Zzzzzz...huh...wha....I'm awake!

Ohhhhh 7:00am comes early when you went to bed a scant five hours earlier.  But off I went to my first lecture this morning.  Here is what I learned today:

Alan Gould, Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, CA

The most I learned from this session is that I didn't have nearly enough sleep to be able to understand anything this guy was talking about.  He's very intelligent, but wasn't very organized.  And I couldn't focus to follow him on anything.  What I did learn is that you could detect whether or not a planet exists by measuring the dips in light curves as the planet passes in front of it's star.  There were a lot of charts and graphs to support and explain this.  I am not a chart or graph.  I can not explain this.

During some of his animations he had music playing which he commissioned from "the kid up the street."  I'm not joking.  The music sounded like I was back in the St. Louis Science Center planetarium in the early 90's.  It was this really cheesy synthesizer "spacey" music.  It made me giggle.  I don't think the scientists in the room liked that too much.  There is no giggling in space exploration.

Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor and Deputy Head of the University of Arizona Astronomy Department

This guy was cool.  You could tell he was passionate about his work and used to speaking about it.  And I finally found a scientist who actually spoke to one of my big sticking points when reading about searching for life in the universe.  Everyone says there are no planets that can support life as we know, this atmosphere doesn't have enough oxygen, this place is too hot, this place has no water.  But Dr. Impey actually brought home the point that a completely different life form may exist that survives in a way we don't understand.  He even brought up points that here on Earth, we have found microbes in extreme cold, extreme dryness, around heat vents in the ocean, in severe radiated zones, and in high toxicity levels.  So we have to open up our mind as to how we think life might be designed and exist.  I was completely enthralled with him.

Another point he brought up is that we are constantly searching for life on planets.  But moons could support life just as well.  In fact, some moons have a better chance of finding life on them than does Mars.

Did you know yeast has a 45% genetic overlap with humans?  Next time you look in your mug of beer, give it a friendly nod before you down the hatch.

Thought for the day...We've tried to create organisms, we've done genetic altering, we've done cloning, we've created machines that are now left on other planets.  What if aliens created us?

Al McEwen, Principal Investigator for the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter's HiRise camera

Did you know Mars gets dust devils and has an avalanche season?

That's about all I learned.  Because at 3:00pm in a darkened room after only five hours of sleep, Tim doesn't focus very well.  And it was a LOT of pictures of sand dunes.  Lots and lots of dunes.

At lunch today I was seated at a table with three of the speakers:

Carolyn Shoemaker - An asteroid and comet hunter.
William Boynton - Professor of Planetary Science at The Lunar & Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona
Tom Bopp - Co-discoverer of the Hale-Bopp comet

Carolyn was nice, but she was so soft spoken I couldn't hear a word she said.  Tom was kind of a lump until he started talking to two other gentlemen at the table about offshore oil drilling.  William was the big ole papa bear at the table who seemed the most gregarious.  He tried to engage everyone in conversation and talked about his mission that was just approved to land a probe on an asteroid, take samples, then bring them back to Earth to study.

But the big news of the day is what I bought in the artist's gallery.  I talked to the jeweler who makes meteorite rings and we discussed a few things.  He's actually a really nice guy and lives close to me in CA.  After two more days of thinking and decision making, I got measured, placed my order, and will have my new meteorite ring in about 6 weeks (which, coincidentally, will be exactly around my birthday).  I'm very happy and very excited to get it.

It doesn't stop there folks!  I bought two other pieces of meteorite.  Both of them Gibeon (the same material my ring will be made out of), but looking very different.  One is a pendant I can wear on a necklace if I so choose.  The other is just a lump that I liked the look of.  Don't know where I'll display it yet though.  I can't explain how excited I am to finally own a piece of space.  As a kid, I would sit outside with my cheap telescope and just stare at the moon for hours on end.  I would think about the stories it had to tell, what had it seen, and where was it going (metaphorically, of course). 

Then I started hearing about meteorite pieces that people had and I finally saw my first one in a museum in Chicago.  I sat on the floor and couldn't take my eyes off it.  I wanted to know how old it was, where did it come from, how fast did it fly, and who else had scene it.  And now, to think that I have something that is millions of years old, something with a history beyond compare, something that is so much bigger than me makes me look up in to the sky with that much more awe.

But wait, there's more!  I thought that I might want to buy some artwork as well.  I've followed a few artists for a couple of years now and have always wanted some of their paintings or prints.  But in the past few months I found a brand new artist that I am completely falling in love with.  His name is Robert Thorpe.  He has this great 1960's retro style with an amazing color palette that I love.  His art was on display and he was actually at a table working on a new piece.  When I told the dealer I wanted to buy one of his paintings, Robert came over to thank me for doing so and we started talking.  What a very nice man.  He started out doing graphic art work and now spends most of his time doing book covers and these paintings.  So far he's only done 86 original works in 15 years (he was told by someone once he needed to do 100 in 10 years so he's a bit behind).  He gave me a book that he has a cover on and signed the inside of it for me. 

So I didn't actually go in buying what I thought I was going to buy.  But man am I incredibly happy with what I did buy!  I was going to just get one original and then a limited edition giclee.  But the original was hanging next to it and the colors were much more muted on the giclee, so I had to get that original as well.  I hope this doesn't become a habit!

My artwork is now being wrapped up and prepared to be shipped to me.  That will give me some time to think about where I want to put it!

On the way back to my room I took a few more shots of the views from the hotel.

Learning time is done for the day.  I'm going to take a quick disco nap, then it's off to the evening BBQ Banquet where I will be sitting at the same table as astronaut Bruce McCandless.  I can't wait to hear his stories.