Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 25

SFnal reading tomorrow in Lawrence!

A quick heads-up to SF and fantasy folks in the Lawrence area tomorrow: A bunch of area authors will be reading, signing books, and hanging out at the Lawrence Hastings Bookstore from 2:00pm - 6:00pm on Saturday, May 12.

I'm one of them, plus Robin Wayne Bailey, Lyn Benedict, Mary Chambers, James Gunn, K.d. McEntire, Lane Robins, and Bryan Thomas Schmidt! Most of the authors will be hanging out most of the 4-hour block of time. I read near the end, at 5:00pm.

Hope to see you there!
Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: Solar Eclipse May 20

Did you know the Western USA (and Eastern Asia) is about to enjoy its first full solar eclipse since 1994? Excitement!


Click the image to see the Sky & Telescope article.

Here's a map of how much you'll get to see; if you live in Asia, it's basically the same but reversed; those who live in the Pacific Ocean have the best seats:


Click the image to see the Sky & Telescope article.

Bonus: What's the Higgs boson? This is a great and entertaining video.

In other news, I must be feeling heathier, because I just finished mowing the yard. To keep from irritating the still-unhappy sinues over-much, I wore a bandana around the face to filter the grass and pollen, plus a pair of shop goggles and long pants and shirt. SWEATY. I must have looked GORGEOUS.

Chris

2012 John W. Campbell Memorial Award Finalists Announced

2012 Campbell Award Finalists
Ernest Cline
Ready Player One
Kathleen Ann Goonan
This Shared Dream
Will McIntosh
Soft Apocalypse
China Miéville
Embassytown
Christopher Priest
The Islanders
Joan Slonczewski
The Highest Frontier
Michael Swanwick
Dancing with Bears
Lavie Tidhar
Osama
Daniel H. Wilson
Robopocalypse
Gene Wolfe
Home Fires
Rob Ziegler
Seed

And there you have it! Congratulations to all the authors listed above: These are fine novels, every one of them, and you wouldn't go wrong reading any of them. Heck, if you're looking for a "best of 2012" list, here you go!

We'll announce the winners of both the Campbell Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award at this year's Campbell Conference in Lawrence, Kansas, at the event's Awards Banquet on the evening of Friday, July 6. Register now for early bird savings!

We'll announce the Sturgeon Award finalists soon.

We'll also continue to announce special guests who'll be attending this year's Campbell Conference, but for now that includes Robin Wayne Bailey, Andy Duncan, Sheila Finch, James Gunn, Kij Johnson, Christopher McKitterick, and Eric T. Reynolds, and expect to see several more as we firm up plans.

Best,
Chris

This makes me happy.

Click the image to see the xkcd site.

Remember how excited or happy you felt when you learned something awesome for the first time? Sharing that with others is almost as fun, whereas mocking them for missing a cultural reference or cool fact isn't fun for anyone.

Speaking of not-fun, went to see the doctor yesterday. You know how I had a big fever last Thursday and felt better on Friday? Well, apparently all that was just the prelude to sinus infection - as of yesterday, I hadn't been able to get to sleep in less than two hours for days. I won't get into details, but let's just say the throat's been killing me and there's a constant tickle in the throat. Oh, and I lost my voice on Saturday night. Awesome.

When I called to make the appointment, the nurse asked, "What makes you think it's a sinus infection?"

"I'm getting a lot of blood drainage."

"Ah, yes. They're very popular right now."

The doc wrote me a 'scrip for Amoxicillin - my first antibiotics since the turn of the millennium. Not excited about that, because my last party with antibiotics (for blood poisoning - long story) ended with having to fight thrush for weeks. UGH. On the up-side, I'm already feeling better today, and it only took about half an hour of coughing my lungs out to fall asleep last night.

Chris

"Paths of Hate" - amazing animated film!

Great stuff:

Fate, it teases me with inability to sleep when all evening I was barely able to stay awake. On the plus side, the near-perigee super-sized Moon is awesome!

Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: Huge Moon this Saturday

This month's full Moon is a "super Moon,” as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons of 2012. This is because the Moon is at perigee tomorrow night when it's also full. Full Moons vary in size because the Moon's orbit is an ellipse, not a perfect circle, with one side about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (the apogee). Therefore, a full Moon during perigee is much brighter and appears extra-huge. Because of timing issues, very few full Moons happen at perigee, so this is a special treat.


Click the image to see the NASA article.

Enjoy!

Chris

All better today.

After class last night - heck, DURING class, too - I was a water-drinking fiend. I must have downed a couple gallons of water, plus a glass of Emergen-C, plus a mimosa. Watched a few episodes of Supernatural to distract the mind before bed. I get kind of emotional when I have a fever, so of course poor Dean's predicaments made me cry and cry.

Went to bed before midnight, where I sweated out all those liquids plus a lot more during the night. The bed was soaked; I had to use towels to get back to sleep in the middle of the night. Gross. Slept about 10 hours. Checked my weight; down almost 5 pounds of water, I assume. I'll be rehydrating today.

Last night's fever reached 102.5°; this morning, it's 98.4°. Tada! All better! Just feel a bit tired today.

Chris

It had to happen...

Yesterday I was bragging about how I made it an entire winter flu season without getting sick. Had to sleep 10 hours a couple of nights, but woke up feeling fine the next day. When I said that, I did not knock wood, people. I DID NOT KNOCK WOOD. You know what's coming next:

This morning, I woke tired and groggy and sore, but attributed it to last night's Crossfit, even though I felt my best ever post-workout. By noon, I felt like pierced bicycle tires. Took my temp, and it said just shy of 100&deg. Haven't eaten more than a breakfast smoothie all day, just not hungry. Except for brains.

Crap. Couldn't miss today's "Science, Technology, & Society" class, as it was the last of the semester, and because it was all student presentations, all the time, I figured I could just sit back and enjoy.

(Yes, I was diligent about washing my hands, didn't shake any hands that were offered after class, and am not sneezing or coughing. Couldn't miss this one! I just hope what infects me isn't one of the horrible diseases a couple of the presentation teams discussed and/or dramatized....)

GEEBUS, but three hours is a long time to sit still. I was FREEZING in that classroom which, apparently, was warm and pleasant. Going home now to drink a lot of water and maybe watch some distracting movies. No class for me tomorrow, thank goodness! Sadly, I was going to test for my "white bandana" at Crossfit tomorrow, which would allow me to attend regular group WoDs.

Question: What can I take to reduce my fever that isn't an NSAID? I take Meloxicam every day, and don't want to make my stomach lining bleed. Help!

EDIT:When I got home, discovered it's now a fever of 101°. *sigh* Trying some green tea now. EDIT 2: Scratch that, it's almost 102° now. Wow, this is exciting!

Thanks,
Chris

The New Space Age.

With the Shuttle fleet now gathering dust and the Apollo bluprints pulped in 1970s Boy Scout recycling drives, it's easy to forget that we still live in the Space Age... perhaps more than ever!

Everyone knows about Virgin Galactic's upcoming space-tourism biz and Spaceport America recently dedicated in New Mexico.

NASA and the current US administration are pushing for private corporations to take the reigns of near-Earth and manned spaceflight while the NASA focuses on what they feel they do best: robotic exploration and technical research. Well, okay, but only if the private companies really DO get going on things.

So it was with great excitement that the pro-space contingent heard last week's big announcement that a heap of space-lovin' billionaires are launching Planetary Resources, a private leap into space.

And now we learn that Japan Will Have a Space Elevator by 2050.


Click the image to see the Gizmodo article.

We still live in the Space Age, folks!

Chris

Two new Crossfit workouts

The rush of paper-critiquing before Finals Week has meant I haven't been online much (well, I've been online ALL THE TIME with grading software), so I'm behind on Crossfit reports. On the plus side, I'm fully caught up on grading BEFORE finals start pouring in. *ROCK*

Here's Monday's workout:
Warmup: Lunges, then jumping lunges. This means take the biggest step you can (3-4 feet for my height), keeping your back-leg knee off the mat, then jump forward, switching which leg is front and which is at the back. Cross the gym, then back again.Rowing machine. Just "a quick 500 meters," sez the coach.Shrug-kettlebell-lifts. Pick up the kettlebell between your feet and, as fast as you can, pull it up to your chin. Your glutes and thighs should do most of the work ("Squeeze those glutes!"), and shrug your traps to pull up the kettlebell.Barbell thrusts. Start with your wrists as flat back as they can go with the barbell just resting on your collar-bone and shoulders, elbows forward, and then THRUST the bar up until your elbows lock, as fast as you can.Now add a drop-thrust; that is, as you push up, pretend the weight is really heavy and drop by bending your knees as you launch the bar upward, then stand after it's all the way up. This one sucked for my shoulder; I'm going to substitute something that works those muscles without causing so much rub between clavicle and acromian.Box-jumps. The coach gave me a 22-inch wooden box to jump onto; swinging your arms and using your glutes and thighs, LAUNCH up onto the box, brining your knees as high as possible to avoid hitting your shins on the box. When you land, stand up straight - again using those glutes. Immediately jump backwards, down. Repeat a whole lotta times.Fully warmed up and form is good? Now do the WoD:Box-jumps and shrug-kettlebell-lifts.Just three sets: 21 of each, 15 of each, 9 of each, as fast as possible.GO!I can't remember my time, but OMG I was dying during the second set. Interestingly, the third set was easiest.Oh, and of course a bunch of warm-down roll-outs using various equipment to stretch the muscle fascia.For the first time since I started this insane program, I went home NOT SORE. Whoah, it really does get easier!
So that was Monday. Today's (Wednesday) workout was pretty much the same as Friday's, only with the added complication - after doing tripod-headstands (hands and head support you as you lift your legs) - of trying to do handstands (free-standing with locked elbows holding up your body, toes pointed toward ceiling).

I TOTALLY DID SEVERAL HANDSTANDS.



Despite my frakked-up shoulder.

Last time I did handstands was DURING THE 1980s. NO, REALLY.

Oh, and I finished the WoD (burpees and situps) at least one, maybe two, minutes faster than on Friday.



Oh, and when I came home, I totally banged out a couple sets of pullups using a different grip than I normally use, because the bars at the Lawrence Crossfit gym are straight, and I don't want to embarrass myself with something I can actually do *g*

OH! And we took the Newport, because the guys who run the place are total gearheads. It was much appreciated! They all came pouring out of the gym to see what had just roared into the parking lot, and of course the first thing the coach wanted to see was the engine compartment :-D

Now I'm going to have a mimosa and watch a bit of the Dean & Sam Show™ (that would be Supernatural to the uninitiated).

Best,
Chris