that this episode was filmed exactly 1 month after my worst accident when I punctured my stomach while swallowing those same 5 swords at once! I almost died from the injury, which left me with pleurisy - fluid around the lungs and heart - and kept me in bed and unable to eat for a full month!
When I got up that morning to film this episode of Food Network at Timberloft Steak House in Gordonsville, TN, I was VERY concerned that my esophagus might be so tight that I might not be able to swallow a single sword, much less the finale sword sandwich of 5 swords! Let me know if you see the episode on TV or if you can tell that I had not swallowed a sword (much less FOOD!) in a whole month! (And look for a rare cameo of my wife Lisa!)
According to the Food Network website, this episode CW1411 is scheduled to air on the Food Network on these dates:
Thurs, Oct 01, 2009 11:30 PM ET/PT
Friday, Oct 02, 2009 2:30 AM ET/PT
Weds, Nov 25, 2009 11:30 PM ET/PT
If you miss it on TV, here’s a shortened version of it:
RIPLEY RADIO ODDCAST
Last week I had the honor of doing a fun interview with Ripley’s Believe It or Not Radio for their ODDCAST that will start airing Monday, Sept 28. You can listen for free HERE
Monday, Sept 28, 2009
Click here to listen to Ripley Radio Oddcast
JOURNAL DE MONTREAL
A few weeks ago, I was interviewed for an article in the Science supplement of the Journal de Montréal in Canada, the most important French-language daily in Québec (2 million+ readership). The article just ran and apparently was such a big hit that there was a lot of positive feedback and a number of schools ordered multiple copies to use in their classrooms!
Let me know if you happen to see it (and can translate it from the French!)
IG NOBEL AWARDS CEREMONY at HARVARD UNIVERSITY
On Wednesday, I will be flying back to Boston to again have the honor of opening the 2009 Ig Nobel Awards Ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA on Thursday, October 1. What an honor! This year, it looks like we will have 9 Nobel Laureate Scientists there with us at this year’s awards - You’ll have to watch to see how many of them we can get to remove the sword from my throat this year!
If you missed my acceptance speech at the 2007 Ig Nobels Awards Ceremony, here it is:
And here is the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of last year’s Ig Nobels Ceremony:
If you can’t make it in person, you can tune in live online on Thursday, Oct 1 at 7:15pm EASTERN TIME, or you can listen to the rebroadcast on NPR radio the day after Thanksgiving!
NPR
This past Saturday, several folks wrote and texted to let me know they heard me on an interview on NPR’s “Splendid Table” a gourmet cooking show! Dr. Brian Witcombe, my co-author of our BMJ medical paper on sword swallowing injuries, gave a nice description of one of my injuries.
If you are an NPR fan, listen in on
Ig Nobel Ceremony rebroadcast Friday, Nov 27, 2009 on NPR Science Friday
THE LOBBYIST at WALDORF COLLEGE
Today I did a fun interview with my alma-mater, the Waldorf College Lobbyist and the article will run next week just before the big Waldorf College Homecoming Celebration on Saturday and the Distinguished Service Awards Ceremony on Sunday! Let me know if you’re going to be coming to the Homecoming or the Distinguished Service Awards Ceremony in Forest City, Iowa, as I’m looking forward to seeing you there!
Saturday, Oct 03, 2009 8:00 PM CT Q&A Demo
Sunday, Oct 04, 2009 11:30 AM CT Awards Luncheon
CIRQUE ELOIZE “La Vie est un Cirque” on QUEBEC TV5
And here is the footage of my appearance on “La Vie est un Cirque” with Cirque Eloize in Montreal that aired on TV5 in Quebec to 6.6 million viewers, and will be airing throughout all the French-speaking countries on TV5 to 180 million viewers! Watch as Canadian TV/Film star and host Patrice Belanger pulls a sword from my throat, and then WHIPS a sword from my throat!
Then I had a wonderful time in several areas throughout Denmark - Aarhus, Odense, Copenhagen, Kerteminde, and more. Here is a clip from Danish TV of one of our Ig Nobel lecture shows at University of South Denmark in Odense, Denmark:
Looking forward to Freedom Experience in Hattiesburg MS this Saturday! If you’re near Hattiesburg, come see us! http://www.freedomexperience.com
Alex and Me
Black, Red, White
Blink
Heading For Home
How the Best Get Better
How to Promote Your Book on a Shoestring Budget
Maximum Entertainment
News of the Weird
Outliers
Quiet Diplomacy
Ripley’s Believe It or Not Book
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Swallowing the Sword
The Art of the Solo Performer
The Faith of George W Bush
The Last Lecture
The Shack
Bounty
Bucket List
Facing the Giants
Final Season
Fireproof
Mountains of the Moon
Pirates of the Caribbean
Shadowlands
Carter Burwell
Ceili Rain
Dan Meyers
David Foster
David Wilcox
Family Force 5
Freddie Fernbrant
Mark Isham
Dan’s Favorite Quotes
Dan at Ripley’s Believe It or Not Copenhagen Denmark
Sword Swallower.