December 25, 2023 Christmas Presents!

Well, this turned out to be bigger than we expected! We had some interesting (at least Martin thinks so) presents. We don’t have pictures of Katie and Eileen’s Zingerman’s cheese subscription because it comes in once a month for a while. 

This is the Gallus Light candle that Martin got for Bill. Here’s the description:

The GALLUS™ Light was named for the 7th century St. Gallus, an Irish missionary who arrived at the Celtic village of Arbon and moved into the Arbon forest in the year 612 AD, out of which the city of St. Gallen, Switzerland grew. The adventurous St. Gallus is best known for talking with a bear which threatened his camp in the wilderness. Instead of fleeing for his life, he calmly ordered the bear to add wood to his campfire. The bear obeyed and for this, St. Gallus offered the bear a loaf of bread and made him promise never to return again. Because of this and his other good work, Gallus was invited to become an Abbot and later became a Saint. Like Gallus, who was able to command a wild bear to provide him with light and warmth with a calm spirit, the GALLUS™ Light commands the otherwise wild and random movements of a flame, symbolic of Gallus's campfire, to rotate about the wick at the rate of a human heartbeat, about 80 rotations per minute, a rate associated with calm and tranquility. The wooden base of the GALLUS™ Light is old growth Swiss wood, symbolic of the wood brought to the campfire by the bear. The metal ring is symbolic of the prosperity that St. Gallus helped bring about.

In 2012, the city and canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland will celebrate 1400 years since the founding of the City of St. Gallen, marked by Gallus's encounter with the bear. The GALLUS™ Light commemorates this event in a unique and special way.

Here’s Bill’s other present from Martin. Not so soothing, downright exciting! Yes, Bill now has a perpetual motion machine! But, but, but . . . That’s impossible. Well, this illustrates Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” There is a controlled electromagnet in the wooden base, or perhaps a linear motor that gives the balls a “kick”. Otherwise, the first and second laws of thermodynamics would be violated. By the way, in the Thor movie, Natalie Portman actually quotes Clarke's law.

Here’s one of Martin’s presents from Bill - an amazing signed cartoon from Michael Ramirez. Rush always said his talent was on loan from God.

And the other present from Bill, just in time, Martin was about to have to order some new T-shirts. If you click on the image, you’ll get a readable version of the shirt that’s filled with text.