Category: Uncategorized

So a few weeks ago, as you might remember, Venus crossed in front of the sun for the last time this century.  The next transit of Venus won’t occur until December of 2117.  Not knowing if I’ll have a chance to watch the next one (maybe it will be cloudy that day), I made a point of witnessing it this time around.

The good folks at Orbit recently invited me to write a pair of guest posts for their blog.  The first has just gone up.

If you’d like to know why people constantly make jokes about Vita-Rays in my presence, or if you’d like to know how many times I’ve punched Hitler*, it might be worth a read.

Ok.  Let’s get this out of the way first:  I’m downright pathetic when it comes to updating the blog.  Hell… “pathetic” doesn’t begin to cover it.  Hopeless?  Stupid?  Hilariously inept? Those are probably a little closer to the mark, seeing as how I haven’t updated the blog in nearly a month.

Yeah.  Great timing on the radio silence, Tregillis, seeing as how you have 2 books coming out next month.  Way to totally win the self-promotion game.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the self-promotion part of being a writer?  Only a dozen times?  Okay, then.  I hope we’ve both learned something here.) 

Work—the day job—has been taking a toll lately.  I’m damn lucky to have a job where I can sit in air conditioning all day.  But lately I do come home feeling like I’ve had all the neurotransmitter drained from my head with a 2″ auger bit.  And I don’t know about you, but where I am, it’s bloody hot outside.  Too hot to do anything including eat, much less think and write.  Also during the blog hiatus we had the Albuquerque Comics Expo, and a dear friend of mine swung through town.  And then there was a birthday.

So, yeah.  There was all that.

Meanwhile all sorts of blog-worthy, cool, and exciting stuff has been going on!  I’ve just been too lazy to list it.  (See above re: ineptitude.)   I’ll try to list it all below the cut.  News!  Photos!  Contests!  Weird brain-wave stuff!

Yesterday, the first annular solar eclipse in 18 years to be visible from within the United States passed straight over my house (thanks to Steve Halter for that link). 

While a partial eclipse was visible from many parts of the country, the region for viewing a true annular eclipse fell along a long rectangular strip of the western United States.  For those of us in the southwest, the eclipse was even more unusual because it happened during sunset.  The center of the eclipse path happened to slice right through Albuquerque, just a short drive south of me.  So we packed up the lawn chairs, iced tea, and sunscreen, and took a drive. 

We needed to find a spot with good views of the western horizon.  The Albuquerque Astronomical Society had just the place: it’s called Mesa del Sol.  How could we resist something so perfect?

I recently picked up the newest book by James Gleick, which is titled The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood.  This one caught my eye because I’ve been fascinated by information theory for a number of years, and also because I’ve read and enjoyed some of Gleick’s other books.  (I’m keen to check out his biography of Newton, too.) 

And then, on Monday, serendipity struck.  Through sheer accident, I stumbled across a list of upcoming “public lectures” sponsored by the Santa Fe Institute.  And right there, front and center, an advertisement for a talk by James Gleick: The Information:  How We Came to be Deluged by Tweets.

So there was a free talk, given by the author of the book I was reading (and enjoying), just down the road from me.  How could I not check that out?  And did I mention it was free?