Stephen Petrie & Julia Colby on Creepy Crawlies & the Milwaukee Public Museum (Hour 1)

From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin, it's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.

You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.

It's news and culture without the noise.

Yeah, I'm on!

Here's Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Dude!

Hey, welcome to Nightlight, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm so glad you're here as we celebrate this joyous day that is a Wednesday here in the state of Wisconsin.

I am Pete Schwabba, joined as always by Mr. Greg Bach, who joins us from Radio Park in Racine.

I am coming to you live from Christmas City, USA, aka beautiful Marinette, Wisconsin on the shores of Green Bay and Dom Lee.

Dom Lee, as we haven't called him in a while, is joining us for a Madison.

Holding down the fort, producing the show.

It is good to see you, fellows.

How we doing?

Dom?

I'm doing good.

I'm not always so polite when I ask that.

Well, it's a thing of like, I

don't want

to do it.

I'm doing really good.

I'm doing, this is the.

best day of the week for me.

I finished packing fully.

Now I just have to clean a little bit of my apartment, but I'm ready to go for tomorrow.

I'm excited.

It's a good day.

You got a clean light to get your security deposit back.

Is that how

that

works?

Yep.

I got to get it back.

I think so.

I think so.

I've hit a wall or two, maybe three, but I should be getting my deposit back.

You mean like metaphorically, or you actually hit a

wall, you punched a wall?

I did accidentally punch my wall, but it wasn't, it was accidental.

It wasn't on purpose, I wasn't mad or anything.

Do you need help fixing it?

Maybe, yeah, I mean not, yeah, I do actually.

All

right, all right.

That's an argument you're not gonna win with an inanimate object like that Dom.

That is not advisable, but glad you're okay.

Yeah, but I've seen his guns.

Drywall doesn't stand a chance against Dom.

That's a good point.

And you got the long sleeves.

You're rocking the long sleeves today.

Yeah.

Okay.

See, I'm feeling very good.

How you doing, Greg?

I'm doing...

Repping the

crew.

I like the shirt.

Thank you very much.

beat the Padres last night.

That was great.

I'm

not,

I'm not happy that they, you know, they were, had really nicely.

And then it was a four to six victory versus a four to six to two, but that's the life of the Brewer's fan.

No, I'm just also just wrestling with this bug that I've got.

I've been trying to kick its butt, but it's just like, it's, I'm not sick, but I'm not well.

I'm in that mid space where like just, you know,

So I'm

either gonna defeat it or it's gonna become a full-blown thing.

Yeah, and that's kind of what I'm afraid of too is that you know

it's going to be a thing where my body says, Oh, guess what?

You're staying home for the next four days because you just didn't go to sleep more.

And, you know, it's, that's to me, what, whether you're getting a flu or a cold, especially a flu, a flu is your body saying, Hey, you know how you haven't been taking care of yourself for the past six to eight months?

Well, now you, you get a little break and it's not going to feel good either.

So there you go.

Now you

pay the

check.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But I'm doing fine.

It's whatever.

I, I, you know,

Unlike Dom, Wednesday is leading into my favorite day, which is Thursday.

That's

coming up

here.

I love Thursday.

Thursday just

feels

great.

I have to ask you, do you have a like a remedy or something you do when you feel yourself getting sick?

I used to have, I've had a couple of doctors tell me, take echinacea.

This was years ago.

And then it was during COVID, it was vitamin D. And I shoveled vitamin D in like it was a hot dish casserole for two years.

I didn't get COVID, at least I'd never tested positive for it.

So I might have been one of those people that carried it.

My guess would be I probably had to put my daughter and I did not test positive.

However, I would do the vitamin D, Echinacea, try to get to bed, and I always pride myself, oh, I haven't been sick and whatever, but I still get sick.

And

it doesn't last as long maybe, because you load up on D, but you can't not get sick.

What, did I say something?

No, you're fine.

You're fine.

It just keeps on saying nothing.

I think that you are not as healthy as you think you are, simply because earlier before we got on the air, you said something to the effect of, I sent this story at 3 AM when I couldn't sleep.

And that's

fine.

And people have sleeping problems.

That's fine.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I'm just saying we get sick because we get sick.

It's from not taking care of yourself.

It's also just from your body.

Things happen.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

I

was going to say for me,

I don't really do like any sort of preventative, like, like if I'm not feeling well, I'll, you know, I'll maybe load up on fluids or I'll try, I'll be very, I'll be very intentional with my sleeping to make sure I'm going to bed early, sleeping as much as possible.

But I don't go for any sort of like, you know, echinacea or what was that one that, that actually got proven wrong and they had to pay out money.

It was the, the, the zinc.

It was like an orange drink mix.

Emergency.

Emergency.

When they were like, take that before you go on an airplane.

You'll never get sick.

I'm like, I don't think you can say that.

I

don't think it was, you're close.

What was that called?

Yeah.

And I always cracked up because it said created by a teacher.

It's like, oh.

That was emergency.

Emergency.

I'm like, created by a teacher.

My wife's a teacher.

I don't want her designing.

Cold cocktail.

Oh, this one's designed by a forklift operator.

I'm beautiful.

Let

me take some, you know, it's still available.

It's called emergency immune support.

So I don't know.

I just, I just, I don't think

it

hurt.

It's just an extra

vitamin C, but it's not going to prevent anything.

Yeah.

So I'm not going to take it at all then because, because honestly at the end of the day, that's just 15 bucks out of my pocket for not nothing.

Not something that's doctor recommended or doctors.

I don't know.

I just get sleep when I'm not feeling well.

I just take a rest to make sure I just take it easy I don't try to over exert myself because I don't want it to get worse so

I don't have sleeping issues last night I went to bed at like 10 40 which is the earliest I've gone to bed in years and I woke up at 2 wide awake and Typically when I look at my phone when I'm in bed, I can't I'll pick out a Seinfeld episode I can't even pick out the episode before I fall asleep like that's how fast

So, I'm kind of on fumes today, but I kind of like that sometimes.

I feel like you work a little harder to get through it, you know?

And you know what I did?

I was laying in bed and I got obsessed with the Greenland shark because I get these reels, these AI videos of dinosaurs and these

cool

species.

Dom, I know you have issues with how the dinosaurs...

Maybe they still exist.

I don't know but But the Greenland shark some of them can live to 600 years old and they're huge And what kind of an existence is that you guys this thing swims one mile an hour for 500 they've been around before this country the Nina the Santa Maria, whatever That's not a life dude.

That's not like well fun.

It's like terrible You're

also assigning human values to a shark

The shark does not look like

it's having fun.

I mean like it's just I just wish I was invited to a few more parties in my time Yeah,

I'm gonna bump this up to a mile and a half swim and really In the North Atlantic crazy but incredible creatures

I will say though this that something and this is my part This is my thing too is that you know when it comes to what you just said It's something that I really would love to wean myself off of which is going to bed

and turning nothing on, no TV, no phone.

My, my brother-in-law is a very, very, very accomplished doctor.

And he, I asked him one day, he said, he said, the three, two one method is the best way to do it.

Three hours of stop working three hours before bed.

What was it?

Stop working

three

hours for it.

Oh no, it's, yeah, don't eat three hours before two hours stop working.

I think he said, I can't remember.

But basically he's

don't eat, don't drink,

but no

stop, but stop working too.

Stop

working.

But also an hour before bed, turn off your screens completely.

Get a book, get yourself ready.

Cause that stuff just messes with your eyes and it keeps you up.

I mean, the amount of time that I've gone to bed at like nine o'clock at night, but I don't fall asleep until one 15.

Cause I'm just scrolling.

It's awful.

It's bad for you.

It's bad for you.

And I'm going to be surprised.

That's part of the reason why I'm not feeling well either.

It is fun though.

Like I love.

I want to appreciate that a world of entertainment is at my fingertips.

Old comedy clips.

People falling.

It's fun.

But

they're there any time.

I know.

I know, dude.

It's not like if you don't

look at them at 2.30 in the morning, they'll be gone for it.

They'll come back.

It's true.

They'll come back.

I believe in you.

That's the voice of Greg Boggs, folks.

It's Pete and Greg coming to you live on the Civic Media Network.

Great to have you with us on this Wednesday night.

We have an excellent show tonight.

We're going to welcome our first guest tonight will be Steven Petrie and Julia Colby.

Steven is the Informal Education Coordinator at the Milwaukee Public Museum, an awesome institution.

And Julia is the Zoology Collections Manager.

So they will be here at 5.35 after the news.

Then in hour number two, we have a James Beard winning food journalist, Adam Reiner will be here.

He's going to talk to us about etiquette and how we should behave when we're at restaurants and the proper things to do.

And I have to admit,

I was doing everything wrong, Greg.

So this is gonna be an education.

I thought I'd walk in and order food.

No, no, no, there's a whole etiquette thing to that that we're gonna learn about tonight.

So that'll be fun.

Yeah, we'll

be

talking about his book, The New Rules of Dining Out, which I guess means wear pants.

Or dining in, then you don't have to.

Nightlight Movie Club is tomorrow night, folks.

And hour number two, that's gonna be a blast.

We had David Zucker on last week.

And he was one of the writer, director, producers of Airplane along with his brother Jerry and their pal Jim Abraham's Pat Proff might have been involved in a few of their movies too.

Just a great team who made some of the comedies for the ages.

Airplane is consistently ranked one of the best all time comedies, top five, whatever.

We're going to discuss that tomorrow night in hour number two.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

So we hope you'll join us and tell us your favorite airplane scenes, lines, actors, whatever.

It's just going to be a fun discussion.

That's tomorrow night in hour number two.

Right now, I think we need to get to our question of the night, fellows.

I agree.

Let's talk about the question.

OK, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

OK, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

This is exciting, folks.

It is national crouton day.

You didn't think it existed.

It does.

Have fun with it.

Our question of the night is, what is your favorite salad topping?

And you can even say there's actually a product out there called salad toppings.

You can say

that if

you want.

But let us know what your favorite salad topping is at 855-752-4842-855-755 Civic.

Text us on the app.

Text us on the stream if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or ex Twitter and let us know.

Be part of the fun.

Always more fun when you guys participate.

So that's exciting, Greg.

Yeah,

absolutely.

You know what is not exciting but infuriating?

I think I know where this is going.

News coming out of Jefferson County.

Last night there was a school board meeting and the Watertown School Board votes to remove a song tied to LGBTQ history from their spring concert.

This is being reported reported by WTMJ.

Last night, the board voted seven to one to remove an instrumental piece tied to LGBTQ plus history.

The piece was called is called a mother of a rather of a revolution.

It's a composition by Omar Thomas written in honor of transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson.

She is the one who threw the

the brick through the window at the Stonewall bar that created the Stonewall uprising that basically created the modern civil rights movement for the queer community.

They had been, so here's the thing that really burns my grits guys.

They had been practicing this concert for months and the parents had been sent a letter in October saying, we're doing this concert in May.

There's a song in here.

You have the opportunity to opt your child out of this.

And when they received what I've imagined was almost no responses.

Okay.

But now,

Of course, a week or two beforehand, everyone loses their mind.

Well, not just everyone, some people.

And the Watertown School Board decides to go there and bloviate on opinions that mean absolutely nothing because they are just trying to mirror the opinions of the mega crusade, which is no indoctrination of our children.

This is an instrumental piece.

There's no pictures.

There's no one talking.

It's a piece of music.

That's all it is,

and they decided to pull it.

And for those of you that don't know what instrumental, they're no lyrics, Greg.

It's not even, and what irritates me is it's a difficult piece to play.

These kids work so hard, and they got voted down seven to one.

And when a reporter, I think it was from WTMJ,

was

trying to get their opinions as these school board members walked out, they wouldn't even talk to her.

If you're that committed in your beliefs, why are you talking about them?

And why are you running away?

It's so snowflakey

and gutless.

And the concert isn't canceled.

They just can't quote play the song.

So I'm those kids play the song.

Do it.

I hope they do.

Do it.

Greg, you're indoctrinating me.

All right.

We're coming right back, folks.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bakken.

When we come back, Friends News, Ross and Rachel, you got it.

This is the Civic Media Network.

Welcome back tonight, ladies and gentlemen.

It is Wednesday night in the state of Wisconsin.

You've got the Civic Media Network.

You've got Pete Schwabba, Greg Bach, Dom Lee.

We are coming to you live from various parts of the state.

I am in Northeast Wisconsin.

Greg is in Southeast Wisconsin, and Dom is in Madison, Wisconsin.

We are the Yatter Hay Triangle, and we are glad you're part of the show and joining us tonight.

Before we get back to our stories, someone is calling in, and you know what, Greg?

This is how I'm going to segue.

I know this person.

This is Jack from Merrimack.

He is definitely not calling in on a Trump phone.

I know that much.

That's very true.

He's not, he's not getting his

Trump phone yet.

Jack from Merrimack,

welcome to the

show.

How are you doing, bud?

I'm still waiting for my Trump phone.

Yeah,

good luck on that one, buddy.

What's up, sir?

What

is on

your mind tonight?

Yeah.

Well, again, it's the school board so-called decision.

is a bunch of the maggots that are just engendering and inciting fear, hate, and anger.

Fear of anybody that is anything different, hate of the fact that maybe these people can actually get some rights in our society and anger that, oh my goodness, somebody might think this is acceptable.

Crazy.

Oh yes.

And the whole thing, this is just, you know, I mean, this is to draw this kind of stuff is just drawing attention away from little things like the Trump sign files and the fact that our democracy is being not whittled away bit by bit.

But yeah, you know, Jack,

yeah, Jack, I find it very

interesting.

Yeah, I find it very interesting that the gentleman from the school board was his little thing was we don't want to indoctrinate children.

I'm like, yeah, but you're not protecting them either.

You're not prosecuting anyone on the obscene files.

But yet this instrumental song played by 40 kids at Watertown High School in Wisconsin, that is where the danger lies, my friends.

That's where the danger

is.

Right

to society.

Absolutely.

Thank

you for the call, Jack.

Great stuff.

Thank you very much.

And speaking of the phone.

Did you see this coming, Greg?

I mean, of all the failed ventures in the Trump family, the phone, the gold phone, didn't this have, the writing was on the wall.

People are furious now.

The Trump family's made 60 million bucks from $100 deposits on this phone that is never going to happen.

And if it does, or if it did, it was never going to be made in the United States.

It's going to be made in China.

And that's how they sold it as something made in the USA.

Well, that's how a lot of manufacturing companies get, I know a friend of mine who, a friend of mine worked for a company where they sold, you know, heavy truck parts.

And their whole thing was like, made in the USA, you're buying, you're buying American strong.

Well, the, the work around there was they were buying from the American company.

That was the middleman for the Chinese manufacturing firm that made the actual parts.

Yeah.

So,

the fact that people actually thought they were going to get a phone.

I don't know, but like I'm also getting tired of seeing.

Oh, do we lose Greg down?

Oh, I'm right here.

Hello.

Oh, there he

is.

Whether it's the Trump guitar, the Trump vodka, the Trump phone, the Trump, uh, what was that?

the

state.

Well, I

mean, those are even those are the old days.

I'm

talking about

the new griffs and the new

shoes.

Yeah.

The hoops.

Well, the hoop shoes were real.

People actually bought those weird things.

But like the phone, dude, I mean, I'm not even buying a phone from a legitimate company.

If they're like, yeah, give us some money, we'll be sure to get it to you.

No, no, thank you.

You know, what people didn't realize either is when you buy a Trump phone, the

the plans were not very good.

It was, you get like a hundred texts and seven unlimited minutes a month.

So that's not a very good system.

And you get texted by Eric and Don Jr

a lot.

And it's very weird.

When they come back from their guided hunts of, uh, right.

So here's another thing I saw, Greg.

And I love this.

All right.

To show friends, I don't know where you stand on the show friends.

I like it.

I don't, it's not one of my top five, but it's a very well written show, very funny, great actors.

But the Ross Rachel stuff, I was still not really watching it when that happened, but it's back.

Lisa Kudrow went on Jimmy Fallon and said that Ross was in the wrong.

His constant yelling, we were on a break.

She said he was a terrible boyfriend.

Where do you weigh in on that?

And how about it?

The fact that

it's back in the news.

Well, I mean, she's, she's been making headlines for the past little while because she, because of the death of Matthew Perry, she's been rewatching friends for the first time through.

So she's had some thoughts on this.

I don't disagree.

Ross is insufferable.

Ross

is absolutely, he was

insufferable.

It's like that show is 32 years old this year.

It started in 1994 and I was in high school and I'll tell you this, even in high school and in college, I thought Ross was insufferable and I was a young man and I could have been like, he's totally no.

He screwed up.

He messed up.

He'd like, no, he was a bad boyfriend and the, and the, uh, the whole will was anyways, where, where they get.

And then they spend like seven seasons not together.

And then they know that the thing about friends is when Monica and Chandler got together, they were together.

They weren't, they started dating.

They got engaged.

They got married.

They had kids show over.

There was no like, are they going to break up?

No.

They were confident and they were strong in their relationship.

Ross and Rachel, that's a therapy session.

And

nobody really cared after a while.

It was like, oh, they got together and people in the tabloids went nuts and it was great.

Okay.

And then I actually liked that.

I thought it was fun.

He was funny.

David Schwimmer is a very good actor, but man, you're right.

Was he annoying?

And I saw it on a Reddit post once somebody wrote, what is the point of Ross?

So I mean he was like the most forgettable character, but a very talented guy But I am with Lisa Kudrow on this and Schwimmer went on Fallon and said Ross was definitely in the right because technically they were on a break So this is all back in our lives now.

No boy.

Well I Will see from a technical standpoint maybe but from a from a human common sense point dude Dude the

time

has

passed exactly ladies and gentlemen our question of the night is what is your favorite?

Salad topping.

What do you what do you have to have on yourself?

Let us know.

It's National Cruton Day 855-752-4842-855-755 Civic or text us on the Civic Media app or drop us a stream comment.

Great to have you with us tonight.

We are coming back and we're going to talk Milwaukee Public Museum.

It's a great chat.

Don't miss it.

And it's a great institution and we're going to do it upright.

This is Pete Schwab and Greg Bach and Nightlight on the Civic Media Network.

nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

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Let us know your thoughts on our question of the night.

It's National Crouton Day.

What's your favorite salad topping?

Not just dressing, but topping.

So let us know while you're doing that.

We're going to get to our first guests for the evening.

Very excited to have them here from the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Julia Colby is the

Technology Collections Manager and Steven Petrie is the informal education coordinator here to talk about all the great things happening at the museum.

Good afternoon slash evening, folks.

How are you all doing?

Great.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for being here on the show this evening.

Well, there's a lot going on at the Milwaukee public museum, but we're here to talk about specifically the bio blitz that's happening next month.

Why don't you let the folks know what's going on with the bio blitz, the event itself and what they can expect to see.

Yeah.

So the bio blitz is a super fun event.

It is the 12th and 13th of June.

There's public programming on the 13th.

It is fun.

It is

great for people of all ages and probably best of all, it is free.

So just come on down.

We'll have nature walks, IDs.

You can talk to the scientists and see what they've found.

They will have been there since Friday serving.

And at the end of that time, the scientists are out in the field.

Finding species and putting names on them will announce what we found.

And it's a really fun time for all sorts of folks.

Excellent.

That's so great.

Steven, you're the informal education coordinator, as Greg just mentioned.

Tell us a little bit about your duties and how important education is from a museum.

I mean, it's so great that we have such a great museum in Milwaukee and many others as well, but this one in particular puts kids in touch with history and all the great exhibits you guys have.

What is your connection or liaison between education and the facility itself?

Of course.

Thanks for asking the question.

So, my...

job.

Education takes a lot of forms in our everyday life and certainly at the museum.

And so we have my counterpart.

We were joking about this earlier.

We do have a formal education coordinator.

He does the like formal school programming.

So if you sign up officially for a program, we have

programs that way but also we just love when people come to our museum and have an opportunity to learn something from someone on the floors and so that's what I specifically oversee and help coordinate is if you ever come to the museum and you find an educator, a docent, someone else that is included free with admission to just tell you something cool, to have some hands-on activity, those are the types of things that we try and bring to the floor and we have

a lot of it going on throug especially try and do it big and the next one coming up be our big theme day call saturday at june 6th from I think it's about 10 st

our littlest neighbors around us, what makes them special, what makes them important to us, how we can take care of them.

And you can also try and eat live bugs or not live bugs, you can try and eat real bugs yourself as a sustainable source of protein.

I'll

pass on that.

Interesting as it sounds.

Julia, you are the zoology collections manager.

What is like when I first saw collections, my first brain went to like

Wait, like deadbeat zoologist?

But no.

What do you do in your job there at the museum as far as like being the collections manager?

So I think we're all familiar with the museum floors.

There's a lot of specimens on those museum floors.

Behind the scenes, we have four million specimens and objects that are in storage.

So think of it sort of like a...

you know, an archive or a special collections library where you don't necessarily need to get at all of those things all the time, but it's important that they're there when you do need them.

So my role, I manage about half of that collection or half of that total of 2 million or 4 million specimens.

I've got about 2 million of those in my collection.

So I'm in charge of making sure that they're housed correctly and cared for.

I manage use so when scientists or researchers or artists or students want to come in and

answer a research question or use the material in some way, I help coordinate that.

And then all of those specimens, they're important because they're specimens, but they're important because there's data with them, like where it was collected and who collected it and when they were collected.

And so I helped manage that data as well to get that data as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

Excellent.

that's so great let's jump back to creepy crawly day if you can just for a minute it's a saturday june 6th it says the finale is this a series and how popular

like when kids go there, Steven, when they come to the museum, are they excited to interact with bugs and Creepy Crawley Day?

Or what is, tell us a little bit more about this and how interactive it is.

Sure.

So why it says it's the finale is because this is the finale of one of what we've been calling our greatest hits.

So as we all know, Milwaukee Public Museum, it's going to be closing at the end of this year.

Still plenty of time to come in and say your goodbyes or hello

three or four or five times before you finally say goodbye.

But throughout about every other month, we've been highlighting one of the really special topics and exhibits that make this museum, this place feel special.

And so this is our third one.

It's wrapping it up on the rainforest, butterflies, and of course all the creepy crawly things with us.

So right now we're diving deep into the bugs.

It's a perfect time.

to do it spring.

In the past, we've covered kind of the ancient world.

We focused on our great dioramas, but we still also have more to come later in the summer.

We'll be focusing all on dinosaurs, all on ancient life, and then we'll be closing it off in the fall with a really deep dive into the streets of Old Milwaukee and European Village.

And so this one I'm really excited for.

This one's one of my favorite.

We've actually been doing Creepy Crawlidae for a couple of years, and it's just so much fun to have

extra life here, not just because there's so many people here bringing that excitement, but also because we get to bring out live bugs, which we get to see a lot, but we don't get to do every day.

If you're just joining us, we are talking to Steven Petrie and Julia Colby of the Milwaukee Public Museum, discussing the BioBlitz events as well as the Creepy Crawley event.

As far, Julia, as far as the BioBlitz event goes, you know, what are the things that like, because it's a 24 hour celebration, what are the things that people really look forward to in that specific event?

So a lot of the surveyors who are there for the 24 hours really welcome the chance to

sort of put their day jobs aside and go out and do the thing they love, which is looking at the natural world.

A lot of them really love sharing information with the public.

So on Saturday, they're at We're a Nature Center, you know, you can come up and talk to them and they'll show you what they found and how they identified it.

The public, I think, really likes a chance to look at the natural world in a new way.

Because, you know, you can walk through the woods and not see anything.

And if somebody goes along with you and says, oh, that's, you know,

this kind of warbler or this kind of tree, like that gives you a whole new perspective on often nature that's a park that is in your own backyard that you go to all the time.

But just to piggyback on what Greg said, Julia, what are, you know, this is a, it says celebrating Wisconsin species and, you know, biodiversity.

What do we see in Wisconsin?

Like what are some of the big draws and how do they mix together like that?

Yeah, so that's one of those things that like we think about diversity.

We think about like a tropical rainforest and it's oh it's so diverse and it's so exotic but there's so much biodiversity in your own backyard.

Like a couple years ago we have a surveyor who studies algae and there is a species of algae that only lives on snapping turtles.

which I didn't know.

And so there's all these little tiny things, like there's the big things that you're used to, like deer and turkeys and maple trees, but then there's all these other little things that you've never considered.

And they're all so important for the way you live your life and the things you do for fun and the water that you drink and the air that you breathe.

And understanding a little bit more about those makes you much more inclined to do something about them.

And I can just add in here too, as an educator,

fortunate enough that oftentimes we get to participate in the education day at BioBlitz, which is specifically the Saturday component of it.

And in between people coming up and asking questions and doing the activities, one of my favorite things is just sit and have a chance to talk to the scientists in the field and learn all about these little tidbits.

I know

They love talking about it.

So I'm not going to

say I

was going to them, but there was a one year, a couple of years ago that I got to sit next to our butterfly wing supervisor and just ask him all the questions about the butterflies.

And I washed away with such a deeper appreciation of that life that, you know, you see a butterfly and you're like, Oh, that's pretty.

But actually understanding what it's doing here is really something that's special about getting to interact directly with scientists.

Well, and that's something that I want.

to ask you both was the fact that you work at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

You're both experts in your field.

You have your day to day.

You come to work for your lunch.

You've got your work to do.

But as you just said, Julia, there are folks there who work there, but they also love being in nature.

For both of you, what is something that is just a mind blowing fact you learn from the museum that you share in this?

As a person who works there every day still surprises you and gets you excited to be doing the work you're doing.

Julie, we can start with you.

Yeah, I mean, so part of my job is obviously a lot of hands-on care of the specimens that we have in our collections.

And every day that I get to do that, it is just a gift to see the diversity of life on earth.

And there's always something that I'm sure I've seen it before, but I've never really thought about it.

And just seeing that diversity of the things that I really enjoy is

to me great.

And if that's like, if I ever come in and I'm like, Oh, geez, it's just another day dealing with owls.

That's the time that I need to leave, you know, I need to get a

different job every day.

Yeah.

But like, they're always, it's always exciting and it's always new to me.

Stephen, what about you?

I mean, that's such a difficult question to answer.

It's one of those things that it does.

sometimes you have to just take a pause and realize how awesome the place you work at is because I mean sometimes some days it's a desk job I know yesterday I had a bunch of meetings I didn't get to walk around the museum floors I wasn't teaching that day but then if you just get five ten minutes to walk around and be like oh I get to work

around all of this history and just like my today today is I get to walk by and look at something that's 400 million years old and just appreciate that's what the world actually used to look like here in Wisconsin and I have to say like personally big nerd about the Solarian period have a Solarian tattoo favorite exhibit so excited also that it's going to be represented in so much bigger way in the future museum.

I'm kind of envious that both of you work there and I think it would be a really cool gig.

if I actually knew stuff I probably must be referring people to you guys but it seems like such a great environment um let me ask you this we have about a minute and a half or so before we have to do a break and then we'll continue our conversation with uh Stephen Petrie and Julia Colby

from the Milwaukee Public Museum, but what are some of the times to go there?

I love kids, I have kids, but if you're an adult and wanna just immerse yourself in the museum, when is the best time to go when it's not volume 10 and there's kids running everywhere as joyous as that is?

I would say, I mean, especially as people are appreciating it on our last year, it does get pretty busy.

If you are an adult looking for a little bit calmer time, I would stay anytime after 3pm.

The school groups are going to start leaving for the day.

A lot of the kids are going home for their naps.

And so there's still probably going to be people here.

You're still rolling

the

dice.

It's

a pretty

popular place.

But especially if you want to enjoy a little bit calmer atmosphere, I'd say mid to late afternoon.

There

you go.

All right, we're going to, uh, Julie, I want to get your thoughts on this as well.

You may, you may have a time that we, we, uh, we don't know about secret time.

We don't know about, but we're going to talk more about that on the other side of the break.

We are talking with Julia Colby.

She is the zoology collections manager and Steven Petra.

He's the informal education coordinator from the Milwaukee public museum.

Don't go anywhere.

You are listening to and or watching nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the civic media network.

Stay tuned and stay close.

Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

As always, get in touch 855-752-4842-8557-5CIVIC.

The question of the night, it's National Cruton Day.

What is your favorite salad topping?

Let us know.

And coming up in the second hour, we'll be speaking with Adam Reiner, who's a James Beard winning award-winning food journalist, talking about his new book and...

the new rules behind dining.

So stick around for that.

But right now we are continuing our conversation with our folks, our friends from the Milwaukee Public Museum, Steven Petrie.

He is the informal education coordinator.

And Julia Colby is the zoology collections manager at the museum.

And as you mentioned, Steven before, and this is open to whomever would like to answer, but it's your last year here at that current location, you will be moving and opening up in 2027.

And you have your greatest hits exhibits going on, but what else is happening in these last few months at this historic location for the Milwaukee Public Museum?

I mean, in addition to our greatest hits, we

in between have all the same kind of great programming that our regular visitors have come to love and expect.

So we'll be celebrating things all throughout the summer.

When we get into fall, before we kick off our streets in European Village, Greatest Hit, we'll be doing a lot of programming for Hispanic Heritage Month, for LGBTQ History Month, and then of course in November, we'll be doing a whole showcase of so much programming for Native American History Month.

Wonderful.

That is so great.

I always thought it'd be cool to live on the old time Milwaukee Street, kind of like Walt Disney did at Disneyland.

He had an apartment apparently over the firehouse.

It just seems like a cool place.

Tell us a little bit about, this sounds really cool to me, an event you guys have coming up on May 28th, Adult Trivia Night, Rainforest and Butterflies Edition.

So the bad news about that event is if you really wanted to come and you didn't buy your tickets, it is already sold out.

It is going to be a great night and I will put a plug in there.

While this one, if you didn't buy your tickets already,

I'm sorry, you're out of luck.

There will be a family trivia night about dinosaurs doing our dinosaur greatest hit.

And, you know, if that one sells out too, maybe look forward to another trivia.

Can't promise anything.

But those are always fun nights where we have themed trivia kind of highlighting one specific talk, but also bringing in all of the different facets of our museum.

And some are a little bit easier, but, you know, it's trivia.

We're trying to stop people and have you

having a good time, but also leaving learning something.

Will there be scalpers outside?

Can we score some tickets that way?

I don't know if we would allow that.

But you know, rats, if it's far enough away, it's out of sight out of mind.

OK, good to know.

Julie, besides the Bioblitz events coming up next month, is there anything that you're looking forward to specifically in these last few months at that location before you

move?

Gosh, that's a tough question.

I ask

all the tough, I ask all the tough questions.

I am such a journal manager.

He's trying to

make you cry.

He wants to be Barbara

Walker.

I mean, most of my job, aside from Bioblitz, which is very public facing, is behind the scenes.

And so right now my time is almost exclusively devoted to the move.

So that's what, you know, is often not very visible change, but that's what I'm really doing.

Honestly, she might not even realize when we close the doors because she's going to be too busy moving all

of these great things.

There's a lot

of

people here.

It's

fine.

Is it like when you move to another apartment, you have to call your friends up and be like, hey, guys, can you come on out and just get all the trivia people like, huh, you got to help us move for an hour before we start trivia, but it'll be fine.

It's sort of, yeah, I mean, we've hired a huge crew of really talented folks to help with the move.

And so it's basically, you know, all of our friends have come to help put things in boxes very, very carefully.

That's what you're off the hook, Dom.

So we want to, uh, I want to ask you guys, uh, we have, you know, a couple of minutes left.

Uh, tell us about the planetarium and any, any fun films that you guys will be showing at the theater right there in house.

That sounds fun.

So that one, uh, I don't know all of the specifics because unfortunately for me, I love the idea of the planetarium.

I get motion sick, so

I don't get to

love the shows myself.

I do know that whenever we get to our graze hits, especially for the dino days of summer, you can expect a lot of new, but also some returning favorites of our dinosaur movies coming up.

So if you want to see dinosaurs on the big screen,

they don't make

screens bigger than ours.

That's awesome.

I will also say that we have a special show that I think will be opening maybe exclusively in the new building, but it's made in-house.

by us, by our staff, called Wisconsin Wonders, Landsky and People, all about Wisconsin, because a new museum is very, you know, Wisconsin-centric, and the architecture especially was inspired by Wisconsin, so it's sort of a tour of the state.

And I've

seen

little snippets of it, and it looks really cool.

And that'll be opening up in the new location?

I believe so.

I think we had some footage shown for Inside Out, but I believe it will open in the new museum.

So, hey, maybe if you ask about it enough, there might be more sneak peeks.

Yeah.

So

bug the people.

No, that's that's a pun badger.

No, that's also a pun.

All right.

Just bother them a lot.

All right.

We only have a couple of minutes left here.

Really quick before we get on it.

What is so, you know, I don't know if we'll talk to you before the move, but what are the last things you want to talk about before we get on out of here about the museum, about what you have left to do for the rest of the year?

And just, you know, I want you to gush for the museum because I know how much you love it.

I mean, that is very true.

I mean, both Steven and I are huge museum fans, but

we

just, I think reminding folks that we have a lot of great programming and events and we're still here and we're still open.

Obviously, I'm going to plug the Bioblitz again because that's a huge thing for me.

We're going to be at Wear Nature Center.

We're so excited to be there because our partners at Wear are fantastic.

There's going to be so much fun stuff to do on Saturday.

And I think I mentioned this earlier, but it's free and that matters.

That does matter a lot.

I think I would just add as one last plug.

It's always great to come down to the museum, but also if you haven't seen it already, take a look at all of the cool new merch that they're plugging in the gift shop.

They

are really going out of their way to get the best t-shirts I have ever seen.

So, you know, Milwaukee Public Museum, we got some time left and you have some time to represent your love of this building.

in the community.

I certainly hope your bosses are I certainly hope your bosses are listening to that plug for merchandise.

My goodness gracious.

All right.

So there I can't wait.

I cannot wait to get there before you guys close out and move.

But that has been Julia Colby zoology collections manager and Steven Petrie the informal education coordinator from the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Guys, thank you so much for being here so much.

Have fun over the next few months.

We'll get on out there and have a great time with you.

But thank you so much for being here tonight.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks.

All right.

On the other side of the break, after the news, Adam Reiner, James Beard award-winning food journalist will be here talking about his new book.

So you don't want to miss that.

Plus, we'll be talking about The Question of the Night, which is, what is your favorite salad topping?

So don't go anywhere.

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

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Still lots of great programming still ahead.

We are going to be talking to I'm trying to find his name right here was right there.

Oh, there is Adam Reiner.

He is a James Beard award-winning food journalist to talk about his new book on the rules.

the new rules behind dining.

So don't go anywhere for that.

That's going to be great conversation.

Plus we'll be wrapping everything up with the nightcap tonight.

What are we talking about?

We learn here from you on the text line about your thoughts on the question of the night.

Oh, speaking of the question of the night, let's restate that.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

It's National Crutan Day.

What?

is your favorite salad topping.

That's right.

8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5.

Civic leave a comment on the live stream.

You can also get in touch with us via the Civic media app.

You can also give us an email too.

If you'd like night light N I T E L I T E at civic media dot us and I'm I must I'm I'm remissed.

I'm sorry guys.

I'm so sorry, gentlemen.

I apologize right now.

I didn't introduce you properly.

That's just that's

Poor everything.

I

was going to say something.

I know.

I apologize.

I'm so sorry.

Let's take a moment.

Let's take a moment.

They love radio silence here.

But I'm coming to you live from Radio Park in Racine.

That's in southeastern Wisconsin and up the coast in northeastern Wisconsin is Mr. Pete Schwabba, AKA Chris, the mayor of Christmas City, USA.

Not Marinette.

Not Marinette.

He's the

mayor of Christmas City,

USA.

Yeah, you get the top hat on with the little holly on the side.

If the

name

change ever takes, I'll take that.

And then all the way over in Madison at HQ here at Civic Media is Mr. Dom Lee.

We are the Yatterhey Triangle here for you, having some good time with the question of the night, which is what is your favorite salad topping?

And I like, and I said this before and I like that you said salad topping, not salad dressing, because I feel like that just limits your choices.

Totally.

My wife does not do salad dressing at all.

It is, wow.

No, not on the side.

No, nothing.

She just likes a good old fashioned pile of vegetables.

Or as Ron Swanson would put it, this is food my food eats.

I never heard that.

That's funny.

First of all, I want to say one time I was in a restaurant and I laughed hard.

It was this older couple.

It was a supper club probably 20 years ago when the guy says,

I'd like some extra croutons.

He called croutons.

Croutons.

I love,

I

love, I love me

some

croutons.

Who doesn't

love stale bread?

He rocked it.

Yeah, exactly.

What about

you, Pete?

What is your favorite salad topping?

I'm going to come out guns of blazing here, Greg.

And I'm going to say red onion.

Oh boy.

Blue cheese and French dressing and with some bacon bits too.

I forgot to add the bacon bits, but I love that whole concoction.

It's dynamite.

And here's, here's the little shout out to supper club dressing too.

Have you ever heard of peppercorn ranch?

Of course I have.

Oh, it's good.

Yeah.

And not every place has it though.

It seems like mostly it's just supper clubs, but that's, that's my, those are my toppings.

And I love, I love a salad with all of the above on them.

It's funny because a few years ago, I used to go to salad bars all the time buffets and they would always have the salad bar.

Even if it was like a Chinese buffet, Italian buffet, Jimmy John's buffet, that's an Italian joke right there.

They always have a

salad bar, whether it's a small salad bar, but they would always have French dressing.

And I swear to God, I was like, did we all just forget about French dressing?

Cause no one ever brings like, when you talk about dressings, it's ranch, Thousand Island.

It's,

Yeah, but no one ever says would you like French

Not to be confused with Western they both kind of look alike So if you're a salad bar and they just have like both of them, but then they're not labeled you could get yourself in a world of trouble there

I feel like Western's a little more orange-ish Whereas French has a little more dark hue to the to the liquid if you will so Just something that those are the weird things that pop up into my head it

for no reason whatsoever.

I'm just like, what happened to French dressing?

But maybe our guests could clarify that for us.

Oh, I would

love to see a James

Beard award-winning writer be asked a question.

What do you think about French?

You think it gets the shaft, huh?

What's your favorite kind of ranch?

Do you like garlic ranch or ranch ranch?

Do you like spicy ranch?

Don, what about you?

Do you like to dunk your ranch in your pizza?

Um, I, I, I gotta steal Pete's Western dressing, Western.

I do like Western dressing.

I really do.

And Pete, you said, um, bacon bites.

I love,

well,

I like

the bacon bites with blue cheese, red onion and French, actually.

Okay,

I work with me.

It's

just with western.

I just like the bacon bites I really do I also liked hard boiled eggs as well sliced.

Those are really really good I

went to

last year I

went to butternut for some shows on the old program and we went to an old it wasn't a supper club It has supper club vibe, but it was a restaurant with a bar in there But they had an old-school old like small, you know salad bar.

It was maybe like

six

feet long it was

Not big in choices, but it had all of

the

greatest hits.

You

had

your iceberg lettuce, you had your shredded carrots, your shredded cheese, your cottage cheese, your sliced eggs, your red onions, and then there were other things too, like of course sunflower seeds, croutons, and all sorts of things like that.

And then of course, just half of the whole cart was dressings.

And

I was sitting

there going what do I do?

What do I go and I just I just went with I went with Thousand Island could not stop myself love Good stuff.

I mean sometimes those salad bars you go there like in a supper club and if it's later in the evening It looks like a crime scene like nobody's putting the right things back in the right, you know, yep

Yeah, I just cause it's called a sneeze guard doesn't mean you have to sneeze on the sneeze guard books.

Take a, take a hanky with you.

I'm just saying that

may be a favor during COVID Greg.

Remember they shut down all the salad bars and now we've only got one here in Marinette.

Just as opposed to how many before.

Well, we have, we have a jacks franchise and they're outstanding.

There's three of them in the twin city area, Menominee, Michigan, across, but only one of them reopened the salad bar and it's a very good salad bar.

I miss Wendy's salad bar.

Wendy's used to have an amazing salad

bar.

Did

they?

Oh, yeah, they had a full-blown salad bar.

It was fantastic.

And it was like an extra two bucks, or you got one trip.

One trip, okay.

Who's policing that?

I don't know.

I think they work for the Watertown School Board now.

Hey, heyo.

That reminds me if you missed the first hour go to civic media dot US slash shows look for night light and download episodes catch up They're all right there cataloged choreographed and curated for you in other words to begin with the letter C Dom what do we have on the text line regarding tonight's question?

We got quite a few

we got quite a few we got boy Yeah, we got Monica from Mount horror coming in hot saying sliced black olives in place of dressing Adds a little moisture and a lot of

flavor.