Doug Cornelius .com

Stefan Ager was celebrating at the top of the mountain in the Stubai Alps with a friend, filming the scenery and preparing to descend on their skis. Then things went wrong. He had bad footing and started sliding backwards.

Fortunately, for us his camera was rolling the whole time.

Fortunately for him, Ager walked away from the accident, apparently completely unhurt

Space shuttle Discovery’s liftoff from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 24 for the last time.

Discovery and its six-member crew are on a mission to deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module and Robonaut 2, the dexterous humanoid astronaut helper, to the International Space Station.

This is Discovery’s 39th and final mission. It is scheduled to be retired following STS-133.

Several GeekDad writers will host a panel at PAX East. The panel, titled “Geek Parenting,” will include Dave Banks, Natania Barron, Matt Blum, Curtis Silver, John Booth, Doug Cornelius (that’s me), Michael Harrison, and Corrina Lawson. We described the session as:

How young is too young for The Hobbit? Why is LEGO Star Wars the best console game for your child? What’s the best way to deal with bullying? How old should your child be before you stop letting/helping them win games against you? As a parent, how do you deal with smart phones, texting and technology in your kids’ lives? These questions and many more will be discussed by writers for GeekDad.com, GeekMom.com, and geek parents in the audience. Come share your stories and advice for how to ensure our kids grow up to be geeks like us! Don’t have kids? Show up and find out what may be in store for you if you ever do!

What is PAX East?

“PAX East is a three-day game festival for tabletop, videogame, and PC gamers. We call it a festival because in addition to dedicated tournaments and freeplay areas we’ve got nerdcore concerts, panel discussions, and an exhibitor hall filled with booths displaying the latest from top game publishers and developers.”

It’s happening March 11th to13th. Our Geek Parenting session is in the Merman Theatre, Saturday the 12th from 1:00pm – 2:30pm.

This year, Pax East will be in the luxurious Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on the South Boston Waterfront.

With all the snow on the ground, I was getting a little snow crazy. So it was back to the list of 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts.

I packed up the kids in the family truckster and we ended up in Worcester at the Higgins Armory Museum.

It had caught my eye, but I have to admit that I was skeptical. I figured it was just some crazy guy’s collection of swords and some beat up armor.

I was wrong. I came away impressed.

The kids had a great time. I had a great time. I figured it would make a decent story for GeekDad, so you can read more about it over there on Wired.com: GeekDad Visits the Higgins Armory Museum.

What really surprised me was that I didn’t know about this place. It had first come to my attention as a comment to my 2009 list of 100 Geeky Places to Take Your Kids this Summer. Higgins has been around for decades and I have been in Massachusetts for decades. So how did I not know about this place?!?!

Now I know and now you know.

Legend tells us that this help wanted ad appeared in a California newspaper in 1860:

Wanted.
Young, skinny, wiry fellows. Not over 18.
Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily.
Orphans preferred.

The tales of the Pony Express are legendary. It turns out that there are more legends than truth. Most of that is largely because of Buffalo Bill Cody. His traveling show of the wild west was a huge international attraction and spread the legend and grew the legend of the Pony Express. Christopher Corbett brings this all together in his book, Orphans Preferred.

Mrs. Doug is from St. Joseph, Missouri, the eastern starting point of the Pony Express route. The rider would mount in front of the Patee House, then charge downhill to a ferry that would take him across the Missouri River and head out to Salt Lake City and on to Sacramento, traveling almost 2,000 miles. In 1860, the Missouri River marked the beginning of the West and the end of American civilization. The railroads and telegraphs ended here.

I find the Pony Express is a great example of the evolution of communication, especially in the current explosion of web-based communications. There is plenty of hype and legend about the evolution of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others. The legend is bigger than reality in these money-losing ventures. Perhaps if the Pony Express founders had venture capital money and IPOs they would have turned out differently. Instead, the experiment lasted only 18 months and lost hundreds of thousands of 1860 dollars.

On October 24, 1861, the president of the Overland Telegraph Company sent a two sentence message across a wire from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., telling President Abraham Lincoln that the telegraph has been completed. Two days later, the Pony Express went out of business.

For that short period of time, the Pony Express brought California ten to twelve days closer to the rest of the civilized world.

Watch the animated version of the historic winter storm moving Across the U.S.

From NASA:

In a winter marked by several crippling storms, the storm of February 1–2, 2011, stands out. Heavy snow, ice, freezing rain, and frigid wind battered about two thirds of the United States, making it “a winter storm of historic proportions,” said the National Weather Service. This animation—made with images from the NOAA-NASA GOES 13 satellite—shows the giant storm developing and moving across the country between January 31 and February 2.

This image, a still taken from the animation, shows the storm at 4:31 p.m. Eastern Time on February 1. In the image, the storm measures about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from west to east. The storm formed when cold Arctic air pushed south from Canada while moist air streamed north from the Gulf of the Mexico. The animation shows clouds building over New Mexico and Texas early in the day. As the system develops and moves northeast, the storm grows and becomes more organized. By the end of February 1, the storm was a sprawling comma that extended from the Midwest to New England.

By 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on February 2, the National Weather Service reported that 21 states from New Mexico to New Hampshire had received at least 5 inches (13 centimeters) of snow. Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma declared states of emergency. According to news reports, one in three Americans were affected by the storm.

The monster storm brought record snowfall to many areas, including Chicago, perhaps the hardest hit population center. The city received 20.2 inches of snow, a record for February and the third biggest snowstorm for any date in Chicago. The record was set at 23 inches (58.4 cm) on January 26–27, 1967.

The storm left a solid swath of snow from New Mexico to New England. Images of previous 2010-11 winter storms in December and January can be viewed in the severe storms section of the Earth Observatory.

References

1. NASA Earth Observatory Historic Winter Storm Moves Across the U.S.
2. Animated version of the historic winter storm moving Across the U.S.
3. CNN. (2011, February 2). Powerful storm brings record snowfall across the country. Accessed February 2, 2011.
4. Masters, J. (2011, January 31). Potentially historic winter storm poised to impact 100 million Americans. Weather Underground. Accessed February 2, 2011.
5. National Weather Service. (2011, February 2). Historic winter storm. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Accessed February 2, 2011.
6. National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office Chicago, IL. (2011, February 2). History of 10 inch or greater snow storms in Chicago. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Accessed February 2, 2011.
7. The Hydrometeorological Prediction Center. (2011, February 2). Storm summary message. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Accessed February 2, 2011.
8. Wisniewski, M. (2011, February 1). Winter storm engulfs huge swath of U.S. Washington Post. Accessed February 2, 2011.

Thomas E. Kennedy paints a satirical picture of the people affected by a downsizing at a Copenhagen company. Martin Kampman is the hard-edged CEO of the Tank, Frederick Breathwaite is the down-sized manager and Harald Jaeger was promoted but has deep troubles with his romantic life. Kennedy adds in some family members and few other characters. Each tells their part of the story.

I usually don’t enjoy books with multiple protagonists. It works if they have distinctive voices or if they are giving different viewpoints on the underlying story. I found Kennedy to be mildly successful in using each character. They really don’t begin taking form until the second half of the book.

The real star of the Falling Sideways is the city of Copenhagen. Kennedy has spent most of the last three decades living there. The story is thick with the experience of living in his adopted city.

The publisher was nice enough to send me an advance copy of the book to read and review. It came through GoodReads First Reads program.

Although I enjoyed the book, I found it lacking. It’s supposed to be a satire, but I didn’t find much satire. There is not much of a story. It’s about how the characters interact. I was hooked into continue reading to find out what happens to them when a vocational obstacle falls in front of them. I was hoping for a payoff.

From NBAmusings.com

One of my goals for 2010 was to read a book a week. For the calendar-challenged, that meant 52 books for 2010. I was happy to hit my target in October and ended up with 61 books for the year.

Even with all of that reading, the list of books I want to read has not gotten any shorter. Actually, it’s gotten longer. The more I read, the more I want to read and the more attention I pay to new books being published.

The Kindle

I picked up a Kindle this year and managed to read seven books on it. I’m ambivalent about it. It fits nicely in your hand and makes it easy to read a book with one hand.

But the Kindle lacks the substance, feel and permanency of a paper book. I find it inferior. I expect to pay less for a Kindle book than I would for a hardcover book. I found instances where the Kindle edition cost more than the hardcover.

I originally bought the Kindle in anticipation of our canceled trip to Belgium. I definitely understand the advantage of a Kindle holding lots of books and how that could be better than traveling with a thick stack of books.

I do like the immediacy of the Kindle. I can find the book I want, buy it and start reading it minutes. That is a big timesaver.

GoodReads versus LibraryThing

My continuing quest for a way to track the books I read and the books I own continues. [See Catalog your Books Online.] I have been using LibraryThing for several years and it contains nearly all of the books in my library. I have also been using GoodReads concurrently to track my library.

I found that LibraryThing did a better job organizing my books and GoodReads had better tools to interact with fellow readers. I was ready to jettison GoodReads because very few people I knew were using it. Then I found that several people at work use GoodReads. So the social side of the site started adding some value.

I’m still adding the books I own and the books I read in both platforms.

My Books

From looking at the list, you would have a hard time seeing much in the way of themes in my reading.

I read the Percy Jackson book series to The Boy, so those five books ended up on the list. I also read the first three Harry Potter books to him. He seemed to lose interest in Book 4 so we are stalled in completing that series. I thought these books had enough substance, so I included them in the list. There were lots of other books we read together that I thought did not have enough substance to include on the list.

I also jumped into the Walking Dead graphic novels so those five books made it on the list. They contain fewer words and more images than your typical book but they have incredible depth, interesting themes and complex story lines. Plus, I like zombie literature.

Fifteen of the 61 were given to me by publishers in anticipation of a review. Those were a mixed bag. Some were really good and some were really bad.

The Books I Read in 2010

	Title	Author	Date Finished	Rating
	Makers	Cory Doctorow	Jan 4, 2010
	Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust	Chris Brogan	Jan 7, 2010
	Wake Up Dead: A Thriller	Roger Smith	Jan 11, 2010
	The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)	Rick Riordan	Jan 15, 2010
	Planets X and Pluto	William Graves Hoyt	Jan 17, 2010
	Crossing The Gates Of Alaska	Dave Metz	Jan 23, 2010
	Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities	Frank Jacobs	Jan 26, 2010
	The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 2)	Rick Riordan	Jan 29, 2010
	Sonic Boom: Globalization at Mach Speed	Gregg Easterbrook	Jan 30, 2010
	Escape from the Deep: A Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew	Alex Kershaw	Feb 3, 2010
	In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic	David Wessel	Feb 10, 2010
	The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 3)	Rick Riordan	Feb 13, 2010
	Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek – The First 30 Years	John Booth	Feb 15, 2010
	The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 4)	Rick Riordan	Feb 28, 2010
	Shades of Grey: A Novel	Jasper Fforde	Mar 2, 2010
	In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto	Michael Pollan	Mar 12, 2010
	The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book 5)	Rick Riordan	Mar 12, 2010
	Face of Betrayal (A Triple Threat Novel)	Lis Wiehl	Mar 16, 2010
	The Informant: A True Story	Kurt Eichenwald	Mar 30, 2010
	Eye of the Red Tsar: A Novel of Suspense	Sam Eastland	Apr 3, 2010
	The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine	Michael Lewis	Apr 7, 2010
	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1)	J.K. Rowling	Apr 12, 2010
	The Strangler	William Landay	Apr 22, 2010
	Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland	Lewis Carroll	Apr 29, 2010
	Sleepless: A Novel	Charlie Huston	Apr 30, 2010
	Money for Nothing: How the Failure of Corporate Boards Is Ruining American Business and Costing Us Trillions	John Gillespie	May 13, 2010
	No Sleep till Wonderland: A Novel	Paul Tremblay	May 16, 2010
	The Girl who Played with Fire	Stieg Larsson	May 21, 2010
	The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right	Atul Gawande	May 27, 2010
	Mixed Blood: A Thriller	Roger Smith	May 29, 2010
	Warning the Witness: A Guide to Internal Investiations and the Attorney-Client Privilege	David Z. Seide	Jun 3, 2010
	The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest	Stieg Larsson	Jun 10, 2010
	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2)	J.K. Rowling	Jun 12, 2010
	Seaworthy: A Swordboat Captain Returns to the Sea	Linda Greenlaw	Jun 17, 2010
	Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World	Matthew Fraser	Jun 25, 2010
	WAR	Sebastian Junger	Jul 2, 2010
	Boston Noir	Dennis Lehane	Jul 7, 2010
	World Without End	Ken Follett	Jul 19, 2010
	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3)	J.K. Rowling	Jul 29, 2010
	Accidents in North American Mountaineering 2010	Jed Williamson	Aug 4, 2010
	The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World	Niall Ferguson	Aug 16, 2010
	The Walking Dead, Book 1 (Bk. 1)	Robert Kirkman	Aug 27, 2010
	Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn	Larry D. Rosen Ph.D.	Aug 30, 2010
	The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean	Susan Casey	Sep 5, 2010
	The Walking Dead, Book 2	Robert Kirkman	Sep 5, 2010
	The Walking Dead, Book 3	Robert Kirkman	Sep 6, 2010
	The Walking Dead, Book 4	Robert Kirkman	Sep 7, 2010
	The Walking Dead Book 5	Robert Kirkman	Sep 9, 2010
	Gilded: How Newport Became America’s Richest Resort	Deborah Davis	Sep 18, 2010
	Pride and Prejudice and Zombies	Jane Austen	Sep 29, 2010
	Miles Away… Worlds Apart	Alan Sakowitz	Oct 9, 2010
	The Little League That Could: A History of the American Football League	Ken Rappoport	Oct 19, 2010
	The Hunger Games: Book 1	Suzanne Collins	Oct 29, 2010
	Impact	Douglas Preston	Oct 31, 2010
	Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do	Michael Tougias	Nov 13, 2010
	The US Private Equity Fund Compliance Guide	Charles Lerner	Nov 23, 2010
	Memories of the Future, Vol. 1	Wil Wheaton	Nov 30, 2010
	America Bowl: 44 Presidents vs. 44 Super Bowls in the ultimate matchup!	Don Steinberg	Dec 7, 2010
	Cleopatra: A Life	Stacy Schiff	Dec 10, 2010
	The Familiars	Adam Jay Epstein	Dec 28, 2010
	The Good Son: A Novel	Michael Gruber	Dec 30, 2010