Today's pondering

Research in Motion's "PlayBook" tablet (competes with iPad) and Nintendo's 3DS handheld 3-D gaming system (competes with iPod Touch/iPhone) will both launch in time for your... Easter shopping.  By which time Apple will sell another eleventy-gazillion iThings.  What are RIM and Nintendo thinking?

Mazlan Othman

I photographed Dr. Mazlan Othman, head of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, at the 16th Commission on Sustainable Development in 2008, for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

A year later, she visited Hawaii and Mauna Kea, and more photos were taken, with one contributed to her Wikipedia entry.

So if you see a picture of her in the media speaking at the UN with a translation earpiece on, or a picture of her wearing a blue and white checked shirt and holding a folder - you know where they came from.

Here's a less-commonly-seen picture of her with me in May 2009, after we saw the reboot of the "Star Trek" franchise.  It seemed like an appropriate movie to take someone to basically leads the predecessor of the Federation of Planets.

MKOOC

Hanging out at the monthly Mauna Kea Observatories Outreach Committee meeting. It's... well, it's a committee meeting. But it's about Mauna Kea outreach. Those two things kind of balance out.

Playing tour guide

One of the nice things about working at the Subaru Telescope is the opportunity to occasionally show family, friends or VIPs where I work, and explain what I do there.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to give a tour to a group led by Dr. Stephanie Langhoff, a molecular chemist who's Chief Scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center.

I hope someday I can get over to Ames for a tour.

Title change

I am in my final day of work as a Night Operation Assistant, and will become a Subaru Observation System Associate on August 1.

Astronomy fans are everywhere.

I run into astronomy fans in the strangest places. Here's the gift shop wall at Uganda's equator crossing, north of Masaka. Unfortunately, the guy who actually breaks out little telescopes and does star tours was in the city that day, but I explained to the guy on duty that I worked somewhere with a primary mirror about the same diameter as their gift shop building. :)

Greenmarket

I like Wednesdays at the UN, because the Samascott Orchards folk come down from Kinderhook in their truck and sell apples and cider and berries and apple muffins and apple oatmeal raisin cookies and so on, at the Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza Greenmarket. Yum.