July has come and gone (in a blur)

Taking advantage of enough frequent flier miles, I booked a week's stay in Los Altos to visit family. Our outings ranged from fireworks on the campus at Stanford to a visit to the Rodin Sculpture Garden to Roaring Camp steam railroad in the mountains toward the Pacific coast. All in all, a very enjoyable time.

The month closed with my daughter and her three children coming to Chicago for a few days. The modern digital astronomy shows at the Adler Planetarium kept us intrigued for a full day. Not zipping through the galleries as I have sometimes done previously, I noticed that the solar observatory on the grounds is operational and quite a neat addition to the gallery filled with large photos of astronomical entities and explanations of same.

That visit unexpectedly became a connection to a panel I heard while attending the Yearly Kos Convention at McCormick Place. Dr Sean Carroll presented a marvelous tale of the universe's composition - 5% the universe we know, 25% black matter, 70% black energy. (Hope I have these in the correct order.) This talk provided 1/3 of the content on the Scienceblog panel, which also included a speaker on defeating school boards whose members subscribe to extremist positions of teaching abstinence until marriage and creationism alongside evolution. Then I attended a Global Warming panel which opened up new avenues for sharing information, becoming informed, and even more active in ways that make a difference.

It seems the Kos name was a matter of convenience when the first convention was held last year. The next one will be called Network Nation. Being held where I could commute in daily made this one doable for me. Being able to see and hear seven Democratic candidates was definitely a draw. On top of that, I registered early enough so that I was seated in Obama's small group session. The Q&A was excellent.

That excitement carried me into August, and a return to Civil War reading.