James P. Hogan, 1941-2010

Sci-fi author James P. Hogan died a few days ago. I read his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in seventh grade, and it was a heck of a fun ride: modern-day lunar explorers discover a spacesuited corpse on the moon - he's fully human, and he's been lying in place for 40,000 years. A team is assembled to solve the mystery of "Charlie" and they manage to piece together a picture of his fully human, yet fully alien, civilization and culture. This leads to a now-familiar surprise about our origins on Earth.

Trailers for books

Nancy Nall mentioned trailers for books this morning, and I immediately thought, "Hmm... there's enough room on the north side of the house to put in a doublewide trailer filled with bookshelves..." Alas, she meant theatrical trailers, or video advertisements for books. Drat. It's still an intriguing idea, though, except for our Illinois tornadoes.

What's the fastest you've driven?

105 mph on a relatively empty I-57 from exit 160 to 159 in my then-new 1993 Pontiac Grand Prix. As the perfessor notes, that was before I had dependents.