Happy 2014!!!

 

Happy New Year!!! May it be kind and prosperous to all!

Updates (and Things to See #8)

So, yes, trying to force myself to do regular blog entries is a losing battle. Haven't updated here since early March. The year seems to be rushing ahead, over a half of it is already gone. Oh, well.

 

Several things from the #7 list that I wanted to check out, I actually did not - either had no time or lost interest, so the AMNH and the Astronomy Forum will have to wait until another time. Otherwise, spring and early summer brought many excellent events.

The NY/NJ Gem and Mineral Show in April was fabulous! So many minerals and fossils to see, I did not know which way to turn. If you are into any aspect of geology and paleontology, it is the sort of event not to be missed! Definitely on my list of things to see next year! 

The TNG 3rd Season Theatrical Event was a resounding success, now everyone cannot wait until the next season presentation!

The spring Chiller Theater was fun - had some great photo ops with various actors and got an autograph from Karen Allen, who looks simply gorgeous!

Also, I had a somewhat sudden and intense but incredibly wonderful trip to Prague!

Returning to the largely Star Trek-related theme:

I managed to get a Fan Sneak Picks ticket to see an early showing (two days ahead of the USA premiere) of the new movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, in May. Very exciting! It certainly had a very polarizing effect in the fandom (well, almost everything does, and that holds true not only for Star Trek fans). I can see the logic in the reaction of either side of the spectrum. As far as my personal opinion goes...As a blockbuster action/adventure movie, I would give it A+, as a Star Trek movie - C at best. Many features were done exceptionally well, and many... were either totally missed, or I wish were not approached at all within a light year. I will not elaborate further - plenty of well-written critiques and praises have been posted online since the premiere. However, I do think that the movie lacks true Trekkiness on several levels. On the other hand, something as outrageous and visible as JJ movies (as one of my Trek friends said "Trek on steroids") does attract a lot of attention, increases national and international interest, and keeps CBS and Paramount wanting to continue "milking the cow", so to speak, i.e. keep investing money into the franchise. And, also, of course, enlarges the fandom, with the new "recruits" hopefully going back to check out and fall in love with the TV series and preceding movies.

The Chicago convention was simply fantastic! I had a few days before it to explore the city (which resulted in me ending up looking like a crispy critter...that crazy Midwest weather...but that's another story). The highlight, of course, was the entire TNG cast Reunion event and the cast photo op! Now for the total bliss, I must have a VOY cast photo op in my collection - TPTB, if you are listening, please, pretty please, make it happen for VOY anniversary, if not sooner, eh?

The Vineyard Theater play Somewhere Fun with Kate Mulgrew was tremendous. Hard to explain its themes without retelling the entire play. Describing it in a few words sounds rather absurd but true - a hysterical tragedy. Wonderfully performed, very enjoyable!

The WizardWorld's NYC Experience was pretty nice. The place was largely overrun by everything zombie but, truthfully, I only came for Wil Wheaton, so all else was just extra.

So what am I planning for the rest of the year, as of this posting:

Discovery Times Square has several excellent exhibitions on right now - The Art of The Brick (Legos!), Body Worlds and Shipwreck! The Enterprise Pavillion has been re-opened on USS Intrepid, I have yet to check it out.

August 8th - 11th - The Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas!
August 16th - 18th MonsterMania 25 in Cherry Hill, NJ (came across this accidentally but what a great line-up! I've been wanting to meet some of these actors for ages)
October 10th - 13th - New York Comic Con
October 25th - 27th - the fall Chiller Theatre
November 20th-22nd - Greenbuild Expo in Philadelphia. Going for all three days, very excited!

StarTalk Live!

What an evening! Had a really great time. The subject matter was Moon, Mars and Beyond. A sort of pop-culture-science mix discussion on where we have been and where we are going. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is, indeed, as the other host of the program put it "the Robert Plant of astrophysics". It is pretty amazing to be in the presence of someone extremely knowledgeable but who could make things rather fun at the same time. As it normally goes, besides the two hosts of StarTalk, Neil DeGrass Tyson and Eugene Mirman, there were also some surprise guests. And what a surprise one of them was!

There was the author Andrew Chaikin, the comic John Oliver and...(drumroll, please) Buzz Aldrin himself!!!

Some interesting insights were shared but also lots of jokes and puns were flying around. Kudos to Tyson for mentioning the Genesis Planet when discussing terraforming. And also for taking off his boots and performing the moonwalk in the middle of the radio broadcast :D (quote: "it's the best moonwalk you've ever heard on the radio!").

 

StarTalk on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/StarTalkRadio

Things to See #7

A cleaned-up list:

February 27th - StarTalk Live! with Neil DeGrasse Tyson at the Town Hall (it was totally awesome!!!)

March 12th - Shark: A Visual History Lecture with Richard Ellis at the AMNH (doesn't look like I will be making it there. Pity!)
April 5th - The first Jurassic Park movie will be in theaters again, in 3D!

April 12th -14th - NY/NJ Gem and Mineral Show (the topic is The Minerals and Fossils of NY and NJ!!!)
April 17th - US Launch of Simon's Cat Kitten Chaos, the new book by Simon Tofield. Multiple locations in the northeast. The one I will likely attend is at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in NYC.

April 18th - Eruptions That Shook the World with Clive Oppenheimer at the AMNH

April 20th -21st - Northeast Astronomy Forum
April 25th - the third season TNG Theatrical Event
April 26th - 28th - this year's spring Chiller Theater (check out that guest list!)
May 15th - June 23rd - a play at the Vineyard Theater called Somewhere Fun with Kate Mulgrew (previews start on May 15th, and the premiere is on June 4th) 

May 26th - The Geology of Rutgers, trip with RUGM (sounds intriguing)
May 31st - June 2nd - The Official Star Trek Convention in Chicago, with a scheduled TNG Reunion (woo-hoo!!!)
June 28th - 30th - WizardCon NYC Experience (not sure I will attend, the list does not really have much to boast about except Patrick Stewart, on the other hand the other WizardCons are occurring at the same time as the Creation events in Chicago and Las Vegas. We'll see. UPDATE: Oh, yes, I am so going! Patrick Stewart and Wil Wheaton!)
June 30th - July 3rd - AACE Annual Meeting (great place for cost engineering professionals)
August 8th - 11th - The Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas (even bigger woo-hoo!!!!!)
October 10th - 13th - New York Comic Con
November 20th-22nd - Greenbuild Expo in Philadelphia (great place for green construction-related professionals)

Wish I could go to the Florida's Megacon but plenty of other trips are being planned, so I have to hope that Wil Wheaton will do one of the New York cons this year (yes, he will, see above!). 

Still planning the Enterprise at the Intrepid Museum, AMNH, Harry Potter Experience and the Metropolitan Museum. Also there have been some news that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen will be performing on Broadway in two plays. Very exciting!

Cosmically Active Friday

Wow, what a day today! Not only did we (as in, people of the Earth) got to observe the closest recorded flyby of an actual asteroid but we also witnessed the Chelyabinsk event. Pretty exciting, astronomically speaking, of course. As a matter of fact, I think, the Chelyabinsk meteor, kind of, blew (no pun intended) the asteroid out of the water in terms of a wow-factor. The reports and videos of both are galore on all the news and social networks around the world.

 

As far as Asteroid 2012 DA14 is concerned - quite a few sites were set up for viewing. NASA, of course, ruled the waves and provided lots of great information and further links to explore. The closest approach was somewhere over Indonesia between 2pm and 3pm Eastern Time. Here is a great video of the asteroid on its approach, shot from one of the Australian observatories. Incredible! As the popular Internet meme states: "Asteroids are the Nature's way of asking: "How is that space program coming along?".

 

And the Russian meteor.... Oh, wow! Judging from the reports and videos posted online, the first reactions of the people actually experiencing the flash of light, the explosion and the subsequent destructive shock wave of air ranged from complete panic and thinking that an artillery bombardment was occuring to obviously concerned but more rational considerations of the event of staggering rarity. Lots of damage and injured people. And this was a fairly small bolide that, thankfully, exploded in the atmosphere instead of smashing in the middle of a populated area. As funny as that meme I mentioned above is, the fact of the matter is that there is little to nothing that humans can do about pretty much anything coming from space. However, burying one's head in the sand and ignoring the cumulative scientific knowledge of the past few centuries...well, I don't quite know what solution is there except education and further education, which, let's face it, a growing number of people do not even bother to consider, choosing the convenient fairy tales instead.

 

Anyway, here is some further tidbits regarding the meteorite:

-The resulting explosion had quite an impact - it registered on USGS's seismometers!

-One of the videos showing the smoke from the meteor entry and explosion, as well as the arrival of the shock wave.

-Russian news story with the first pictures of the lake where some of the bolide's remnants appear to have crashed, and of a couple of minor meteorites. Also has embedded videos of the meteor flash and shockwave destruction from various dashboard and security cameras.

 

Incidentally, it has already been confirmed that the meteor and the asteroid were unrelated. The trajectories and timing of the events were completely off.

Things To See #6

As usual, list of things to keep in mind:

 

January 26th - Rutgers University Geology Museum Open House (fun, fun, fun, as usual; acquired a lovely azurite among other things! Attending the mineral sale actually gave me an impetus to, finally, bring some semblance of order to my mineral treasures. I'm about halfway through sorting; some info, as it turns out, is missing or stupid me has missplaced but at least I am going to have a nicely stored and more or less organized collection).

February 5th - Eddie Izzard show (amazing! This is the third time I have seen him, and Eddie does not disappoint. This show was not really a show, more of a workshop in preparation for a full-blown tour. The bits about British Olympic horse events and the ballet were fantastic!)

February 6th - hopefully, the start of my NYU class (nope, no luck at all with this class, second time in a row. Shoot, I guess I have to start searching elsewhere for my continuous education needs.)

April 12th-14th - NY/NJ Gem and Mineral Show (missed the inaugural show last year which reportedly was wonderful, must go this time!)

April 20th-21st - Northeast Astronomy Forum (same thing, didn't make last year)
April 25th - the next TNG Theatrical Event. In honor of the Third Season Blu-Ray release, they will be showing both parts of The Best Of Both Worlds, the two-parter that basically saved TNG in the ratings and as far as its popularity was concerned among majority of the Trek fans; one of the milestones in the history of Trek if you will.

 

 

Plus, of course, the still planned visits to see the Enterprise at the Intrepid Museum, AMNH, Harry Potter Experience and the Metropolitan Museum.

Happy New Year!

Reflecting on the passed 2012 - not an easy year for many people, still it had a lot of really awesome moments and made plenty of good memories. Hoping for a luckier (and always healthy) 2013!

Almost the Last Post of The Year

Wow, haven't updated anything here in a while.

Obviously, there has been plenty of preoccupation with the Hurricane Sandy. What can I possibly add to that that has not already been covered by the media? Irene seemed like such an unexpected blow last year, and Sandy has completely, well, blown that out of the water with its unbelievable size (truly, a superstorm) and all the incredible damage it wrought in New York and New Jersey. As one of our neighbors noted, it was good karma for the flooding we got last year that we did not get as much damage this time, not even close as much as the coastal areas did. Mostly wind-related losses - tons of trees and downed electrical wires. The subsequent situation with the state transportation, lack of electricity and shortage of gas were very unpleasant and unsettling but the situation has improved considerably over the past two months. Of course, it will likely take years for the coast to recover.

What else? Well, the end of the world hoopla is certainly ridiculous. For those who were nervous about the end of the Mayan calendar (goodness, I literaly have to force myself not to facepalm at this), it is, as of this writing, already 12.21.12 over the Pacific, in Australia and the entire Eurasia. The world is still here, release your breath, and a happy start of the 14 b'ak'tun to you!

Went to another TNG Theatrical Event dedicated to the 2nd Season Blu-Ray release in November. Another great experience! I hope they keep arranging this for the rest of the seasons, and then do the same for other series (I am sure all of them will get remastered at some point).

 

Any holiday plans? As of tomorrow, I am on a small vacation, took off a week from work between the holidays. Mostly planning family time, a few trips to New York City (the previously mentioned Harry Potter Exhibition, possibly an AMNH visit), and the traditional secret Santa gift exchange with the family members. As for the next year, I am making another attempt to take a class at NYU (the Fall semester fell through, they could not get enough students for the section that worked for me), and going to see Eddie Izzard in one show from a Work In Progress series he is performing at the Culture Project. This is a preparatory mini-tour (New York and San Francisco) in anticipation of an actual USA tour of his new show "Force Majeure". Got the tickets, cannot wait! Oh, and, of course, there is the next Rutgers Geology Museum Open House to attend!

Mess

Here is the link to a frequently updated CNN blog about the hurricane. What a mess!!!

Deja Vu

So for the anniversary of the unexpectedly devastating Halloween snowstorm last year we get a deadly, sprawling, high-wind monster.

Hurricane Sandy seems to have come out of nowhere. If I remember correctly, Irene was tracked and watched for over a week last year. This time, just boom!

Everyone is on the edge - the entire Eastern Seaboard is paralysed. All mass tansit and other means of getting around (trains, buses, airports, tunnels and bridges) are suspended or closed, schools and offices closed. New York and Washington are reported to be practically ghost towns. The hurricane is expected to make landfall somewhere in the Southern Jersey. The way it is going right now, it has a potential to bring unprecedented damage, far more devastating than Irene, apparently. The forecast for our area specifically notes sustained winds of 30-50mph with gusts up 60mph. It would appear to pass just south of us.

However you look at it, the situation is pretty grim. Coastal locations are already suffering from storm surges and flooding. The wind speed is picking up drastically. Someone posted a picture of Battery Park benches already standing a few inches of water. Damn, just damn.

Looking outside my window - nasty, nasty weather that is going to get even worse by nightfall.

 

Out of things planned for the fall that I mentioned earlier - Comic Con and Chiller Theatre were rather great. I'm glad I only planned for Fridays in each case. It was still pretty exhausting. Comic Con was predictably huge and crowdy but I got my Christopher Lloyd autograph (he looks wonderfull, incidentally, and just like Dr. Emmet Brown at this point) and had a chance to explore an enourmous Artists Alley, so I'm very happy with the experience. Chiller is not a particular favorite of mine. Simply because there are somewhat less things there that interest me. But it is a wonderful opportunity to get some great autographs pretty inexpensively. So I got one from Joan Collins, who for her age looks astounding (whatever work she had done nonetheless). The line was huge - almost two hours. I can only imagine the line when she was signing on Saturday. One thing I do regret - Robert Duncan McNeill was there as well. But since I had his autograph and photo op earlier in Las Vegas, I did not bother to go looking for him. And I really should have. I saw a few pictures people posted with him on Facebook, he looks great and so much more, well, adorable than he did in Vegas. What are you going to do. I'll try and catch him next time.

 

So, what is there to look forward to at this point (besides a hopefully calm finale to the brewing catastrophy)? The Antique Show kind of fell through - we prepared for the hurricane instead. So, perhaps, I'll catch one of the New York winter ones this year. The Harry Potter exhibition is reopening at Times Square, as I have already reported. The Enterprise will have to be visited in the new year, it's getting too cold. Just went to a wonderful birthday party and another one is looming up ahead. And then the holiday season shall commence (most of the stores are certainly not wasting their time - Halloween hasn't passed yet and they've got Christmas decorations out already).