End of the Year

If you get a chance to see It's Only a Play, do it! That was total unmitigated fun! Nathan Lane is a comedic god! I believe that the cast is changing starting from January 7th, so do it very quickly.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the next year promises to be quite full with plenty of fun and interesting events. As I took stock of what is coming, the prospective calendar started to look very full:

 

January 3th - It's Only a Play (oh, yes, I am definitely seeing this again!)

January 9th - Shatner's World - We Just Live In It

January 22nd - Fleetwood Mac in Madison Square Garden

January 29th - Love Letters is sadly no go. For unknown reasons, performances got cancelled.

January 31st - annual Rutgers University Geology Museum Open House

March 13th - 15th - Monster Mania

March 20th - AACE 2nd Northeast TCM Symposium (I had no chance to go to the first one, so I have no idea if this is professionally useful or not; we'll see)

March 29th - The Audience (a Broadway play with Helen Mirren!!!)

April 10th and 17th - NYU class NYC Building Code Overview (definitely professionally useful, I just hope they won't cancel it)

April 10th - 12th - NY/NJ Mineral, Fossil, Gem & Jewelry Show

April 24th - 26th - the spring Chiller Theatre

April 30th - May 3rd - trip to Chicago to celebrate my grandmother's birthday (read: museums galore!)

May 8th - 10th - Philadelphia Comic Con

June 12th - 14th - Star Trek Convention in Chicago (it is still not on sale unfortunately; as most people on the convention circuit know, Creation is doing only two ST conventions next year in preparation for the 2016 50th anniversary tour, for which the dates have been already posted; on one hand I can totally understand it, and I can't wait till 2016 but, on the other hand, the 20th anniversary of Voyager gets practically no coverage)

August 6th - 9th - Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, and the biggest party in the universe!

October 9th - 11th - New York Comic Con

October 26th - 30th - CTBUH 2015 International Conference in NYC

November 18th - 20th - Greenbuild International Conference in Washington, DC

 

Whew! And I'm sure that more things will get added! This going to be fun!

So Far and More...

So, both the UGC conference and the Edward Tufte course were great (the latter in more of an amazing category, actually - ET is truly an information design guru; as one of examples on a topic being discussed, he presented a volume of Euclid published when Shakespeare was alive!). Overall very interesting and definitely helpful from the professional point of view!

The TNG Reunion was a blast! Seeing these folks is like meeting good old friends. I swear, there is no relationship out there like the one between Star Trek actors and their fans.

AMNH has hit it out of the ballpark yet again. Meeting Chris Hadfield was extraordinary! I got to shake hands with him and speak with him in Russian - totally mind-blowing! The Saturn lecture was wonderful - both Carolyn Porco and Neil DeGrasse Tyson were on top form!

Chiller Theatre was chilling....no, it was awesome. Had a chance to meet and/or see some wonderful actors who played in some of my favorite movies (doesn't hurt that they happened to have cameos or guest roles on Star Trek, so my autograph collection in the Encyclopedia has increased).

On November 18th, I had an opportunity to see yet another StarTalk Live! with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. It was held at the Beacon Theater this time, and featured Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye! Bottom line, Science was representing!

 

Anticipated winter events:

 

December 4th - It's Only a Play

January 9th - Yet another outing to see Shatner's World - We Just Live In It

January 22nd - Fleetwood Mac in Madison Square Garden in its most famous Rumours line-up!!!

January 29th - Love Letters, a Broadway event featuring a variety of amazing Hollywood actors. I am going to see the one with Anjelica Houston and Martin Sheen.

Can't wait until next year - 2015 is going to bring more wonderful conventions, another Greenbuild Expo to attend in Washington, DC and hopefully many more interesting events.

Updates, Updates...

Yet another half a year is gone, filled with some pretty fun events!

Both the NY&NJ Gem Show and the Chiller Theatre did not work out, unfortunately - spring colds are no fun. But all other events, shows and conventions were totally awesome!

The three convention heavy hitters this year undeniably were the Creation's Chicago and Las Vegas conventions and the Wizard World's Philadelphia Comic Con. The Chicago Convention was the first time I have done a VIP Experience (which included the in-person meet & greets with all attending celebrities!). Las Vegas rocked as always, and this year even more than usual as Creation has stepped up their game significantly in preparation for the upcoming 50th Anniversary of Star Trek. And the Philly Comic Con gave us the rare and unprecedented appearance of Whoopi Goldberg. Because of her, as well as the appearance of Matt Smith, this fairly sizeable pop culture event was, for a change, heavily overrun by Trekkies and Whovians, which admittedly was deeply, deeply satisfying!

Shatner's World was just as good as I remembered; I sincerely hope that there will be a DVD release of this show.

Eddie Izzard is without a doubt one of the funniest people ever - the concert was simply brilliant! 

Bill Nye is awesome. I am very glad that he is back in New York. The show was FUN. Because Science!!!

AMNH continues to impress with its exhibits and members programs. An Evening in the Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson was a wonderful photo essay describing the creation and production of the new Cosmos series. Excellent job! Also, I finally had a chance to see the Pterosaurs and Spiders Alive! exhibitions. All perfectly executed, except one nag from me - there really should be an age limit on Spiders Alive!. Most toddlers either were too small to understand, or too bored, or too scared. In any case, screaming kids are not particularly conducive to fun museum experience.

I had a fantastic opportunity to take an Architecture Tour with AIANY last Friday. A complete circumnavigation of the Manhattan Island with a  running commentary by an architect from the AIA. If ever in NYC, check it out, very much worth the time and the money!

 

Coming up in the fall:

 

September 22nd - Façade Face-Off: NYC and Beyond, an Urban Green Council conference

October 10th - leading up to the New York Comic Con is the cool New York Super Week, as part of which there is going to be a reunion of the Cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation Moderated by William Shatner! I am not going to NYCC this year but this event certainly makes up for it!

October 14th - You Are Here with Astronaut Chris Hadfield at the AMNH

October 16th - Presenting Data and Information: A One-Day Course Taught by Edward Tufte

October 20th - A Decade at Saturn with Carolyn Porco at the AMNH 

October 24th - 26th - the fall Chiller Theatre

December 4th - It's Only a Play, a new Broadway play with some amazing actors

Hopefully, there will also be some more great events at the AMNH. Also, with luck I'll be able to see a small exhibit of Hokusai Manga at Marquand Library in Princeton University.

In Addition to Below

April 9th - An Evening in the Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson at AMNH
April 24th - a movie event, Shatner's World (I was lucky enough to see this witty retrospective live a few years back; it will be great to watch it)
July 18th - Bill Nye The Science Guy will be doing a talk in New York

And speaking of AMNH, there is a new exhibition coming up - Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs

Time Flies (Events in the New Year)

Oh, my! And it's the beginning of another year, again. As a matter of fact, it is already the beginning of February. Tsk-tsk-tsk.

Hopefully, lots of events to plan and attend. Already quite a few conventions lined up.

 

April 11th - 13th - NY&NJ Gem and Fossil Show

April 25th - 27th - Star Trek Convention in Cherry Hill, NJ

April 25th - 27th - Chiller Theatre

May 13th - Eddie Izzard concert (finally, finally, the American part of the Force Majeure tour is here!)

June 6th - 8th - Star Trek Convention in Chicago

June 19th - 22nd - Philadelphia Comic Con

July 31st - August 3rd - Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas (the greatest party in the galaxy!)

October 9th - 12th - New York Comic Con

 

Also, a trip to Iowa in May is already booked - my sister's long-awaited graduation, yay!

The end of last year brought the unbelievable experience of seeing Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen together on stage in two different plays, Waiting for Godot and No Man's Land. Fucking amazing! Enjoyed Waiting for Godot so much that I got tickets to see it again with my sister as a present for her for Christmas. And now we are repeating the treat and seeing the play again in March.

 

The annual Rutgers University Geology Museum Open House last Saturday was a somewhat less exciting affair than usual. Although the one lecture I was looking for and actually attended (before the snow storm set in and I had to leave), "Imaging the Ancient Margin: How the Southeastern United States Was Built" was very informative and entertaining.

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.