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  News and Notes from the December 4, 2007 SPS meeting


Shirts.  The shirt order has been sent in.  No word yet on a likely
delivery time.  Dr. B ordered 12 extra short sleeve shirts in an assortment
of colors.


Senior Seminar.  There is a senior seminar presentation THIS THURSDAY at
1:00 pm in CSH 113.  John OBS will talk about "Adaptive Optics and Image
Enhancement through Deconvolution."  There is also another talk scheduled
for next week.  Watch the papers posted by the side board.


Public Observing.  There is a public observing set for the first clear
night of next week.  If it goes through, this will be the first observing
in December in the last few years.


Carthage College.  Dr. B went to Carthage College in Kenosha, WI last
Friday to install their Sigma Pi Sigma chapter.  He had a fun talk thru
the Macarena, got a nifty shirt about calculations, and then he discussed
to us how to get inducted into sigma pi sigma.


"The Definition of Geek."  Feedback on her talk was extremely positive,
but the room was a bit crowded.


Bakken Museum.  A few of the favorites were the shocking machine and the
electric fish.  It also brought up the idea to give our Wimshurst machine
some much needed TLC.  Talk to Dr. B if you are interested.


Status Report.  Dr. B says we have an official membership of 51, but that
isn't including the 9 members that signed up during October in our drive.
This is definitely an all time high for us.  Virginia Tech still beats us
though, with a membership of 73.


Partay.  We will be having our end of semester/holiday party the Tuesday
of finals week from 11ish to 1:30ish.  We've decided to do a pot-luck with
a bit of a sign up so we don't end up with 25 bags of chips.  Be watching
the seminar room for a sign-up sheet.  No alcohol is allowed.


Public Service.  BJ Poore (SPS alum) read our minutes and saw that we are
planning to write cards for wounded vets.  He suggested that we write a
card to our SPS alum Adam Puhl who is currently deployed in Iraq and gave
Dr. B a mailing address.  Adam graduated last year, but may not be
familiar to many of the current members because he only had a few things
to finish off last year, interrupted by Guards training and such.  Our
Christmas cards to wounded vets supplies are set up in CSH114 Tuesday and
Thursday.  We will be mailing them out THIS Friday.  If you are so
inclined to purchase a card you may and add it into the bunch.


Pre-engineering.  Today they discussed what times to meet next semester
and decided to put up a clipboard for ideas in the seminar room.  They
will not be meeting next week.


Demo.  Bolton's Pendulums (illustrates phase shifts in forced
oscillators).  This demo hasn't been seen since 1992!

Minutes taken by Jen


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