Who cares about my garden?

I’m going to be completely honest with you.  There is no way that I would ever read a blog post (or a magazine article or a newspaper fluff piece) about someone’s garden.  I don’t even want to hear about your garden! And with that, I don’t really want to bore you with any details about my garden. Except that my garden is doing awesome! Tell ya what… why don’t I just save all the pictures and personal details for a different page.

You’ll notice my page links at the top of this page now includes a new link.  This page has a few pics already, and that number will grow in the coming weeks.  I should’ve started this at the beginning of summer, but too late to worry about that now.

For those who regularly read blogs, I need some advice on how to do this.  At first I was just going to write a really long post that you would have to jump to from the main page.  But that would have to be done all at once and it was taking me too long to sort through my pictures and organize my thoughts already.  So then I figured a completely separate page would do better, but WordPress doesn’t allow individual posts on any page other than the main.  So now I’ve got this separate page created and a few items shown, but when I get ready to update in a couple of days (or hours, who knows?) how should I do that?  Do I put them at the bottom?  At the top?  Do I date all modifications?  How should I do this?  Does any body even care to see it?  Your input is most appreciated.

iPhone 4 Sentiments

I feel the same as this guy.  I get tired of hearing people who want to spend lots of money on brand new technology complain about that technology.  I have a long-standing attitude toward all the cutting-edge stuff:  Wait until the bugs are worked out!  That means that I never buy a car the first year they come off the assembly line, I don’t use the newest version of Windoze until at least the release the first service pack, and I don’t buy a first-generation iAnything.  I guess I take much of this attitude after NASA, which until just a couple of years ago was still using 486 processors for most everything aboard the Space Station.  Tried and true technology is the way to go.

Unless, of course, I really want it.  :o)

SEPA wrap-up

Heh.  So check me out.  I didn’t exactly blog every day like intended, but I wore myself out while I was there!  And then I dove straight into two weeks of professional development which, along with my garden and other chores, completely occupied my time.  Now I’m just finding it hard to get back into writing.  But, here we go…

The con was pretty wonderful.  Lots to eat.  Good people.  Some new things to see.  But what set this year’s trip apart from the others was the inclusion of my good friend, Jeremy Lusk, attending with me.  Jeremy has accepted a fellowship in another state in a doctorate program in physics, specializing in astronomy.  He’s very interested in education, so a trip to SEPA just seemed logical.  He made some solid contacts and by now should be blighted with the attraction to attend each year after this as well.

Some friends didn’t make it since this is an IPS year. IPS was in Egypt just last week, and since most folks can’t afford attending two cons in a single year, many opted to make that incredible trip and see Egypt through the eyes of an astronomer.  IPS occurs every other year, and 2012 brings it to Baton Rouge to a place I think many of you guys have visited before.  Cool, huh?  Jon Elvert & Mike Smail are regular attendees of SEPA (in fact, Jon is the past president), but only Jon attended SEPA this year (on account that he was the president).  I noticed a picture of Mike online attending IPS in Egypt.  Guess you should probably make an appearance if the next one is at your dome!

My probably favorite moment was getting to play play with a Theremin.  Not a very easy instrument to handle, even though it can only play one note at a time!  I feel so much joy even now when I think about getting to use my own hands (and Jeremy might tell you — most of my body) to wrangle something that resembled a tune from that beast.  I wish I had some video of my two minutes of glory for you, but alas, the people looking on were much more into pointing and laughing than trying to hold their video recorders steady.  You will simply have to imagine how totally hard core I looked in coaxing that last, deep, low note from the machine.  Think about how Luke Skywalker looked in that epic Star Wars poster with his saber lofted on high, and his hot sister hanging on his leg.  Wait, what?

I got to see two new programs made by some friends of mine in their entirety — SpacePark360 by Matt, Jason, and Michael of Dome3D and Natural Selection by Robin Sip of Mirage3D.  Both were excellent.  In fact, I lost my preliminary copy of Natural Selection and was quite upset because I wanted my family to watch it so bad.  After a week went by I decided it was just gone and I’d grab another copy next year.  However, I stumbled across it between my truck seats yesterday as I was headed out to Jeremy’s wedding.  Hoo-zah!  I excitedly showed it to them last night, but I’ve discovered it’s just not the same without that immersive dome around you.  Thhhbbbt!  And I wouldn’t even try to show SpacePark360 on anything other than a dome.  It’s all about effect, baby!

And the rest of the details are simply that — details.  The day-to-day excitement seemed continuous and most of my memories now consist of the moments I got to spend with my friends and colleagues rather than any specific event.   With my post-SEPA workshops out of the way I now turn my full attention to my summer break, which has now officially been going for a week.  Hope your summer outlook is as good as mine.