I bought the piece of airframe aluminum from the Titan II Museum during our drive back from Texas, but it just came by itself in a little bag. So I made a little display for it out of some mat board. Then I laid out the graphics to go around it, printed it out, and glued it on. It came out fairly well, a little rough around the edges, but I'm happy with it.
The general idea matches the commemorative coin I have from the space shuttle launch we watched.
Here they are together:
Heather helped me bake some oatmeal cookies last Sunday. We were getting out all the ingredients (one of her favorite things to do) and she asked if she could eat some oats. Well, why not? So I gave her a few. And she loved them. So she asked for more, and more, and more. I think she ate over a 1/8 of a cup before I cut her off. Just raw, rolled oats. What a goon.
Heather has watched a number of TV show episodes that involve camping. So when, a few months back, we asked her if she wanted to go camping she was ecstatic. She knew all about it. She told us about setting up a tent, and sleeping bags, and a fire, and marshmallows, and on and on. We decided to play it safe for a first-time-camping experience. We booked a site at Del Valle, which is just on the edge of town, for a Friday night back in August. If the night turned into a disaster we could just bail and drive home since we'd only be 15 minutes away.
In the future we won't be returning to Del Valle. Apparently it's kind of a party campground. There aren't enough bushes and trees to separate camp sites so it's mostly like camping in a huge group with a bunch of people you don't want to interact with. Regardless, Heather had a blast. She ate a hot dog in a bun for the first time and she had her first S'more. She thought the S'more was alright, but wanted the marshmallow and chocolate without the graham crackers (funny, since this morning she ate an entire package of graham crackers).
We survived the night, went home and then everyone took a 3-hour nap.
Last weekend was the Daddy-Daughter Campout with church, for which Heather was also super excited. It was up in Redwood Regional Park. The main benefit there is that it's a singular group site. There are no other camp sites around it so you have much more isolation. That and there are a lot of trees and bushes. The camp site is a cleared area within all this growth. That was a more pleasant experience overall.
Heather was a trooper and didn't even fuss when it was discovered I had not, in fact, packed the hot dog buns and ketchup like I thought I had. She happily ate her hot dog without either. My night would have been a little more comfortable had I checked the air mattress before leaving though. It had a pretty substantial hole in it so I was flat on the ground by midnight. Heather slept great on a pile of blankets.
She's already asking when we can go camping again. So I guess we need to start buying useful equipment instead of just making do with whatever we can find.
At church we've been doing an annual game night. I put together a bunch of game helpers for each of my games that are really handy to have when introducing new players to the games. They provide information on how each turn should flow and what decisions need to be made.
So I thought I'd stick them here for anyone else that might want them. The page numbers refer to the game manuals--where that instruction is referenced if you need further guidance. Each file is available as a ready-to-print PDF and as an Open Document (ODT) file.
One of the employee morale groups (for lack of a better description) runs a series where they invite authors to come and speak about their work and meet with employees and then get a tour around the Lab. Back in April or May they asked if anyone had suggestions for authors to invite out. I suggested we invite Hugh Howey out. He's a science fiction author which is always a good match with the Lab population and he has great knowledge of the self-publishing process which would be of interest to aspiring authors lurking about the property.
We were very pleased when he accepted our offer and we arranged for a visit on September 11 while he was already going to be in the Bay Area.
He took a tour of the supercomputer facility in the morning and then gave a presentation and we had a group lunch. I spent the morning working, but was able introduce him at the talk and have lunch and then tour the National Ignition Facility and the High Explosive Application Facility with him during the afternoon.
It was a lot of fun. He's a geek at heart which made seeing all the incredible science great fun. I really enjoy getting to tour other parts of the Lab. It's easy to stay cooped up in my office and not hear about all the other amazing work being done.
After our tours a small group went down to the Concannon Winery for dinner. It was a blast to ask him about his work and his experiences in life and hear how those experiences have influenced his writing. He's an incredibly personable guy and has remained quite humble despite his great success.
I think he enjoyed visiting the Lab as much as we all enjoyed having him. I highly recommend sitting down with him for a chat if you ever get the chance. In the meantime, we will all just have to settle for reading his stories. I can't wait to see what bits and pieces from his visit work their way into his writing.
