After taking a year off from Worldcon to become parents, we made our return with a trip to Kansas City for Midamericon II (aka Bic Mac2 ( Read more... )

Picking up the narrative again after a break for Worldcon and Rosh Hashanah. This post covers two days (Saturday, August 24th and Sunday, August 25th) so it's a bit long.

( August 24th: Riding the Rails )

A message from the National Air and Space Museum came flying across my e-transom with the delightful news that Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds will be winging its way across the pond for a very special visit to the U.S. The Codex will be on display at the NASM's Independence Avenue building from September 13, 2013 through October ( Read more... )

Winding down a busy weekend here in Rockville and trying to console ourselves over the 'Skins loss.

We ended the week largely as we began it, with a movie and a musical event. Friday night we caught an acapella double bill of The Chromatics and the Tone Rangers at Jammin' Java. Friends and readers of my LJ know we are long-time fans of the ( Read more... )

Continuing from last night's post...I had decided to take advantage of a pair of West Coast business trips separated by 4 days to visit my cousin and family in Seattle. I hadn't seen my cousin and his wife since they moved from Washington, DC to Washington state several years ago, and hadn't met their 2-1/2 year old son at all. It was also a chance ( Read more... )

So, with almost exactly a month since FilKONtario 22, here's the rest of my con report. Not too bad as these things go. Hey, I even got it done before my next convention. Anyway, on with the report ( Read more... )

According to the National Air & Space Museum's blog, today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Wernher von Braun.

And really, there is nothing I could say on the subject that Tom Lehrer didn't say better.

Got home this evening from a trip to Phoenix for building code hearings. It's been a rather grueling week. I didn't sleep particularly well the whole time I was in Phoenix and quite badly the first two nights. Some of that was adjusting to the time difference, some of that was attributable to an inability to find a good pillow among any of the ( Read more... )

Saw a very cool traveling exhibit on Leonardo DaVinci at the National Geographic Museum this weekend. Artisans from the Fondazione Anthropos in Italy took about 60 sketches from DaVinci's notebooks and, using materials, fastening, and connections consistent with the 1400's, made full-size mockups. Most are static models, but a few devices can ( Read more... )

Going by the fact I've posted once since Boskone, some of my readers are probably thinking we've spent the past month-and-a-half being a pair of layabouts. Admittedly, in many ways, those readers wouldn't be wrong. However, that doesn't mean we haven't done anything interesting; it just means I haven't quite brought myself to post about it.

( There has been the usual musical mayhem, for example )