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The Unacknowledged Costs of Academic Travel
I travel a lot. I travel for conferences, for planning meetings, for NASA collaboration meetings, for filming, for launches… for a ton of things that are related to my work. I can't really complain about the travel; I get to see the world while being exposed to new...
Why I fly American
Today I’m flying from St Louis to San Diego on Southwest Air and I feel a bit like a traitor. For years, I’ve flown on American Airlines pretty exclusively. One of my only speaker requirements is that my travel gets booked on American. This isn’t because they have the...
The Care and Starvation of Ignorance
To quote Randall Monroe: "Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time." In astronomy education, we spend a lot of time saying "what...
Rerouting or How Google Maps Tried to Kill Me
Because I wanted to take a pretty photo, Google Maps tried to kill me. I'm currently in Utrecht, the Netherlands for a conference. My hotel is in the city center, and the conference is a few kilometers away at the University. The conference site recommended biking, so...
Science March 2017
Along with many other Americans, I peacefully and legally took to the streets on Saturday, April 22 to make a public call for the support of science. Below is my planned speech, to be given in Springfield, MO. I must start this by saying I am here as an individual. My...
Resist; Persist.
It's been 20 days since the Women's March on DC (and the World). Resistance is not futile, but persistence is hard. Earlier this week I shut down Twitter while trying to get some work done. Messages were flying so fast it was bogging down my system - and here I mean...
Arisia 2017
I'll be attending Arisia in at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel from January 13-16. I'm waiting to see what Friday the 13th at a con has to produce. I expect costumes, people; Friday the 13th costumes. NB: trying to get back into blogging in 2017. We all know how...
Abuse
I have PTSD. It's from events that occurred when I was young; events forced me to learn first hand that sometimes when you go to authorities and ask for help they respond by breaking your soul. Some of you out there know what I'm talking about, and I love you for...
Struggling for Work-Life Balance
Of all the questions people can ask, I never expected, "How do you get it all done?" to be the most common. I never thought I'd be the person anyone referred to when they said, "If you need something done, give it to a busy person." I often feel like I'm struggling...