July and NASA oh my!
July has been one of those months that slips through your fingers like sand - sometimes sparkly sand, sometimes gritty sand, sometimes sand that gets under your fingernails and irritates the soft flesh no matter how hard you dig at it.
On the very positive side, sold a story to Asimov's - yay! "Story of Our Lives" was written about my alma mater Ithaca College and my alma city (or something like that) Los Angeles. I miss the serene beauty of upstate New York, and don't miss at all the freeway traffic of LA - but I do miss the Santa Monica pier, and not the snowy winters around Lake Cayuga.
On an ultimately life-changing positive side, I was selected to attend a NASA Social Media event at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A whirlwind 2 day trip ensued, and my tour of JSC was amazing in all aspects. Our group visited Mission Control for ISS, historic Mission Control for the Apollo and shuttle programs, and the lab where astronauts and cosmonauts learn to use COLBERT (treadmill) and ARED ("weight" lifting machine). We met astronauts, scientists and staff, all of them gracious and helpful. My hosts in Houston were Amy Sisson and Paul Abell - Amy was my roommate ten years ago at a Strange Horizons workshop and Paul works at JSC. They are a delightful couple, with a house full of books and cats, writing and science, and I'm eternally grateful.
Here's me on the red phone of historic Mission Control. If you've seen Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks and Ed Harris, this is the room where all of the earthside drama happened.
The trip temporarily derailed my 90 short stories in 90 days twitter, but I'm back in that saddle today. I'm also rounding up non-fiction recs, geeky bits, and links to NASA and ISS news.
Here I am on twitter
Here's my Facebook author page with some other pictures
Here's a of pictures on Google+
On the very positive side, sold a story to Asimov's - yay! "Story of Our Lives" was written about my alma mater Ithaca College and my alma city (or something like that) Los Angeles. I miss the serene beauty of upstate New York, and don't miss at all the freeway traffic of LA - but I do miss the Santa Monica pier, and not the snowy winters around Lake Cayuga.
On an ultimately life-changing positive side, I was selected to attend a NASA Social Media event at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A whirlwind 2 day trip ensued, and my tour of JSC was amazing in all aspects. Our group visited Mission Control for ISS, historic Mission Control for the Apollo and shuttle programs, and the lab where astronauts and cosmonauts learn to use COLBERT (treadmill) and ARED ("weight" lifting machine). We met astronauts, scientists and staff, all of them gracious and helpful. My hosts in Houston were Amy Sisson and Paul Abell - Amy was my roommate ten years ago at a Strange Horizons workshop and Paul works at JSC. They are a delightful couple, with a house full of books and cats, writing and science, and I'm eternally grateful.
Here's me on the red phone of historic Mission Control. If you've seen Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks and Ed Harris, this is the room where all of the earthside drama happened.
The trip temporarily derailed my 90 short stories in 90 days twitter, but I'm back in that saddle today. I'm also rounding up non-fiction recs, geeky bits, and links to NASA and ISS news.
Here I am on twitter
Here's my Facebook author page with some other pictures
Here's a of pictures on Google+