Where is Dawn Now? Year 4

Well, I'm running down the road 

tryin' to loosen my load 

I've got seven women on 

my mind, 

Four that wanna own me, 

Two that wanna stone me, 

One says she's a friend of mine 

Take It easy, take it easy 

Sorry....that's my traveling music. You think you download enough music for a road trip and then two years into boring space and you realize you're now sick of everything you brought. Thank god for stray radio signals (except Rush Limbaugh, I could do without those).

Here I am into year four....boooring.  Still another 8 months from my destination. Ground control keeps messing with my stuff man. I guess they're bored too. So I screwed with them.....I sent back the following bogus telemetry data last month:

• an open circuit in one of the pressurized cells of the nickel-hydrogen battery, a portion of the reaction control system that was so cold that its hydrazine propellant was in danger of freezing,
•  temperatures elsewhere on the spacecraft so low that the delicate cameras were at risk of being damaged, and a sun sensor with degraded vision.
• the waveguide transfer switch #5, used to direct the radio signal from the transmitter inside the spacecraft to one of its antennas for beaming to Earth, was stuck and so would not move when software instructed it to.
• computer memory was compromised by space radiation
• one of the two star trackers, devices that recognize patterns of stars just as you might recognize constellations to determine your orientation at night without a compass or other aids, was no longer functional.
• an antenna at the Deep Space Network that needed to be taken out of service for emergency repairs 

Muuuuaaaaaaahhhhhhhh...I'm so evil, bored, whatever.

Dawn Mission Status

Ohhh Myyyy

Defiance
Q&A with stars of one of Syfy’s newest shows! G. Bowler, J. Murray, S. Leonidas; Fri 10:00 am; P’tree Ballroom [W]
Defiance is new this year. For a new twist the series is linked to an online MMO that Kevin plays. So this is where the three of us decided to start. It's amazing how a new series can already have such a fan following. There were many people dressed as characters from the show which the stars appreciated and asked for photo ops after the panel. One girl spoke of an outfit to wear in the hot tubs at night that was so *beep* she made the stars blush while talking about it. There weren't any kids in the audience were there?

So now we're off to try and get in line for George Takei. If twitter is any indication he's a bigger draw than Shatner at Con this year. Damned if, among the thousands of revelers, we don't run into the owner of The Highlander and his wife on their way in the opposite direction.  Entropy never ceases to amaze me.

Where is Dawn Now? Year 3

Just to catch everyone up....last year I was breaking orbit from Vesta on my way to Ceres. I must be slacking cause I'M STILL NOT THERE YET. Of course looking at the image you would think I could just skip over to Ceres right now since I seem to be so close. But you know, space being all weird and all, looks like I have to take the long way round. They are telling me I'll make it by 2015. OMG I don't know if I can wait that long. It's the journey and not the destination right? RIGHT?

Dawn Mission Status

As an FYI you can follow progress through twitter: @NASA_Dawn

Sunday

Jim Henson: Not Da Muppets
A discussion of Henson's other works for film & television. These aren't your cute & cuddly Muppets. From Dark Crystal to Farscape and beyond.

Artists Alley

Freemasonry and The Lost Symbol
Elonka Dunin, namesake for “Nola Kaye” in Dan Brown's “The Lost Symbol”, talks about mysteries behind the novel and the link to Freemasonry. E. Dunin

Borderlands 2: Return to Pandora

Those Weird Extra Solar Planets!
Kepler has found over 2300 exo-planets & doing so has completely changed theories regarding planet formation! There's some strange planets out there!

Curious About Curiosity & Opportunity at 3000 Sols

Masquerade

Parade Day

Man mornings come early....why why why why.....*sigh*

We're skipping the parade today. Since last year the parade was already too crowded and this year there were more 4 day tickets sold and Saturday is the biggest one day ticket sale and then add all the people who just come down for the parade...well you get the picture. Of course that doesn't mean we get to sleep in either. Because we're driving, you still have to be there bright eye-d and bushy tailed or you won't get into the parking garage. Oh yeah, and we thought it might be nice to actually bring some food this time.

Eureka: Global Dynamics Exit Interview
J. Paglia, C. Ferguson, F. Day, N. Matter, T. Locke, D. Farentino
Nice to see the the Global Dynamics crew had been partying and having a rough morning too.   :-)   (No GD hangover pills?)   Much discussion about the sadness of striking the sets,   future projects,  and some thanks to the major prankster (Colin) on the sets, for making shooting sometimes take days longer than originally scheduled.

Capt. William Shepherd: The 1st ISS Commander
Our first NASA Astronaut will talk about his time on board the nascent International Space Station & share his 'home' movies! 
Besides Barrowman (come ooon Barrowman), this turned out to be my favorite panel.
Very informative,  Capt Shepherd (No relation to Capt Shepherd of Mass Effect Series :-)  was one of the folks who set up the ISS, and was the first international commander of the Space Station.   His movies showed something that we all believed:  "Duct Tape can be used to fix almost everything".  (Every tool belt in sight had a roll firmly attached!)  We got to see some of the soviet training and launching facilities as well,   and saw the handing over of Command to the Russians when he returned to Earth.  

Star Wars: The Old Republic—Meet & Greet
*finger wiggle* This is the MMO you are looking for. We promise to keep the jokes about "Deep Sith" to a minimum
This was a Master Johnathan panel. The MMO had put a free version out for people to try and John was interested in hearing from some of the developers. Problem is PAX is at the same time as Dragon*Con so the developers were still in Seattle. The panel ended up devolving into a discussion among the crowd about how to play certain characters.
(Master Johnathan:   Sorry for dragging you to this panel... At least we snuck out early and got some lunch!)

Heaven, Hell and Purgatory— Supernatural & XFiles vs Literature
Thought this was going to be how Supernatural and XFiles compare with the actual religious documentation and history found there,  but one of the presenters, who was a pastor,  hadn't watched much of the show, and seemed irritated that the leads were two good looking guys. I tried getting him to stay on topic but to no avail....so out we went, along with half the room. Such a bummer, I think it could have been a good panel.

The Higgs Boson—So did we actually find it? If so, what's the big deal?
What is a Higgs boson? How does its discovery fit into our physics theories? And have we reached the end-of-physics upon finding this "God particle"?



I'm noticing about now that Dragon*Con fatigue is setting in...we're already looking at the schedule and nixing anything in the Westin and the Sheraton hotels because they are two blocks off the main three. Sorry, no more Trek or Whedon Universe track panels for us.

Dragon After Dark Contest
Our adult-oriented costume contest, providing an opportunity to showcase naughtier or grotesque costumes in a safe and controlled environment
Well the first issue with any evening Dragon*Con event is that you have 40k people downtown looking for stuff to do and limited events going on. Our second issue with this event is that the line didn't start at the door but somewhere else and by the time we realized that we ended up very far back in line. Add to that it started an hour late. I think in all we ended up waiting 2 1/2 hours for a 40 minute costume show. And most of the costumes we had seen already because the people were wandering around. I wouldn't recommend this event. Not enough bang for the buck so to speak.

Moon Over Dragon*Con

Torchwood: Inside the Actor's Gaff with Barrowman, and Owen

Hey...for once we made it to the first Friday panel early enough to get in. And what a better way to start off a morning than watching John Barrowman!!!! It started off with Barrowman coming on stage and mooning the audience with his Dragon*Con underwear. I don't think I can really say anything more about this panel. That says it all. There are five other parts to this panel on YouTube if you're interested.

You'll have to forgive the lack of tweets. As Dragon*Con get's moving the cellular network  is a bit saturated and my phone randomly works depending on the hotel...*sigh*..I really was trying this time.

SG: Atlantis and SG:U—Supergate I
R. Picardo, J. Flanigan, C. Trinneer, P. Kelamis
I'm actually not familiar with either of these shows. I just got around to watching SG-1 this year. But I like the actors themselves from other shows One of the interesting questions was: What Sci-Fi type programs do YOU (the actors) watch? Most didn't watch much television, but Richard Picardo, said that he was VERY concerned about the lack of "good" Sci-Fi on television these days, and that cheap "reality TV" shows were a sign of the apocalypse. :-)

Stellar Consciousness
Stars are amazing! They have mass & energy flows that dwarf anything on a planet. They live for billions of years. Could they possess consciousness?
Mmmm about the only thing I can think to say aboout this panel is that I was sitting next to  an outlet and was able to  charge my phone.  I thought it was about the plasma flows between stars and how they form structures similar to a double helix. It ended up being some tree hugger hippie nonsense about stars really having consciousness. Unexpected on the Science track. Sorry Master Johnathan for dragging you.

A Woman Leading Change!
Nichols, R. Lehnen
Master Johnathan and I split here. He wanted to see Gearbox speak (Borderlands! Borderlands!) I keep missing original Star Trek speakers and, let's face it, they  aren't getting any younger, so I went to see Lt. Uhura. . I can pretty much say that Star Trek fans ask the worst questions. All those skits and jokes you see "Remeber in episode X when whatever happened..." or "In 1995, when you were at insert random function and I was  at your table....Do you remember..." Seriously? She very graciously answered every question but then I guess after all these Cons she's a pro and still looks damn good btw as well.

Big Damn Heroes!
A. Baldwin, J. Staite, S. Maher
So one thingI dislike about anything related to FireFly are their fans. They are fanatical but not in a good way. Master Johnathan's  panel was full so he was able to get in line crazy early. By an hour till the line had already reached the rooms capacity. We hadn't seen Adam Baldwin in a panel yet which is the only reason we even considered going. Firefly Crew is always amusing.   This time, a fan offered them a sealed bottle of  "FireFly"  Bourbon+Tea,  which was recently marketed,  and Jewel said "Let's break this puppy open!!!"  (There's alwasy alcohol. Last time it was champagne.)  Lot's of discussion about the other actors, and the running gags on the sets, and how much fun it was to work together...And as always Nathan Fillion called in to try and upstage the show.

Friday Night Costuming Contest
One of the issues with costume contests is that he audience is more interested in being amused than seeing a well designed costume. This contest is is specifically for costume designers. Sorry there aren't any pictures. I really need a better camera (insert where is Kevin when I need him). I liked it, of course it also reminds me I have no artistic talent but we all knew that anyway.

Where is Dawn Now? Year 2

Vesta July 24, 2011 taken from a distance of about 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometers)

So last year, right before Dragon*Con, the Dawn mission was just pulling into orbit around an asteroid named Vesta. To continue the trend I thought I'd post Dawn's status now. To update my status: I have just finished the Vesta mission and am, at this moment, slowly breaking orbit to continue to the next mission around Ceres.

I guess I really get around (get it? orbit...around? stop booing and hissing).

Darkchild Has Forsaken Us

Darkchild decided to stay home this day. I think we wore him out. He had already obtained the autograph of Charlaine Harris for his daughter, which was his main mission, and had done all his shopping so he was good. I did leave him with a large bottle of wine, and the pizza delivery number( I'm not a totally bad hostess ). And as we walked out the door for the day we said for him to call if he needed anything and that we'd see him at dinner.  

Parade Day

 
Today is parade day. A day where Storm Troopers in kilts can march down Peachtree Street with their heads held high to the cheering throngs of thousands....as it should be. And today we welcome Mistress Niki and Master James for the day. I also had some last minute additions of two Non-Dragon*Con friends and their two small boys. Thankfully Mistress Niki scoped out the perfect spot where several store fronts had put in a 5 step rise with a rail to separate themselves from the sidewalk. This allowed us to be a couple of feet above the crowd and allowed the boys to sit on the rail so they could see. It was fun watching the boys explain to their parents who all the characters were.

In the Beginning There Was Chaos

There were two things I wanted to make sure I caught at Dragon*Con: William Shatner and Carrie Fisher. Just so happens that William Shatner was giving an opening address at the start of DC. All I needed to do was get there about an hour early and I figured I'd be fine. HA

My first issue was getting everyone's schedules into Google calendar for the day and then printed out. First issue was the printer was uncooperative. The second issue is Google calendar sucks when printing out schedules. Once you have more than about 5 items for the day it doesn't print what it shows you, it prints what it wants and sometimes actually leaves stuff off. Unfortunately 7:30-8 in the morning was not the time to solve this problem. Now frustrated and running late I was having trouble packing my backpack for what I needed during the day which caused yet further delays.

When we finally arrived and split for the morning, I was indeed late for the opening address. *Sigh* Well that's why you make out your schedule with multiple options. I decided to grab some caffeine from the backpack and move to another event. Next drama, in my haste I didn't pack any of my caffeine options. Not such a stellar start to the convention for me.

ISS Visible Passes Over Atlanta

Although it will pass over for most of Dragon*Con, on Friday, September 2, it will pass over with a magnitude of -3.2 which is almost as bright as Venus.

ISS Visible Passes

Time to watch is  20:58:01 to 21:02:33 EDT. It should be moving across the sky from NW to SE east of Atlanta.



If it's a clear night I highly recommend putting a reminder in your calendar. The last time I saw it was during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics and it was pretty amazing even with the naked eye. It also moves very fast so make sure you're ready.


Twitter #ISS and/or @ISS_NatLab and let them know you're watching.

Where is Dawn Now?

Whether taken by flights of fancy or physically disappearing while following "flashy shiny" this appears to be a mantra of people while hanging out with me. So I have found a website that you can always turn to to know exactly where I am.
Where is Dawn Now?

Spacecraft after installation of high gain antenna

No updated Science track information from JPL for Dragon*Con yet. Hopefully they will have a session dedicated to me.