Rhetoric & Rockets

Travels with Friends and Family

2012-01-29T19:20:00.000-06:00

I've had a bit of an extravagant December/January. My original plan was to go to Orlando to spend Christmas with Father Dan and Marilyn. Then my sister and mom--who usually do a January trip with the kids--decided to invite me and my brother-in-law. Then someone got the notion to do a reunion for Disney's Dixie Landings Resort (now Port Orleans Riverside) because we were coming up on the 20th anniversary of the hotel opening February 2, 1992. So I've had a trip to Orlando every two weeks since late December. I could get used to this, but it does make me to move back there. Difficult to do when there aren't a lot of jobs for whatever my particularly odd skill set. Anyhow, this blog is just a rundown of my most recent journey, the Dixie reunion. Enjoy or not, as you see fit.

Dixie Landings Reunion Weekend
This was one reunion I didn't mind or dread attending (unlike, say, my high school reunion five years ago). I was happy in Orlando. Okay, I hated the front desk job, as I began to learn after several months of dealing with the public that I was less extroverted than I thought. But once I allowed myself to get to know my peers on the job, I found that I really liked them. We were all in our early to mid-20s, enjoying the benefits of being Disney Cast Members, and (oh yes) drinking and partying quite a bit. We hung out quite a bit after work, if only to vent about the guests--Cast Members are not robots, after all, and people on vacation can get a little demanding.

I wasn't much better at socializing then than I am now. Maybe a little more fearless about introducing myself, but even back then I'd reach a magical limit, usually about two hours, and then I'd have enough socializing at a party or whatever and skedaddle. Anyhow, when someone decided that a Dixie Landings Front Desk (hereafter DLFD) reunion would be a good idea, I didn't hesitate to sign up, even though it meant a third Orlando trip within six weeks. (Orlando? In January? Ooo, twist my arm.) We did a happy hour Friday and a larger gathering on Saturday.

I think the reason we all grew so close was that we suffer--er, served together. You learn to get along pretty quickly in an environment where you could average 700 check-ins and 700 check-outs in a day for a 2,048-room Disney hotel (worst day I can recall: 1,200 checkouts, 800 check-ins). The alternative is to have some serious shouting matches, which happened occasionally as well. We learned to find our own ways to cope with a high-volume guest service environment where the expectations were high, and everyone had to be treated the "Disney way."

So what's it like to hang out with these people 20 years later? Again, contrasting it with a high school reunion, it was just much more comfortable. It wasn't formal, we gathered in a couple bars--for happy hour, at the Dixie lobby bar; for the reunion, at a saloon owned by a couple of former Dixie bellmen. Dress was casual, and so was the conversation. A lot of us noted that the gatherings weren't very different from any of the parties we had while working together. Conversation came easy, mostly catching up on what everyone had been doing. There wasn't all the posing or proving-something that I seemed to be doing at my high school reunion. Just a bunch of friends hanging out. Perfect.

We even had a few of the managers show up. Again, it was a team. As a friend who was not there (but who was getting regular picture updates as the weekend progressed), "we're all a little grayer, fuller, wrinklier." I certainly felt that way, but a couple peers said, that I "looked like a grownup," which I suppose is a good thing. I had a much more youthful face and much darker hair, as well as quite a bit less mass. But I didn't feel exceptionally self-conscious about it. I was there to find out how people were doing, not how they looked. Of course, that said, that doesn't mean I recognized everyone. If I didn't, it was mostly because I didn't work with the person that much.

The only challenge with large events like this is that you don't get a lot of one-on-one time asking detailed or personal questions than you might ask in a general gathering. I'll probably have more people to follow up with or visit next time I go down to O-town. And another "challenge" for me is that my introvert's aversion to crowds means that I come out of these gatherings very tired. I did get some side time with my closest friends--the ones I've stayed in contact with more regularly over the last 20 years, but I could only see so many people before I found the urge to take a drive or a walk somewhere quiet.

For instance, the happy hour at the Dixie bar was fine for me until the nightly entertainer guy showed up, over-the-top loud and very into audience participation: anathema to the introvert. When I finally hit my limit, I went to the bar, ordered a drink, and took a walk. When the bartender pointed out that our table had a server, I said, "Look, I'm not trying to stiff the server, I just needed to get away from that d@mned noise." I'm fun/fine in a group setting, up to a point, but when it's time to go, it's time to go, and I won't be terribly apologetic about defending my desire for quiet. That's something I learned while working at Dixie: how to take care of myself socially, as an adult. I grew up a lot and learned a lot with this group of people, and it was a pleasure to see them again. I didn't mind them seeing who I'd become.

Title Change

2012-01-16T09:38:00.000-06:00

My title at Science Cheerleader has changed from "Cheer Operations Ninja" to "Event Manager." That's a little less whimsical, perhaps, but it better describes my duties. Mind you, I still do a lot of stuff for SciCheer that no one ever sees, so my ninja cred is still good. First rule of ninjas is that you don't talk about being a ninja, right? Something like that.

And please take a moment today to reflect on Martin Luther King, Jr., in whose honor many folks are allowed a day off. His career is a testament to many things, including the motivating powers of freedom, equality under the law, and (my favorite) rhetoric. The man's speeches remain among the best in American history, both for their content and delivery. Words can change the world, so it's best to choose the good ones.

Awesome

2012-01-09T22:59:00.000-06:00

Just got a request from Karla Kitalong, my M.A. thesis advisor, to use some of my professional blog posts for one of her tech writing classes at Michigan Tech University. Have a look if you're interested in what I have to say about my day job...note that I'm talking about the writing aspects here, not the actual space content. That's a whole 'nother thing.

Normal

2012-01-03T19:33:00.001-06:00

Geordi LaForge: "What's normal?"
Soren: "'What's normal?' Well, that's a good question. Normal is what everyone else is and you are not."
--Star Trek: Generations

Many decades ago, a suburban couple was concerned about their infant son. For the first eleven months of his life, the child had not grown much at all, had not sat up, rolled over, stood on his own power, or any of the usual things that children do within the usual months of birth. It wasn't right, it wasn't normal, and so they took the boy to the hospital for what became a long battery of medical tests to find out what was wrong.

They were fortunate that they lived near a hospital that specialized in endocrinology, which happened to be where the boy's problems existed. The tests revealed that the boy had a problem called hypothyroidism, which had inhibited his body's uptake and processing of proteins. Thus the lack of growth, the lack of movement. It turned out that there was a simple fix to the problem as well: a single, small pill, which the child would have to take for the rest of his life. But with the pills, the child's body started receiving nourishment again, began to grow. If he could not walk by his first birthday, he could definitely walk by his second.

There would be side-effects, of course: the boy was short and thin for his age, and would remain so until well into his late teens. The lack of any muscle development meant that the boy was clumsy, barely able to walk without tripping over his own feet. He spent his first five years of elementary school in the Learning Disabilities (LD) program, learning to walk, run, jump, and exercise like a normal kid. It was a little humiliating at times, having to learn how to do things that most kids his age took for granted. His penmanship, of course, was a mess, and he remained in a category suburban boys dislike greatly because it showed painfully one's social status, "picked last for kickball."

On the flip side of all this physical drama, the boy also had a brighter than average mind. Quite a bit above average, in fact. This, too, presented difficulties and set the boy apart from his peers, as it put him in the "gifted" program to facilitate his accelerated learning curve. Not too surprisingly, the boy could read before he could walk, and it was his reading and writing that provided him with a sense of sanity and security, as he visited imaginary worlds made by others and by those he himself invented. His vocabulary, expanded by books that were several years above his assumed reading age, made him sound "snooty" to his peers, resulting in shovings or beatings against which he had little to no defense.

If there was anywhere the boy placed his hope for survival, it was in friendship, and his ability to establish it. Given his lack of physical defenses, all he had were his words. Supranormal in intellect, subnormal in physicality, the boy had only his relationships with people to make him feel "normal," and thus any failure there wounded deeply because it was only through others that the boy could define himself in terms "normal" people could understand.

By his 20s, the boy--now becoming a man--finally reached a point where he could consider himself physically "normal." He was able to play team sports without making a complete embarrassment of himself, and his weight fell into line with his height. He could finally give his body a rest and simply be the intellectual he had always wanted to be. Then, too, he'd finally gotten out of the school environment, where differences were more often settled by physical violence. He was able to live in what he thought of as a predator-free environment.

He learned a few things along the way to manhood. He learned that others struggled in their minds as he struggled in his body, and he learned not to speak with scorn toward those less gifted. He even learned how to appreciate and value the physical abilities of his athletic superiors. Not able to keep up, nor interested in doing so, he at least learned to admire them and wish them well. Perhaps he even learned some philosophy or politics in his struggles, for he learned that all people were deserving of equal respect, even if they were not literally "created equal," as his nation's founding document said. The boy who became a man could not rightly say what "normal" is, any more than a certain Star Trek character, but he at least learned to find what was normal for him, and that was a thing worth knowing.

Author's note: If you guessed that this was me, you are correct. Even if you hadn't, the story is still worth reading.

2011 in Review

2011-12-31T18:54:00.003-06:00

You have your retrospective perspective, I have mine. It's been a busy year, and this review is more for my reference than yours. If you find the thoughts worthwhile, great.

So, one year ago...

While not part of myofficial day-job duties, I served as Chairman of the National Space Society’s 2011International Space Development Conference May 17-22. This event requiredcoordinating, marketing, and planning the event, from the web site to theprogramming. It also involved working with the National Space Society inWashington, DC, NASA Headquarters, Marshall Space Flight Center's Office of Strategic Analysis & Communication,Huntsville Space Professionals, and other organizations and sponsors. Thefive-day event included a Space Investment Summit; a job fair; a gala dinner atthe U.S. Space & Rocket Center; a trade show hosting over 20 companies andother organizations; bus tours of MSFC and local attractions; a luncheon forover 150 students from around the world; a charity auction to benefit theMadison County Red Cross; and over 100 speakers from across the aerospaceindustry and space advocacy community at the Von Braun Center and EmbassySuites Hotel. I juggled multiple responsibilities in the midst of budget andprogram uncertainties at NASA as well as a massive tornado outbreak a month beforethe conference (and one tornado during the conference itself!). The conferenceitself brought in 857 attendees and earned me an “Above & Beyond” Awardfrom OSAC...all without casualties, unless one counts a temporary loss of sanity. :-)

In addition to the ISDC, I wrote agendas for half a dozen Science Cheerleader events and organized the paperwork of (now) over 100 Science Cheerleaders.

I wrote the first draft of a 59,000-word novel in November as part of National Novel Writing Month.

I survived months of job uncertainty and am currently in a stable berth in NASA's SERVIR program.

I started a second blog.

Oh yeah, and I bought a new car after the previous Bartmobile got a wee bit damaged.

***

So much for business. Am I a happier, better person now, than I was a year ago? Yes. Happier to be free of my ISDC responsibilities. Proud of what the group accomplished. And yes, happy that I can add a very large, successful event to ye olde resume. I learned a lot about myself over the course of the conference process, not all of it pretty.

The primary thing I learned is that I dislike being the guy in charge. I've learned how to better expend my social energies, as I frequently had to do my day job, then go off and do more stuff with other people after work. I learned that it is entirely possible to run a smooth operation so long as I surround myself with people who are able to do things on their own. I lead by allowing others to do their own thing with a minimum of supervision. I learned that I operate best in environments where information is shared openly, and that I get more than a little temperamental when I sense that is not the case.

And after a year of working with a large group on an intense project, my inner introvert has made himself clearly felt. I am learning to restructure my life and my pursuits to ensure that I have the space and time I need to recharge. I'm uncertain how, exactly, introverts find and keep partners in life. I find myself getting crustier about enforcing my personal quiet time and am getting set in my ways. This year marked 20 years since I graduated with my B.A. in English Literature; next year will be 20 years since I started working at Disney's Dixie Landings Resort (now Port Orleans Riverside). Time marches on, and I'm facing the realities of middle age: the need for ongoing exercise, more sensible eating, and political solicitude in the workplace. I'm not quite as brash, loud, or rude as I once was. All to the good.

But as always, I wonder where I go from here. I'm at the point where I've achieved my childhood dreams (including writing a novel!) but have yet to identify the dreams that will carry me forward for the next 40 years. Well, maybe I'll come up with some answers this year. Here's hoping. Farewell, 2011. Let's see what 2012 has to bring.

Checked Baggage or Carry-On?

2011-12-31T10:31:00.000-06:00

I am one of those people who does not mind waiting inbaggage claim for my luggage. Unless it’s a one-day trip, where I know mycarry-on will fit in the overhead compartment, I’ll opt for the checked bag anda reasonably unencumbered walk onto the aircraft. Your mileage may vary, buthere are some additional reasons for checking vs. carrying:

· Guaranteedlegroom. The pitch (space between one seat and the seat behind it) oncommercial aircraft is not improving, and it’s getting worse on regional jets(RJs). Given the sheer number of people who will cram the overhead bins, theodds are good that you’ll have to shove your carry-on bag or personal itemunder the seat in front of you. Why deprive your legs of what little space theyare likely to get?

· Difficultyfitting carry-ons into the overhead bin. Given my aforementioned disdainfor RJs, it probably won’t surprise you that I’m not any happier with the“space” they offer in their overhead compartments. Now it’s possible that my bag will fit, but ifit’s a guess, I will have two options: trying to fight with cramming the baginto the compartment or, more likely, waiting with all those other poor soulson the jetway whose bags were “tagged” and put in the regular luggagecompartment because they made a similar bad bet. Better to just check a bagclose to the size limit and be done with it. Plus, as a bonus, you don’t haveto wait in what is likely to be a cold and drafty jetway.

· Ease andspeed of movement between flights. If you’re not fortunate enough to livein a “hub” city like Chicago or Atlanta, odds are that you will be making atleast one connection to get to your destination, even within the continentalU.S. And because airline logic is not the same as traveler logic, the odds arereally good that your first flight will be let off at Gate B1 while yourconnection will be at Gate E35, on the other end of the airport (this is aparticular favorite game in Charlotte and Memphis). In addition to thedistance, you are likely to be facing a busy airport and a very short layoverbetween flights—usually <45 minutes—which means you have to hustle to getfrom B1 to E35. Now ask yourself which activity sounds more convenient: goingthrough all that with a bag or two slung over your shoulders or just a book inyour hand? (If you’re traveling with a spouse, partner, or children, multiplythat excitement by the number of people you have to keep in tow.)

“But, but, but!” I can hearsomeone object, “The airline will damage or lose your luggage!” I’ve beenflying commercially for 41 years, averaging 3 flights per year. My luggage hasbeen “lost” exactly once, and it was eventually sent to me at my destination.I’ve never had luggage damaged by cargo handlers, though I do recall one baggetting left out in the rain during an extended downpour. Even so, my clothescame out fine. On those rare occasions where I’ve had something fra-GEE-lay tocarry onboard, I’ve toted it onboard as a carry-on. There was one time Ibrought a bottle of wine with me, and TSA has this ridiculous liquid limit, soI wrapped the thing up in a bunch of clothing and hoped for the best. Despitetraveling with a Rick Steves cloth bag, the bottle came back—from Europe, noless—undamaged.

I’mnot saying I never use a carry-on. But for my regular luggage, it’s just easierto check it and fugheddaboudit! The odds of enjoying the so-called conveniencesof “carry-on” luggage are against you. Unless you’ve got some sort of hotappointment that you simply MUST make on the other end of the flight, take theextra 5-10 minutes in baggage claim and save yourself the aggravation. Happyand safe travels!

Shiny!

2011-12-28T20:58:00.000-06:00

Behold, the new Bartmobile...

It's a little more fancy than I might've bought for myself otherwise, but the check from the old car made me think a little more ambitiously. Assuming nobody decides to pull out in front of me, the new vehicle has the makings of another good long-term purchase. Yay!

Leadership and Laziness

2011-12-20T18:54:00.000-06:00

I got this one from Jerry Pournelle. It's worth reading as an analysis of how leaders are selected (or rejected) in the armed forces. There are lessons for the civilian world as well.

In classic military science, officers are divided into Brilliant vs. Stupid, and Lazy vs. Active. Now understand, these are relative terms: we are assuming that this is not Lake Wobegon, and even the Stupid can be pretty smart compared to the general population; stupid is probably the wrong word although it is the one generally used in these discussions. You will see what I mean in a moment.
This produces four classes of officers. What do you do with them?

First, the commanders, from company to regiment to division to army to army group: which class do you want as commanders? The answer is that you want them Brilliant and Lazy. Then for their Chief of Staff you want the Brilliant and Active. The reasoning is simple enough. The Active tend never to leave well enough alone. They drive the troops mad with new schemes for improvement. Your units go to hell.

However, you need the Brilliant and Active in the picture, just not as commanders. Someone has to recognize problems and look for solutions and agitate for improvements. You want the man at the top to understand this, and select among the various recommendations those which are needed – and which are affordable. But you want the agitation for improvement, else things atrophy.
So far so good. Now what do you do with the Stupid and Lazy? Why, that’s the bulk of your officer corps. They follow orders, and if they come up with awful ideas they aren’t so active as to try to implement them. As to the Stupid and Active, you encourage them to get out and go away. You have no place for them.

Buzz Worthy Indeed!

2011-12-12T20:09:00.000-06:00

The Bleacher Report recently rated the Top 40 Most Buzz-Worthy NFL Cheerleaders of 2011. The Bleacher Report is the U.S. 4th largest sports media site, with 20 million monthly readers! Among those worth buzzing about include the Arizona Cardinals Cheerleaders who are Science Cheerleaders (#32); Science Cheerleader Dana from the Baltimore Ravens (#30); Science Cheerleaders Rachel and Michelle (#18--I'm in the process of interviewing them now) and Science Cheerleader's overachieving Creative Director, Choreographer, and Ms. United States (among many other roles), Laura Eilers (#15).

No foolin', y'all: these women are for real. And no, sports fans, you can't have my job.

Laura Eilers, Image credit: The Bleacher Report

A World Record!

2011-12-01T21:20:00.001-06:00

While I didn't have the pleasure of attending, I had the privilege of handling the paperwork and logistics for the World's Largest Cheer last month. Previous entries can be found here and here. The video can be found here. And, as Dar noted, the cheer was for science and we beat China (always fun!). What will we do next? Guess you'll just have to check here or ScienceCheerleader.com!

Gooooo science!

A Year in the Sun – Back of the Book Blurb

2011-11-30T22:00:00.001-06:00

The following is a first cut at what I'd put on the blurb on the back of the novel I just wrote, A Year in the Sun.

InMay 1969, a hippie girl and her friend are on Cocoa Beach when one of them iscaptivated by the sight of a man in a shirt and tie walking transfixed alongthe sand. Here starts an unlikely love story between a hippie school teacherand a NASA engineer as America is about to launch the first people to the moon.

Mikeis an engineer’s engineer: quiet, intelligent, methodical, and a guy who fixescars for fun. He’s also a widower, burying himself in building rocket engines,and dreaming of a better future through the technologies his mission will bringabout.

Carolis a dreamer: idealistic, passionate, caring, and rootless. She wants to belongto something, to live in a better future, to no longer be alone. Since herparents died, Carol has been at a loss for where to go and what to do.

A Year in the Sun follows these two lost souls as theyseek a home in an America that is changing swiftly in uncertain directions, changingtheir own stories as well.

First Novel First Draft

2011-11-29T21:31:00.001-06:00

59,770 words later, I can lay claim to having written a first draft of a complete novel. It's 115 pages, and it tells the story I wanted to tell. Mind you, now I've got the grandfather of all editing jobs ahead of me, and I'm going to need to be brave enough to let trusted friends read/edit it. I'm not quite ready for all that yet. Tomorrow I'll write a back-of-the-book blurb so you folks out there in Cyberland have at least a summary of what I've been doing.

I kicked out something like 7,000 words this evening, which was more than triple my usual average. Right now I suppose the feeling I have is drained. But it's something I can cross off the to-do list, at least from one point of view.

Peace and happy thoughts, y'all.

2011-11-24T11:06:00.000-06:00

NaNoWriMo, Continued

So here I am on day 24 of National Novel Writing Month, and I'm still cranking out the prose. Last night I hit 44,860 words, which means at my current rate I'll hit NaNoWriMo's 50,000-word minimum well before I finish the story. And I do still have work to do. I figure I'll finish up somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 words.

What's interesting to me is that my characters have done things that have surprised me. I know, you're probably thinking, "But you're the author! They're just make-believe people. How can they possibly surprise you?" Well, on one level, you're right. But on the other, if you take the approach of seeing these characters as real people, you realize that they have desires of their own, and a decision that you would have them make doesn't fit with those desires. A lot of little things are decided instinctively for me. I'll be writing dialogue, hearing these people interact, and I can tell where they're coming from and what they want to do. Their conversations and actions have a natural rhythm that fits with their personalities, and I'll write what I see in my head. And, like I said, sometimes they'll surprise me.

Examples? Well, my leading-lady character became an orphan in her late teens. Her mother died when she was maybe 10, her father when she was 18. She was very close to her father, and he taught her how to fix cars. My male lead character works on cars to relax, so that became another level on which they could bond. Or there was a character I wanted to introduce later in the story, a surfer dude my female lead (Carol) meets when she comes to Woodstock, but on a whim I decided to make this guy someone she already knows, somebody local to Florida. That makes her connection to him easier to believe. The surfer dude surprised me, too, because suddenly he wanted to make a movie about the trip to Woodstock, and interview Carol. That gave Carol a chance to reveal things in a film "interview" that might not have come up otherwise.

And so forth. I'm having fun with this process, obviously. And I still have several thousands of words to go. Onward!

2011-11-13T22:42:00.000-06:00

NaNoWriMo Status

I hit 25,174 words on the novel this evening, a bit more than halfway through the goal of 50,00 words. Of course once I finish this one-month draft I'm going to have to go back and do a spitload of editing, but having a complete product will be something to work with.

So what does one work on after "finishing" 50,000 words? Oh, the usual: stuff I wanted to add but didn't have time to do. Correct factual or historical errors (the story is set between May and August 1969). Add more details of scenery or background or character behavior. What I'm kicking out this month is the plot and some semblance of dialogue. In the meantime, I'm also trying to accomplish a few things:

Tell a romantic tragedy (what, you think I like romantic comedies?).
Write a historical fiction story as if it were a science fiction or contemporary story.
Tell a story about cultural change.
Tell a story about how civilizations rise and fall.
Tell a story that reflects my enthusiasm for human space exploration.

...and yes, I'm trying to do all this in 50,000 words. It'll probably come out to about 100 pages, single-spaced, 200 double-spaced (which is how these things are normally turned in to a publisher).

The good news is, I have a story outline, and I'm sticking to it, for the most part. I've thrown in a couple of surprises for myself to see how I react to them. Characters are doing or experiencing things I hadn't anticipated. That said, an outline is helping me avoid writer's block. After all, if you know where you're going and have a structure for getting you there, the fun comes in the details--figuring out the how and why of things, even if you already understand the what and when.

I am also liking the notion of having designated writing hours, 8-10 p.m. That keeps me on task. I'm averaging a bit over 1,900 words a day, which means I'm likely to finish my novel by November 25 or 26. All fun, all good. We'll just see what happens next!

Onward!

2011-11-12T22:40:00.000-06:00

World's Largest Science Cheer, Continued

The cheer went off pretty much as scheduled today!

You don't quite realize how many cheerleaders 1,200+ people are until you get them all into one room. However, the Science Cheerleaders and Pop Warner did it. The cheer timed out at around 5 minutes, 15 seconds. We'll just wait and see how many people the Guinness Book of World Records folks accept for our attempt. Without an official adjudicator on site, we had to submit our evidence to them via mail (to the United Kingdom, no less!), but Dar and I are hopeful and happy with the way the event turned out. Of course you know that we now have other Science Cheerleader activities in the works for the future. But that, Dear Readers, is another story.

In the meantime, goooooo science!

2011-11-11T17:12:00.000-06:00

The Next Science Cheerleader Adventure

Here's what I've been working on since November 1: going for the World's Largest Science Cheer. Gooooo Science!

2011-11-08T07:00:00.000-06:00

Funk

And just when it hit me

Somebody turned around and shouted
“Play that funky music, white boy!”

--Wild Cherry

Actually, that’s not the sort of funk I meant, my sense of humor just got the better of me this morning. But the fact that my sense of humor has returned is a good sign. I’ve been, as my mother put it, in a funk for the last several months. First I needed to wind down from ISDC, then I found that I was too wound down. Aimless. Listless. Bored. Turns out I’m one of those people who needs projects to keep him focused and energized.

So around November 1, just as I was starting in on NaNoWriMo, I got a phone call from my buddy Darlene saying that an event we’d been planning to do the first week in December was going to move to November 11. “No sweat,” says the Gopher, and off he goes to do a month’s worth of work in a day or two. And the sad part is, I like it that way. I’ve been setting aside 8-10 p.m. every night to write the novel, which constrains the time available to do SciCheer stuff. That keeps me focused and task-oriented, while giving me designated time to be creative, which suits me just fine.

I work better under pressure.

Keeping busy improves my mental alertness, focus, and mood. I don’t know if that means I’m a workaholic, but it does mean I need to keep my mind stimulated with specific projects and tasks, preferably tasks with a deadline (it also might explain why going on a vacation to "do nothing" is foreign to me). Give me a routine task that needs to be performed every day/week/month, and I’ll do it, but eventually it will fall under the heading of a chore. Give me something unique or creative to do, give me a deadline for doing it, and the brain goes into high-efficiency mode.

The down side of this behavior is that it is very difficult to motivate myself for “non-project” activities--any non-project activities.

2011-11-03T18:54:00.000-05:00

Anybody Can Write a Novel, Can’t They?

I find it amusing how many people have said to me at some point, “I should/can write a novel some day.” To which I’ve usually responded, “Why don’t you?” After all, the average person has been taught how to write and has read at least one novel in school. That, or they think that their life “would make a good story.” The conversation could go further, but it rarely does. Perhaps for the reasons I’ll illustrate below.

“So do you have a plot in mind?”

“Well, no, but the story basically tells itself.”

“So are you going to write from your point of view, one of the participants’, or from an omniscient point of view?”

“I don’t know. I never really gave the matter much thought.”

“Okay, we can skip that for now. Who’s your protagonist?”

“Me, of course.”

“Ah! Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Are you writing autobiography or autobiographical fiction?”

“The latter one, I guess.”

“Okay, then you’ll need an antagonist, maybe a mentor character, a love interest…”

“Hey, wait! My life doesn’t have any of that.”

“Ah. So you’ve lived a conflict-free, guidance free life with no romance?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that…”

“Which part is incorrect.”

“Well, I’ve had conflict, and I’ve had romance in my life.”

“Excellent! Is it more a man-versus-man conflict, man-vs.-society, or some sort of existential, man-vs.-self thing?”

“Look, I don’t know about all that; I just want to tell my story.”

“Okay. What do you consider the beginning—when your parents first met, when you were born, when you first became conscious, when you had your first conflict?”

“Jeez, I dunno. I suppose I’d focus on my time in high school.”

“Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere. You’re not telling your life story, you want to tell about your youth.”

“Right.”

“Is this story to be a tragedy or comedy?”

“Uh, somewhere in the middle?”

“Do you expect to have a happy ending or a sad one?”

“Happy, of course.”

“Comedy, then. Going back to a previous question, then: what’s your instigating action?”

“Huh?”

“Where do you want your story to begin?”

“My first day of freshman year, I guess.”

“What happened that day?”

“Well, you know: met people, got registered and stuff.”

“What set off the conflict?”

“What? There wasn’t any.”

“It’s best to start by shifting from equilibrium to a state of disequilibrium. You need something to start off the action.”

“Are you sure all this is necessary?”

“Do you want people to read your story?”

“Of course.”

“Then you need to make it interesting. Conflict is interesting. It builds drama, excitement, an emotional hook. Let’s try this: what’s the first interesting thing that happened to you freshman year? Also, do you know an editor you can hire?”

“Don’t publishers have those?”

“Yeah, but you need to at least start out with a polished product.”

“Uh, look, I’ve have second thoughts. You’ve made this all sound like work. It’s supposed to be fun.”

“It is. But it’s also supposed to be fun for your reader. That takes work.”

“You know, I think I’ll skip the novel idea.”

“Good call.”

Also calls to mind a story I’ve heard, probably apocryphal, but worth repeating. A writer and a surgeon meet at a party, and one of them says, “Oh, you’re a writer? Funny you should mention that. I’ve often thought about trying to write a novel.”

“Good for you,” says the writer. “What do you do?”

“I’m a thoracic surgeon.”

“Really! Funny you should mention that. I’ve always thought about trying thoracic surgery.”

The point being that you should never underestimate your own professionalism or unique craft. Anyone who says they can write at the drop of a hat because they got educated in reading and writing in elementary and secondary school does not truly understand what a professional writer does. If “anyone” could do it, you wouldn’t be getting paid, would you?

2011-10-30T19:44:00.000-05:00

Off the Grid

If I don't post here much in the next month, that's because I'm attempting to write a novel as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Fifty thousand words in 30 days. No sweat, right? Riiiiight.

2011-10-22T21:31:00.002-05:00

Book Review: After America: Get Ready for Armageddon

I've done my level best to avoid watching the Republican presidential debates, mostly because it's more than one year until the election, and because I don't believe my life as an American should be so politicized that I need to pay attention to an election more than a year away. But I do still read the news, and I do listen to the radio. And yes, I listen to talk radio. That includes Rush Limbaugh and his occaional stand-ins when he takes a day off. One of them--perhaps the smartest and most entertaining of the lot--is Mark Steyn. Steyn has written a couple of books now, and I've read America Alone and now, After America. While Steyn has a distinctive edge to him, he is undoubtedly a keen observer of the American scene, and his opinions are not mere boosterism or hype (as opposed to, say, Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck).

So what does Mr. Steyn have to say, in his snarky and urbane sort of way? After 349 pages of often-painful reading, there's no way around it: he believes this nation is in terrible trouble. This book reads rather like a conservative's jeremiad for the United States. A jeremiad, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is taken after the prophet Jeremiah, whose book in the Bible is a long recitation of the sins of the nation of Israel and what evils will befall them unless they mend their sinful ways. Well, Israel did not reform, and all that Jeremiah foretold came to pass, which was a bit of a painful "I told you so." Which might explain why jeremiads are not particularly popular.

And this was a hard read. Steyn goes after everything from political correctness to government overspending to our nation's cultural rot, and then projects forward to the implications of our current actions. The implications are not pretty, nor will some folks who hold with our current culture or set of behavior accept them, but they are reasonable. I was about 35 pages into this book, and Steyn had me convinced that we were screwed, and I thought, "My God, what more could he find to say?" The answer was: quite a lot.

He makes comparisons between present-day America and ancient Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, and more recent Imperial Britain, showing how a failure in one place/time/nation could be repeated here. One thing he does do, however, is remind his readers of the virtues that were to be found in each of those civilizations. For instance, the more socially sensitive of our time might deride the British Empire as some sort of heartless, racist enterprise, but overlook the efforts it made to spread Western notions of law, justice, and equality under the law around the world, or how it was the primary force behind eliminating slavery and piracy around the world. Steyn also notes how America, at its height of influence in 1950, held most of the financial and military cards in the world, and yet held no interest in acquiring territory or becoming some sort of dominating hegemon--we were trying to strengthen our allies so they could stand up for themselves.

That said, for the most part, Steyn's book is terribly depressing to read. I doubt I will do so again, unless it is to focus on its epilogue, "The Hope of Audacity" (a deliberate flip of President Obama's book title, The Audacity of Hope), which offers the only chunks of optimism in an otherwise pessimistic book. I suppose, as with Jeremiah, Steyn's point is to scare his readers into realizing the seriousness of their situation and to act on the fear of what might be in order to stop it. Perhaps Steyn succeeds too well. The picture of the future he paints is not a pretty one, and seems all but inevitable if you accept his premises. If we're facing existential problems in this nation, what, then, can one person do? I'm not certain that a call to reinvigorate America's founding principles is sufficient to overcome all the problems Steyn lays before us. However, the alternative is to do nothing, and I think the Tea Party and (yes, I'll say it) the "Occupy" movements are signs that America is not willing to give up it essential nature without a fight.

You might read Steyn's book and get depressed. You might read it and get righteously angry. You might read it and think that the man is a damned fool. However, I am convinced that if you do read it, you will come away from it wanting to take action. And if enough individuals read it and do take action, however chaotic or contradictory, I think that would satisfy the author.

2011-10-22T17:29:00.001-05:00

Looking Back: Bart on Leadership

I was on a cleaning blitz today, and I finally decided to look through a three-ring binder I'd saved from a leadership class I took in 2004. At that time, I was still living in Northern Virginia, working for Radian Inc (subsequently bought by ESSI, which was bought by Finemeccanica) as a proposal writer. Among the items in the binder was my look at the future 25 years out.

Bart, A.D. 2030

Overview

Writer/Intellectual
Artist/Filmmaker
Outdoorsman
Executive/Entrepreneur/Consultant
Husband
World Traveler
Wise Counselor
Good Friend
Happy Wherever I Am

What is Needed to Get from Here to There?

Education
Business, filmmaking, drawing, painting

Money / Material
Better investments, more savings, better position, side/consulting income, art/travel supplies/gear

Behavior
Better health, better diet, more exercise, stress reduction, caring for others, more self-confidence, romance, sociability

Deliverables
Books, articles, blogs, op-eds, stories, scripts, paintings, drawings, movies

Results
Better balance, more clarity, more confidence, bravery, self-awareness, financial security, ability to take care of myself and those I care about, happiness, peace

All in all, an interesting vision. It's not far off from the trajectory I've been pursuing. If I haven't become more of an "outdoorsman," I've at least spent more time in the gym than I used to. And I have managed to get some traveling done, here and abroad. I haven't pursued my artistic side as much as I probably would have liked, but I have pursued travel and outside writing. Things to work on and look forward to, anyway.

Another thing I worked on in this class was a statement of leadership philosophy. The concepts evolved a bit over the course of the six-week class. Here's what I had to say:

11/8/04
I am fascinated by leaders and the practice of leadership because, in my reading experience, a leader is an individual who is able to get others to do things they might never have accomplished otherwise. Leaders have specific goals in mind and are able to tap the best abilities of each team member in order to accomplish these goals. Ideally, leaders act as teachers or facilitators of a working body of professionals, assuming the mantle of authority only to solve problems, arrange compromises, or break logjams within the group. They respect the concerns and demonstrate loyalty toward others upward, parallel to, or below them in the organization, even to the point of being the "loyal opposition."

11/15/04
Leaders are imbued with a powerful vision of the end result and are able to tap the best abilities of each team member in order to accomplish those goals. In order to ensure success, leaders must facilitate an environment that thrives on and encourages individual autonomy, learning, and courtesy. Ideally, leaders also inspire a working body of professionals through leading by example, living by a recognizable code of integrity, and working hard to accomplish the group's goal, even if that work requires performing tasks "below their station." Leaders should assume the mantle of autority only to solve problems, arrange compromises, or break logjams within the group. They should respect the concerns of, and demonstrate loyalty toward, others in the organization, even to the point of being the "loyal opposition."

12/1/04
Leaders should be imbued with a powerful vision of an end result and are able to tap the best abilities of each team member in order to accomplish that result. In order to achieve success, leaders must facilitate an environment that thrives on and encourages individual autonomy, learning, and courtesy. Ideally, leaders also inspire a working body of professionals through leading by example, living by a recognizable code of integrity, and working hard to accomplish the group's goal, even if that work requires performing tasks "below their station." Leaders should assume the mantle of authority only to solve problems, arrange compromises, or break logjams within the group. They should respect the concerns of, and demonstrate loyalty toward, others in the organization, even to the point of being the "loyal opposition." A good leader's commitment to excellence and personal respect should be reflected in his actions and in the attitudes of those whom the leader seeks to lead.

Again, an interesting set of comments. I recognize the attitudes because that's more or less how I tried to run ISDC. I can't say I succeeded in all those ways. For instance, there were situations where I wanted to give someone more autonomy, but I couldn't because I had no budget for them and thus no prescribed boundaries or "rules of engagement," which meant that I had to do a lot of things myself until the budget became clear.

I also know that I was not as courteous as I would have liked at all points. I lost my temper on a couple of occasions because people were not sharing information with me or things were not happening the way I had planned or was told they would happen.

However, those two examples aside, the conference itself ran very smoothly because I managed to get good people in the right positions. After the first couple days (of five), I found myself able to hide in a corner somewhere and let my team do their jobs. I was brought in--as expected--only when there were high-level problems. I found out about little things afterward, and they were little, for the most part. The last "executive action" I took during the conference was at the end of the last luncheon on the last day, when I had to calmly and jokingly direct people to the basement for a tornado warning ("Folks, much as I'd like to say I'm kidding...").

Are those sirens I hear?

So I suppose, as a leadership experience, ISDC was successful as I define leadership: the team did most of the work and I was there to make the ugly/tough calls. Anything I couldn't handle got kicked upstairs, which wasn't much. Bottom line: I suppose I learned a few things about leadership in seven years. That doesn't mean I like being the boss, but I at least have a consistent philosophy of how I should behave if I'm forced to be one.

2011-10-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

Fusion Propulsion in Our Lifetimes?

One of the benefits that keeps on giving here in Huntsville is that it's very easy for the local space-geek club to get some serious speakers to talk about topics of mutual interest. This evening's speaker was Dr. Jason Cassibry, a professor from University of Alabama-Huntsville (hereafter UAH). I understand he gave this talk at the conference I ran, but like most of the content going on at ISDC, I didn't hear it. Cassibry seems to be one of those profs you hope to get if you're a liberal arts major because he's an animated speaker who manages to make his talk interesting, if not always understandable--you do have to do SOME homework, after all. I'd also be surprised if Cassibry was older than 30. Sheesh, I'm getting old.

All that said, Cassibry's presentation title was "The Case and Development Path for Fusion Propulsion," and the case he made was a good one. But then, being an English major, I think most of these guys give convincing talks because I don't know enough science or engineering to call BS on most of what they're saying. This is why I'm a tech writer, not an engineer: all the juicy content, none of the math.

Cassibry began his talk by briefly going over "why explore?" The answers there were familiar to this space-friendly audience (planetary exploration, spinoffs, asteroid mining, outliving the Earth, taking really expensive vacations). From there he moved to his primary emphasis: developing a propulsion system that could make possible a seven-month mission to Mars (three months outbound, one month there, three months back). Why seven months? Because the longest mission aboard the International Space Station was 210 days, and that seemed to operate fine without any serious side-effects on the crew. Longer than that, and I'm guessing that the close quarters might make people get a little stir-crazy.

Next he ran through the potential propulsion candidates available with existing or reachable technology: advanced chemical systems, electric propulsion, and nuclear fission or fusion. For those of you who haven't taken high school physics in awhile, fission is where you split atomic nuclei; fusion is where you combine (fuse) several smaller nuclei into larger nuclei. Fission and fusion both produce tremendous amounts of energy--something like a thousand times greater than chemical propellants of the same mass--but they also produce ionizing radiation, which can damage human beings at the cellular level (cancer, sterilization).

According to Cassibry, using the best chemical propulsion available, you could get a 1,000-metric-ton vehicle (with 100 of those tons dedicated to useful payload) to Mars in around two years. I've heard shorter estimates, but then those were for vehicles 1/10th the size. A 1,000-tonne vehicle would require nearly ten flights by NASA's in-development Space Launch System, which would not be cheap.

Moving down the list, nuclear electric propulsion could provide power levels of around 100 watts per kilogram (W/kg) of propellant. Fusion power would kick that energy level up to 1 kilowatt per kilogram (kW/kg), while a more advanced fusion energy source would be kicking it to the tune of 10 kW/kg and be able to make the round-trip to Mars within the 7-month timeline.

What sort of fusion are we talking about? It turns out there are several combinations of lighter elements that could be fused usefully, including deuterium-tritium (two- and three-neutron isotopes of hydrogen), deuterium-deuterium, deuterium-helium-3, and deuterium-lithium-6. Cassibry dismissed tritium as having too many radioactive byproducts and pointed out that it would take something like 1,000 nuclear plants to make enough of the isotope to be useful for space travel. He similarly didn't like helium-3 because while it's a darling of the pro-space movement, the cost of building all the infrastructure on the Moon to harvest it are cost-prohibitive. Instead, he advocated for using deuterium and lithium-6; deuterium is the most common hydrogen isotope, while there are "tons" of lithium-6 available in the ground in Tennessee--and we've already used both elements to make bombs.

It was at this point in Cassibry's talk that the PowerPoint slides started rapidly ascending over my head. He talked very rapidly about a number of existing approaches to fusion, including the ITER reactor, inertial confinement fusion, and magnetized target fusion (MTF). The way this would work--and I'd heard some of this talk at Marshall during my day job--is that you'd have a ring of high-energy plasma guns all firing at a target sample of hydrogen. Another way to induce fusion could be something called "Z-pinch" fusion, which Sandia National Laboratory has been working on, and which UAH is planning to work on at the Aerophysics Lab near Redstone Arsenal. Assuming Cassibry and his teammates get the funding and equipment they want, they could have the equipment within six months and tests beginning in a year.

Cheaper and smaller in scale than any competing fusion reaction, this whole thing, from testing to flight test, could theoretically get done in ten years. Joy, bliss, and happiness for everyone, right? Yeah, BUT...

Fusion has been worked on since the 1950s, and it's always been "20 years away." Cassibry conceded that, but believes that the applied energy and approach are not as expensive at the $10-billion ITER reactor (theoretically in the $50-100 million range). He also had to ask questions from people worrying about everything from "polluting the solar system" ("a molecule in the bucket compared to what's already being put out by the sun") to "What's the worst-case scenario if this thing blows up?" (That'd be me, the concerned citizen.) To my question he responded, "That wouldn't happen, but you might lose a few capacitors or the test rig. You'd have three feet of concrete between the experiment and the outside, and the staff would all be 100 meters away." So okay, the test article won't be creating a mushroom cloud over Huntsville. People were laughing at me, but d@mmit, I didn't know, and someone had to ask the tough question, because you can be quite sure that the EPA will be asking them when they fill out their environmental impact report.

I really didn't mean to give Cassibry a hard time. Like I said, most of his talk was quite engaging, and the technology sounded promising, given proper funding and technological success. It might require a much smaller demonstration test to prove out the concept. If Cassibry's schedule is correct, he could get a 100-ton test article aboard the SLS when it's ready. So we'll just see what happens next. In the meantime, it'll be interesting to see what other exciting technology comes out of Huntsville. If you take away one big project from the rocket people here, their creativity will find outlets elsewhere. The future awaits!

2011-10-03T22:35:00.000-05:00

The Science Cheerleaders Strike Again!

School's in session, and that means science fairs, science-themed events, and other educational stuff can be found everywhere. And where there's science, you can now find the Science Cheerleaders! This past weekend, SciCheers Ada, Heidi, Melissa, Sammi Jo, and Sandra (along with the ever-fearless Darlene) showed up at the Hispanic Engineering, Science, Technology (HESTEC) Week event at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas. The fan base keeps a-building!

The SciCheers are seen here with "Dr. Zen." No idea who he is, but his website can be found here: http://www.utpa.edu/faculty/zfaulkes/.

Also appearing at the HESTEC was our friend and Creative Director, Ms. United States, Laura Eilers.

Man, I need to get out more! These are fun events. Right now, however, it looks like the earliest that the Cheer Operations Ninja will appear at a SciCheer event will be next April. Earlier activities are always possible, of course, so ya never know.

In addition to all the performing, SciCheer has been busy in other venues as well:

They were named an "innovator for the public" by Ashoka Changemakers.
Dar was interviewed by a space advocate buddy of mine, Michael Doornbos, on Evadot.com.
Summer, the aerospace engineer SciCheer, interviewed Shuttle Astronaut Sandra Magnus, the last female to fly on the final Shuttle mission.

Anyhow, there's plenty going on in the world of Science Cheerleader to keep me busy (someone's got to keep the paperwork flowing!). Drop on by the site and see what's next!

2011-09-18T15:15:00.000-05:00

New Blog

I have created a blog to scratch a professorial itch: Heroic Technical Writing. The itch is to teach; the blog is a way to scratch it without actually interacting with students. Plus, Heroic will be a more topic-focused blog. This site will continue as my site for topics of personal interest, which tend to wander all over the place. If you're a technical writer, interact with them, or want to be one, you might consider the site worth reading. Otherwise, if I get different readers for it, I won't be offended.

Peace and happy thoughts to ya, even if da Bears DID lose today! :-(

2011-09-17T22:37:00.000-05:00

Science on a Saturday Afternoon

Since I couldn't be with the Science Cheerleaders at the NYC Maker Faire today, I decided to go to a science event here in Huntsville. However, I did see that Dar managed to post a couple of pictures:

University of Alabama-Huntsville, located across the street from the day-job office, was hosting a "Weather Fest" to showcase the school's work in various aspects of meteorology. It was a nice example of "fun" and "science" not being incompatible (rather like the Science Cheerleaders, you might say).

The first thing I ran into was a trailer full of large, technical-looking equipment on it set up in the parking lot outside the Shelby Center. I asked the gent by the trailer to explain things, and he (Ryan Wade) did. He initially took me for a Huntsville Times reporter because I was asking a lot of questions and taking copious notes. Sorry, no. That's just me being me. :-)

Anyhow, the first machine he explained was a high-energy radar that fired its microwave pulses in three directions: toward the zenith (straight up), to the north, and to the east. By collecting data in these three directions, the radar can get a good reading on the atmosphere's temperature, moisture, and wind speed/direction.

Next to that was a radiometer, which passively detects microwaves (heat) generated by clouds, as well as moisture in the air. Between the radar and the radiometer, the meteorologists are able to get a lot more data points, the equivalent of "a weather balloon every minute," which is good, because weather balloons are expensive.

The impressive-looking bulb at the front end of the trailer was a vertically looking, dual-polarized X-band radar, which is what it sounds like: a radar that points straight up and sends pulses into to the sky. What does "dual-polarized" mean? I just learned this while trying to dissect some SERVIR stuff a couple weeks ago, so I'd better go ahead and explain it before I forget. If you've ever seen light waves depicted in science class, they look like waves that go up and down, more or less in the same plane. Well, radiation can be transmitted at almost any orientation (see image below), but human beings will generally detect or transmit radiation--like, say, microwaves--in one of two arbitrary planes, our own personal "vertical" or "horizontal." Most conventional weather radars have transmitted horizontally only. If you transmit radar signals vertically and horizontally, you can get a three-dimensional picture of the objects reflecting back signals to the dish. This is important for detecting the difference between rain, snow, or hail, all of which have different shapes. Another advantage of the dual-polarized radar is that it enables meteorologists to detect debris kicked up by a tornado because such debris would have a much different shape from rain or hail.

The company responsible for changing over all of the National Weather Service radars from horizontal polarization to dual polarization is Baron Services, which all the UAH folks were very conscious of, because Baron is a Huntsville-based company.

One thing that I wanted to learn because it wasn't entirely clear to me was how tornadoes get formed in the first place--especially after the deadly dose of tornadoes we got April 27 this year. Tornadoes start as a result of a simple physical process: hot air rising and cooler air sinking. Obviously there's more to it than that or tornadoes would happen all the time. Other factors include large temperature differences between the air masses--say, between a really cold arctic air mass from up north and a relatively warm air mass coming up from the Gulf of Mexico in early spring. Instead of some air just rising and other air sinking, the air masses actually start rotating, creating a horizontal column of air in the sky. As the storm front moves forward and the cloud bases (bottoms) move closer to the ground, it is possible for this spinning column of air to turn become vertical, strike the ground, and move forward along the storm's path of forward motion. The tornado continues until it loses energy and dissipates.

So there ya go: your (and my) meteorology lesson for the day.

Another cool bit of machinery was a station wagon I dubbed the "Weather Car," which is its function if not its official name--that would be the Mobile Meteorological Mesonet. Festooned with a variety of instruments, including an annometer (for measuring wind speed), temperature and dew point sensors, and GPS unit, the car can take measurements even while in motion. That's probably a good thing, since a lot of the time the Weather Car can be sent out to chase storms, and probably doesn't want or need to get too close. Still, it looks a little like a practical joke played by the Meteorology Department on a school staff car.

In addition to the big machinery outside, inside the Shelby Center, the UAH Atmospheric Science Department had several display tables and other activities to engage the weather-interested, young and old. One interesting character in all this was The Weather Dude, who sang songs about weather education.

I also was impressed with the student who had a plate with some sort of flammable liquid in it, which she covered with a cylindrical screen that could rotate. The rotation of the air within the cylinder drew up the flames, creating a mini-tornado inside the cylinder.

One thing they were doing at the Weather Fest which I thought was kind of cool, in a science-geek sort of way, was raffling off a rain gauge. I put in for one, but didn't win. Boo.

And of course no weather excursion at UAH would be complete without the launch of a weather balloon. UAH launches a balloon once a week, at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The balloon carries up with it a variety of sensors for detecting the same things that the ground-based radars do: temperature, dew point, moisture, wind speed, and direction. The difference with a weather balloon is that the data is collected on-site, from ground to 110,000 feet (~20.8 miles or 33.5 kilometers). The Weather Fest provided a good opportunity for the university to explain what their role is with meteorology and atmospheric science, which of course brought the local TV stations, which in turn provided an opportunity for Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle to make an appearance.

The Weather Fest also included snack and drink concession tables, a Chik-Fil-A table and one of the CFA cows walking around for pictures, a guy dressed up as a tornado character, mini-golf and activity tables for the kids, a guy selling storm/cloud photography as art, a student with a Tesla coil and a lot of things that could generate an electrical arc, and a TV with video from WAFF from April 27. A couple of side rooms had lectures at them, and I attended a couple, but was a little too caught up in all the other stuff to sit still. So all in all, it was a good event, but I'll bet it would've been even better with a few of the Science Cheerleaders around. The closest we got was that I saw a pom-pon on the Atmospheric Sciences table. Oh, well. Goooo Science!

2011-09-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

PTSD and 9/11

I originally posted this in 2008. I see little need to change it now, but there will probably be some "9/11 + 10" comments at the end.

Everyone has their "Where were you on 9/11?" narrative, and I'll get to mine in a minute. First, however, I want to take a moment to discuss post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Department of Veterans Affairs describes it as follows:

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

All people with PTSD have lived through a traumatic event that caused them to fear for their lives, see horrible things, and feel helpless. Strong emotions caused by the event create changes in the brain that may result in PTSD. Most people who go through a traumatic event have some symptoms at the beginning. Yet only some will develop PTSD. It isn't clear why some people develop PTSD and others don't. How likely you are to get PTSD depends on many things. These include:

How intense the trauma was or how long it lasted
If you lost someone you were close to or were hurt
How close you were to the event
How strong your reaction was
How much you felt in control of events
How much help and support you got after the event
Many people who develop PTSD get better at some time. But about 1 out of 3 people with PTSD may continue to have some symptoms. Even if you continue to have symptoms, treatment can help you cope. Your symptoms don't have to interfere with your everyday activities, work, and relationships.

There are four types of symptoms: reliving the event, avoidance, numbing, and feeling keyed up.

Reliving the event (also called re-experiencing symptoms):Bad memories of the traumatic event can come back at any time. You may feel the same fear and horror you did when the event took place. You may have nightmares. You even may feel like you're going through the event again. This is called a flashback. Sometimes there is a trigger: a sound or sight that causes you to relive the event. Triggers might include:
Hearing a car backfire, which can bring back memories of gunfire and war for a combat veteran
Seeing a car accident, which can remind a crash survivor of his or her own accident
Seeing a news report of a sexual assault, which may bring back memories of assault for a woman who was raped
Avoiding situations that remind you of the event:

You may try to avoid situations or people that trigger memories of the traumatic event. You may even avoid talking or thinking about the event.
A person who was in an earthquake may avoid watching television shows or movies in which there are earthquakes
A person who was robbed at gunpoint while ordering at a hamburger drive-in may avoid fast-food restaurants
Some people may keep very busy or avoid seeking help. This keeps them from having to think or talk about the event.
Feeling numb:

You may find it hard to express your feelings. This is another way to avoid
memories.
You may not have positive or loving feelings toward other people and may stay away from relationships
You may not be interested in activities you used to enjoy
You may forget about parts of the traumatic event or not be able to talk about them.
Feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal):
You may be jittery, or always alert and on the lookout for danger. This is known as hyperarousal. It can cause you to:
Suddenly become angry or irritable
Have a hard time sleeping
Have trouble concentrating
Fear for your safety and always feel on guard
Be very startled when someone surprises you

Once upon a time, PTSD was called "shell shock," as men coming back from the Great War returned to civilian life exhibiting a variety of terrifying wounds, physical and mental. By World War II, the highly descriptive term had been softened to "battle fatigue." And by Vietnam, it had been translated into the more clinical term we use today.

Soldiers are not the only ones who have experienced PTSD through history. It probably goes back to the Black Death, or civilians enduring sacks by the Huns and Visigoths. And PTSD need not be experienced directly, or only in acts of war (as seen above). How many people were traumatized in the '30s or '40s by radio broadcasts? And then came 9/11, probably the largest purposely induced case of PTSD inflicted via television.

"So Where Were You on 9/11?"
I'm treating this as my "definitive" essay on 9/11, so I won't have to write this again. I was not in any particular danger, I just want to explain my particular sensitivity to this event.
I was flying that day.
My friend Tim's dad had celebrated his 60th birthday that weekend (BTW, happy belated birthday, Dale!), and Tim, Gwen (his wife) and I were flying back to Orlando from Cleveland. We had a stopover in Nashville, which landed at 8:30 a.m. We landed, no problem, and hauled our overweight butts over to our second plane. Then things sort of slowed down and got weird. The staff at the gate dithered as the crowds got bigger.
Gwen wandered over to the bar next door. It was closed, but the TV was on. She came back and said, "I think I know why we aren't going anywhere," and directed me toward the TV set. One of the World Trade Center towers was on fire and the folks around the TV said a plane (a Cessna?) had hit it. I commented that that was a lot of smoke for a Cessna, and went back to sit next to Tim. I explained to him what was happening, and then quipped, quoting a Snickers commercial, "Not going anywhere for awhile?"
I had two books in my carryon: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (it was neither), and Voyage, an alternate history of the space program that was not inspiring me. I reread the same paragraphs several times, getting nowhere, but figured I'd try again until the airlines figured out what they were going to do.
Gwen, being a news junkie, went back to watching the TV. The next time she came back, her eyes were wide and alarmed. "Just come see this." She wouldn't talk about it, and I quickly understood why. A second plane. It was deliberate. Jesus.
My next comment, after repeating the Snickers commercial, was to say to Tim, "This won't end until some part of the world is turned into green glass."
Tim and I went into male analysis mode, trying to figure out who could've financed an operation capable of taking over and crashing a couple commercial airliners. Our guesses ranged from Saudi Arabia and Iran to Russia and China. News was sketchy and chaotic, and would remain for the next couple of days, so we were free to speculate.
Finally, after enough people had gotten freaked out by what was on the TV, the line at the counter started getting longer and a little raucous. Tim, Gwen, and I, dedicated travelers that we were, waited until the "I'm not flying anywhere, give me a refund" people got out of the way. I was about the last person in line for the flight. I told the agent to take a breath, relax, I wasn't going to yell at her, and said she was doing a great job. She managed a smile, and I asked what Southwest was doing about this.
"We've booked some rooms at the Clarion. We'll get you on a shuttle. You won't have to pay for that." I presumed she meant the shuttle, but SWA was willing to pay for the room as well. Bully for them. The young lady at the desk (Heather) gave me my vouchers and sent me on my way. She got a compliment letter from me when I got home. The best compliment I could offer for SWA's people that day was that they were "very Disney" under pressure.
I passed the TV once more, seeing the WTC looking much the worse, and thought seriously about going to church.
I've read where passengers and sailors have grown the most panicked at sea, not during the shipwreck, but afterward, when rescue is in sight and they are awaiting their turn. That sort of captures the atmosphere at Nashville's baggage claim area that day. We had already seen all the planes get rolled back, away from the jetways, lest anyone else get the bright idea to slam-dunk a 757.
TVs were going in baggage claim, and the thing that set off the waiting-for-the-lifeboats feeling was the collapse of the two towers. As cartoonist Art Spiegelman put it, "The Lord's name was taken in vain a lot that day."
I don't know exactly what we expected to happen to us (drowning was unlikely), though the police obviously did: all the cars, trucks, and vans were moved 100 yards away from the terminal, in anticipation of a bombing. I'd never been around such a large group of freaked out people in my life, and I wanted, like the rest of them, to get the hell out.
It's difficult to describe my mental state at the time, but I'll give it a shot. Numbness. Panic. Ohmygodohmygod. A sudden realization that I had family and friends in DC and New York that would need to be checked on. And I was absolutely, scorchingly p!$$ed off. I wanted some part of the world turned into green glass--very hot and very quickly.
Loud sounds began to alarm me: dropped china, engine backfires, slamming doors. I got to the hotel, checked in, explaining that I was one of the Southwest refugees and had no idea how long I'd be staying. The clerk understood, did her thing, and gave me a key. Tim and Gwen went to their room.
I got to the room, closed the door, and threw my suitcase across the room. I bellowed. I cried. I was not sane for about five minutes, though it felt longer. I finally went to the bathroom to wash my face, and my eyes were watery, weak, and scared. This was what terrorism was about, and the bastards had succeeded: I was terrified.
Not needing to pay for the hotel room, I racked up phone charges with a clear conscience. I called who I could, voice shaky, but talking a mile a minute, simultaneously seeking and offering comfort. I asked about my aunt and uncle in NYC; no word at the time, but they turned out to be fine. I asked about Kate, my buddy up in DC. Fine. I called the office (Disney University at the time) and asked for the only person whose name I could remember. I explained where I was and that I obviously wouldn't be coming in to work that day. Talking was clearing my head, but making things worse. The more I thought about things, the more scared I got. I was close to fubar, so I thanked my cohort for passing on the message. She told me to take care, and I hung up.
Finally I called home and briefly chatted with my roommate at the time, Jonathan. I cannot recall now what I said, though he did tell me to check my voice mail because "someone from the National Space Society called."
"Somebody" turned out to be Chris Pancratz, who was VP of Public Affairs at the time. He said my friend Cliff had recommended me as a writer and wanted to know if I'd be interested in writing a presentation "to help sell space to normal people." I laughed at the "normal people" line. I needed it, and appreciated Chris's gruff good humor, given the circumstances. Naturally I took the job, if only to get my mind off things. I thought of a title ("Now More Than Ever") on my way out of the room. I truly appreciated that life raft.
I met Tim and Gwen at the bar and filled my eyes and mind with eight to ten hours of saturation-bombing news coverage. The beers kept flowing, but the real numbness we sought wouldn't come. Tension and adrenaline wrestled with the alcohol, and won. I think I was full before I got drunk. The hotel brought out some chafing dishes filled with whatever was left over from the kitchen. It could've been filet mignon for all we cared. Eating was something to move our jaws around that didn't involve talking.
I remember getting back to my room that first night and having vivid, ugly, and startling dreams about worse attacks on the TV. The dream that woke me up involved a nearby nuclear explosion blasting in the glass of my hotel window. Imaginative people are bad candidates for PTSD. It sends our imaginations in strange directions.
I couldn't sleep, so I turned on the TV, and found a Star Trek: The Next Generation rerun going. That simmered me down and allowed me to sleep through the night. If they were running reruns, not the Emergency Warning System alarm tone, I figured the world would last another day.
Getting out of Nashville proved problematic, of course, for us and everyone else. Again, dedicated campers that we were, Tim, Gwen, and I kept trying to rebook for our flight home. When it became clear that the airborne silence over our heads was likely to continue for awhile, we began calling the car rental places. After about the third call, we managed to get the last car out of the Hertz lot by the simple luck that it was a Florida-based car and needed to be ferried back there anyway.
The car from Hertz was great: a Volvo convertible with GPS navigation system and leather seats. Too bad none of us were quite in the mood to appreciate it. As bad as it is was for our mental health, we kept listening to the news, hoping perhaps that some semblance of order might arise. In between updates, we must've heard Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" and Alicia Keyes' "Fallin'" about 20 times each. Those were the two songs that stuck with me from those days. I noticed that a lot of the schlock and '90s-type angst music (e.g. Alanis Morrisette, Meredith Brooks) disappeared. Maybe people just didn't want to hear that stuff anymore.
We arrived back in Orlando around 6 a.m., in the midst of a tropical storm (lovely timing). We all promised to touch base at Hooters the following evening.
That was one hell of a two-day stretch. I was damn glad I had Tim and Gwen with me through all that. My parting thought as we dropped off the car was, "I love you guys, but don't let's do this ever again."

Life Post-9/11
Of course the trip home didn't really end 9/11 for me (or anyone else). The jumpiness continued for a couple years, as did the reluctance to enter large buildings. I had a few months there in '01 where I had to leave the office just to get some fresh air. I imagined aircraft slamming into the Magic Kingdom, or Epcot. My brain would not shut up.
I got my only two B's out of an otherwise straight-A average in grad school that autumn. Partly this was because of my mental state, and partially because of the class content. One class was boring to me (Medical Writing), and one was awash in anti-American, anti-logical cr@p (Rhetorical Theory?).
When the war drums started, I was behind them. Behind the invasion of Afghanistan, hands down. Behind Iraq because at the time I didn't want anyone messing with my country. We knew what sorts of things could happen by that point, and we knew that Saddam Hussein had a history of bad actions. And yeah, we were still hopped up on adrenaline from 9/11. I'm convinced that the Iraq war was the result of a collective case of PTSD. I calmed down eventually. Time heals most things, even PTSD.
We've now had seven years without another 9/11. You can thank whoever or whatever you want for that: God, luck, George W. Bush, or the American Armed Forces (I'll take all of the above). Sanity has returned for me, but not forgetfulness. I'm not likely to "get over" 9/11, if by "getting over it," that means I no longer wish al-Qaeda destroyed. I'm not likely to forget, nor am I likely to forgive. However I have gotten over the idea that we'll be able to remake the world in our image. I call myself an "Eisenhower conservative," not a "neoconservative."
I have never subscribed to the "inside job" conspiracy theory, any more than I bought into the drug running, alleged "hits" on political enemies, or secret airstrips in Mena, Arkansas, during the Clinton Administration. I also refuse to accept that "America had it coming." If I felt that way, I'd stop living here.
And no, I'm not thrilled with everything Bush has done in response to 9/11. The Department of Homeland Security--particularly the Transportation Security Administration--has reduced my enjoyment of air travel without (IMHO) greatly improving my safety. I will wind up this essay by returning to one of the greatest films ever (The Lord of the Rings), and one which couldn't have come at a better time. Frodo Baggins is lamenting the dangerous adventure he has become part of, and Gandalf counsels him:

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’
--The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 2

I've already decided. I exist, for now, at the sufferance of the Lord. I will think and I will do good with such time as is given me. That, 9/11 hasn't and won't change.

***

Thoughts about 9/11 ten years on...

As Sir Lancelot said in Excalibur, "It is the old wound, my lord. It has never truly healed." I was blessed not to be on a plane that was hijacked, and not to have lost anyone I knew even second- or third-hand on That Day. Perhaps it's best to leave it at that and count my blessings.

2011-09-05T20:12:00.000-05:00

Being a Writer

Recently I took a look back through the stories I wrote between the ages of 8 and 28. It got me to thinking a bit about why I do what I do. This might or might not be of interest to you, but if you are someone who writes for the sheer pleasure of it but are not yet paid for your pleasure, perhaps my thoughts will be of interest to you.

My late grandmother (that'd be on the Dorsey/Leahy side of the family) told me that when I was five, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I recall having a discussion with my mother at the age of ten to the effect that I wanted to write for NASA, to which she replied, "NASA doesn't hire writers, they hire engineers." It took around 27 years to prove her wrong, but that is in fact what I did and continue to do: I am a paid contractor writing content for NASA.

This was by no means a direct path. I have not yet finished retyping or cataloguing all those old stories, but the tally is well over 100, and there were probably an equal number of stories I started but never finished, either because they bored me or I lacked sufficient skill or knowledge, or I didn't trust myself enough to say the things that needed to be said. In between stories, of course, I was performing my day job and doing writing on the side.

My day jobs have ranged from stocking retail shelves and mopping floors at my local Jewel/Osco to developing presentations and writing speeches for NASA executives. In between those experiences lay things like answering complaint letters for Walt Disney World; writing letters to the editor in support of space exploration; writing hundreds of letters and millions of emails; developing project plans, event plans, and business plans; writing essays and proposals and theses for school; writing love poems and poems about falling out of love; developing marketing campaigns and calendars; herding volunteers and running a full-blown conference. All this time I was learning my craft, if only because I had to use words to do them.

Despite a large vocabulary and lot of difficult books on my shelves, I'm a pretty simple guy. This comes across in my writing more and more as I get older: I feel I have less and less time for bullshit, so I try to get to the heart of a matter using as few words as possible. That has become my style. When I'm asked to write government documents, I refuse to write in bureaucratese unless absolutely necessary. I believe in plain language and direct accountability: "The Project Manager will..." or "The vehicle engine did..." rather than secondhand, passive language like "Mistakes were made (by whom?)" or "The vehicle experienced dynamic disassembly (that'd be "exploded," buddy)."

For better or worse, I've learned to write in the Corporate Voice and get reasonably well paid for doing so. My employers count on me to create documents that achieve a specific purpose and do so in a way that will not offend customers and that will edify or sometimes entertain our readers. That is not entirely a bad thing, nor does corporate writing wound the ability to write fiction, because to write for people in any line of work, you have to understand people: what do they need to know? How do they think? What are their priorities? What words do they prefer to use? How educated are they? What are their hot buttons? It's the literary equivalent of method acting. And if you can do it for real people to earn a buck, odds are pretty good that you can do so with fictional people.

However, my literary life has had a few downsides: doing technical writing for a living can eat up a lot of bandwidth that might have been used for more "literary" pursuits. I like what science fiction writer Ted Chiang had to say about the matter:

"I can't recommend technical writing as a day job for fiction writers, because it's going to be hard to write all day and then come home and write fiction. Nowadays I work as a freelance writer, so I usually do contract technical writing part of the year and then I take time off and do fiction writing the rest of the year. It's too difficult for me to do technical writing at the same time as fiction writing - they draw on the same parts of my brain."

I need to give that contract-writing and time-off thing a try at some point. In any case, it's absolutely true that if you are a paid writer doing a corporate job during the day, it is very difficult to come home and crank out new, creative prose in another world. In any case, there are things I haven't done because I haven't been sufficiently driven or energetic enough to do, like write a complete, original novel. I've got a Star Wars novel in the pile that I've shared with a couple friends and family members, but that's just me playing around in someone else's universe. There will come a time when I will "get serious" and write the Great Bartish Novel or whatever because I need 50,000 words' worth of storytelling to convey one set of ideas. I'm not there yet. I continue to write short fiction, maybe one story every couple years.

But the bottom line here is that if you want to get paid to write, you can and you will. The market still exists, if only because writing clearly and well is becoming a dying art. You might end up writing technical manuals for hardware that bores you to tears, but your efforts to translate Korean (or worse, American Engineer) into Plain English will be appreciated by some unknown user at some future date. You might have to proofread your club's newsletter or take on some other writing task no one else wants to do because they know they can't write well. It's a skill, really, and the more you do of it, in more varieties, the better it will serve you when you absolutely have to write your Great American Novel.

So if you aren't writing and "want to," stop making excuses: get out there and do it!

2011-09-02T22:11:00.001-05:00

This I Believe

This essay is my response to This I Believe, a print compilation of a radio series started by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950s and revived by National Public Radio. The series challenges people—of high stature or none—to speak for three minutes on the philosophy that guides their lives. The series includes statements by folks like Robert A. Heinlein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jackie Robinson as well as more modern voices like Newt Gingrich, John McCain, and Colin Powell. The essays range from profound to smile-provoking (how can you not like a statement that begins “You cannot have enough barbeque”?). I don’t believe anyone’s life will be changed by these essays, but they might at least inspire some thought in readers about what philosophy they use to get through the day. Here’s mine.

***

Try to Be a Good Man

If I’ve had anything drilled into my head by my family, it’s the notion of being a good man. They probably never used those words, but they meant that behind every lecture, every piece of advice (solicited or otherwise), and every gift they ever gave me.

As an adult child of divorce now in my 40s, I lived most of my life without Dad in the house. This is not a rebuke to my parents; I am simply stating a fact. What that meant to a child of the “latch-key” generation was that I was the man of the house. It also meant, when it came to figuring out who and how to be, I was pretty much on my own. So like anyone given an assignment with few parameters and lots of room for error, I winged it. I noted what sort of behaviors were admired by other family members and tried to internalize those models.

I’ve had to learn, usually through screwing up, how to do not just the right thing, but the good thing, or the right thing done well. How should I put this? It is not a matter of just doing your job right or wrong. When I was in grad school for technical writing, we read excerpts of technical manuals from Nazi machines designed specifically to kill large numbers of people. One could do that job “right” but still be flat-out wrong. So being a good man also means having knowledge of good and evil, having a conscience. These I absorbed from church, but also from my experiences of living in and observing the world.

I’ve been called an idealist and a perfectionist by peers and managers and people who have worked for me. That doesn’t quite explain who I am. The goal for me hasn’t been to be perfect. I’ve had the recognition early on, and every day since then, that I will always be imperfect. So my goal has always been, “Get better!”

It means not just knowing the right thing to say, but when to say it.

It means not just knowing the right thing to do, but doing it.

It means doing the right things in ways that are unobtrusive, humble, and polite. I do good for the good of my soul, not because I’m interested in looking better than someone else.

I do not always get these things right, and I lecture myself when I know I could have done better. But every day is a new opportunity to try again. Trying to be a good man filters into everything else you do, so it’s a good place to begin. It’s where I began to think like an adult. And sometimes, even if you don’t hit the mark, others appreciate the effort.

2011-08-27T08:11:00.000-05:00

Blah Blah Blah

I haven't been posting here much because quite frankly I'm putting my energies elsewhere. I'm doing a lot of introspecting of late about my state of mind, my social state, my career, my "next big thing," and some of those thoughts I just don't post online. There are all sorts of reasons for that quietude: the blog is an editorial board for me, not a journal. The journal is not for broad pubication. It's none of your d@mned business, which is I'm sure a radical concept in the media-and-data-saturated environment in which we now live. Maybe I have unpleasant things to say. Maybe I don't feel like hurting people a thousand miles away by broadcasting my irritation with them to strangers ten thousand miles away. In any case, I've got other things to do with my time. It's also come to my attention that my readership is down, either because ISDC is over or because I haven't posted anything about the Science Cheerleaders lately. And really, does anybody online read more than 140 characters at a time anymore? Just askin'. I have books to read. Enjoy your Saturday.

2011-08-23T21:32:00.003-05:00

Better the Devil You Know

The Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE) sent me an email asking me to read a voter's referendum they're considering in New Zealand. Feel free to read it yourself. I just wanted to expound a little bit on my answer. Here's what I wrote to the DUDE:

"I found it maddeningly complex. But then I'm used to the US system of winner-take-all (the NZ referendum calls the system First Past the Post (FPP)) and having minority party issues subsumed under the major parties. That said, I've heard/read good things about the Australian system. The others were variations on a theme that made little difference to me because I have little trust in the stability of governments with a multiplicity of parties.

"The advantage of a major-party system that incorporates minority views is that much of the assimilation and wheeling/dealing is done prior to the election. Otherwise, you end up with one small party can upset the entire governmental apple cart.

"I fail to see much advantage to the systems that encourage the minority parties, nor do I understand NZ's desire to change their system or the bewildering number of distinctions without a difference. If what you have works, don't fix what isn't broken."

There are three other systems: the existing NZ system (Mixed Member Proportional), the Irish system (Single Transferrable Vote), and the Japanese system (Supplementary Member). My observations are just that multi-party nations and governments seem more unstable than the U.S. The advantage of the multi-party system, if I had to guess it, is simply that it gives broader voice and more formal power to minority parties than exists in a single- or two-party system, as we have. If a smaller party (say, the Greens or Libertarians) had a strenuous objection to a particular law or course of action and their support was necessary to ensure a majority coalition, the government/parliament will be dissolved and new elections are called if no agreement can be reached. Most of these governments are designed along the British model, and nearly all of the major Western nations (incl. Israel and Japan) that use it have shakeups of that sort at one time or another.

The American results are gridlock followed by elections every two, four, or six years. But, again, the national majority parties--the Democrats and Republicans--are coalitions of what would be separate minority parties in these parliamentary democracies. Imagine, instead of the Dems and the GOP duking it out year after year, with the arguments occurring within the party caucuses, the individual coalition members each had its own party and then had their fights in Congress instead of on the convention floor. On the left, you'd have Big Labor/Government Unions, Trial Lawyers, Greens, Minority Rights Activists, Feminists, and flat-out Socialists and other small groups. On the right, you'd have Big Oil, the Moral Majority/Evangelicals, Gun Advocates, Economic Free-Marketeers, and members of the Armed Forces, and flat-out Fascists. Other groups with their own parties might include the Farmers, Bankers (who blow with the wind), Libertarians, and other moderates and Independents. Think our ballots are confusing now? Imagine how many hanging chads could screw up a soup like that!

That, my friends, is why we have primaries. Individuals representing these various smaller interests run off against each other within the larger parties. The winners of these contests have to form an internal platform within the Democratic or Republican Party that the bulk of the coalition can live with, and that final candidate goes up against his or her other number in the other party. Those two candidates, in turn, must convince 50% +1 of their fellow Americans (more or less--we have our own complexities with the Electoral College) to vote for them. The winner, then, must govern wisely and in the best interests of the nation as they see fit. If the majority of the public doesn't approve of their performance, the opposing party gets put into power in the legislature in reaction against the President. And so the pendulum swings, again, back toward the middle. That is the point and the genius of the American system. It gives me a headache to think of having to adjust to another one. I wonder what our cousins in New Zealand are thinking that they wish to reconstruct their system.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it is broken in places, fix those places before doing something stupid like trashing the whole system and tossing out whatever good the old system had. So sayeth this voter, anyway.

2011-08-17T22:55:00.000-05:00

A Little Blast from the Past

Just added this little gem from the '80s to the iPhone. Brian Setzer in an earlier incarnation. Crazy, man.

2011-08-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

What, Another Orbit Already?

This weekend I took a road trip to an undisclosed location to celebrate my 42nd orbit around the sun and to get away from the office and people in general. It was a good trip. Father Dan has three basic criteria for any tourist destination:

Something to do
Somewhere decent to eat
A decent saloon to have a quiet drink after the above

It's a good mix, and my undisclosed location provided all three. I'd forgotten how crucial getting away to somewhere different has been important my morale--heck, my sanity! The more I give this INFJ thing thought, the more I wonder if I'm better off away from people. This introvert needs quiet, downtime, and a time and place to recharge.

I've always been this way, actually. It used to baffle my friends how I would willingly take myself to dinner, a movie, or even full vacations (Europe? Three weeks?) on my own. I'd go to parties for a couple hours and then disappear after a couple of hours without making any sort of announcement because I didn't want to kick up a fuss--I'd simply had enough. Perhaps I still baffle people that way. So what? I'm not tied to someone else's idea of a good time if I'm given the choice, nor am I going to accept the premise of someone's pity just because they feel bad that I "don't have somebody." Last time someone gave me the pity speech and asked why I wasn't married, I answered, "Why? I'm happy." My response to them was as incomprehensible as their compassion for me.

This is not to say that I hate people as a rule (I don't) nor do I always prefer to be alone. But solitude is my default. I've lived alone for eight years or more now. I suspect that this will only become more pronounced as I get older. It baffles me, a little, that introverts pair up at all. We're often paranoid about others' demands on us and protective of our personal space and quiet. Kinda reminds me of the joke, "How do two porcupines make love? Verrrry carefully."

What the heck, I get enough talking/socializing at work, and the social talk is often ABOUT work, which is about the only thing I get animated about anyway. And if it's not work, it's about intellectual/philosophical stuff. If someone is interested in small talk or gossip or what's on regular TV or in the movie theaters, they are going to be incredibly bored around me, because I don't talk about most of that stuff. Part of that is me. Part of that is the effect of my parents, aunts, and uncles, most of whom talked about their jobs after work. I always assumed that's what grownups talked about, and I wanted to be a grownup when I was a kid. As a result, I didn't relate to my peers well, and sometimes still don't. Whatever. If I'm happy, I don't really expect others to "get" whatever's going on in my head, so if you don't, you don't.

Quoth Arthur C. Clarke: "A well-stocked mind is free from boredom."

2011-07-30T20:06:00.000-05:00

Transcribing My Past

I've been writing and saving my fiction since I was 8. At present, the papers are in an overlarge plastic container, but a week or two ago I got the wild idea of retyping them, more or less as written, just in case the paper got lost or damaged. It's interesting going back through my mind at those times. I wrote fiction as a form of therapy, escaping unpleasantness with my peers by imagining myself as a leader. Long before I became an adult, I was trying to imagine myself as one. Even at that age, I had an ear for dialogue--not great, mind you, but enough that I understood the rhythms of how people speak.

I suppose what I am doing more than anything is sorting out who I was and comparing that to who I am now. I'm on a bit of an introversion kick right now--putting my free time to work making sense of myself, getting comfortable with myself. It has occurred to me of late that I just might spend the rest of my life as a single person. If that's the case, I might as well take that time to do something constructive with my time. Figure out what I'm going to do with myself, if nothing else. I really did achieve most of my goals from childhood. Okay, that whole thing about commanding my own space fleet will probably never happen, but my professional goals of working with Disney, the military, and space have all come true. So the question becomes, as I bump up against 42 next week, what the heck do I do next?

Maybe by looking back I can help myself look forward. It's a theory, anyway.

2011-07-29T22:22:00.000-05:00

Book Review: The Stranger

I became aware of Albert Camus through Jerry Pournelle, who had one of his characters read Camus' The Plague as a demonstration of what duty meant. And that was a truly excellent, soulful book.

On the heels of that book, I'd purchased the only other Camus book I could find on the shelves, The Stranger.

I'd started the book years ago, gotten stuck, and left it on the shelf for all that time. I decided to soldier on and read the whole thing this time. Fortunately, the book wasn't too long--122 pages or so--but that might be the only virtue I could find in it.

I am probably suffering from a couple of disconnects with this book. For one, it's a translation from the French, and translations always suffer in some way. Perhaps I was missing the author's intent simply because expressions or subtleties of humor or emotion get lost on the way from France to America. Another disconnect was Camus' philosophy, which is one of existentialism, which as I understand it is one where there is no God and no ultimate point to human existence, leaving the individual to make up his or her own purpose. I figured I could handle that: I've had moments like that in my past as well. Plus, I'd liked The Plague. What was there to fear?

It turns out there was nothing to "fear" from this book. It didn't challenge any of my beliefs in any serious way, nor did it convey its own beliefs very well. The problem stems from the protagonist of the book, the narrator who is identified only as Mersault. The man is a disconnected cypher, lacking much in the way of inner or outer life or sentiment. The book opens when the man is informed that his mother has died in a nursing home of some sort, and his reaction is utterly devoid of emotion. Mersault is at least aware that his reactions baffle others, who try to be considerate of his feelings, where he doesn't have any feelings worth considering.

A chapter or two is spent going through the funeral arrangementments for his mother (which is where I got "stuck" reading last time). The reader is left not to care about them, if only because one finds it hard to care much about the narrator or his method of describing them. Following the funeral, Mersault returns home and describes a number of his neighbors or coworkers, and again his interactions are detached, distant. While the narrator/author makes some mild efforts to describe others in amusing or absurd terms, nothing he said captured my attention or imagination for any great stretch. One neighbor has a love-hate relationship with his ugly dog. Mersault starts to have an affair with a lady in his office (he is a minor clerk in Algiers). Another neighbor fights with his girlfriend and finally convinces Mersault to write a letter on his behalf to get her goat and lure her into a situation where the neighbor (Raymond) can have one last opportunity to really hurt her. It is this situation with Raymond that ultimately leads Mersault getting into a fight with the brother of Raymond's former girlfriend--an Arab--and then murdering him. The first half of the book closes with Mersault going to prison to await trial. The second half of the book is a travelogue of sorts through Mersault's continuing disconnected thoughts while in prison and then while on trial.

I kept waiting for something to happen, some insight to open up for me, some emotion to grab me, some moment to happen where I felt sympathy for Mersault, some point to come out of all this, and it just never happened. Perhaps I lack the sophistication to understand French sensibilities, or I missed the "absurdity" the back cover blurb assured me was there, or perhaps I'm just too stupid to understand the existentialist point Camus was trying to make. Whatever the situation, I just didn't get or particularly like this book. Which is a shame, because I did like the first one I read by this author.

The best author of European absurdism I've ever read is Kafka, whose works I still have yet to complete, though I have those on the shelf as well. That's approximately the tone Camus sets in this book, but the absurdity of Kafka is more obvious, more exaggerated. Perhaps I'll take him on next. Perhaps I need someone to explain The Stranger to me. Camus' work did not do that for me, which is frustrating and disappointing for a man whose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

2011-07-26T20:59:00.001-05:00

The Debt Thing

When a private individual or a business spends more than they make, they either get the rest on credit or borrow it from another source. If they do not pay back the money, eventually their line of credit is cut off. If said individual or business goes to a credit counselor or consultant about their finances, one of the first things they'll be told is to "stop unnecessary spending."

Now the government is a slightly different entity, in that it is not really allowed to go bankrupt. It also has an advantage over a person or a business in that it can print money to pay debts it owes to others (isn't that a neat trick?). Of course the result of printing more money is inflation, where an oversupply of currency reduces its value and raises prices. The government's been doing the money-printing thing for awhile now--it's called quantitative easing.

The debt ceiling matter is something else. The point of a debt ceiling, in theory, is to set a self-imposed credit limit on the government's ability to borrow. Right now, there are two visions of how to fix the problem. The President and his advisors want to increase the debt limit and increase taxes to make up the difference between the federal government's current income and its expenditures. In a slight bow to reality, the President is willing to reduce expenditures, but mostly in "out years," which is to say any budgets in the future not covered by the current budget. The numbers sound impressive: trillions cut over the next ten years. But the reality is that no congress has ever considered itself beholden to promises made by previous congresses. So if the President's plan is followed, there is no guarantee that future "savings" will ever materialize. Raising taxes--increasing revenues--makes sense, but in a recession like we're still in, taxes will slow down the economy even more. And if the debt ceiling is raised, even if present and future spending are curtailed, there is still a good chance that the nation's credit rating will be lowered anyway.

The Republicans in congress have a couple of different visions, but their primary emphasis is on reducing--by quite a lot--the spending side of the equation. On the revenue side of things, they want to keep taxes at the same level that they have been since President Bush lowered tax rates to restart the economy after September 11. Another suggestion by the Republicans has been to let the country reach its debt ceiling to force drastic spending cuts. The declared downside of that approach is that the U.S. Government could be seen as defaulting on its obligations and, again, have its credit rating lowered.

The thing that makes me crazy is this: the President jacked up spending to some crazy number--3 or 4 trillion dollars--when the previous grand total was around 1 trillion, and then declared that Republicans were making drastic cuts to necessary services. Here's the problem: those "necessary services" were at previously unseen levels, but the President acted as if those new, astounding spending levels were the baseline all along. Only in Washington is a drastic reduction in the growth of spending considered a "cut." It's a shell game.

Anyhow, both sides of the aisle are playing a little chicken right now to figure out who's going to win this debate and control the rate of spending in Washington now and in the future. I like my mother's take on this business: "The governments [she was referring to the feds and the states] are like everybody else--they've been living beyond their means for years, and now they're paying for it." As are we all.

2011-07-15T21:04:00.005-05:00

That's Ms. United States to You, Pal!

Okay, so Darlene and I have been following the progress of Laura Eilers, Science Cheerleader's multi-talented Creative Director and Choreographer since my interview and Darlene's interview with her. Well, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by this, but Laura is no longer just Ms. Virginia--she's now Ms. United States!

Mega-congratulations to a mighty impressive lady!

2011-07-14T20:28:00.001-05:00

Wine 101: The Bartish Version

Okay, so apparently I'm a wine snob compared to some of my friends, and an ignoramus compared to others (I'm a total beer ignoramus, I'll 'fess up to that right now). But in case you're one of the folks who doesn't know Sauvignon Blanc from Chardonnay or a dry from a sweet, well, I'm here to offer a little help, if you want it.

You are free, of course, to ignore me or tell me to leave you alone, you're fine with your boxed wine and Boone's Farm. And you know what, you're right to do so. Ask John Cleese, who narrated his own DVD, "Wine for the Confused." As with any personal taste, it isn't for others to impose their tastes upon you. Of course if you ARE a serious wine snob, and know the difference, just by taste, between a Pinot Grigio and a Sauvignon Blanc, or which slope of the Sierras a wine was grown, stop reading. I will offend you with my ignorance and waste your time, unless you want to see how an amateur explains wine to other amateurs.

Matter of fact, I'll give you a little background on my wine education so you don't think I was born to be a snob. First time I think I had wine (aside from communion, which isn't the same thing, though it's often Manischewitz, by the way) was when a grownup poured me a quarter glass of golden muscatel and said, "Okay, this is alcohol. You might as well know what you're getting into before you go out drinking with your friends."

After that, I spent a lot of time with beer or other beverages before I tried wine in college. And yes, it was that gold standard of middle-of-the-road wines, white zinfandel, which is a transparent, pink wine that is produced in mass quantities by Robert Mondavi, Sutter Home, and other grape-fermenting producers in California. It's not bad, but it's not great. Sort of a mix between Kool-Aid and a well-flavored cough medicine.

When I moved to Orlando, my dad liked to drink wine with dinner, specifically darker reds, so I learned to drink those. White Zinfandel is a "blush" wine (pink and translucent) rather than a red. Red wines are slightly translucent red to opaque burgundy or garnet in color. Red wines include Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chianti, Syrah, Shiraz, Pinotage, Burgundy, Chateauneauf de Pape, Saint-Emillion, Margaux, Pinot Noir, and others. Most red wines are called dry, though you could also call that tart, astringent, or salty. More on flavors in a bit.

The majority of wines on the other end of the color spectrum are white wines, which range from almost transparent to translucent yellow-green to a rich, golden, translucent yellow. The flavors of white wine can include crisp, tart, or fruity. Again, more on specifics in a bit.

Another genre of wines would be dessert wines, which can include everything from nearly clear, bubbly Champagne or Moscato to a ruby- or rust-colored port. Dessert wines, as the name implies, are often sweet. Different flavors go with different foods, and while I'm probably the wrong guy to give advice on that sort of thing, I'll give it a whirl before this blog is over.

All wines, red, white, or other, are the products of fermented grape juice mixed with yeast, which consume the sugar in the juice to produce alcohol, usually anywhere from 9 to 15 percent by volume (beer, by contrast, is 3-8 percent). Some of the heartier dessert wines, like port, can run upwards of 20 percent by volume. There are also "fortified" wines, which have a purposely high alcohol content, often at the expense of flavor. Again, whatever suits you.

Before the wines become juice, of course, they're those oval, rubbery bulbs on the ends of vines. For reasons that elude me, wine vines grow best when they're put in difficult climates, like the edge of mountain slopes or near deserts (notice that they don't grow wine grapes in tropical rain forests). The most important, best-quality wine-growing regions can be found in France, California, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Oregon. Note that I haven't included Japan here--that's because I'm not writing about rice wine. Nor am I writing about plum wine, pomegranate wine, or any of the rather nasty local wines one might fine domestically in antique shops throughout the U.S. (muscadine, elderberry, honey, etc.). I'm a grape snob. Deal with it.

Okay, so back to flavors. Red wines tend to run to the salty side, though some can have a lot of fruit in them ("fruit forward" is one wine-snob term I've heard). Some fruits mix better together than others. Merlot or Pinot Noir grapes don't have a lot of tannins (the red stuff in the grape skins that makes them red). Cabernet, Chianti, and some other "full-bodied" reds will have more tannins because more of the skins were left in the juice or the juice was left in contact with the skins longer (told you I was an amateur). Full-bodied reds also tend to be more astringent--that tart flavor that can make your lips pucker--and include stronger additive flavors, like leather, peppers, or tobacco. Red wines are served "room temperature," though this usually means room temperature in Norman France in the Middle Ages (which would've been around 60 degrees Fahrenheit), but today would probably run anywhere from 55 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. And if you don't use air conditioning? Well, then your room temperature will be a little bit higher, won't it? But I wouldn't recommend letting your wines--any wines--stay in 85+ degrees for days at a time. Bad things will happen. Just trust me.

White wines, on the other hand, are clearer because they don't have as many tannins. They also include different flavors from reds (perhaps because those other additives would change the color of the wine?). Anyhow, whites tend to have lighter, sweeter flavors than reds. A "dry" white is tart, a "sweet" white, like a Riesling or a sparkling wine like a Champagne or Moscato, will be very sweet. The whites I'm fond of are greenish-yellow and nearly transparent--Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio. These also tend to be "dry" whites and more on the tart side of things. Think of a less-sweet grape juice with a hint of grapefruit, citrus, or apple. I also enjoyed Moscato, which is a nearly transparent, slightly sparkling white wine with fewer bubbles than Champagne) after a trip to Italy. Other whites, especially Chardonnays, tend to get very experimental, and most of the experiments elude me: oak barrels, flowers, strange scents and flavors that just don't agree with me. Your mileage could vary.

Ports are also good, though sweet, and can range from slightly rusty and clear (like a Scotch) to deep, ruby red. Their flavors can include cherry and raisins. Their texture is almost like a schnapps or a syrup, depending on how thick they are, and they are higher in alcohol content than your average wine (though well below the average liquor).

Oh, yeah: food and wine pairings. Almost forgot. Generally, you serve white wines with lighter meats (chicken, fish), pastas with light-colored sauces, or salads; red wines go with pork, lamb, beef, or pastas with red sauces. Dessert wines, as expected, usually go with desserts, though sparkling wines can go with festive meals (weddings, for example) of any sort. At wine tastings, people can serve wine with cheese, apples, or fruit. It's tempting to eat sweet foods with sweet wines (whites) and salty foods with salty wines (reds), but apples are better to eat with all wines for getting their true flavor. Cheeses can block the taste buds for some reason (rather like you don't eat cheese before giving a public speech--it produces too much saliva). You want to taste the wine as it is.

So there ya go: the starter's guide to vino. It's very middle of the road, and no doubt I left out a bunch of stuff. But that'll do for now, yes? You have questions? I'll try to answer them. Otherwise, get out there, try some different types of wines, and find out what you enjoy.

2011-07-09T11:53:00.001-05:00

Gooooo Laura!

Here's a follow-up to my interview with Laura Eilers, Science Cheerleader's fearless and multi-talented Creative Director and Choreographer: Darlene has done a pre-pageant interview that covers some lesser-known facts about Laura.

The pageant is in Vegas this weekend, I believe. Good luck, Laura!

2011-07-08T20:48:00.001-05:00

Thirty Years of the Shuttle

Well, I knew I wasn't going to get through today without some sort of retrospective thought on the Space Shuttle. So, here it goes.

Just to age myself neatly, I was just about 12 years old when the first flight of Columbia occurred, April 12, 1981 (the 20th anniversary of the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin). I was 12 when STS-2 flew in November of that year. My dad arranged for a car pass for the causeway six miles away from the launch site (Launch Complex 39A, as I recall). I was a nutcase. Florida, in November, and with a chance to get away from junior high for a couple days? Perfect!

STS-2, November 12, 1981

Near as I can recall, Dad had a friend with a condo on the beach near the Cape. I got awakened at sunrise and was treated to a splash of gold across a placid sea. Spent a lot of time reading, as I recall. Dad got me the STS-2 press kit, which I held onto until my late 20s ("NEVER loan a pretty girl anything!" became my new motto on that for awhile), so I stayed entertained until launch time. I came well equipped: a pair of binoculars and two cameras. I looked like an overachieving tourist, which I was. Anyhow, come launch time, my jaw dropped, cameras and binoculars forgotten. I needed to see this with my own eyes. Meanwhile, as Columbia ascended skyward, my dad was trying to grab the camera from around my neck and take pictures. I was already a Star Wars fan by that point, so I had John Williams music going through my head as the mighty beast roared into the air. I think I was shuddering for a couple of days.

So okay, fast-forward 30 (yep, 30) years later. Through various twists and turns, I've found myself living the dream that my 12-year-old self scarcely believed was possible: writing for NASA. I know how the rockets work now. I have more reasons to get keyed up and nervous as the time approaches T-minus 1 minute.

I've got divided duties now: part supporting Marshall Space Flight Center, part supporting the SERVIR program, and I split my day 50/50 between them. Unfortunately, the launch occurred when I was at SERVIR. I say that because Marshall is the place where they design and manage the Shuttle propulsion systems: the four-segment solid rocket boosters and the three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs), fueled by thousands of tons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen from that big, orange external tank. There are lives, careers, and a great deal of pride tied into those things that make fire and smoke.

As it was, a couple minutes before launch, I went downstairs to watch the big TV, where maybe a dozen others had the same idea. As zero time approached, I found myself fidgety, even emotionally stirred (okay, yeah, I was holding back tears). My eyebrows raised as the countdown stopped at T-minus 31 seconds and listened to the radio chatter, quickly clueing in on the fact that they were worried about a d@mned camera. Nothing critical. And sure enough, the countdown restarted, and the fire started. I was so glad I emailed my sister and got her to have her kids--7 and 5--to watch the launch. They needed this feeling.

STS-135, July 8, 2011

Atlantis headed up into the clouds. Much to my surprise the cameras stayed locked on for much of the ascent. My eyes are watching the details like a professional now: are the SRBs doing anything funky? How much foam is coming off the external tank? Is the bird getting all the way to orbit? (And there I had a media-criticism moment, as these TV people think once the fire and smoke is no longer visible from the ground, the "launch" is over. It isn't, people: the bird has to get all the way to orbit, Main Engine Cutoff--MECO--before the job is done.) So I hauled myself back upstairs and watched the rest of the ascent. The tank fell away clean, though I did see some other little bits of junk flying off of it. At the end of it, I was comfortable enough to think to myself, "Well done, guys," and relax. Maybe the media will get their coverage right when SpaceX starts launching people to orbit, but I'm not holding my breath.

And there we are. Thirty years later, and the Space Shuttle program is about to come to an end. What does this mean for NASA, for the future of human spaceflight? I'm going to offer some Bartish thoughts here, none of which is particularly controversial, but some of which will still irritate one or another friend of mine in the space business.

In the near term, any future astronauts, experiments, or food and water will be shipped up to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Russian Soyuz and Progress rockets. In the next 2-3 years (hopefully), American private-sector companies like SpaceX will be launching crew and cargo. But for now, there is nothing on this continent to replace the Shuttle, and the Constellation program to send human beings to the Moon and Mars has been scrapped, taking thousands of jobs with it. We have lost something critical to our national character, but I don't think everyone has felt it yet.

Do I want the commercial guys to succeed? Absolutely. The sooner the better, because as soon as the Shuttles are sent off to museums and the workers laid off, the price for a seat on the Russian rockets will probably (pardon the expression) skyrocket. But I liked Constellation. I wanted the U.S. committed to a 20- or 30-year plan to establish bases on the Moon and Mars. That is now not to be. The future is uncertain. Is it improvable? Yes. But that won't stop those of us who like the Shuttle from feeling that, yes, we're losing something important.

2011-07-07T19:19:00.000-05:00

A Simple Man

People have accused me of being a complicated person. In my mind, I'm pretty straightforward, so I'll try to keep this simple.

I want to be good (moral).
I want to be good at something (skillful).
I want to make good choices (wise).
I want to be seen as all of the above (reputable).
Atop all this, I added a very strong sense of humor and sarcasm to protect my sense of self in those moments when the above is not the case.

Everything else in my head hangs off of those precepts: my interests, my work ethics, my choice of women or interactions with them. At heart, I'm a man of chivalry, and I take serious umbrage when people say that I am not. I don't always display it, but I try, every day. Now that you know this, do you understand me any better? Do the puzzle pieces fit together?

2011-07-06T22:53:00.003-05:00

Making It Better

I read this book review today, and it set me off.

“It Gets Better.” That’s what the current campaign says to encourage young people who are discovering their leanings toward people of the same sex. It’s a message that could apply to any persecuted, picked-on kid in junior high or high school. But it’s very damned difficult to convince a 13-year-old who’s getting followed home from school at least once a week by bullies who want to see the kid cry. It’s hard for a girl with a flat chest and too many freckles or too much flesh around her bottom to believe that life will get better. You, the adults looking back over scars 20, 30, or 40 years in the past, have the benefit of hindsight and survival over time. The teenager has just the now.

They hurt Now.

They’re being punched in the arm Now.

They’re being left by themselves in the cafeteria at lunch hour Now.

They’re getting laughed at in class Now.

They’re crying themselves to sleep and having nightmares every night Now.

Telling them “It gets better” 10 or 20 years from now is a copout. They need help Now.

Yes, some of your adult perspective is simply “Kids will be kids” or recalling that “They grow out of it.” But again, that’s the easy stuff, like learning how to drive or understanding when to use the right piece of silverware at a formal dinner. What isn’t happening, it seems to me, is that we’re not preparing these kids—arming them, to be blunt—mentally for the social combat that makes up the teenage years, all the way up through our early 20s.

What this essay is going to try to convey is some of the process I went through, from being a bullied kid until now. I will say some unpleasant things in this essay. I will use profanity. I will probably say something unpleasant about nearly every social caste that exists because during the ages that one is facing bullies, there are damn few people that you don’t learn to hate. [Actually, this turned out pretty tame, but still...] It’s unfortunate, but it helps to get into that mindset before you start saying something tepid and trite like “It Gets Better.”

It’s not that easy. You have to work for it.

Portrait of a Young Bart, 1984

The boy starts his day at home. His hair is a mess, unstylish and greasy-looking. His complexion is a mass of acne and blackheads. His wardrobe consists of Swiss army shirts, camouflage pants, and army boots. He wears an expression of hopeful desperation, as he is psyching himself up for what he hopes won’t be too bad of a day. At 5’7”, he is nearly eye to eye with his mother, at least in height. His attitude is somewhere between punchy smartass and surly. He ignores his sister or tolerates her or listens to her, depending on his mood. He waits for the bus stop with a bunch of the neighbors, kids he’s known for a month or several years. The best he usually can hope for is that he won’t say something that causes a negative comment or a laugh at his expense. He has learned to suppress even things that make him happy because inevitably, he thinks, someone is going to either cut him down or use that knowledge against him.

On the bus itself, he takes what is usually the least-desirable seat, the one directly behind the bus driver. But he knows why he takes it: he’s less likely to get punched or abused if an adult is within earshot. If he sits in the back of the bus, he’s in for a very long and painful ride. Once at school, he barrels for his locker, quickly looks both ways before working the combination lock (he had stuff stolen from his locker and burned a couple years ago, and he hasn’t forgotten it), getting what he needs, and slamming it shut. The interior of the locker is decorated with images of art, of science fiction movies, of pictures from Disney World. He does not share these things, they are simply talismans to remind him of happier days. He carries as many books as he can because he doesn’t want to have to go back to his locker more than a couple times a day.

In class, he keeps to himself or talks to the one or two people he thinks won’t abuse him somehow. He used to raise his hand in class, and sometimes he still does, when he thinks the question is easy enough. If he makes the mistake of answering something difficult correctly, he’ll hear about it later in gym or the cafeteria. “You think you’re so smart,” they’ll say, or words to that effect. His grades are lower than they could be. He’s in a slightly advanced algebra class—not the dummy version, anyway—and usually ends up with some of the brighter history or science kids, but he is performing well below his abilities, and he knows it. Even in the advanced classes in junior high, he discovered, the smart kids could be just as mean as the others, and who needs that sort of aggravation?

He gulps his food at lunch, eager to get out of the cafeteria before the bully of the day (singular or plural) finds him and decides to make his day difficult. He’s probably underweight simply because he’s under-eating and walking or running wherever he goes. He trembles occasionally, the result of recurrent fear.

Gym class is a painful joke, as he must suffer the multiple pains of being uncoordinated, un-muscular, and socially sensitive. He does not like exercise because it exposes his weakness for all the world to see and criticize and laugh at. He fails at individual sports and is picked last for team sports. He often skips the showers because the added vulnerability of being naked around his violent peers is often more than he can take. He occasionally shows up to class more fragrant than is strictly necessary, which adds to the greasiness of his hair and face.

By the time the bell rings, he has had enough. He hides in the Theater Department, where he is the teacher’s aide one period to get him out of some other, less comfortable place like study hall. The theater kids aren’t too bad, often outcasts like himself in some cases, but they aren’t quite sure what to make of him: too uncoordinated (again) for scene shop, too shy or self-conscious for acting, he works where he’s least visible or least likely to call overt attention to himself: sound, lighting, box office.

When class is done, he goes home and hangs out with one of his two or three best friends. He doesn’t have or trust many others. If they are not free, he composes fiction on paper or in his head on the way home. Sometimes he skips the bus and risks walking home. He wishes he could go to work, which he will in a year, so he can have something to do.

And yet this kid is not completely lost. He writes a great deal—journal entries, poetry, plays, Star Wars stories. He draws maps of airline route systems he imagines operating or aircraft he imagines designing. He is counting the months until he graduates—he has already selected his classes for the next three years, and has set things up so that he graduates a semester early. He was going to shoot for graduating at the end of junior year, but his mother tells him that he’d probably not be mature enough for college at that age.

Some girls like or admire him, but he is too shy or too terrified to speak to any of them. Like his stories and his hopes, he figures any girl he likes would be just another source of teasing. And then, too: the girl might be lying to make a fool out of him. It has happened before, numerous times, and he has a high mistrust of the female species, from cheerleaders to the girls at church to the unpopular girls. It’s a comfort of a sort that his sister hasn’t completely disowned him. He talks too smart or too self-defeating to deal with his cousins.

The boy gets along just fine with adults, particularly teachers and people in authority, which earns him zero credit with his peers. He wants to learn what’s in the homework or the news or the sly comments that adults make to each other. More than anything, he wants to get out of here, not sure if he means high school, Lombard, or Illinois, but he has his sights set on Orlando. He has a mixed relationship with his father, who has been remarried, but he likes his stepmother and loves the free, unstressed feeling he gets when he visits them, away from other people who know him.

He reads and writes a great deal: science fiction, history, science. His grandmother directs self-help books his way, and he reads those as well, even though some of them are written for people older than him. He doesn’t know what he wants to be, exactly, but he has thoughts about Disney, about the military, about space—but above all, about writing. Writing is his great escape. He writes poems that bleed out his hurt. He writes journal entries dissecting the behavior and characters of some of his worst tormentors. He writes stories in which characters like him have power, authority, and right on their side. If his fantasy life does not include women (a field of study utterly beyond him), it does at least include alternate worlds where he has the respect of all the people around him, men and women—adults.

He has visions of what could be. He just needs to survive.

The sad part is, 1984 actually wasn’t that bad. The worst year of my life was 1981-82, the year I was in 7^th grade. That was when I was having the psychosomatic illnesses, fevers (104.3°, at one point), and serious prayers asking Jesus to let me die. If someone had told me that year that “It gets better,” I probably would’ve thrown up on them, either out of disbelief or stress or spite.

Another scary thought: my high school was considered pretty decent for the time, certainly a lot safer than a lot of the schools in rougher neighborhoods or in downtown Chicago. At just over 2,000 students (now over 2,500), Glenbard East was as decent a suburban public school as you were likely to find. No metal detectors, as yet. No knives or guns on campus (off-campus was another matter). The usual experiments with alcohol or marijuana (and even cocaine, if I’m to believe some of my friends at the time) going on. And I fa-king hated it because I was scared and miserable most of the time. Or at least those are most of the memories that survived.

Lombard Junior High, the place of my darkest despair, was where I hit rock-bottom, socially and emotionally. My clothes were cheaper then, my body smaller and thinner, my social skills even less developed. If I was going to make something better of myself, it had to be there. I can only tell you how I survived. My combination of traits, talents, and circumstances might not apply to anyone else. But the effort deserves telling, because I did survive. While I was unlikely to get knifed or shot, there was every likelihood that I might’ve gotten beaten up more, or that I might’ve taken that to-hell-with-this-I’m-going-to kill-myself voice at the back of my head. Obviously, I didn’t, but why? The question bears asking because certainly there’s still enough teenage angst bullshit going around that needs overcoming.

So below is my recipe for helping a kid suffering at the hands of his/her peers. I can’t guarantee success; I can only say it worked for me, at different times, and in various combinations, but believe me, all of it was tried.

I understood that my problem was temporary, not permanent.

I honestly don’t know how I came to this conclusion, but I could count at a reasonable age, and I knew that any event or situation had a beginning and an end. Some of this might’ve been taught by my mother getting us to plan for a vacation X months in the future, or sitting through enough other boring or painful events. I just understood that boredom or pain or whatever situation I was going through would eventually change, and that this, too, shall pass.

I took the time to examine my own behavior and figure out when/where my peers were reacting badly to my behavior—and then change it.

I probably took this one to an extreme, being a responsibility-and-duty-focused kid (such are the joys of growing up the only boy in a home run by a single mom). But I did at least take the time to figure out how people operated. What were they saying? What were their expressions? How did they change when I did X versus Y? Which behaviors of mine create the worst reactions with adults or my peers? On the latter score, that was easy: talking down to people. It’s not just a matter of correcting someone if they misspell something, but how did I do it? What tone was I using? What words? “It’s not what you say, but how you say it?” I never quite got over my habit of using big words, but I at least learned to temper the lecturing, condescending tone and not use the absolutely longest words I knew (unless no other word sufficiently says what I mean). But this habit of watching others and minding what I was doing forced me in on myself, caused me to listen more, and be more self-aware.

I was focused on becoming an adult, not blending in with my peers.

“Grow up!” was a common refrain in my family. The expectation was always that I was learning how to become a grown-up so I could take my place in society and be a productive citizen. Again, starting from a responsibility-focused childhood, this behavior and belief followed naturally. In addition, given that many of my peers engaged in some form of teasing (serious or not—I took it all personally), I was not likely to idolize any of them.

I understood that I had specific talents, and I spent my free time developing them.

It really took until I was in college and was surrounded by people who not only couldn’t write but were willing to pay me to edit their papers that I understood that I might have something to offer others and that not everyone could do what I did. Even so, from a very young age, I was writing stories or poems and getting my thoughts down in written form. I figured out what I was good at and what I enjoyed doing. It took many, many years after that to find a job that would pay me to do the things I loved, but at least I had that start. My mother told me (and I recall the conversation) that I wanted to write for NASA. My grandmother told me I was five when I told her I wanted to write a novel. In any case, my future was going to involve writing.

I understood that I had a soul, and that it was worth preserving.

There’s no way around this: I had religion in my life. I had an understanding (in addition to self- and family-taught responsibility and duty) of sin as well as sacredness. There are things that are fundamentally and should remain good; to violate this goodness is, in fact, a sin. Frank Herbert wrote that the single, common message of all religions was, “Thou shalt not disfigure the soul.” True or not, that’s a lesson I absorbed at a young age.

I had an active internal life and a means of escape in the midst of an unfriendly crowd.

This is related to an earlier point, but it boils down to this: if you’re an outcast, you’re forced to develop your own inner resources simply because there’s no one else around to talk to. So I read a lot of books. Difficult ones, as my mother would tell me. She stopped understanding what I was reading when I was ten. As long as I dove into these other worlds and didn’t come out some sort of demon worshipper or terror to myself or others, she left me alone with my odd literary tastes. The act of reading did several things: when I was actually reading, I could tune out the verbal (and sometimes even the physical) obnoxious behavior going on around me. I could image a newer, more advanced, better world than the one I was living in at the time. And these other worlds helped expand my vocabulary—necessary for a writer—as well as my mental horizons and my future plans for myself.

I could take action on my own behalf.

One of the most horrible side effects of bullying is the utter powerlessness it inflicts on the victim: first, there are the physical circumstances of having someone bigger than you inflict pain on you. Then, if they keep after you long enough, you eventually feel powerlessness to take any action on your own behalf. You grovel or beg or humiliate yourself to get someone to stop hurting you or, if you’re particularly desperate, just be nice to you—and aren’t needy and desperate great personality traits? Anyhow, the books I was reading (SF, self-help, history, philosophy, what have you) all seemed to have similar messages: heroes have the ability to take action to fix their circumstances. For lack of a better idea, I decided to see myself as a hero, fictional or otherwise, and that freed me up to take actions that might make things, if only one day, one little bit at a time. So: wash the face to fix the acne; take karate to learn at least the rudiments of how to fight back; get a job and learn to take pride in my work; start and complete stories in which Bart-like characters triumphed.

I had a few friends and a family who believed in me.

This can’t be overestimated in its importance. If I’d been chased home from school by the bullies and then come home to an abusive family, I wouldn’t have come out nearly so well. Yes, I resented the stuff Mom or Dad or the grandmothers, aunts/uncles, cousins, etc., did on occasion, but I didn’t doubt that they could be counted on—they were family.

I had a desire for meaningful work.

I started working when I was just barely 16. My parents, aunts, and uncles always talked about their jobs, so I understood that to mean that they drew a great deal of their identities and self-importance from the work they did. With work came responsibility (which, again, I was all about) as well as accomplishment, independence, mobility, and money. The longest period I’ve spent unemployed since then was two months, and I was miserable. I kept looking for work because sitting around doing nothing can make me go stir crazy. If I’m working, I’m busy, and I’m not dwelling on some of the other things in my life that might be bothering me. And, at the end of it, if I’ve been doing things right, I’ll have something to show for it at the end of the day.

I learned to think for myself.

Another advantage of being an outcast is that you’re unlikely to join a gang, cult, or any sort of movement that will cause you to lose your identity. I learned quickly—as did my peers—that “peer pressure” was a great way to get me to push back even harder. What starts out as circumstance—your peers ostracizing you because you’re “different”—eventually becomes a badge of honor. You learn to hold onto your individuality because it’s all you’ve got. There’s a Peanuts cartoon I remember fondly: Lucy hands Linus a list of his faults. Linus reads the list, then shouts back, “These aren’t faults, these are character traits!” So sometimes behavior gets you labeled a kook (“He’s always off on his own somewhere”) eventually becomes one of your favorite activities and something that you come to see as integral to your self-image.

Final Thoughts: Your Mileage Might Vary

The lessons I learned above are partly the result of circumstances—where I grew up, who my parents were, what my family situation was, what sorts of traits I inherited, what church I went to, who my peers were—but a lot of it was simple reading or learning things the hard way. The person reading this might not be much of a reader or be terribly sensitive to others’ feelings—they just want to be left alone. Fine. Find alternatives. Build up your own inner life with music, art, woodworking, athleticism, mathematics, science, mechanical tinkering, horticulture, animal care. If you don’t know what you like or what you’re good at, keep trying things until you discover them. The point of all these little lessons, I guess, is just that social survival can be achieved, but a lot of it requires a will to make things better for yourself. I’m speaking from a vary first-world point of view here—I’m not sure if any of this advice would matter in a situation where you’re facing down guns or worse every day. But if you’ve got some of the basics covered (food, shelter, clothing, safety), you can work out the rest. The goal is to make yourself a better person, not to punish the ones who are trying to make you feel or be bad. You can’t do much about them, and becoming a bully to others just passes the problem off to the next poor bastard—and what sort of life is that?

So I hope this does someone some good. I feel better for having written it, but your mileage could vary. Let’s be careful out there.

2011-07-04T18:39:00.001-05:00

Book Review: Doc

One of my favorite writers, hands down, is Mary Doria Russell, who is, like me, a native of Lombard, Illinois. The first book of hers I read, The Sparrow, was a work of science fiction and was startling in its characterization and sheer literary brilliance. What startled me most, I suppose, was that the book moved me, something that doesn't happen very often, as I am a very detached reader. Her subsequent books, Children of God, A Thread of Grace, and Dreamers of the Day, were each a treat as well. Russell's latest work, a biographical novel about John Henry Holliday, better known as the dentist who fought alongside Wyatt Earp and his brothers at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. As with other books by Ms. Russell, I breezed through this book in a couple of sittings. The reason for this rapid read was not that I was speed-reading but simply because she's that good and the story is that absorbing.

I suppose most people of my generation know of Doc Holliday and the Earps through the 1990s movies Tombstone and Wyatt Earp. The two actors who portrayed Holliday in these films were Dennis Quaid and Val Kilmer, both of whom took the time to get the Georgia aristocrat's accent right. I'm more familiar with Kilmer's interpretation of the man, as Tombstone is just a more entertaining movie. Kilmer portrays Holliday as a thrill-seeking, cynical, drunken gunslinger and criminal. The most memorable lines among many Kilmer utters as Holliday are "I'm your huckleberry" and "I have not yet begun to defile myself." Quaid's portrayal is hazier to me (It's really hard to watch a Kevin Costner film, let alone one that lasts for three hours), but he does different things with the role, portraying Holliday as more of a fallen aristocrat than an out-and-out bad man. Quaid is more of a professional card sharp. One of his first lines is "Make sure you take good care of your teeth, son." Holliday was, after all, a doctor of dental surgery.
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the events leading up to it have been portrayed in several other films (including one starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas). Ms. Russell does not portray this fight, except by flash-forward or foreshadowing. Doc concerns Holliday's early life over a couple of chapters before focusing primarily upon his time in Dodge City, Kansas.

I like what Russell does here. By covering a generally unknown part of Holliday's life, we get a different look at the character. This is actually a happier time for him, as he comes to a place where he can practice his professional craft and had yet to become notorious as a participant in an infamous gunfight. His consumption--tuberculosis, as it is known now--was less painful, at least for most of the book, which occurs in 1878. What Russell gives the reader is the story of, yes, a fallen Georgia aristocrat, but one more known for his quick tongue than his quick draw. He was educated well for the time, knowing French, Latin, and Greek. He played piano with proficiency and had a Southern gentleman's touchiness about matters of honor and propriety. He is portrayed as a man of great insight and sensitivity, which could have been born from any number of reasons. But one thing Russell makes clear is that the man was not a cold-blooded killer.

And yet despite all this, he became caught up in the wild, roustabout life of a Western cattle town, dealing faro, living with a prostitute, and carrying a gun in a town where carrying guns was illegal.

Russell’s marvelous at characterization because she depicts the good and bad in people in all their complexity. Sometimes she does not even bother trying to explain how both can exist in the same person. But what she does with almost every character upon which she turns her literary attention is something that is marvelous: she grants each one their own moment of hope or grace. That is what touched me about her first book, The Sparrow. Whatever bad things had happened to him, no matter his understandings or errors, he was privileged to have a moment of hope about his existence. Holliday, too, has such a moment, and it is wonderful to behold. Again, for reasons that elude me, Doc had the ability to move me. Impressive.

And here’s the part that always impresses me about Ms. Russell’s writing: the ease with which the reader can absorb it from the page. I engaged in a little correspondence after reading one of her books expressing my appreciation and thanks. That sort of smooth, effortless-to-the-reader experience isn’t too complicated to figure out: “You just need 50 or so drafts,” she wrote, or words to that effect. That is craftsmanship of a high order. And the narrative voice for Doc is unique as well. As with many of her stories, she writes in a variant of third-person-unlimited narrative voice, in that she does not depict events strictly from Holliday’s point of view, but sometimes from a generalized collective voice of the people of the time. Take this passage describing winter in Kansas:

“The first sign of what you were in for? Just a shift in the wind. Right before Christmas, usually. Huge clouds the color of spent charcoal would pile up on the far horizon. Suddenly the temperature would drop like a rock, and the first blizzard of the season would roar across the plains and hit you like a damn train. Men would get caught outdoors—fixing a fence, maybe—no coat, just wearing what seemed sensible that morning when the sun was shining and it looked to be another pretty day. Happened so fast, you didn’t hardly know what to think.

That’s how it was the year John Riney took over a farm from a Dutch fella, out north of Dodge.”

I also like Russell’s proficient way of characterization through dialogue. As with the narration above, so too with her dialogue: she gets across the intent and flow of a character’s voice without resorting to bad attempts at “dialect.” What she will do occasionally is give the reader a flavor for how someone speaks. She also has a natural ear for the spoken word, even when she writes soliloquies, like this one that she puts into the mouth of Wyatt Earp:

“There can’t be one law for rich Texans and another law for broke Texans, and another law for Negroes, and another one for Chinamen, and squaws, and Irishmen, and whores, and another one for everybody else. I can’t parse it that way, Dog! I am not that smart! There’s got to be one law for everybody, or I can’t do this job.”

I made the mistake several years ago (during my brief correspondence with Ms. Russell) of questioning her affection for one of her characters--specifically, T. E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia," whom I saw, and still see, as an instigator of many of the West's problems in the Middle East. Not one of my more diplomatic moments, perhaps, but that takes away nothing from her mercury-quick writing or her believable and even likeable portrayal of the man. Live and learn.

I think what Russell did for me with this book was make these legendary figures of the American West more human, more real. And not just more real, but likeable, each with their own capacity for attaining some sort of peace, or grace, this side of the grave. You can get a sense of the author’s religious convictions (whatever they might be) in these moments, and Russell’s work abounds with them.

Read her work. Any of her work. You won’t be disappointed.

2011-07-02T19:47:00.002-05:00

Book Review: Islands in the Stream

Okay, this time I've actually finished Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream, so now I'm ready to make a full report, such as it is.

Let me start with this little English major insight: this book confirmed for me that, aside from one or two books (A Moveable Feast, The Sun Also Rises), I much prefer Hemingway as a short fiction writer. Hemingway's a stoic moralist, and his flat, unadorned style sometimes becomes akin to a sleeping pill, which is not a good reaction if you want people to read your books for entertainment purposes.

So what do we have here? Islands in the Stream is one of those manuscripts that was found and released after E.H.'s death by suicide in 1961 and was released in 1970. It is the story of a painter, Thomas Hudson, and his social and military adventures in the Caribbean prior to and during World War II. The book is divided into three parts: Bimini, Cuba, and At Sea. Part I is set, oddly enough, on the Bahamian island of Bimini prior to the war. Hudson (who E.H. always refers to by his first and last names for some reason) has been living the life of a bachelor, artist, and drinker and is looking forward to hosting his three sons, two by a previous wife, one by another. As a reader, I would have to say that this is the best part of the book. Hemingway takes the most time describing his characters and their surroundings, and while Thomas Hudson ruminates occasionally about his failed relationships with his three sons' mothers, his relationship with the boys is loving and believable. The best "scene" of the book runs many pages--a long-drawn-out description of one of Hudson's boys attempting to land a big fish in the waters off Bimini. The scene is great in the way it depicts the dialogue, the passage of time, and the descriptions of the act of deep-sea fishing. I still don't WANT to do it, but Hemingway manages to convey the mystery and excitement of the experience in a way that made me at least curious about it, or concerned for the character's fate. The section closes with the boys flying off to their respective schools or mothers, and Hudson being left as a lonely bachelor again.

Part II, Cuba, finds Thomas Hudson in and around Havana, drunk and miserable and again wallowing in regret over the various losses in his life (I won't throw away too many spoilers here, but they are deep and shocking to the reader). Hudson is assigned to some sort of military duty, but we're not sure what. All we know is that he and his crew are on shore leave, and most of them are drinking heavily to forget the various hurts in their lives. What's painfully obvious about Hudson is that he is at loose ends ashore and is no longer painting. The section ends with the mother of Hudson's eldest son Tom, who was the one great love of his life. They are simultaneously still in love with each other and impossible to each other, with each character's flaws and irritating behaviors painfully obvious to them both and to the reader. The section concludes with Hudson being called back to action without coming to any sort of resolution with Tom's mother.

Part III, At Sea, shows us Thomas Hudson (echoing Hemingway himself) at war. He has armed his fishing boat with a variety of light weapons and has himself and his rough-hewn crew patrolling the Cuban coast, watching for German submarines. The primary action of the book is the pursuit of a grounded German sub crew by Hudson's crew and the errors and losses they incur along the way.

This is a book about losses: personal and professional. In 1941, Hemingway himself (and thus Hudson) would have been around my age now, so perhaps I could relate to this character better than most. He is dealing with the regrets and habits of middle age, like drowning oneself in work or duty to avoid more unpleasant thoughts. And yet there is something innately hollow about Thomas Hudson. He is a father, but not a family man. He is a professional, but he works alone. He is a semi-military man, but he doesn't take much stock in military virtues like loyalty. As I noted, Hemingway himself armed a cabin cruiser to go sub hunting after World War II broke out, but was more of a nuisance than an effective military man. When that idea didn't pan out, he eventually went back to reporting as a war correspondent. The life of Hemingway is reflected in Thomas Hudson's background as well: cabins in Montana, artistic living in Paris and Spain, hunting in Africa.

It's as though all he did was swap his own name and occupation to create Hudson and decided to put that "person" into the worst personal situations he could find. I've done literary exercises like that as well, and the motivation (at least in my case) is this: if you've lived a relatively good, safe, and comfortable life--neither E.H. nor I has seen war as combatants--you find yourself wondering how you'd face really bad situations if put to the test. This is Hemingway's answer, and it's a sad, but typical one. Hemingway is a stoic, at least as read through the character of Thomas Hudson.

Lin, one of my readers, pointed me to this article about "Papa" Hemingway, as well as the E.H. story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Lin thinks I'm underestimating E.H., and that's entirely possible. If I "channel" any writer when doing tech writing it's Hemingway. His prose is bald, spare, including only as much detail as he thinks is necessary to get his point across. The problem is, sometimes he (and I) could use a few more words, especially when it comes to describing non-technical subjects. Live and learn.

The question becomes: is this a good book? I guess it depends on what you're looking for. If you're a middle-aged male, like this reviewer, and you're wondering how you might take it if the things that matter most to you are taken away from you, then perhaps this is a book worth reading. That isn't to say you'll enjoy the experience, or that you'll learn from it. Perhaps you will. Perhaps I'm underestimating this book. What sort of book would I write, given the things I care about? It might be worth shifting my free-time writing to take a look.

2011-07-01T19:11:00.000-05:00

Book Review and Interview: Neda Ansari

The neat part of ISDC is meeting a lot of very smart people who share a passion for space exploration. Sometimes they’re old friends, sometimes complete strangers, sometimes people I’ve wanted to meet because I knew them online or I’ve admired something they’ve done. Neda Ansari is in that third category. She is a poet.

Neda came to ISDC 2011 as participant in the authors track. I missed that track (like most of the others) because I was working. I expressed a wish to read some more of her poetry, as I only glimpsed a bit in one of the thousands of emails that zipped through my inbox, and she agreed. More than agreed, she sent a hand-bound, self-published compilation of poetry, translations, and other writings.

The title doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but what I found on the pages intrigued me. Here’s a random sample from a poem entitled “Hope,” which, as Neda notes, “was published on Iranian.com on April 29^th, 2009, days before the Green Revolution in Iran broke.”

The light of sun was what I was after
Resonating with children’s laughter
From atop I saw a town
Filled with lights of its own
I was filled with much joy
Like a child with a new toy
Yes, I longed to see the light
To burn abyss with no fright

And this is probably the section that won me over on Neda’s work:

Free is the wind, is the air

Free are certain things with flair
Free are the stars in the night sky
And the occasional comets that go by
Free are the sparkles in people’s eyes
And their will to rebel, revolt and rise

I like the spirit in Neda’s poetry, the optimism. Her subjects range from scientific concepts (she studied chemistry) to freedom to general playfulness. What intrigued me, I must confess, were her connections to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the more recent “Green” Revolution. I have no idea where her family stood in 1979, though they did return to Iran from America after that revolution, and Neda spent some time under the cover of a burka. Neda’s stand in 2009 is obvious just by the tone of her writings—she believes in freedom, in aspiration, and people striving for something better. All good things.

A couple of the items in Neda’s collection were censored—presumably in Iran—and her blog is no longer online. Her response to the situation in Iran was sufficiently complicated that, for a while, she traveled under an alias in Facebook: Yeki Bood, Yeki Nabood, which is, she explained, roughly the Persian equivalent of “once upon a time.” However, directly translated, it would read more like “There once was, then there wasn’t,” which is a conversation-starter all to itself.

Neda is a director at the Space Renaissance Initiative, which is one of the few pro-space groups I haven’t joined because of its rather negative view of religion. These things happen. She also has posted her work in a variety of web sites related to issues in Iran. I think I first became aware of her when she started writing to a fellow Iranian (some prefer “Persian”) American, Anousheh Ansari, who joined a rather elite group of people who have been able to afford space tourism on the International Space Station. Neda is not, so far as I know, related to Anousheh. That’s rather like asking me if I’m related to any of a dozen “Leahys” from Ireland—odds are, the answer’s yes, but you’d have to go way back.

But really, when you read Neda’s poetry, it’s difficult to determine what exactly was being censored. How often does one encounter censorship anymore—and by that I mean the removal of all or portions of a work of art by a government entity—that is different from bad poetry that no one will buy or publish, the typical definition of “censorship” by snippy poets in America.

So I found myself asking questions. This lady who’s writing upbeat poetry that includes vague allusions to Cyrus the Great is dangerous or offensive enough to be censored? For gosh, sakes, why?

Some of this was answered in an interview by Michael Doornbos, my buddy at Evadot.com, but I had other questions, and Neda agreed to play along.

Hi, Neda! Thanks for agreeing to this interview. First, I’d like to know: what got you started on writing poetry?

Hello Mr. Leahy, and thanks for reviewing my book ever so kindly. The tongue twisting of the title, literally speaking, is of course, intentional. I hope it didn’t cause too much of a problem.

I’ve been a good writer in two languages since I was a child, but became a poet much like Hafez, the 14^th Century Persian poet, overnight, in 2006. I wrote a piece and submitted for publication which was received so well that it encouraged me to write more. And then it was nonstop from there. At some point, I’d be listening to the radio while driving, or people talking, and the words and things they talked about would automatically turn into rhyme in my head. This was very exciting and frustrating at the same time. Exciting because I had found this new power, yet frustrating because sometimes I’d be tending to other activities, with no recorder, or paper and pen, to materialize my thoughts. I’d be watching the news, world events, anything on TV, while relating them to each other instantaneously and making rhyme at the same time. Interestingly, I started doing this with Persian too, which I hadn’t written in since I was 16, having moved to the U.S. permanently then. Eventually, I learned to control the ‘syndrome,’ now able to have a normal planned session, which has been the way I’ve been composing lately. I sit at the desk, put myself into meditation mode, and start writing.

Are you writing anything at present?

Yes, I am currently editing one of my works, a project which I hope to turn into a musical piece. It’s an old Iranian anthem I translated from Persian to English in 2007.

Are you still active on Iran-related web sites, or would you not prefer to say?

When talking about Iranian-related websites, it is important to recognize between those run by the government in Iran, and those that are completely independent. I haven’t been publishing frequently on Iranian websites in general, since submitting a couple of pieces two years ago. One of my favorites is Iranian.com, where some really great writers have been productive for a long time. The website publishes both in English and in Persian, and was instrumental in the Presidential elections of 2008, comparable to Huffington Post and CNN. The editor/publisher is Jahanshah Javid, who comes from a family background of journalism on a national level in Iran.

What, specifically, attracts you to rocketry and space travel?

My academic and career backgrounds are in science and engineering. I studied chemical engineering, very much involved in the academic/theoretical side of rocket-building and launch. Then, as a science instructor, involved in rocketry experiments for kids. Currently, as an active member of team Synergy Moon of the Google Lunar X PRIZE, I’m highly vested, of course, as we’re sending rockets to the moon. I work with my team on promotional and educational bases relating to all things space and rockets.

What did Anousheh (Ansari)’s flight into space mean to you?

The entire story of Anousheh Ansari going to space, from my perspective, is very unique, very inspirational, and something I will always cherish. Many people felt elated reading her blog, but for me, it was more. I was able to connect in an unprecedented way in human history – no exaggeration – this was a spiritual effect to the maximum extent. We come from different backgrounds, but to this day, some of the similarities of her life and mine are still unbelievable, though the more I delve now, the more I realize what a perfectly designed plan of cosmic order it was.

I was contacted by her office via e-mail in August 2006. They let me know of her blog and trip. And then I started commenting, of course. At that time I felt an enormous responsibility to chaperone and watch out for her. It’s like a mother wanting to protect their child, and to know they’re making history. Then it escalated very quickly to the international level. All the while, when Anousheh was blogging and thousands of people were commenting, I was processing the information and the one thing that went through my mind, through and through, was promoting peace, the best way I knew how. The atmosphere of 5 years ago, with substantially fewer numbers of people in social media was very different from today. Facebook and Twitter weren’t even mainstream then. Her space-blog to a general audience was the first-ever, groundbreaking in every sense of the word. I was happy to see her reflect the same, promotion of peace, so amazingly well on her blog and later in her book, and of course, I’ve been in touch since. Later I found out she’s actually older than me!

I’ve read the two or three items you sent me that you described as “censored.” If it won’t cause you too much trouble, could you explain who was doing the censoring and why?

I should re-state the word censored as ‘repressed.’ That, it certainly was. Several of the pieces I had submitted for publication were not published at all. I gave up sending my work after that. The editors, for a fact, found substantial commercial value in them, as it was expressed later, but at the time, I was more interested in getting my work published, for obvious reasons, at least to myself. People wanted to see more, I certainly felt it, especially after seeing the revolutions break in the Middle East. I finally decided to publish the work on a personal blog in summer 2010 when soon after the National Space Society and ISDC contacted me. Finally, I published a few copies in print for the Authors Track of the conference, and here I am now, doing this interview with you as a result of that.

What was the ISDC experience like for you?

I had been to several space-related meetings prior to this ISDC, including the very popular Space UP’s, which were envisioned and pioneered in San Diego. Going to the ISDC in Huntsville was something else. It really was an unbelievable experience, being under the roof with so many visionaries, and veterans in the space industry. I met you, Rick Tumlinson, Dr. Zubrin, Tim Pickens, Michael Doornbos, the kids who won the NSS-NASA space settlement design contest, other competitors in GLXP which I was really looking forward to meet, such as the Part-Time Scientists, my NASA friends on Facebook, Dennis Stone, and many more, some on the board of Space Renaissance, with whom I’ve had contact via its forum and past online meetings. By the way, I did reflect your apprehension about Space Renaissance’s stance on religion, and gathered several board members’ insight. We’re sorry you’ve got that impression, Bart. SRI’s overall stance as an international entity, is that it doesn’t support one particular religion over another. [Thanks! I’ll reread your manifesto and give the matter some more thought. /b]

What are your hopes for Iran and its people?

I have a long-standing affection for Iran and Iranians. Having been born into a family that took Iran and its interests very seriously, I was conditioned as such from early on. One thing that is very unique about Iran, is that the country is made up of many ethnicities, cultures, and spoken languages. Persian, or Farsi, is the predominant language, also the unifying force of the people. During the past thirty-two years since the Islamic revolution, the government has been fiercely implementing Arabic. Though I’m a proponent of learning different languages, in Iran’s instance, in this day and age, it has been difficult to watch a language and culture being forced onto people. I think if they were left free to choose, they might pick it up since much literature is written in Arabic, including the Quran, but again, it is force that I have problems with, especially with a religion that is predominantly male-oriented.

On the flipside of the coin, when I came to the U.S., I fell in love with this country. I thought to use the freedoms afforded to women and people in general here, to do something useful for the Iranian people, and that pursuit has been relentless for many years. I was privileged in the sense that there was little difference in raising me vs. my brother, except for minor mishaps here and there. In fact, my own family has always, as long as I remember, been promoting women’s rights by example. My grandmother, Tajolmoluk Behrouz was on the board of the Rastakheez Society, a very well-known charity organization, for many years during the Pahlavi era. Her mother, my great-grandmother, was a pioneering business-woman, a single mother who supported herself and raised 4 successful children. My mom on the other hand, has been the captain of the debate team in undergraduate school in Iran, an entrepreneur, and a college professor, while raising 4 kids herself. I was extremely lucky to have been able to show my appreciation for the rich Persian culture and extend it in such an unprecedented way, as to reach millions myself.

I hope to see Iranians prosper and reach their goals in due time.

In our discussions, I believe you mentioned something about your older family members being Sufi Muslims, or “Dervishes” as they’re known in the West, who tend to be more ecstatic or spiritual in their approach to Islam. Would you say that that tradition affects your poetry? If not Sufism, did you take inspiration from Persian poets or others?

Yes, my grandfather, a Boroumand Khan (similar to Lords of England), who was a judge throughout Iran for more than 30 years, and the district attorney in the city of Isfahan where he currently resides with my grandmother, is a leader of a sect of Darvishes, the Khaksars. This is a group which is highly literate in various disciplines, including medicine, law, etc. They’re Muslim, within the context of Suffism, with some practices that date back many centuries, to the pre-Islam era. Poetry is the cornerstone of their life. In fact, in the past, when I would call my grandfather on the phone, he’d reply back in poetic verse, leaving me perplexed. I would keep repeating whether he was OK, and he would reply in verse to that even. Wilhelm Eilers, http://www.iranica.com/articles/eilers-, a researcher and a friend of my grandparents, did some extensive studies and published a book on the similarity of European languages to those spoken by my grandfather’s ancestors, which is comparable to the ancient Pahlavi language. So to answer your question directly, that part of my life has definitely had an influence on my work. I also have been influenced by my favorite poet, Hafez, a great deal.

But again, I became a poet in 2006, where I believe the void of my father and the Ansari side of the family, due to divorce of my parents in my childhood, and me subsequently being raised by my mom, was filled with the X PRIZE and Anousheh’s ascent to space. That effect was so enormous, that it made me a poet. It might be of interest that the day President Obama was sworn in, I wrote a letter to the X PRIZE Foundation, saying I was trying to figure out via quantum physics how this had happened – there must have been sub-atomic particles in effect, causing this very unusual symptom in me. A pleasant side effect was being able to relate to my maternal grandfather on a whole new level – we understood one another perfectly well then. This goes back to a time when at age 10, I took a book from his library, without asking. The title was “The Eyes,” by a well-known writer, Bozorg Alavi. My grandfather has this keen sense of recognizing certain emotions in people, of course, due to years of practice in the law field, and dealing with people in general. He hadn’t been home all day, but when he got back, even though I considered myself a good actress, one look and he’d figured I was up to something. I’m getting into poetic mode now…

What are you doing with yourself now? Where do you go from here?

The next chapter of my life is being written by opportunities unbounded, as to a large extent I have been the creator of my own destiny, but I also believe there are people you could trust who will make the whole human experience worth living.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for extending this invitation to interview me. Your work with the National Space Society, which I now am a proud member of, and your pioneering of Science Cheerleaders* are very commendable.

Thanks for taking the time, Neda! I’m sure I’ll see you at other space-related events in the future!

[*Note: I am the “Cheer Operations Ninja” for Science Cheerleader. The real pioneer there is Darlene Cavalier, who’s the founder and very much the brains of the outfit. I’ve been fortunate to play along.]

2011-06-25T20:39:00.001-05:00

"Write What You Know"

I was just reading Islands in the Stream, the part where David is trying to land a big, friggin' fish. I've got to confess that a lot of Hemingway's fish-catching sequences bore the hell out of me, but then my idea of communing with nature is walking through a well-tended garden on the way to a cool drink somewhere. What I respect about Hemingway, though, is that he found several things about which he was very passionate about, and learned how to write about them well: fishing, bullfighting, tossing the bull in Paris, walking the trail in the American West.

I have several things I am passionate about, and of those things, I can write tolerably well, but I haven't written fiction in a long time, and isn't a Serious Writer supposed to write the Great American Novel, or whatever? I need to practice more, and consider writing for fun again. Most of my writing is nonfiction now: space hardware, politics, business communications, marketing for the science cheerleaders, and of course whatever strikes my mind when I'm in my journal or writing for this blog.

The ISDC really drained me, socially and creatively, so I'm reading for pleasure again--"refilling the well," as I've heard it described--and it is a pleasure. Perhaps if I relearn to read for pleasure, I can write for pleasure again as well. Both of those require quiet, time to myself. I'm getting those, I just need more time. Given enough time to myself, I might even learn to like most of Hemingway again. Maybe. :-)

2011-06-25T10:21:00.001-05:00

Dental Visit

My dentists have a quality operation. When I say "quality operation," I'm referring to the type of place Complete Dental runs, not to any sort of treatment I received (though I am due for a filling next month). Complete Dental looks more like an upscale spa than anything you might think of as a dentist's office. The waiting room is spacious, with comfortable chairs, some with swing-in desks so people can work while waiting, and a kids area to keep the urchins out from under foot. They have a polite no-cell phone rule, which they don't exactly enforce, but which restrains the number of beeps, bells, and whistles you'd hear otherwise. The walls are painted in bright colors and decorated with something approaching tasteful art. Even the bathroom has "spa" touches to set the patient at ease.

The staff are all first-rate and keep things moving briskly yet without the appearance of being rushed. The office staff and hygienists are mostly women, the dentists doing the trickier stuff are--of the ones I've seen--mostly a few guys who look like they just graduated from medical school. That said, the attitudes are very professional all around. I also appreciated the non-judgmental, matter-of-fact comment from the dentist that I required a filling. I wish my last visit to the doctor had been so cordial ("You're overweight and high strung").

In the treatment rooms, the equipment all looks clean, shiny, and up to date. X-rays are delivered on the computer while you're reclining on the surprisingly comfortable dentist's chair. The flavor-of-the-day toothpaste might be mint or it might be bubble gum. You never know. Most of the wall colors are soft reds or pinks.

A lot of subtle touches were added to work on the patient's pysche, which are in their way better and less condescending than the pandering, "Come here and sit on momma's lap" claptrap you hear from the sedation dentistry places on the radio. The attitude is more, "Look, we know you're not thrilled about getting your teeth worked on, but if you work with us, we'll make your experience as comfortable and friendly as possible." Complete Dental has succeeded. I have no qualms about visiting their office.

2011-06-21T21:06:00.001-05:00

Professional of the Year

My friends in the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5) saw fit to recognize me at their 2011 Professional of the Year. The award is given out at the Huntsville Association of Technical Societies POY Dinner, which was this evening. Mucho apreciado, amigos. Couldn't have done ISDC without you, at all.

2011-06-12T22:10:00.002-05:00

Albumin to the Rescue?

My rocket scientist buddy Les Johnson had another of his Stammtisch discussions this evening, and the guest speaker, Dan Carter, provided an intriguing talk. Unfortunately, this is one of those times where my English literature education is going to fail me and I'm going to get some things wrong. That said, I'll try to communicate what I thought I heard and refer the reader to other links for their own edification.

Dr. Carter, Chief Scientist and consultant to a number of biotech companies, spoke on the unlikely topic of albumin. First, what the heck is it? I'd heard of it, but honestly never touched the stuff--at least in an academic sense--we've all touched it, in reality. Albumin is a common protein in the human body that helps us process nutrients and remove harmful substances. Akin to DNA, another complex protein, albumin is a common protein found in blood plasma and represented visually looks like a series of spirals (amino acids) wound around each other in approximately a heart-shaped configuration.

Discovered in the 1920s, it was first used clinically during World War II to expand blood volume in soldiers wounded in the battlefield. Since albumin is 50% of blood (by dry weight), it was found that if you could get wounded servicemen's blood pressure up, you could stabilize them and get them to a hospital using albumin rather than units of whole blood, which are harder to store. The chemical sequence of albumin was first mapped in 1950 and mapped atomically in 1989 thanks to x-ray crystallography experiments performed on the Space Shuttle. Zero gravity was used to produced "pure" albumin crystals, which were easier to map when bombarded with x-rays.

Commercial use of albumin has only increased since World War II, branching out into areas like antibody production, stem cell cultures, in vitro fertilization, cosmetics (more on that later), drug development, drug and medical device coatings, and cryopreservation of various cell cultures. One of Dr. Carter's companies, New Century Pharmaceuticals, has been using albumin to improve drug design and therapeutic approaches.

If I understand New Century's approach correctly--and here is where my poor science education is costing me--they are binding albumin, a substance naturally found in the human body, to existing drugs to help a patient more readily accept the drugs. This is especially important in things like the chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer because these substances are toxic and produce a lot of secondary toxicity effects just by ingesting them. The reason doctors administer chemo at all is that their therapeutic indices--the rate at which they kill cancer cells vs. healthy cells--is tens or hundreds of times greater. In theory, chemotherapy drugs binded to albumin produce dramatically reduced secondary toxicity. If I read the graphs of effectiveness correctly, New Century's Salus product (an albumin binder combined with an existing chemotherapy drug) produces what to me were astounding results--like a four- or fivefold effectiveness rate over the standard chemo alone. This included drugs that are used to treat childhood leukemia like topotecan, which is probably familiar to my little buddy Morgan.

So what's the catch? As you might guess, it's not FDA-approved yet. Clinical trials can cost $2-3 million in the U.S. trials can be peformed overseas--Carter was looking at Central or South America--but that doesn't mean the trials would be accepted here. As I understand it, a pharmaceutical company or a doctor could start working with this stuff now, but no one wants to stick their neck out (aren't government regulations and litigation neat?).

There are other uses for albumin, including what Carter called "cosmoceuticals," pharmaceutical-grade skin care products that would produce dramatic improvements over whatever the latest collagen/jojoba/fad ingredient is. The reason these things wouldn't be sold in the mass market is that they are expensive to produce. Artificial ("recombinant") albumin is not easy to come by, but Carter provided us with lip balm samples with the trade name Albagen.

All of this sounds very exciting and promising...but then so does a lot of stuff that comes out of the biotech world. The most exciting albumin-related product that I heard about this evening was the drug delivery system, Salus, but it sounds like this is one of those times where biotech might shift from the creepy to the practical to the revolutionary. Things to think about if you want to be an involved citizen scientist.

2011-06-11T11:48:00.002-05:00

The Amateur's Guide to Event Management

Part III: Site Selection

Location, location, location. It's important for real estate, it's important for events. For some situations, like Science Cheerleader performances, the location can already be established--a booth, a stage, whatever--as part of a larger activity. In other situations you have to go hunting. The larger the event, the larger the space needed and the more things you need the facility to do. This blog will discuss the things you need to consider when selecting a site for your event--big, small, or in between.

What Will You Do When You Get There?
What does your event include? Stage shows? Lectures? Meetings? Exhibits? All of the above? Could the event expand? Will your function spaces be used for more than one activity? Do you have extra large items that need to be brought in? Lots of questions must be answered, and these questions are made even more fun by the fact that you'll most likely have multiple sites to visit before making a decision. You'll need to do this field research before you sit down to write your proposal.

The first thing that must be done is a little online research. Pick your keywords: convention center, hotel, what have you. If you're in a big city, like Chicago or New York, you might have a lot of research to do. If you're in a smaller metropolitan area like Huntsville, the odds are pretty good you know all the large venues in town. Regardless, you can still collect a lot of information online as a first pass before you start asking questions of human beings. For instance, where is the place? Is it convenient for your attendees? Are you dealing with a hotel with a convention center attached, or a stand-alone convention hall? If you have a lot of out-of-towners coming, is there a hotel nearby? More than one? What do the hotel rooms cost per night? How many of them are there? What do the pictures of the rooms look like?

With these basics in hand, you'll be able to go on to the next step, which is a site visit.

Getting a Feel for Things
Once you've narrowed down your location to your top two or three choices, you need to check out the places in person. It's good to have two or three people along to get different perspectives on things and ask different questions. On that first visit, it also probably helps to just show up and see how the operation runs. If the term "surprise inspection" sounds familiar, that's correct. Your first impression should be unfiltered. I love my friends in the hospitality business, but having been there myself (three years at a Disney hotel, one year in Disney convention reservations), I can tell you that management and staff act differently if they know "someone's coming," whether that someone is a corporate vice president or a big customer.

So while you're on your first visit, you're looking for some of the basics: how helpful is the staff? What's the condition of the common areas, hallways, and restrooms? What's the traffic flow like? If the function areas are open, take a look inside to evaluate their condition. Does the carpet look worn? Has the place been redecorated lately? Is the place busy? How happy do the guests look? In essence, you really are on an inspection tour. Once you've completed that first run, before you leave, if you like what you see ask to make an appointment with the sales manager.

Working with the Sales Staff
When you're still in the scouting phase, it doesn't hurt to tell the sales staff that you're looking elsewhere. It keeps them competitive and interested in your business. I'm not suggesting you play a lot of games with sales staff, mind you, but you also can gauge their willingness to work with you. Depending on the size of the event, you'll be working with these folks for months (or years). No need to drive unnecessarily hard bargains. It can generate hard feelings and get you labeled as a "problem guest." And really: they want the business, you want your event to succeed. Yes, this is a business arrangement, but it's also a partnership.

Okay, end of lecture. Back to business.

The more details you can tell the sales staff, the better. Surprises aren't much help for you or them. You need to give them a good rundown on how big/long your event is, how many people you're bringing in, how many function rooms you need, what sort of audio-visual equipment you'll be using, the whole thing. The more you know up front, the better cost estimate you'll be able to provide for your proposal and budget.

Your initial negotiations are when you start to discuss special needs or requests: complimentary rooms, early check-ins, IT setup, what have you. The National Space Society, for example, has its own in-house contract that it uses for its International Space Development Conference, which is based on previous experiences and lessons learned. Will the hotel use an existing contract? It's worth asking.

Final Selection
You might not have the final say on which facility gets chosen, but you can make your best recommendation based on your direct knowledge of the place and the people involved. Sometimes the final decision will come down to price, sometimes to the appropriateness of the site to your event, sometimes to location, sometimes to a combination of all of these. But once the selection is made, you've taken your first step toward making the event real.

Final Thought on Working with Facility Staff: Last-Minute-itis
You can do as much planning as possible, but the sales staff knows--even if you haven't admitted the possibility yet--that last-minute items will continue to come up a year, a month, or a week out. This is where that goodwill you built up at the beginning pays off. The better you're able to get along with the hotel staff up front, the more likely they'll be happy and willing to help you out of a jam later.

If you learn anything from this series of event management blogs, it's just this: don't be a jerk. It makes the event management process--especially in an all-volunteer environment--much easier.

2011-06-10T20:51:00.005-05:00

The Amateur's Guide to Event Management

Part II: Brainstorming and Event Proposals

The bigger the event, the more people you'll need to run the show. And, quite frankly, the larger the event, the more ideas you'll need to make it work. In addition, the larger the event, the more likely it is that you'll need to codify the event plan into a formal written proposal. This part of the guide will provide you with some structure to your bright ideas.

Brainstorming
There are several ways you can brainstorm or generate event ideas, and they can run the gamut from the speakers you want to invite to what "theme" you want to what sort of table decorations you want on the dining room tables. The best format I've seen for brainstorming is a time-limited session with 6-10 participants, a facilitator, and a dry erase board or easel.

Why no more than 10 people? To keep the group orderly and within the control of a single facilitator.

Why time-limited? Because after 10-15 minutes, people get drained, even in "spontaneous mode."

Now the facilitator can just be a scribe, but it helps if s/he provides a little structure as well. For instance, the facilitator can make certain that the participants cover all the basics of the event (say, in the case of ISDC): location, speakers, registration policies, program book contents, entertainment, meal selections, special events-within-events, etc.

The ground rules for a brainstorming session, for those of you who haven't enjoyed the channeled creativity that fills corporate America, are pretty straightforward, but worth remembering:

One person speaks at a time
No idea is dismissed as "stupid" during the 10-15 minute storm session
Don't take the time to question the realism of anyone's ideas during the storm session
Participants should try to come up with as many ideas as they can
The facilitator will write down every idea
There isn't a price tag or "reality check" on ideas
Once the storming session is over, THEN reality can set in--but the point of the brainstorming session is to have fun with the process

Brainstorming provides an early opportunity for your team members to "buy in" (another corporate-speak phrase that means "get their own ideas in") to the event. You won't use ALL the ideas, but you can use enough that your teammates can recognize and fight for their part of the show.

After the initial "storm," you can start applying your reality check. You go back over the hastily scribbled ideas and consider what's realistic and what's not (and if not, why not). Your event is born from this wild exchange of ideas.

Proposal Writing
The National Space Society requires bidding groups (usually NSS chapters in specific cities) to submit a written proposal. They do not provide a format. That leaves the content up to you--or does it? However, if you're serious about winning, it helps to do some research on what most business proposals include. My career before living in Huntsville was in writing proposals for government contractors, so I at least had a model. It might not always be the easiest form to follow, but it at least had the virtue (for me) of being familiar. So what goes into a proposal? Here's a broad outline:

Technical Section (where you describe what you plan to do, where, with what facilities, events, bells, and whistles)
Management Section (where you describe who is going to do the work/run the show, and what experience they have running or working on events like this)
Past Performance (where you describe comparable events that your group or team members have run, how much they costs, what were their results, etc.)
Budget (where you lay out, in the most realistic fashion you can, how much you think your event will cost and where you think the money will come from to pay for or exceed expenses)

Technical Section
This is where you lay out the what and where of your event. It should be the longest part of your proposal. Your customer/funding agency already knows who is attending. Your job is convincing them that they will want to do what you want where you want. In the case of ISDC, you can start with a description of the city in question: why come to Huntsville, Alabama? What has your city got to offer attendees besides your fearless team? You also might want to start talking early about the content of your program--what special events do you plan to include? What speakers or attractions in your area will make your event stand out? What's in it for your audience?

From there you need to talk about the specific venue of your proposed event. How many locations are large enough to host the event you plan to hold? What are your top two or three choices? (NSS, like the government, likes a couple of choices.) Why? What features does your favorite have? You need to paint your readers a picture of what their experience will be like. Make it a good one--and yes, include pictures in your proposals!

Management Section
"Why should I hire you?" You've heard that question in interviews, and that's often what makes the difference between being hired and being bewildered. This is where you need to think not just about your resume or previous job descriptions, but your results. Okay, so you've run the local charity ball--was it a success? Did it make money? Did people have a good time? Did the media say nice things? And what about your team? Have they had similar successes? Do they have experience in, or passion for, the jobs they've agreed to do?

Another important thing: organization. The 20th century might've created quite a few management ideas, but division of labor isn't an entirely bad thing, nor is a chain of command or specific depiction of your decision-making process. These things keep events and people focused on specific tasks, and you can clarify exactly who is doing what. Events like conventions all have specific things that must be done, regardless of the content (rocket science, cheerleading, what have you):

Operations (e.g., hotel, meals)
Recruiting, scheduling, assigning, and supervising conference volunteers
Audio/visual
Information technology support
Entertainment
Exhibits

Ideally, you've got people willing to take the lead (one on each). And you needn't recruit professionals. In fact, odds are good that if you're reading this blog, you don't have access to pros. However, you want to show that your team members--a paragraph per "officer" should be fine--can do the job you say they'll do.

A Note on Proposal Writing: In my case, I was a professional proposal writer, so I led the proposal as well. However, you might be more of a verbal person rather than a writer. Take the time to find the strongest writer you can find. You want to put your best foot forward.

Past Performance

This is where you or your team itemizes its success stories--events you've run, what they were, when they happened, how much money they made, what results they produced. You can do this in table form, narrative form, whatever. Your team should be able to show that you can do the job you're signing up to do as a group.

Budget

I'll discuss this in more detail later, but your budget should have some basis in reality. That means reviewing the price structure at your preferred location(s), multiplying by the number of rooms, days, or people, and laying out the numbers. Don't forget to add taxes and service charges!

The other half of the budget--income--is trickier because you've got to take a few leaps of faith. How much sponsorship money do you think you can bring in? How many people do you think will attend? How high of a registration price will your attendees pay? What do other groups charge for similar events? If you want to be thorough, you also might try a "worst case," "most likely case," and "best case" attendance figure.

Events begin with ideas. Those ideas come from--and must be excuted by--you and your team. You start with a dream, or series of dreams, in the form a brainstorming session. Then you start doing the hard research and laying out the first fully articulated version of your vision in a proposal. The dreams are exhilarating, and your enthusiasm should carry over into your proposal. But the proposal does more than set down your event on paper: it lays down claims that your event can be successful and proofs that your team can achieve it.

Hang onto your hat; the hard part is just beginning.

2011-06-09T20:26:00.001-05:00

The Amateur's Guide to Event Management
Part I: The Whole Shebang: Who, What, Where

John Smith and Mary Jones

invite their friends and family to share their wedding vows

at the Lamb of God Lutheran Church

11716 County Line Road, Madison, Alabama

May 22, 2012

Formal reception, dinner, and dancing to follow at

Embassy Suites Downtown

800 Monroe Street, Huntsville, Alabama

When you receive a party invitation, you are looking at a very simple event summary, or plan. You have all the important information you need to attend the event: who's inviting you, who's attending, where the event is, when it is, and what sort of food and entertainment are involved. This who-what-where equation drives any event you are likely to host.

Who
The who of an event drives nearly everything. Your audience has a specific set of interests in mind, and you, as the host, have the job of appealing to those interests. Mind you, the audience for a wedding is a little simpler--family or friends--and their interest might simply be to see you happy and to have a good time. But even something "simple" like a wedding takes time to plan (ask my sister, a serious planner, about how long her relatively low-key wedding took). Your event is about people and providing something that interests them.

Audiences can vary by size, age, associations, and any other way you can think. If you're going to bring them together, they must have common interests, right? So you've got to get them in the room (church, hall, etc.). People require persuasion, engagement, patience. Events are about people and appealing to their interests. That means having a little insight into what motivates people.

What
The what of an event is the event itself--a wedding, a speech, a ceremony, a convention, a performance. You might be the main attraction (the bride or groom) or you might be the host or hostess while someone else is the center of attention. In any case, the odds are good that the center of your event is sufficiently different, interesting, or important that formal planning is required to get people into the room to appreciate it properly.

Event programming can be simple or complex: a single speaker or performer showing up for an hour or two or several days' worth of activities. Consider all the moving parts involved in a typical American wedding: bachelorette party, bachelor party, rehearsal dinner, wedding rehearsal, wedding, reception, honeymoon. Or a convention: keynote speaker, track speakers, meals, receptions, exhibits, entertainment. The details include funding, scheduling, booking rooms and meals, and a bunch of other things that can jump up to surprise you.

Where
The where of an event is driven by the who and what: how many people are coming? What are they doing? If you're hearing a singer, you need a concert hall (or maybe just a room big enough for the performers and a few friends); if you're hosting a wedding, you need a church or a park or a hall of some sort; if you're hosting a convention, you need a hotel and function spaces for anything ranging from formal speeches to meetings to meals to exhibits.

Locations have their own special challenges: do they have the space to accommodate all the people you plan to invite? What sort of audio-visual equipment do they have? Is their food any good? How late can events run? What do they cost? When do they want the money? How big is their staff? Do they have any house rules that will affect how you run your event? These are important questions, and they become more so the more money you or your group are spending.

If you're going to host an event, you need to have an idea in your head of who's coming, what you plan for them to do, and how big a space you'll need them to do it in. These three factors will drive most of your event activities. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

2011-06-06T21:40:00.004-05:00

The Amateur's Guide to Event Management

This is the first of many blogs that will cover my take on event management for amateurs--specifically, managing events if you are an individual or part of an organization that cannot afford a professional event planner, and are unlikely to be able to afford one in the future. So this is not the work of a professional. I can, however, lay some claim to being "experienced."

My professional career includes 12 years at the Walt Disney World Resort, during which, I hasten to add, I was never an event coordinator. However, Disney did teach me a few things about working with large numbers of people, some of them occasionally angry, while keeping a smile on my face. I've also had to lead or organize hospitality rooms (~200 people), stage performances (11 performers), and a couple of meetings, one small (~30), one large (850+). My customers/clients have been the National Space Society and ScienceCheerleader.com. And along the way, I probably threw together some parties or small meetings which, in the long run, helped me and my various teams and partners put on good events.

This is will not be a definitive guide. I highly encourage you to consult with professionals when running your events if you have access to them. What I can offer here is the amateur's perspective, the view of someone used to working without resources or an existing business plan. Let's start with the basics:

So You're Crazy Enough to Want My Job...

What the heck do I mean by an event, anyway? An event is some social activity--party, meeting, series of meetings, performance--that requires more formal organization than spontaneous activities ("Hey, guys! Let's all meet at Blahblah's after work!"). There's a specific date or time required and there's a specific outcome expected. Your job, as an event manager, is not to achieve the outcome; your job, instead, is to set the stage so that other people can achieve the outcome. It's a thankless job, because if you do your job right, few people notice it and, instead, focus on the outcome.

Odds are, you became an event organizer by accident. It started small: you threw parties at your place, and nobody had a bad time. Your boss asked you to run meetings, and you completed your agenda on time. The members of the club you joined looked around and thought you had the right combination of smarts and stupid to voluntarily herd people during large, structured social occasions. You're likely perceived as very organized and able to communicate clearly. Good for you. You'll need both skills, in full measure, if you're going to make amateur event management a regular habit.

My goal here will be to address most of the specific things you need to do to get events done. And trust me: even when working with space-minded people, event planning is not rocket science. It's a lot of work, to be sure, but it doesn't require an advanced degree (though I have one, for the record). You do need a head for details, and the larger event, the more details you'll face. So as I write these blogs, I'll try to cover the following topics:

The Whole Shebang: Who, What, Where
Brainstorming and Event Proposals
Site Selection
Programming
Food and Beverage
Budget
A/V and Other Electronic Thingies
Exhibits
Entertainment
Recruiting Staff
Setup
Registration
VIPs
Operations
Care and Feeding of Your Team
Celebration and Recovery
Follow-up and Closeout

That should be plenty of topics, for now. I look forward to writing these "lessons learned," as they will cover event management "from the ground up" (the theme of ISDC 2011). I will probably include inputs from friends as I go forward because NONE of the events I've worked on were the result of one person's efforts. What separates the event manager from the ones who support him (or her) is just that they're willing to take the responsibility for the whole shebang.

Bart Leahy
Huntsville, AL
June 2011

2011-06-05T20:59:00.003-05:00

Watching Our Favorite Star

"The problem is with the sun."
"The sun? What is it?"
"A big ball of gas at the center of our solar system, but that isn't important right now."
--Airplane 2: The Sequel

Most of us have general notions about the star at the center of our solar system: bright, big (compared to Earth, average or small compared to a lot of other stars), yellow, type G, 4.6 billion years old (but wearing it well), warm enough to allow liquid water 93 million miles out, boring.

So why should we be concerned about it in Huntsville, Alabama, aside from the fact that we've had temperatures in the upper 90s for the last week? Well, the latest telescope for sun watching is being built for an observatory at Haleakala, a mountain in Maui, Hawai'i. The administrative and research offices for this new telescope need to be attached to a research university, and the competition is down to Boulder, Colorado, and Huntsville. The team here in Huntsville includes the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) and the University of Alabama-Huntsville, and they gave a public talk on Saturday about the Haleakala Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST--yep, another acronym). The talk was sponsored by my friends at Huntsville Space Professionals, who hosted the space career fair at ISDC.

Dr. John Horack, head of UAH's research office, gave some introductory remarks about ATST, explaining the importance of attaching "the premier ground-based solar observatory to the premier space-based observatories"--specifically, the Japanese probe Hinode, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, and the Marshall Space Flight Center-based Solar Physics group, which had a hand in developing the big X-shaped solar telescope in Skylab back in the 1970s.

The bulk of the talk was given by Mr. David Dooling, who is also a member of the Huntsville pitch team. He provided some eye-opening pictures and thoughts about why we should be concerned about our allegedly "boring" stellar neighbor.

Let's start with what the sun is: a naturally occurring nuclear bomb, converting billions of tons of hydrogen into helium through nuclear fusion and generating radiation in nearly every wavelength. This bomb also has a very intense magnetic field, which twists around its axis of rotation and interacts with its charged outer reaches in cells, loops, and whorls, "as if the sun was covered with tens of millions of lava lamps," as Dooling put it. Sometimes those loops of magnetic force, many times the size of Earth itself, burst forth from the sun's surface as fiery arcs called prominences or escape the sun's gravity entirely and blast forth into the solar system as solar flares.

Solar "weather" events can be deadly to astronauts outside the Earth's magnetosphere, as they consist of highly charged particles. One of the largest solar flares ever recorded occurred between Apollo 16 and Apollo 17; had it occurred while our astronauts were on the moon, it is likely that the astronauts would of died of radiation sickness.

The sun can't just create havoc in space--it can do so here on Earth. In the 19th century, a solar event overloaded what was then the world telegraph network. During World War II, the German fleet was able to escape the British fleet in broad daylight, in part because a geomagnetic storm blinded British radar. A massive blackout in Quebec in 1989 was caused by solar activity, also damaging global positioning satellites in the process. For such a "quiet" or "boring" star, why does our sun have such violent tendencies? How are those tendencies created, and when are they likely to cause damage? These are the sorts of mysteries the new 4-meter telescope at Haleakala will attempt to unravel.

The Haleakala telescope is being designed to observe the sun in wavelengths ranging from near-ultraviolet to optical to far-infrared. It is being built and deployed on the ground because launching a 4-meter telescope into space is cost-prohibitive. Plus, thanks to adaptive optics developed by the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, formerly known as the "Star Wars" program), Earth-based telescopes can now account for distortions in the atmosphere, giving the ATST a clear view of the sun without needing to go into space. It will concentrate its studies on the 630.2 and 430 nanometer wavelengths, as these will provide the best views of the sun's magnetic field activities as well as provide high-contrast images of the sun's bright surface, enabling scientists on Earth to see the details of the sun in action.

How does a telescope this big work? Most people's personal experience with telescopes are with the optical telescopes one can buy at a science-themed hobby shop, where one looks right down the barrel toward the objects in question. Given that it's a bad idea to stare at the sun with the naked eye, it's an even worse idea to gaze up close at the sun. Like most modern astronomical telescopes, the ATST is a reflecting telescope, capturing light from a 4-meter opening in a rotating/elevating building, the primary mirror reflects it to another mirror, and then several others before it is broken up by a series of prisms and filters. The images of the sun are then directed into several different instruments, each looking for specific aspects of the sun's behavior in specific wavelengths. The instruments for ATST are still in development, and are expected to be finished in five years, just around the time the building itself is completed.

What all goes into building such a complex piece of equipment? The ATST has a budget ceiling of $298 million, $145 of that paid out of the "stimulus" bill, the rest to come through regular National Science Foundation funding. It's not going to be an easy project. The Hawai'ians are concerned about the ATST's location on a sacred mountain. It's also on literally shaky ground because Hawai'i lies on a fault line and is subject to regular earthquakes. The heat generated by all that reflected light of the telescope can create difficult heat management issues inside and outside the observatory, where temperatures must be kept constant within 1 degree. And at the end of its 50-year life, ATST is to be dismantled as part of its environmental remediation plans. It is not an easy project, and development work will no doubt continue throughout the mission.

And Huntsville is in the running to be the administrative and research center for the project. I'm cheering on the home team, of course, but I'm looking forward to the outcome of ATST's research, regardless. If you had a bomb in your back yard, wouldn't you want to know what makes it tick?

2011-06-05T09:58:00.000-05:00

New Gig

So fresh off the ISDC "win," I've managed to snag a new gig at NASA. For 50% of my time, I will be doing communication work for the SERVIR program. This is a supremely cool job for a variety of reasons: it's a goodwill effort to provide satellite-based weather and Earth observation services to developing nations; I get to write a variety of products, including web stories, brochures, and gosh knows what else; SERVIR is one of the few programs that's growing, funded as it is by both NASA and USAID; it's a complex communication environment because it involves both space hardware and international relations; and quite frankly, it's nice to be working on a program that I believe in. Where do I go from here? We'll see.