personal « One Astronomer's Noise

Archive for the ‘personal’ Category

My beefs with my ex-religion

Posted in atheist, personal, rant, religion on November 25, 2009 | 4 Comments »

For an atheist, I tend not to talk much about religious matters anymore. When I first came “out” as an atheist, it was an interesting topic of discussion for me, but I quickly bored of it. Still no evidence for god? Okay, move along. I’m much more interested in the immediate harm of anti-vaxxers and [...]

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Time Management Fail

Posted in personal, picture on October 15, 2009 | 5 Comments »

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote up a personal mission statement with the hope that it would help me focus my activities. This was followed a few days later by a meeting with my thesis committee, which, as always, helps me to refocus my research and my career goals. For the past couple of [...]

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Attempting a Personal Mission Statement

Posted in personal on September 27, 2009 | 2 Comments »

I recently had the chance to talk with Jeffery Bennett, astronomer and author from Boulder, CO, during his recent visit to Charlottesville. After giving presentations to four elementary schools with his children’s books chronicling the fictional space journeys of a dog named Max, he gave a talk at UVa about the search for extraterrestrial life, [...]

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Remembering September 11th… Skeptically

Posted in personal, rant, skeptic on September 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I never know quite what to say from year to year on this anniversary. I used to have a LOT to say, now I reserve a moment of quiet reflectiveness. But maybe I can move away from the emotional aspect just a bit and talk about my first run-in with 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Going back a [...]

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Dragon*Con Post-Op

Posted in Dragon*Con, Galileo, astronomy, bsg, cool, critical thinking, culture, events, fun, fundraising, iya2009, outreach, personal, picture, podcasts, science, skepchicks, skeptic, telescope, travel, twitter, ufo on September 9, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Holy. Frakkin. Wow.
So, I attended, no, experienced my very first Dragon*Con. It was on a scale of something that I have never seen before. Tens of thousands of freaks and geeks, many in costume, descended upon downtown Atlanta to laugh, squee, drink, and just be themselves (or whoever they want to be) for a while.

Crowd [...]

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I want my flying car! Wait, not like that…

Posted in Charlottesville, personal on August 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »

CVille folks may have heard this story today about a stolen car which ran off of Rugby Road today and down a hill. The car was going so fast that it skimmed over the roof of one house and crashed into the roof of another. Those that know me well enough to have been to [...]

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Weird Google searches…

Posted in blogs, carnival, google, personal, space, travel on June 24, 2009 | 4 Comments »

I am often amused by the search terms that lead people to my humble little blog. Here is a random sampling that really had me laughing:
Domo kun: Okay, I see this one pop up a LOT. I think I used the kitten chasing graphic once? Seriously, there are many more relevant sites that come up [...]

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Dr. SETI and “Cosmic Carl”

Posted in SETI, Sagan, astronomy, cool, critical thinking, movies, music, outreach, personal, picture, science, skeptic, vla on June 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Fans of Skepticality (and let’s face it, who doesn’t love Derek and Swoopy?) know that the latest podcast includes an interview with Daniel Loxton, editor of Junior Skeptic and the man behind “Where Do We Go From Here?” and “What Do I Do Next?“ He unveils his latest project, Skeptics Mix Tape, which is a [...]

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Happy (belated) Solstice!

Posted in astronomy, personal, picture, solstice, summer, sun on June 22, 2009 | 2 Comments »

I had a lovely weekend away from the computer (and new iPhone even!) celebrating the beginning of summer. The solstice occurred at 1:45 am EDT (summer for us in the North, winter in the South!) and is the time in which the sun is the highest in the sky from the Northern hemisphere, thus giving [...]

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