Hi All.

First off this is my first ever YahooGroup. And it hurts. I'll be
sore for a month. * See more of this below

So why am i here? After recently reconnecting with heros from my
younger days (Carl Sagan, David Suzuki) i had a chance to meet James
Burke and Dr. Suzuki. Carl is long dead but his student protege was on
a maillist i ran about a decade ago. I plan on visiting his grave in
LakeView cemetery in Ithaca this spring. James Burke is up there in my
pantheon with Sagan and Suzuki, but sometimes we forget the people who
affected us. Luckily meeting Suzuki got me thinking about other
influences like James Burke.

Which leads me to tonight's lecture/meeting at SUNY Oswego. Yes,
there was a *lot* of snow. ;-)

I thought James was far far more affable than Suzuki was, though i
think Suzuki is far more realistic about the future of life on earth.
James seems to try to avoid direct political commentary but Suzuki
dives right in. I get the impression that James is not a fan of the
Bush administration. Suzuki clearly isn't.

You're all wondering by now: Does it really feel good to be James
Burke? I asked James about the song and animation "Damn It Feels Good
To Be James Burke" and he said that somebody had recently directed him
to it. He seemed amused by it, so i'm guessing this means that it IS
good to be James Burke. :-) He wasn't sure exactly which song it was
based on so i filled him in.

James is tall. He also looks good after all these years. Better
than expected. He also seems good natured, which of course means
that he's probably scary when he's angry ;-)

James was my very first autograph. I try not to go for the celeb
crap, but I couldn't resist. I had him sign my HP laptop. He was more
than agreeable, which is nice since i didn't buy any of the books or
CD/DVDs he was selling. I did however give him a copy of two
wonderful documentaries:

Earthlings
Peaceable Kingdom

Over the last weekend i started talking to a Burke fan (Steve) on
YouTube and it turns out he was going to come all the way from
Pennsylvania to see James speak tonight. At the autograph-table line
I spotted Steve and we started talking. I took pics of him with James
and he got several of me.

If I can stand any more of this Yahoo interface crapware stuff, i'll
upload the fresh pics. Yahoo didn't even record my profile right, so
who knows what it will do with any pics.

During the lecture, it was very much like watching his shows, but no
reenactments. He also moves at a pace that taxes most American
brains. I took a few pictures during the lecture as well.

If you watch the Palmer site, you can see his speaking engagements and
plan for them.



* I think YahooGroups are an abomination and an affront to usenet
newsgroups and only serve to balkanize the internet. And the interface
is just as bad as i feared it might be. WTF?