HoodedHawk

It’s hard to post this with dry eyes, but: Pixar granted a dying 10-year old girl’s final wish: to see the movie “Up” (which is currently only in theaters).

The girl (Colby Curtin) was not able to travel to a theater to see the movie, so Pixar sent an employee to the girl’s home with a DVD of the movie. The girl was able to watch the movie, and then passed away seven hours later.

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD.

He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.

Colby couldn’t see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film.

At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”

After the movie, Colby’s dad, Michael Curtin, who is divorced from Lisa Curtin, came to visit.

Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.

Among the Up memorabilia the employee gave Colby was an “adventure book” – a scrap book the main character’s wife used to chronicle her journeys.

“I’ll have to fill those adventures in for her,” Lisa Curtin said.

- from OC Register

Yep, that’s how many files a fresh backup of my main machine contains. And I’ve excluded a bunch that I don’t need to backup. Apple’s Time Machine does seem to work well for me so far, even allowing me to swap out backup disks so I can keep one offsite (just in case). Now to let ‘er rip overnight.

Cool! I just won an advance reading copy of the novel “Frozen Fire” by Bill Evans and Marianna Jameson. I had entered a drawing for this on the Tor website a few weeks ago and…guess what arrived in my mailbox today? Not bad, since they only gave away 50 copies. It’s an eco-thriller; I’ll put it on my queue and let y’all know how it is once I get to it. It officially comes out on June 23, 2009.

Alhambra

Dylan and I had fun playing the board game, Alhambra tonight. It’s basically a tile-laying game where you either lay a tile to build your Alhambra (Spanish/Moorish palace and court), get some money, or buy a building. Allows for 2-6 players; unlike a lot of other board games, it is very playable with just 2 people. We’ll be playing again!

Couldn’t resist putting up this picture from this afternoon. Kirsten came home with some shades for Preston. He loves them! Picture taken just prior to my mowing the lawn :)

Science Fiction author Charlie Stross is the GOH at this year’s Balticon (Baltimore Science Fiction Convention). I went on Friday and met Mr. Stross and got him to sign some of his books for me. Nice guy!

Tonight I went to a booksigning and a panel of SF authors at Reiter’s Scientific Bookstore in DC. Among the authors present were: Dr. Catherine Asaro, Greg Bear, Bud Sparhawk, Tom Purdom, Tom Ligon, Yoji Kondo (Eric Kotani), John Hemry (Jack Campbell), Charles E. Gannon, and Dr. Arlan Andrews. The roundtable discussion topic was “How Science Fiction Changes Everything” - How Science Fiction Serves the National Interest. The Washington Science Fiction Association also sponsored the event.

Catherine Asaro

Some (all?) members of the panel are also members of SIGMA:

SIGMA is a group of science fiction writers who offer futurism consulting to the United States government and appropriate NGOs. We provide a new concept in public service “think tanks”– an association of speculative writers who have spent careers exploring the future. Many of us have earned Ph.D.s in high tech fields, and some presently hold Federal and defense industry positions. Each is an accomplished science fiction author who has postulated new technologies, new problems and new societies, explaining the possible science and speculating about the effects on the human race.

The event was mostly the panel fielding questions from the audience. I enjoyed the evening; it was quite interesting to hear the viewpoints of various SF authors, especially Bear and Asaro, as I’m a fan of both. At the signing Dr. Asaro mentioned that the cover of Alpha was her favorite. The artist was going to go with a flowing gown, but she told him, no, I’d rather look like this:

SF Authors: Bear, Asaro, etc. Roundtable at Reiter's Bookstore

Greg Bear

Greg Bear

 

Preston and I spent a nice afternoon riding some real, miniature Steam Trains run by the Chesapeake & Allegheny Steam Preservation Society at Leakin Park in Baltimore.

Miniature Steam Train

Preston has been a train fan ever since his introduction to Thomas the Steam Engine, and he just loved riding these trains. They are scale miniatures, but are definitely real steam engines (and some electric locomotives). Once around the park takes about 8 minutes. It was a beautiful day, and the only hard part was getting Preston *off* the trains. The Live Steam Club does this (free rides to the public) once a month. We’ll definitely be back, and with a picnic lunch. It is well-organized and just a lot of fun for the kids (both of us!).

Miniature Steam Train

Miniature Steam Train

Miniature Steam Train

 

Tonight I (Ok, I dragged Dylan along too) went to see Arthur Phillips read from and discuss his new book,”The Song is You” at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC. At one point Mr. Phillips was asking the audience if anyone did Billie Holiday impressions: “…anyone? How about you, young man?” as he pointed at Dylan. Dylan just shook his head and then leaned over to me and asked “Who’s Billie Holiday?”. Ah, youth.

Another humorous section was when the author was reading in the book and came to the bit where the character was talking about getting a couple of college girls to go back to his room to play “strip Trivial Pursuit”. “That, by the way, is the only autobiographical bit in the book”, said Mr. Phillips. :)

Arthur Phillips at Politics and Prose, Reading of "The Song is You"

Arthur Phillips at Politics and Prose, Reading of "The Song is You"

Arthur Phillips at Politics and Prose, Reading of "The Song is You"

 

Lisa Randall at Smithsonian

On Friday (April 24, 2009) I went to see Physicist Lisa Randall receive the Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Award from The Smithsonian Associates and the Creativity Foundation. Professor Randall discussed the role of creativity in her life and work with University of Chicago professor Michael Turner. The talk was in the Baird Auditorium of the National Museum of Natural History - nice venue!

After the talk I was able to get Prof. Randall to sign my copy of her book, “Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions“. Great book!

From the press release:

Randall is best known for her work involving extra dimensions of space, or “warped” geometries, and her suggestion that could explain the relative weakness of gravity and that we may live in a world with an infinite extra dimension—possibly even in a three-dimensional sinkhole in a higher-dimensional universe. This has resulted in her being one of the most-cited theoretical physicists in the world. Time magazine included her in its 2007 list of the 100 most influential people, and Newsweek cited Randall as “one of the most promising theoretical physicists of her generation.” Her book “Warped Passages” was included in the New York Times’ list of the 100 most notable books of 2005.

Randall is a professor of physics at Harvard University and is tenured at Princeton and MIT. She has served on the editorial boards of several major journals and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.