It has been another busy week here in the Nation's Capital for me. I left you last time with promises of astronauts and the First Lady, so I'll pick up there. I wrote about giving a talk to the 'pre-college' students at the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers' national conference last Friday. I appreciated the reference to these teens as 'pre-college' and not as 'high schoolers'. Nuance perhaps, but it was part of a larger message to these youths from SHPE: You CAN finish high school. You WILL go on to college. You CAN pursue a degree in engineering and REALLY achieve.
As a crowning jewel to the conference they had a gala dinner. $75 per adult if you were to buy a ticket. Thankfully for Pia and I, the DOE, well the office which hooked me up with SHPE has a relationship with them and we (DOE) had our own table up front for the dinner and awards ceremony. Pia and I got dressed up best we could and went to attend the gala at which Michelle Obama had been invited to speak. I'm learning the distinction of 'invited' and 'accepted'. She didn't attend but the key note speaker sure made up for it. Jose Hernandez gave a rousing inspirational speech, complete with a 25 minute DVD which he narrated for us. Sr Hernandez just returned from space on 11Sept'09 where he spent 14 days in space, docking with the international space station to resupply and swap crew members. What made the talk even more inspirational was that he is a first generation American, born to Mexican migrant workers. He didn't speak English until he was twelve because, as with many migrants, he attended 3 or 4 schools per year as the family moved around. And yet, even after being denied six times for NASA's astronaut training school after MANY years of preparation, he kept applying. And now he's been to space and back and was able to honestly say to the crowd of hispanic students in the audience, "si, se puede!!".
So I didn't get to see the First Lady last Friday, but I didn't even have to wait for another week to go by to get another opportunity. She was at the DOE today. I knew she was coming and tried to get tickets to get into the auditorium to see her speak. She and Secretary Chu hosted two teams of local middle school kids for a practice round of Science Bowl. (http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/nsb/default.htm) The First Lady was there to promote the Science Bowl as an exemplary program to promote science and education. So I couldn't get in. The SB is put on by the Office of Science, an office with which I have a lot of connection (see last week's post) and even the two other Fellows in that office who WORK on SB couldn't get in, although one got to play the First Lady at the dry run with the middle schoolers before they did the SB practice with the First Lady and Dr. Chu.
I settled on going to the cafeteria to watch it on the big screen, and did that ever pay off. I ate lunch, got a good seat up close to the TVs and was working on my crossword hoping the rumors I'd heard would be true. Indeed, the swarm of Secret Service men and women in our otherwise droll cafeteria and one half being blocked off with a group setting up a diaz and mic made me hopeful. Sure enough, before she was scheduled to go downstairs to the auditorium she made a stop into the cafeteria to give us a few words. She said something about enjoying 'overflow crowds' more than main events sometimes and that got a good cheer. Then, realizing we were all set up to watch her talk on the TVs she cut her comments short and dashed down off the diaz to the crowd where she started at one end and went completely down the line shaking everyone's hand she could reach. She exchanged words with some and looked everyone in the eye. I got to shake the First Lady's hand and share a smile. Way cool. She's tall, elegant, composed and energetic. She's the First Lady!! The whole building was abuzz all afternoon.
Proof? You want proof? While I have photos I took with my cellphone I won't embarrass myself by posting any. It's a small, basic phone and while I new that I had to try to take a photo or two to show Pia, I won't share with the cyberworld. Have you seen photos of the famed Nessie of Loch Ness? Then you've seen my photos of the First Lady. Back lit, crappy phone camera, dark dress, all on a dark background. You get the idea. But shake her hand and share a smile with her I did.
To leave you with today I will share two quick things. One is an Op Ed by Secretary Chu which I found interesting and I hope you will too: http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8238.htm
The second thing is a bit of fun if you have the time. NASA has just launched their free Space Walk video game based on actual shuttle and ISS missions. It is looking pretty cool and I can see being up late tonight trying to do a space walk around the ISS. Enjoy! http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/station_spacewalk_game.html
ciao,
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