Dear Friends,
I am hosting a Pub Quiz fundraiser for the Jukie Jones Duren Endowment of the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation to celebrate my birthday this coming Thursday night, March 9th, at 7:30. If you are in or near the town of Davis, I hope you will come by to partake in the fun at the Encounters UFO Xperience Alien Museum at 871 Russell Boulevard, at the corner of Russell and Sycamore, across the parking lot from Trader Joe’s.
Speaking of Trader Joe’s, you could spend $10 on a few containers of Eggplant Garlic Spread with Sweet Red Peppers, which sounds delectable, or you could also spend that same amount to gain entrance into the alien museum in the old Cost Plus World Market, and in doing so, make a donation to the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation, which funds research into the rare syndrome that affects my son Jukie.
Anyone who drops by Thursday night at 7 or so will support the cause and be invited to participate in the Pub Quiz. If you don’t have a team, come by yourself, and you will be assigned to one. There will be some snacks and non-alcoholic beverages available for purchase, and I promise that you will be able to hear the questions over the sound of all the laughter, and over the gasps of awe from those examining the cinematic alien exhibits.
Prizes aplenty will be awarded to the winners, including swag bags of art and comic books created by Steve Oerding, an amazing local artist and illustrator who created the Ranger Ralph line of comic books. Steve will be attending this event, offering some cartooning lessons to the young and the young at heart who don’t want to engage in the trivia competition. In addition to the cartooning lessons, video game consoles will be available to entertain the kids, as well as a station where people can film real or invented stories of alien abductions.
If you don’t know, a Pub Quiz is a trivia contest made up of 30 questions and a tiebreaker. Teams of up to six compete with each other by writing down their answers on scorecards. A Pub Quiz can be a raucous experience brimming with frivolity and good cheer. Expect questions on a variety of topics that you should have learned about in school and science fiction movies, including history, books and authors, current events, popular culture, technology, and science! We will review the rules, which include not asking Chat GPT to research the answers via your smart phone, and not yelling out the answers. Over the years, Dr. Andy has hosted hundreds of pub quizzes and written thousands of pub quiz questions. You are invited to subscribe to his weekly Pub Quiz service via Patreon or Substack.
I’m grateful to Michael and Hugh from Encounters UFO Xperience for donating half the $10 ticket sales from Thursday night to the Jukie Jones Duren Endowment at the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation. There will be a donation station where additional tax-deductible gifts of any size will be collected to support the cause.
Whether or not you can join the Pub Quiz fundraiser (and I hope you can), to help me celebrate my birthday, please consider making a donation by visiting the foundation website at http://www.smithlemliopitz.org – there you can also find out more about the Jukie Jones Duren Endowment. We are hoping to fully fund the $25,000 endowment by 2028, and we are already about 40% there!
Thanks for considering this request and for spending the Thursday night of my birthday week with me in an alien museum. Any intended birthday gift should be a check made out to the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation with the word JUKIE in the memo. Thanks, and see you Thursday!
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three questions from my most recent Pub Quiz:
- Great Frenchmen. Jules Léotard created and popularized the one- piece gym wear that now bears his name. What was his profession: aerialist, clown, pilot, or swimmer?
- Unusual Words. What O verb means “to prevent, to make unnecessary by taking action in advance”?
- Higher Education. What is s the oldest institution of higher education in New York State?
P.S. If you prefer to mail checks than make donations via websites on their giving pages, please send a check of any amount to The SLO Foundation • c/o Gretchen Noah • P.O. Box 10598 • Fargo, ND 58106 • USA. Thank you.