Good Morning Internet

(Photo credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers)

I started writ­ing about the NASA Tweetup nearly a dozen times now. I’m hav­ing trou­ble encap­su­lat­ing exactly how pro­found of an expe­ri­ence it was, maybe because I’m still wrap­ping my head around it.

In the weeks lead­ing up, a group of very orga­nized peo­ple coor­di­nated the rental of a vaca­tion house, which we dubbed the Big House. The enthu­si­asm peo­ple had in the Google group and on Twit­ter was infec­tious. I didn’t know any­one, but I was excited to dive in and meet them. Within a mat­ter of hours of arriv­ing, we were fam­ily. These are new friends I will keep for the rest of my life.

At Kennedy Space Cen­ter, we saw things that aren’t nor­mally avail­able to the pub­lic. The launch was delayed mul­ti­ple times, and then even­tu­ally scrubbed, but Stephanie Schier­holz, the tweetup orga­nizer and our per­sonal superhero/rockstar, coor­di­nated extra activ­i­ties and more unfor­get­table moments than we could have dreamed. What was orig­i­nally a three-day trip was extended into a week-long expe­ri­ence that, for lack of a bet­ter term, changed my life. We saw the inside of the Vehi­cle Assem­bly Build­ing. We vis­ited the launch­pad at sun­set. We explored the Kennedy Space Cen­ter vis­i­tor cen­ter at leisure and rode the Shut­tle Launch Expe­ri­ence mul­ti­ple times. At the Big House, we stayed up late, forged new rela­tion­ships, played music, laughed harder than any of us had laughed in a long time, ate, drank, and basked in the pres­ence of some of the most cre­ative, smart, fas­ci­nat­ing peo­ple I had ever met.

I am work­ing on a much longer post about the whole week, but in the mean­time, my friends Raam and Tal­lu­lah both wrote incred­i­bly stir­ring pieces that express the spirit of the expe­ri­ence much bet­ter than I can right now. It’s absolutely required read­ing. We also had no short­age of pho­tog­ra­phers on hand, so be sure to check out my Flickr set as well as the tweetup group.

As of right now, NASA plans to launch Dis­cov­ery no ear­lier than 2:52 a.m. on Decem­ber 3. Stephanie informed us that our badges will allow us into the press area dur­ing this new launch win­dow. (See? She’s still our super­hero.) So, pre­sented with this aston­ish­ing oppor­tu­nity, I will head back down to the Space Coast next week. There’s no way I could miss this.

Related Posts:

• Thanks, Mom and Dad, for intro­duc­ing me to space
• 13 days until the NASA tweetup
• The year of adven­ture continues
• Video of this morning’s win­ter sol­stice lunar eclipse
• Per­seid Fail

2009 was kind of a rough year for every­one. The econ­omy did a swan-dive into an empty pool and a lot of us lost our jobs.

This year, I declared, would be dif­fer­ent. While watch­ing Olympic hockey and a space shut­tle land­ing (I’m a mul­ti­tasker), I could tell this year would be filled with adven­tures. And wow, yes, it sure has. It’s been bet­ter than I had imag­ined, and I feel so lucky to have had so many expe­ri­ences this year. A quick ver­bal montage:

• Sur­vived the snowpocalypse
• Played a reunion show with Three Track Mind
• Turned 30
• Went to South by Southwest
• Saw the final (sched­uled) launch of Space Shut­tle Atlantis
• Went to MaxFunCon
• Quit an unful­fill­ing job
• Watched the World Cup
• Watched fire­works from my roof
• Met Tom Green
• Found an amaz­ing new job
• Started my sec­ond year of grad school

And now it’s Octo­ber. It’s autumn, my favorite sea­son, and I still have a few adven­tures before the year wraps up. Next week­end, I’m bik­ing 100 kilo­me­ters in the Seag­ull Cen­tury. In Novem­ber, I’m one of the lucky ones going to the NASA Tweetup for Space Shut­tle Discovery’s last trip to space. (That’s right: Two shut­tle launches in one year!) A week later I get to see my all-time favorite band, The Posies, play in DC. And then it’s the holidays.

I feel so incred­i­bly lucky. As I write this, I’m sit­ting at the same table where I was back in Feb­ru­ary, day­dream­ing about all these adven­tures. I couldn’t be hap­pier with how every­thing turned out. 2010 has been filled with expe­ri­ences, friends, and fam­ily I wouldn’t trade for anything.

What was your favorite adven­ture of 2010? How do you plan on top­ping it in 2011?

Related Posts:

• STS-133 NASA Tweetup
• I’m lead­ing a panel at SXSW Interactive!
• The Posies at the 9:30 Club
• Thanks, Mom and Dad, for intro­duc­ing me to space
• 13 days until the NASA tweetup