A Day with Hugh Howey

September 12, 2014 9:11 pm

IMG_20140911_090630asOne 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.

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The Very Long Trip: June 22-28

September 1, 2014 4:42 pm

This was our last week in Texas.  Heather did some playing in the rain and Kyle finished up his classes on the 26th.  After taking a final he drove back up to Frisco.  Jess’ parents offered to watch Heather so we could have a night out to celebrate our anniversary.  We went to the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.  It’s a nice hotel.  We walked to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Bellini’s, down the road which had good reviews.  The outside could use some serious updating, but the inside was rather nice and the food was good.

On Saturday we saw “How to Train your Dragon 2.”  I’ve been corrupted by my classes because I kept seeing the movie in light of how the characters portrayed various foreign policy strategies and how problems develop when those different strategies clash.  The vikings initially want isolationism, Hiccup wants to practice liberal interventionism, the bad guy practices primacy, and the vikings are forced to adopt primacy to defend themselves.  All of that is sub-text, not really the topic of the movie, of course, but these are ideas infused in our culture and media without even thinking about it.  It’s interesting to have had it exposed so you can see it and how it influences the world around us.

That evening we went to dinner with Jess’ parents and the next day we were on our way home.

The Very Long Trip: June 1-7

August 21, 2014 9:06 pm

June 1 – 7:

Jess and Heather spent this week (as most of the month) hanging out with family.  Heather was able to meet grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.  She had a blast with all of them after having a little time to warm up.

Kyle picked up his rental car and drove down to College Station.  The Lab invited me to participate in what they call the National Security Leadership Program.  It’s a joint program with Texas A&M.  Each year the Lab selects ~7 employees to participate in the program.  During June, those employees go to Texas A&M to take two graduate courses in national security at the Bush School of Government and Public Service.  Then we take another course during each of Fall and Winter via video conference.

The two classes during June covered nuclear deterrence and coercion theory, international relations theory, military strategy, history of U.S. intelligence programs, intelligence agency organization and tradecraft, and counter-intelligence operations.  The intelligence/counter-intelligence course was taught by a retired Director of Counter-Intelligence at the CIA who spent his life under cover as a case officer working operations around the world.  So he knew his material.  Both classes were fascinating and enjoyable.

They were a lot of work though.  The deterrence course had 4 books to read plus 100-250 pages of reading per night and two papers.  The intelligence course had 3 books, but luckily minimal additional reading, as well as a paper and two exams.  So I was very busy the entire month.

I was, however, able to drive back up to Frisco for the weekends to hang out with everyone and have a little fun.

The first weekend we went to the Perot Science Museum and celebrated my birthday.