(montreal -> gettysburg) alien of the ship

once in a while i'll get an email from a colleague that says something like, "hey, i just watched aliens of the deep - i didn't know you were a movie star! way cool!"

(my NASA colleagues say things like 'way cool').

this really cracks me up. i mean, i'm so NOT a movie star. even IMDB refers to me as a "he" (or at least they did in 2005). i think to be a movie star, i'd at least have to be known by some small fraction of parents whose 8 year old kids might watch a movie about fantastical deep sea creatures.

what's even funnier is that i didn't even get to dive. at least then i might be able to qualify myself as an alien of the deep.

but nope. as much as i wanted to have executed that project with grace and ease that summer, it was mostly just lessons learned the hardest way possible. and, for the record, i'm VERY GLAD i'm not a movie star. i wouldn't wish that life on anyone.

anyway, i'm not really going anywhere with this. it just happened again today and i couldn't think of anything else i could write publicly about.

ps i've been pretty bad about blogging in the last year. but i just did a search on this blog for "aliens" and was reminded of things that happened to me over the last couple years that i had totally forgotten about, which then reminded me why i originally started this blog in the first place. i forget the day-to-day stuff. for a while i was writing "NASA Goddard culture essays." these are particularly entertaining to me now. sometimes i think, "why am i writing about this? who cares about this?" but the truth is, i will care, at some point soon when i've forgotten, and for some reason, this is the only way i've ever been successful at keeping a log. my six or so readers might also care (hi, sisters), but clearly this isn't one of those blogs that's meant to change the world. i hope blogger doesn't go out of business.

(*montreal) guitar hero

my friend alain cooked supper for us last night (butternut squash and salad with beans and feta cheese, and all sorts of dips with sesame rice crackers. yum.) then we played guitar hero on his HD flatscreen tv, which is bigger than my bathroom. i'm not sure how much more we could have ROCKED. this confirmed to me, though, why i should never buy a wii or an xbox.

in other news, my soul is bare to the universe. i guess that's not really news, as everyone's souls are bare to the universe, but i'm thinking we usually pretend they're not.

(*dc -> montreal) aeroplanes

i wonder if we will still have aeroplanes in 25 years.

(*dc) discovery: golden man

(*dc) it's business time

it is totally business time.

(dc) new musical crush

ok my latest crush is greg patillo.

(dc) doing stuff

this weekend has been (and still is) the Weekend of Doing Taxes. This means, in practical terms, something like 40 hours of opening 1.8 years of unopened mail, and another 40 or so to organize it all and send numbers to my accountant.

in doing this, i have had the opportunity to apologize to several people for not doing what i said i was going to do and see if they would still like me to do X. it is embarrassing, but it's got to be done.

also, in the process, i get to go through all the pieces of paper i keep for one reason or another. here is my favorite of the day - a business card from someone i can't quite remember. it's printed on one of those free business card templates and reads:

cari h***k
senior editor / insolent husy

pain killer, inc.
doing stuff since 1996

-her address-
-her phone-
-her email-
http://www.painkiller.org

i do wish i could remember meeting this woman (and the context of the meeting), cuz she seems really cool.

i wonder if she's still doing stuff.

(dc) also

i just want to say that i'm happy al gore and the IPCC won this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Now if he would just run for president...

(dc) random sampling

phil told me today that i should update my blog. he's right. it's getting a little ridiculous. so, i decided i'm going to post a random sampling of photos from my iphone. i will not offer an explanation because i don't know which photos will appear, since they all have names like IMG_0995.JPG. but, since i was persistent enough to get my iphone recognized by my macbook, i figured you all should reap the benefits.




















here you are. my life at random since june 29, 2007.

addendum, 10/24/07

well, i'm tired of seeing all these pictures up here without titles, so here are the captions:

justin's birthday cake from cindy and arturo
my sister steph
nasa+firetrucks
random hotel picture
feast
matt talking about his poster
justin tying his astroturf birthday tie
jenn and matt
my broken car window
dead brazilian fish
neice and sister
ubiquitous uncomfortable hotel chair
man in customs line with neck beard
stephen
bahia bamboo tunnel
jenn and matt again (told you it was random)
one of my wurlies
sam's artwork upsidedown photo
nephew in a sombrero