Aimee and I celebrated her birthday this weekend – and so begin the six months of the year in which I’m only two years older than her, rather than three. We headed to the Museum of Science, a first for me (unless you count the late-night Radiohead Laser Light Show Josh and I went to a few years ago; I don’t) and a lot of antiquated fun. It’s rare to find a museum that just looks old inside, and I’m happy to have found two in the Boston area: the MoS and the Harvard Museum of Natural History, which has a delicious air of the curiosity cabinet about it. We were lucky to have time to see the lightning show put on daily by a museum staff member using their Van de Graaff Generator, one actually generated by Dr. van de Graaff himself and donated to the Museum by MIT. We learned about the properties of electricity, the history of the Tesla coil and attempts to use it in the home, and the design and function of the Van de Graaff Generator. All of this talk got me thinking, isn’t it a little strange that not one but two bands took their names from pioneers of electrical engineering? We have Van der Graaf Generator, which for some reason, perhaps a legal one, seemed to spell the name wrong on purpose, and of course, the unforgettable Tesla.