On
Thursday, after my sightseeing yesterday, I visited the Museum of Science and
Industry in Chicago.
Their
most picturesque exhibit is on solar energy, in the form of light coming down
from the ceiling to photocells. It’s in
the center of the picture, between a couple balloons on the lower left and an
artificial tornado on the right:
Their
standout exhibit is the captured German U-Boat, the U-505:
At
Worldcon itself, the conference room door was locked for one of the
sessions. Mary Robinette Kowal took
charge and had the speakers stand against a wall as the rest of us gathered
‘round:
Mary is third from the right
She’s
the person who gave me a professional lesson on how to do a public reading,
back at Norwescon.
My
favorite author, John Hemry (who also writes as Jack Campbell), gave a reading
later on. To my horror, he read a short
story that serves as a lost chapter to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. I
didn’t get a chance to tell him I’m doing my own mashup of the same novel, and
that it bears no resemblance to his.
I’ll have to tell him tomorrow (Friday).
In
the evening, I was among one thousand, three hundred and sixty Worldcon guests
went to the Adler Planetarium, on the shore of Lake Michigan:
They
have many educational exhibits, but out back is an actual observatory, where I
peered through their powerful telescope at the moon:
This
is real science! Then I had to get some
sleep for tomorrow’s sessions.
What a busy couple of days. Did you get a chance to speak to John Hemry?
ReplyDeleteI'm jealous you got to go to the museum and Worldcon. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteNeat on the observatory, too. How big was their telescope?
Sorry, M Pax, I didn't get the stats on the telescope. I should have remembered you would be interested in that.
ReplyDeleteEllie, I should post on Friday about my meeting with John Hemry.