Atlantis is on her way to the International Space Station. And the space shuttle program comes to an end with this mission. I was in second grade at Cedar Hill Elementary school when the Columbia made it’s first launch on April 12, 1981. I remember our class went to another classroom, across the library, and…
You know how the mind wanders at night? I was thinking about how I need to finish up reading the January 1941 issue of Astounding so that I could write up Episode 19 of my Vacation in the Golden Age. That got me thinking about Golden Ages in general, and then my golden ages, specifically.…
Before the Little Man was born, I was fascinated with the idea of being able to watch him grow and learn over time, of being able to witness every step. In part this was because I couldn’t see those early steps clearly in my own growing up. I don’t recall the first word I said,…
Readercon is a week away! I’m using that as an arbitrary deadline for a number of things. Here is what is keeping me busy, writing-wise, between now and then: Finish draft of “Rescue” (working title) of a novelette by 7/13. Finish reading the January 1941 Astounding by 7/10. Write Episode 19 of my Vacation in…
I am in the process of working on some new features that will become part of the Vacation in the Golden Age posts. These features should make the various Episodes more useful by allowing you to cross-reference names and titles to specific episodes, and jump to a point in an Episode for a given title.…
[Begin rant] I got an email yesterday, the content of which goes as follows: In 2011, July has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays. This apparently happens once every 823 years! This is called ‘money bags’. So send this on to 5 and money will arrive in 5 days. Based on Chinese Feng Shui,…
Day 3 – Independence Day We had great weather yesterday and that helped a lot. The kids didn’t have to linger around the house to wait for the rain to stop. As soon as the local swimming pool opened up, we were there to take part in the aquatic festivities. It had been quite a…
As I mentioned earlier, our GPS died yesterday. It was a Garmin GPS (the model number escapes me at the moment) but it provided outstanding service for almost exactly 4 years. This morning, I replaced the device with a Garmin Nuvi 1450LMT device. Naturally, I bought another Garmin device. Aside from the old one working…