Bright Spots
Last Monday evening, after I finished feeding supper to the crtitters and was heading uphill to the house, I saw a meteor streak down the northeastern sky toward earth. Since that particular flash of light was the biggest and brightest I'd ever seen, I figured it hit close by—maybe in the filed across the road. I couldn't tell for sure because my house blocked my view of where it landed.
Turns out I was wrong. It wasn't my own private meteor. After I'd posted about it on Facebook, comments started rolling in, some from former students in Roanoke.
"I think I saw it too... at about 5:35pm? White light that was headed straight down?" posted a former Jackson Junior High student of mine, who later added he'd been headed north on Route 11 just past the Pepsi plant. He'd just entered Botetourt County and saw it to the northeast. A former Madison Junior High student who was driving east on Rt. 419 in front of Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke added, "It looked like it was falling on Mill Mountain from there." A fellow member of the Virginia Writers Club noted that a friend of hers had seen it from Interstate 81.
Hmmm. It obviously didn't fall nearby. So where did it fall? Another Facebook buddy who now lives in Colorado posted this:
The TV station report is here.
The end of my week was also bright, though in a different way. Friday evening and all day Saturday, several Lake Writers and I went to the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins University. Suffice to say, a good time was had by all and the conference was packed.
I wish I could have attended all the sessions, but I tried to pick ones about topics that were unfamiliar to me. Consequently, even though I've been blogging since 2006, Facebooking for a couple of months, and Tweeting for about a month, I learned about Internet stuff that I didn't know and had wanted to know.
For instance, thanks to Maryke Barber's "Beyond Blogging: Free and Fabulous Online Tools," I now know how the Goggle Reader works, what RSS means ('really simple syndication") and why I should use it, and what a wiki is. One tool I wish I'd know about when I taught English—and which I wish existed when I was a student—is Zotero, which generates both footnotes and a bibliography.
Some of us Lake Writers (who are also members of the Virginia Writers Club) appeared on the self-publishing panel during lunch.
The auditorium was pretty much packed, and I was amazed how many people raised their hands when I asked who was considering self-publishing. During the breaks, several asked me about my experiences.
I had my self-published book as well as my vanity-published ones available. Thanks to my small press publisher, I also had copies of Ferradiddledumday available—and hot off the press. While Ferradiddledumday won't have its official debut until Tuesday, a handful of folks now have a copy.
For a fuller report from another conference attendee, see this post at Blue Country Magic.
This past week has had several other bright spots, but the meteor sighting and the conference were two of the brightest.
Hope y'all had a good week, too.
Turns out I was wrong. It wasn't my own private meteor. After I'd posted about it on Facebook, comments started rolling in, some from former students in Roanoke.
"I think I saw it too... at about 5:35pm? White light that was headed straight down?" posted a former Jackson Junior High student of mine, who later added he'd been headed north on Route 11 just past the Pepsi plant. He'd just entered Botetourt County and saw it to the northeast. A former Madison Junior High student who was driving east on Rt. 419 in front of Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke added, "It looked like it was falling on Mill Mountain from there." A fellow member of the Virginia Writers Club noted that a friend of hers had seen it from Interstate 81.
Hmmm. It obviously didn't fall nearby. So where did it fall? Another Facebook buddy who now lives in Colorado posted this:
Monday's meteor fell on Lorton, Va. doctors' office
A Washington DC television station is reporting an apparent meteorite fall in Lorton, Va. The space rock, which has been taken to the Smithsonian Institution, crashed through the roof of a doctor's office at around 5:45 p.m. on Monday, narrowly missing patients and staff.
The TV station report is here.
The end of my week was also bright, though in a different way. Friday evening and all day Saturday, several Lake Writers and I went to the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins University. Suffice to say, a good time was had by all and the conference was packed.
I wish I could have attended all the sessions, but I tried to pick ones about topics that were unfamiliar to me. Consequently, even though I've been blogging since 2006, Facebooking for a couple of months, and Tweeting for about a month, I learned about Internet stuff that I didn't know and had wanted to know.
For instance, thanks to Maryke Barber's "Beyond Blogging: Free and Fabulous Online Tools," I now know how the Goggle Reader works, what RSS means ('really simple syndication") and why I should use it, and what a wiki is. One tool I wish I'd know about when I taught English—and which I wish existed when I was a student—is Zotero, which generates both footnotes and a bibliography.
Some of us Lake Writers (who are also members of the Virginia Writers Club) appeared on the self-publishing panel during lunch.
Picture compliments of Dan Smith (left), conference organizer.
I had my self-published book as well as my vanity-published ones available. Thanks to my small press publisher, I also had copies of Ferradiddledumday available—and hot off the press. While Ferradiddledumday won't have its official debut until Tuesday, a handful of folks now have a copy.
For a fuller report from another conference attendee, see this post at Blue Country Magic.
This past week has had several other bright spots, but the meteor sighting and the conference were two of the brightest.
Hope y'all had a good week, too.
~
posted by Becky Mushko | 6:37 PM
1 Comments:
I really enjoyed hearing you on the panel.
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