Transcript
Director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium, Jean M. Creighton, on the solar system (Hour 2)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Fri Mar 6, 2026
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Welcome
back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
My name is Greg Bach and across the state with me tonight is Mr. Pete Schwabba.
We have Dom Lee on the boards up in Madison.
If you want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-4842, 855-757.
Leave a comment on that live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook.
YouTube and the platform we still have, we still call Twitter, still ahead after, after this next segment, we're going to be talking to Gene Crichton, who is the director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium, talking about events down there at the Planetarium, as well as a special celebration.
But don't go anywhere.
There's much more coming ahead.
Now it's, that was a great interview, by the way, with Jason Schaff.
If you were just joining us.
We spoke with Jason chef, former lead singer and bassist of Chicago.
He stopped by the show.
We had a nice chat with him.
And what you heard was just a smattering, not even a half of the conversation.
And we're going to be putting up that entire discussion on the website.
You can hear the whole thing, web exclusive, if you will.
If you go to civicmedia.us slash shows, find out more about that.
I had a great time talking to him.
Pete, I don't know
about you.
It was, uh, it was an interview on the radio.
No, he was outstanding.
That's always fun.
Like I got excited to talk to him because of what he's done and his accomplishments.
talking to people like that and meeting people like that to, uh, to learn about their experience.
But sometimes like with Jason, he just goes above and beyond and he spent
much time with us.
And, uh, that's, that's what I really liked about it.
And for those of you who want to see him in Marinette on the 14th, that is a week from tomorrow.
I will be introducing him at the Marinette Community Rec Center, possibly joined by Greg Bach.
We'll see if he can take a trip north.
But either way, I'll be there.
So stop out and say hello and listen to the soundtrack of your life as Jason put it.
That was a great way to put it.
Anna on the text line listening in Madison says, hi, Pete and Greg.
That was a great interview tonight.
Thank you very much.
My first rock concert was seeing Chicago at the Dane County Coliseum on May 8th, 1971.
I
want
that.
That is, that may be like one of their first tours.
Yeah,
probably as a big fan,
yeah.
Yeah, because I mean, like, let me just look this up here.
When did Chicago's,
first album come out.
I'm, that's right.
You are Googling with me.
They formed in, I want to, well, at the Paul University in Chicago, that's where I went to college too.
And I think they became the Chicago transit authority in 1967 after they moved to LA and then Chicago.
So that might have been their first big tour.
They, so they released their first album.
They released Chicago Transit Authority.
Wow.
Talking is tough.
In 1969, then their first album, Chicago in 1970.
And that was back in the day.
I mean, Pete, you, that's a, like, I don't mean to get all old man river on this, but like there was a time when bands recorded an album a year or twice a year.
They were releasing material all the time.
I mean, yeah.
Chicago transit authority 69, Chicago 70, Chicago three.
I don't know why it's Chicago three.
I guess cause it's their third album, 71, 70, like just tons of albums.
But yeah.
So when it's safe to say, yeah, when she saw, when Anna saw them in 1971,
they were
touring on Chicago three.
That's crazy.
That was a blast.
So she saw Terry, Kath and all the original band members.
And Peter satara actually was not a,
actual original member, but he joined really quickly.
I want to say within the first year, so he's basically an original member, but yeah, they were all there.
I bet that was an absolutely fantastic show.
Don Saluski, I hope I'm saying that right on the stream says, looking forward to seeing Jason next weekend in Marinette.
Well, great, Don.
Make sure you say hello to be good to meet you.
And our friend who is stuck in the ceiling fan says, this is a casual ass blast because it is casual Friday.
It's casual Friday.
Can we re-introduce that, Tom?
I don't know if we... We did
not.
We did not.
We should
get
at that.
Yeah, let's do it.
It's casual Friday with Pete and Greg.
I feel pretty casual, I gotta tell ya.
Our question of the night, folks.
I'll just read it right now because we just had kind of a fun produced soundbite.
Let's not go crazy.
What's the lamest excuse for being late to work?
Um pretty simple question whether you have given one yourself or heard a co-worker say something ridiculous Or you were the supervisor or superior and heard something.
We'd love to you We'd love for you to share it eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic You can also text us on the civic media app or if you're watching the radio on x twitter facebook or YouTube you can drop us a stream comment like Don just did.
We'd love to
hear from you
Yeah, be part of the show, folks.
Let's have some fun on casual Friday here at Nightlight.
Tim Jacobson on the stream says, I tried the big arch yesterday.
It was horrible.
Won't get it again.
I think we already read that.
But I asked Tim to...
to tell us specifically why.
And he said, the patties had no flavor.
The combination of sesame seed and poppy seed was off.
The sauce was horrible.
I ate half of it and threw it out.
I mean, I'm not going to lie.
When I saw the thing being put together in the commercial, I was like, this all seems like something like I worked in fast food and there was always food you created out of the regular items.
This seems like something someone created on a dare and said, well, I guess we did.
We call it the big arch, but we're really just kidding.
We don't really, not really mean it or anything.
My son and his cousins used to make what they called an everything sandwich.
They would just go into the fridge at my mom's house and they would just put everything on a sandwich.
And it's kind of like, that's what the big arch looked like.
It's like, you've already got a big Mac, but this is twice the calories of it.
Anyway, we've already covered
that.
They've got the big Mac.
We've got the big Mac.
They're the golden arches.
We're the golden arcs.
Speaking of excuses though, we have Monica from Mount Horrib listening on WMDX.
She says, my coworker called and said she was going to be late due to the sidewalks being icy on the way to the bus stop.
I lived just a few blocks further away and our boss told her I'm
I had made it to work.
She grouchily said she'd be right in.
So it wasn't the excuse itself, but just that she got busted.
It's a good thing.
No one, no one said Chicago was overrated a couple of days ago.
That would have been awkward.
Peter Satara was not my favorite singer.
Okay.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Really wrapped up
everything there Monica.
That was like a synopsis of the
whole show.
I loved it.
Chapter two, my thoughts on
Chicago.
Dana on the on the text line from the six away.
This is my favorite and it took me a moment, but I got it Dana This is his favorite excuse for being late to work.
Sorry.
I'm late fellas.
I was taking a crap It's a line that Paul Newman said in the sting to get under the skin of Doyle Lonegan who they were trying to rope in
this poker game on the train and it's just a remarkable scene one of my favorite Scenes in movie history and he really does get under a is a burn show
I'm spacing.
Anyway, Paul Moon, Outstanding Stuff.
And that's a great excuse.
What, so what are some of your excuses you've heard in your life?
I mean, and you've, and the thing is, is that with working in movies and TV and in comedy, you hear a whole bevy of excuses from the artistic creative types that are.
Yeah.
always seem to be like, this is my experience too, working with people in that field.
It's like their excuses are always so, in my opinion, like nothing, but you're like, I guess I can't foresee to be here right now, but I guess you're just not feeling it today.
Yeah, it's, it's weird because you've heard, I've heard stories.
This, I wasn't there for this one, but I did laugh.
It was someone that told me the story.
They were on a set.
The whole set was held up.
Because some girl was late for 30 minutes and that cost money.
Yeah, they're all waiting around twiddling their thumbs and then this woman comes in and they're all like looking at her like what's your excuse and she says my boyfriend is crazy and everyone just went oh, okay Like it was kind of an acceptable excuse, you know, it's like what does that even mean?
Yeah, that's a
That's a nothing excuse to me.
It's an excuse.
And I saw another one.
This was when I was in high school.
And we, you know, I went to Catholic school.
We had to go to Mass every day.
We would meet at the church.
Yeah.
By this time, it might have been once a week, whatever.
But this kid comes in, obviously stoned, really late, halfway through the Mass.
He's got hair hanging in his eyes and the priest says, Fred, where were you?
And he takes a beat and he just goes, I was late.
It was like a Spicoli moment.
like full crowd seen by the food vendors, you know Great stuff.
So you had to go to school You had to go to mass every day at one point when you were in Catholic school
I got confused when I was in Catholic school in Chicago was every day We needed the church and then walk over to the school after mass But when I moved to Marinette it was I think once a week and that's that's where I was when this happened I was probably in seventh grade this
kid
was like an eighth grader or freshman from high school.
Oh, it's just
I was like, dude, you got to do better than that.
Like, you know, at least make something.
I was late is not an excuse.
That's just the fact.
You know, I mean, that really comes down to his like, he was just telling the truth.
He was not lying.
He was not bearing false witness.
He was
being
truthful young man.
And I'm trying to think of like the, I think the, I wouldn't say they're lame excuses.
It's just that I remember there were times in my life where I just didn't want to go to work the next day.
So I would
do that thing where the day before, I'd be like, oh, I'm not feeling so good.
I don't feel good.
I don't know.
Oh God, I hope, I hope I'm not getting sick.
I really don't want to miss any work.
And then later that night, you know, you text someone like, oh dude, I feel terrible right now.
And
then the
next morning and you call you call or text it like five in the morning Not right before you're supposed to clock in but early or you call and you're like
Did you ever
Did you ever think like your voice sounded so terrible?
You're like, I should call in sick today because they would never question it.
Even though you
feel great, you're like, yeah, I'm going to call in because, but I'm going to get them on the phone and let
them hear how
horrible.
Um, Mike Mercury on social media says, I wasn't sure if I still worked here.
Uh,
There is no lame excuse.
Very few actually enjoy working and probably wouldn't if they didn't have to.
Maybe a better question is, what's the most creative excuse for being late?
Okay, well, playing lawyer ball there, Rob.
I mean, as
far as being late, I mean, I'm sure I've made up some, some.
You know, white lies are like, oh man, this thing happened.
Oh, you know, when you walk in disheveled, no one really messes with you.
You're like,
I'm just having a really
bad day.
I'm sorry I'm late.
And people are like, oh, it's fine.
Don't worry about it.
And you're like,
I was watching New Girl.
Oh man, we're getting a really nice insight into Greg's.
You know what?
It's funny you say that.
I have done that.
Like when I had a movie.
Watch New Girl?
Yeah, it's
a great show.
Not New Girl, but like if I knew something was on, like remember the morning they'd have like movies?
on sometimes on like the fringe channels not network if I saw something good on I would I would fake an illness and My mom caught me once because I was holding that I was doing the thing where I hold the thermometer I was like in sixth grade did the heater and I go here you go mom was like 106 she goes Peter Totally called me out.
Yeah
Yeah, it's, I, I would, I mean, as an adult, I would do that.
Like, you know, there was a TV show on.
I'm like, I can be 20 minutes late.
That's fine.
This is an important whatever I'm doing.
If I'm not, I mean, I'm one for punctuality and I do not like being tardy, but there are sometimes reading me like, and no one's going to, especially if it's like a party or something.
No one cares.
It might have been, it was a very special new girl that was on that you couldn't miss
Pete.
They're all special.
Okay.
All
seven seasons.
are special.
Whoa, seven.
Yep.
Uh, Jay Campbell on social media says I was too drunk to drive in on time.
That's a good one.
I like that.
Uh, Andrew Brown, my garage door was stuck.
That could actually happen.
That's a pretty good one.
And, uh, Jim Denny, I believe that's Jim from Appleton says my cat wouldn't get off my lap.
Ooh, that one.
That one's trouble, Jim.
You better call, you better call in friend.
Then I mean, I mean, seriously, if your cat's on your lap and he cannot be expected
to work, possibly be expected to work.
You're coming right back with a Jean Creighton.
She is the director of the Manfred Olson planetarium at UWM.
I cannot wait to talk some stars.
And I think I could speak for Greg on that as well.
We are coming right back.
This is nightlight on the civic media
network.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
My name is Greg Bach, and across the state from me is Mr. Pete Schwabba, along with Dom Lee in Madison on the board.
So you can always get in touch with us.
855-752-4842-855-757.
Leave a comment on that live stream.
We are streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter.
You can also send in your thoughts on the lamest excuses for being late to work.
Also, let us know your thoughts on the Bayonet Chicago.
We just talked to Jason Sheff in the first hour.
You can catch the entire
interview on the website because then it was about a 45 minute conversation.
You got a little snippet of it.
Great discussion with Mr. Chef.
He will be playing on the 14th of March.
Where again, Pete, at the Marinette?
Marinette Community Rec Center.
I will be there.
Please come on out and say hello and listen to some outstanding music.
And maybe Greg Mock will be there.
Maybe I'll be there as well.
But without further ado, I want to welcome our second guest for the evening.
She is the director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Gopanthers.
Jean Creighton is our guest this evening.
Jean, good evening.
How are you today?
I'm
doing great.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Excellent.
So, I mean...
Pete and I are huge fans of space.
I love space.
I can look at space and just be amazed by it.
I can talk about this all day long, but I'd actually just rather listen.
So can you tell us about the Manfred Olsen Planetarium?
I would love to.
So the Manfred Olsen Planetarium is turning 60 this year.
Nice.
And we have about 15,000 people a year.
And what's happening is we get a combination of general audiences from the community.
We get school groups, of course.
We have the birthday parties.
We also have classes that take advantage of the planetarium to augment their curriculum, I mean, in university classes.
So we, in addition to focusing on science,
and exploration.
We also love talking about how the culture and science meet.
That's
fantastic.
So Gene, all right, give us a little background, please, if you would, on yourself.
You have a PhD in astrophysics.
I'm barely smart enough to say that.
You've studied all over the world.
It looks like you've done a little of everything when it comes to physics and space and all that kind of stuff.
And it sounds like you could do anything.
So how did you end up here in Wisconsin?
And how was that going?
Was that a good choice for you?
It sounds like things are going great.
It was an excellent choice.
I love what I do.
I'm one of those very lucky people who wake up in the morning and think, just get out of my way.
I have fun things to do.
So I did have a traditional career path in that I started
as a physics major, and then I went to Canada for graduate work, and I found my husband to be as graduate students, and he's academically a year ahead of me, so he had what's called a postdoc, so a research position at Caltech, and he went a year ahead, and I went there too, and I was working on an infrared satellite.
I mean, all of these things are super fun and wonderful.
He came here and I had a critical decision to make at some point.
Am I going to stay in California or are we going to live in the same city and have a family?
So we decided on the ladder and that turned out to work beautifully because you know when your kids are young you need a little bit of flexibility.
So I taught astronomy for a few years.
And then an opportunity came up with the planetarium.
The person, John Harmon, who was the previous director, was retiring.
And the department asked me, could you please be the interim director?
And I thought, this is a long way from research on star formation.
But I started doing it.
And I thought, oh, this is what I was meant to do.
That's amazing.
I love it.
With regard to your PhD, was that with star formation your field of study?
And forgive me for asking a question that's so general.
I don't know how it breaks up into this, but with regard to your astrophysicist PhD, is that what you were doing?
Was that your specialty?
Yeah, even that is too big a specialty because star formation is a super complicated thing.
So I was looking at a particular galaxy that seems to
have a sort of star formation on steroids.
He's trying to understand what about that galaxy was different that made it possible to have much more star formation happening than say our galaxy.
Well, what was it?
Yeah.
Was it actually steroids?
Was it steroids?
So the steroids is that the particular so the molecular clouds, the clouds that
give birth to stars were bigger, denser, hotter than ours.
And the fun part, though, this is quite a few years ago now, at that time, that was cutting edge cutting edge observations that were possible.
Then now, of course, that would be like, Oh, we would do that before breakfast, right?
It wouldn't be a big deal.
But at that time, it was it was really
pushing the edge of what our instruments could do.
We are speaking with Gene Craton, who is the director of the Manfred Olsen Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
We were talking about the planetarium itself.
It's celebrating its 60th anniversary.
We're gonna be talking about a few other things as well.
I mean, for me, this is amazing and awesome.
I could talk about this stuff all day long.
So that's how I could talk about space.
And I know very, I understand very little.
I just, I'm like, keep talking, blow my mind.
Tell me something about the universe.
I love that stuff.
We'll be talking more with Jean in a little bit.
But if you have any questions, 855-752-4842-855-75CIVIC.
Leave a comment on the live stream.
We are on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform we still call Twitter.
Still more ahead with Jean Creighton from the Manfred Olsen Planetarium.
After the break, don't go anywhere.
You are listening to Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.
Stay tuned and stay
close.
To touch down, brings me round again to find I'm not the man they think I am at my...
Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
My name is Greg Bach and across the state with me is Mr. Pete Schwabba.
Dom Lee is in Madison and you can be part of the conversation 855-752-484-2855-755.
Civic leave a comment on the live stream.
We are streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter.
We are here with our guest Gene Creighton, who is the director of the Manfred Olsen Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
And if you ever have a reason,
to watch the live stream.
It's to watch our guests dance at our intro and outro music.
That's always wonderful to witness.
It means they're cool and having a good time.
I'm going to assume.
Now, Gene, one of the things that was that happened this week was something called Space Night.
What is that event?
How does it go?
And is it something that happens regularly that people can take part in?
Space Night is part of Geek Week.
So campuses around the country have this
week in March where, you know, you can geek out with whatever you want.
And of course, Space Night seems to be a natural fit.
People are invited to wear whatever space gear they have handy.
We usually have space themed candies like Milky Way and Mars and whatever else.
And we do stargazing.
It's free.
The event is targeted since it's midweek for students, but of course we're happy to get
whoever shows up and we had a, I guess we had a group of, um, of scouts show up too.
So they were, they were very pleased to be part of this.
That's fantastic.
Tell us about the Arabian nights you have happening in April.
That sounds really cool too.
Yes.
So as I mentioned before, it's really important for us Pete to, um, acknowledge that everybody on the planet's looked up and made sense as best they could of, of.
you know, how this whole thing has come to be and how we connect to it.
The Arabs have very much contributed to the understanding that we have in astronomy.
So two students are guest speakers with me.
One of them, Mohammed Masha is from Algeria and Mona Said is from Lebanon.
So they're going to talk about their culture.
food, you know, singers, personalities that are interesting.
So people feel more connected to a place that feels far, right?
Yeah.
And
also to look at the stars, many of which have Arabic names.
Right.
Oh, right.
Like Beetlejuice, right?
So it's fun to kind of
acknowledge that we're looking at the same sky, we're amazed and awed in the same ways, and often there's some tea and cookies together.
It's the sort of events that we need more of, I think.
That sounds very, very fun.
You know, we were talking about it right before the break and you mentioned it during the livestream, but for me,
I'm fascinated by just the topic of space, the all-encompassing of it, like from the work that you will do as an astrophysicist to just walking outside and looking up at the stars.
There's always mind-blowing facts about space that we don't think about until someone with your expertise says it out loud.
What is just something that you like to tell people when they are talking about this topic that just you will say it and that just blows their mind completely about where we come from and how it has to do with space?
Yeah, I think my favorite fact, although of course I have many, but my favorite is that we wouldn't be here if there weren't stars.
Yeah.
Because everything that makes us interesting and organic, our oxygen or carbon, all of those things, the iron can only cook in the stars.
The only place where the pressure and temperature gets high enough that you can fuse protons to make those bigger.
elements, so literally we wouldn't be here if stars didn't exist.
And I think that's wonderful that when you look up, you literally are looking at your ancestors.
That is fantastic.
The first time
I ever
heard the phrase, we are stardust, that literally blew my mind.
And it was like, yeah, the same stuff that makes us is in the stars and the gas and dust and all that kind of stuff.
I remember going to my grandmother's cottage in Three Lakes, Wisconsin, Jean, and there were no big cities within a couple hundred miles.
The stars you saw were unbelievable.
And growing up in Chicago and going up there, it made a world of difference for stargazing.
Obviously, where do you think the best place in Wisconsin is to stargaze without big telescopes?
You've also lived all over the world.
You studied physics and Greece and all kinds of places.
Where's the best stargazing in the world and where's the best stargazing in Wisconsin?
So I'm gonna I'm gonna sort of pause here a little bit Pete because we go for perfection and Forget about perfection.
I mean perfection to me the best observing I've ever done was on the top of monachea no question about it Monachea has a it's high The the atmosphere super stable.
It was gorgeous.
Truly.
It took my breath away when I saw the Milky Way, which by the way, I had never seen before
It literally took my breath away.
But to see the Milky Way, you don't need to go to the top of Mauna Kea.
Sometimes you can go to a community like in Milwaukee.
For example, there's a community called Brown Deer.
There are no street lights.
If you go to a community like that, you might be able to see the Milky Way.
The best place in Wisconsin is at the tip of Door County.
That is one of the designated, so the designated dark space.
But I've had students, university students who, one of them I remembered specifically, she said, I'm from Wales and I could see this.
I could see this dark sky at night.
I said to her, you don't sound like you're from Wales.
She said, Wales, Wisconsin.
Okay, I see.
So I think that some of our listeners will have access to really dark skies.
And for those of us who live in cities, this is your invitation.
The universe is sending you a message.
Find a friend who lives out of town, maybe go camping.
warmer nights are coming.
It really is something special to see some of those beautiful dark skies.
But I'm here to say, and Greg mentioned that earlier, we can see cool stuff in our backyard.
So don't ignore the stuff, the easy, the low hanging fruit.
Can I tell you about some low hanging fruit?
Please, please
do.
This is the time of year.
This is the best guy in terms of brightness.
So we have what I describe as a bowtie.
and that would be Orion.
The Anishinaabe people call it winterbringer.
If you can see Orion in the sky, we're still in wintertime, right, especially in the early evening.
So Orion is great because it has three stars where the two bows connect, three stars in a row.
Some cultures call those the three kings.
Those three stars point to the brightest star in the sky called Sirius or the dog star.
And if you go in the other direction, it points to a sharp V, which is Taurus, the bull.
And not close to that, you will find the seven sisters.
You don't need a telescope to see those.
You need dark-ish sky, but you can see them in the city if your eyesight is good.
There are a super cool cluster of stars.
They're physically relatively near each other, and they're...
beautiful to look at.
And again, this is one of those groupings that many people around the world built observatories according to when the Pleiades rise and set.
You might have heard them as Subaru, like the car come.
That is the voice of Jean Creighton.
She is the director of the Manfred Olsen Planetarium at UW Milwaukee.
I think it's funny, Jean, when I was a kid, I would go into movie theaters and sometimes they had the twinkling stars on the ceiling.
And we would always be like, oh my gosh, I don't think enough people do that when they can see actual stars in the sky.
Is that the job of the planetarium is just to get people excited about space?
We have such natural beauty when you look up.
You couldn't even conceive that.
And it's
out there.
Do enough people appreciate it in your opinion?
Well, they don't because they don't see it, right?
And unfortunately, people spend too much time now looking down.
Right.
rather than looking up.
So I do think that the planetarium has a great role to play of making more people aware of, oh, look up.
It's really gorgeous.
And again, connecting to something also a bit bigger, that we're part, our Earth is part of a whole universe.
In speaking of the planetarium, what other programs do you have coming up?
Is there anything planned for the 60th, like a series of plans or anything coming up that folks might be interested in attending and checking
out the
website?
Thank you for asking.
Yes.
So we're starting a program, a series of programs called Solar System Expedition.
We're offering it as a matinee.
Most of our programs are in the evening, but because
You know, there are people who don't care for driving out at nighttime.
We wanted to make it easy for families to visit us during the day.
So for the Saturdays in March, we're going to have the solar system expedition from two to three, and you can get tickets online.
programs that we're offering for the 60th are probably gonna culminate in the fall.
We're dreaming of a storytelling session.
We haven't quite figured out the details yet, but we want to give people a chance to talk about some of their favorite stories connecting themselves to stars.
I can tell you one story if you want.
Please.
Yes,
please.
Please and thank you.
But talk slow so we can comprehend it.
This is
amazing.
I think this will be fairly intuitive.
So when I was in Greece still, I had just finished a lesson in English and I was waiting at the bus stop to go home.
I was getting super nervous because I was going to another country and I was going to do a graduate degree in astronomy and I was nervous about all these changes and what the challenge might be.
So I remember thinking, okay, wow, this is kind of tough, and I'm waiting at the bus stop.
And all of a sudden, this aroma from Jasmine came.
This would have been June.
This beautiful kind of aroma enveloped me, and I looked a little more closely toward the west, and I saw that the crescent moon and Venus were there, and Venus was super bright.
And I thought, you know what?
The universe is telling me it's going to be all right.
I'm going to be all right.
And I have this very small, very strong sense of, you know, sometimes you just get these beautiful, you get these beautiful messages, right?
And
feel connected.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
You know, Jean.
I have to assume you've been doing this.
You've been in this world for decades now.
You've been doing this work.
And I want to say that the joy that your face portrays, the happiness you have towards this topic, the passion is so there and it's so wonderful to hear someone who's been doing it for this long.
who speaks like it's your first day, like you're so excited and the way you convey this message is so important.
And we will make sure that the Manfred Olsen Planetarium is in our show notes so people can check it out, get tickets to events.
I know I would like to go to this as well.
And it's just, it's wonderful to have you here talking about this.
Thank you.
It's
a joy.
Go ahead, Gene.
Sorry.
I was just going to say, anytime I have a chance to, you know, share my passion, invite people, make sure that people know we want you to come and visit us.
Please come and visit us.
We do also private shows.
So if somebody can't make our schedule, their programs are.
you know, our public programs, you can always have a birthday or anniversary at the planetarium.
Oh,
love
that.
Oh.
All right.
That is fantastic.
Greg, your birthday party, that's where we're having it.
Yes.
Gene, thank you so much.
Keep up the great work.
And please come back soon.
I didn't even get to ask you about your experience with Sophia.
So we'll do that next time.
And thank you for your passion and everything you do to increase awareness about such beauty.
It's been great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
You're very welcome.
All right, this is Nightlight with Pete Chihuahua and Greg Bach.
We are coming back with a handy tip from Greg and Pete, and maybe Don will chime
right, we're coming right back.
Don't go anywhere.
This is the Civic Media
Network.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
My name is Greg Bach.
Across the state from me is Pete Schwabba in Madison.
We have Mr. Dom Lee on the ones and twos.
Everyone, uh, thank you so much for being here tonight.
Thank you for being here this week.
Thank you for being a part of Nightlight 2.0 week number two, our first casual, you know what?
Let's do it one more time.
Dom, one more time.
It's casual Friday.
So we got it.
We got ourselves a, we got ourselves a sounder for it.
It's casual Friday with Pete and Greg.
It sounds like casual Friday after dark.
Yeah.
Oh, you
can always be part of
the conversation eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic leave a comment on the live stream.
We are streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter.
Oh, we got a great show for you this Monday is coming Monday.
We're going to be talking to Kathy O'Neill, who's the author of weapons of math.
destruction.
We're going to be talking about the dangers of big data, as well as a discussion with Tim Sowers, who is the co-CEO and chief artistic expert.
Artistic
officer's officer.
Yeah.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Chief.
See, that's better than a chief tasting
officer.
He's got a huge title.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Chief artistic experiences officer at the Overture Center.
So that's going to be on Monday.
So don't go anywhere.
And don't don't don't don't don't tune away after us.
We got lots of great programming after us as well.
We still have some more comments about today's question, which was what was the lamest excuse you've heard or given for being late?
Pete, go ahead.
What are some
of your ears?
One of my favorites, Danny wheels, Daniel Wheeler from an ashes is what's the lamest excuse for being late?
to work.
Walgreens was offering a buy one box of Lucky Charms cereal, get another half off, but my loyalty card wasn't working.
So they issued me a new card, which is why I'm 90 minutes late to work.
That's gorgeous.
I believe that because if I go to a Walgreens nowadays, there's usually one, maybe two people working.
And if I go there, someone in front of me is having a problem with their loyalty card.
Yes,
and they have to go back into it and they have to redo the entire order Or they have to take things off or this doesn't work or that's and I am sitting there for like I have a bottle of coffee creamer in my hand and I'm sitting there for 20 minutes and it is such an exercise and patience and Calm and to understand that no one wants to be in this situation either so there's no reason to get angry or do that thing that the people go
Look around like does anyone else feel the same way I do so we can all huff and puff at each other?
Right
because that hasn't been us at one time either having an issue with something and holding up the line and that's where you I thought you were gonna say oh I The same excuse to me.
I was behind some guy trying to buy a box of lucky charms and
one free Yes, that's you got to make up these crazy things like people think you couldn't have possibly made that
that is a beautiful one right there We also have a Chris opera on social media says I told my boss once that I realized
I told my boss once that I was halfway in when I realized I left my car keys at home.
I had to turn around and go back home to get them.
So he lied and he came back to bite them.
Whomp.
Whomp.
Awesome text tonight, folks.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much for being a part of the show this evening.
Now let's move it on to a handy tip from Pete and Greg.
Oh, you know, it's the tip of the night.
All that money you hear at the end right there.
That is the money we spent on that Muppets cameo.
Um, so we were, it's casual Friday.
We're having a good time today.
We're kicking back.
Great conversation with Gene Craton about space, but more.
So what I loved is that her.
desire to let people know that there is great stuff in your backyard.
There's great stuff at your fingertips.
It's right there where you can find it.
It's free.
You don't have to spend a lot of money.
You don't have to drive 30 hours to see something.
And that's kind of my tip tonight is, you know, we got warmer weather coming our way.
Go outside and look up at the stars for a moment.
It sounds so dumb, but it's true.
Give yourself five minutes.
walk in your backyard or wherever you can and just look up and just concentrate on the stars and just kind of like turn your mind off.
We were talking to, we had a conversation with, we haven't played that yet.
No, yeah, next week we're talking to Cortland Dahl about meditation.
Put yourself in a meditative space for like two to three minutes, look up at the stars, relax your brain, take it in, enjoy.
That's my tip is to just look up, take it in and enjoy.
Pete.
I mean, I don't have, I totally agree with you.
One of the great things I love about living in Northeast Wisconsin in a smaller town, right by the water here, we're just off of the body of water of Green Bay, is that we get to lay on the pier sometimes and look up at the stars.
And it's something that you, and I kind of asked Jean this, you kind of take it for granted, because they're just always there.
I don't think we do when we get a little older, but when I was younger, I'd look up, if someone told me to look up there, you can see Venus, or there's a satellite, and that's really
cool.
But to see such majestic beauty every single night if there aren't clouds, you know You have it right there and all you have to do is look up and it's really Stunning when you see this is something you couldn't an artist couldn't even create this that's how beautiful the sky can be
and to paraphrase what Jean said with regards to with regard to looking up at the stars
Look up at the stars and look at your ancestors because that's where we come from because of that up there.
Those stars in that space, we are who we are in our space right here on earth.
So again, look up, take it in, relax your mind, treat yourself to a moment to yourself.
That's, that is my handy tip for the night and look at your ancestors up in the sky.
And that brings us to the end of another tip from Pete and Greg.
Oh, you know, it's the tip of the night.
I forgot that head outro music.
I was saying the stars are beautiful.
Gina was very interesting.
But at the end of the day, I just want to sit on my couch and watch color TV.
Is that wrong?
New girl.
Watch some new girl.
I got a whole series ahead of me.
Yeah, you do.
Maybe it's on the Hulu.
All right.
On behalf of Pete, I want to thank Dom.
I want to thank Tucker, Traffic and Engineering.
Without your work, we do not talk into microphones that are switched on.
For everyone who called, texted, left a comment on the live stream.
Thank you.
Without you, there is no us.
Thank you to Jason Sheff.
Thank you to Gene Crichton for all of your great
information, all the wonderful conversations we had with you.
Don't go anywhere.
We still got lots of programming tonight and we'll be back on Monday, same time, five to seven here on the Civic Meeting Network.
This has been Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Pete, say good night to the folks.
Good night, Wisconsin.
Look up at the
stars.
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