Things Cool, and Uncool

Greetings, Friends. It has been a bumpy couple of weeks here on this sandy little patch of peninsula. The show I'm building at school, Reckless, is coming along, but we're still a bit behind and I'm quite weary upon my return home every night. It is now what Eckerd College calls 'Fall Break', so the students have Monday and Tuesday off. This is a built in buffer against hurricane skulduggery, so should we have lost any days to Mother Nature then these days would make up for it. But since no storm felt we deserved a smack down this year the kids get some time off. Theoretically so do I, but there is too much work to do, so I'll be going in on Sunday, and probably Tuesday. At least we hired a lighting designer for this show, so I have the oh-so-rare luxury of only having to worry about building the set.

On the uncool side of the ledger my mom had a stroke sometime last week. She had been feeling unsteady and had a headache that wouldn't go away, so she finally got to the doctor (she's worse about that than any five guys you might know) and had an MRI done. She was admitted to the hospital yesterday for tests and observation. I spoke with her on the phone and aside from sounding like she was on pain killers, which she isn't, she sounded ok. So as strokes go, this one sounds minor, but I'll keep you posted.

Back on the cool side of things I am finally going to be doing a podcast of my own. I have been wanting to do one for a while, but the questions of what to do one on, and who to do one with, since I doubt I could be interesting on my own for more than a few minutes, were daunting. Finally I posted a query on the Simply Syndicated forums asking if anyone would listen to a Star Trek based podcast, and if anyone would be willing to do it with me. The avalanche of support and encouragement I received was quite surprising. So I have asked two of the folks, a man in Canada and a woman in Maryland, to be my co-hosts, and they have both agreed. We are in the process of working out the format, and technical details, but I will let you all know as soon as we are go for launch. We do have a title...Starbase 66...and it will cover all things Science Fiction and Fact with the orginal Star Trek as a jumping off point.

And now here's a bit of ultra cool. NASA has released pictures of the new Lunar Rover. Rather than being a skeletal dune buggy, this beast is a twelve-wheeled, pressurized space RV designed to carry two astronauts without spacesuits. These shots are from trials in the Arizona desert.



And that's all for now. Big things in the works, and big hopes for a full recovery for Mom. Thanks for tuning in. See y'all soon.

Marius