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Stanley Cup Finals

As I have mentioned elsewhere, there tends to be two kinds of fans rooting for their favorite team in the playoffs when that team loses. One type hopes the team they lost to wins the… Stanley Cup Finals

Firefly Is Everywhere

Some blog posts I write are actually written hoping someone will read them, in particular when I discuss technology or sometimes political topics. Some blog posts are random musings on some aspect of entertainment and while… Firefly Is Everywhere

What I Learned From My Birthday This Year

As many of you know my birthday was earlier this week.

Most of the day of my birthday I spent working on responding to discussion posts and grading midterm papers for the graduate class I teach at the University of Maryland University College. During the day I talked to my two wonderful daughters. I spent a weekend with Miriam, joined on Saturday by Ellen, seeing Broadway shows, movies (including Serenity, of course), an improv show, and wandered around New York City; my pre-birthday birthday. This coming Monday I will go with Ellen and my other daughter Tamar to see a jazz saxophonist at Blues Alley, Mindi Abair, my post-birthday birthday.

Of course I also received many Facebook and Linkedin Happy Birthday’s. One in particular stood out from someone I only met once. She worked at the FAA in Oklahoma City. I had lunch with her and a number of other FAA staff there, probably around 2007. She wrote that she had been thinking of me and the fact that I introduced her to Firefly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series), and Serenity, all of which she loved, and noting that if I was interested in watching Nathan Fillion, who played the Captain in both, that he was in Castle (which I was aware of, but appreciated being told). More on this shortly.

What I Learned From My Birthday This Year

Still More Proof That the Bob Newhart Finale Was the Best Ever

So last night was the finale to the TV show, How I Met Your Mother.

As some of you know I only on a regular basis watch four TV ‘shows’ on a regular basis:

  • Hockey games
  • Baseball games (and wasn’t the Nationals season opener something)
  • The Big Bang Theory (as I tell people I was not as smart as they are, but I ate at their lunch table in high school)
  • The Game of Thrones (there is nothing that gratuitous sex and violence will not improve)

Still More Proof That the Bob Newhart Finale Was the Best Ever

Follow Your Passion

I have learned over the years that doing things that you are passionate about is very important.

This was brought home to me earlier this week when I had lunch with a long-time friend of mine who I worked with during my time at Sun Microsystems. We were comparing job experiences and she remarked that every time she took a job purely because of the money that it ended up being a mistake.

Of course, I recognize that acting on that understanding is not always easy.Follow Your Passion

The Big Bang Theory Hearts Firefly

For those who knew me when I was the CIO at the US Department of Transportation, you will know that I held a monthly lunch with a small band of fans of both the TV show Firefly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series), and the movie Serenity, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/serenity/.

For references to this, see the end of the interview I gave for the DotGov Buzz, http://www.usa.gov/Federal_Employees/USA_Buzz/Newsletter_0522.html#dotgovspotlight, and the reference from a column in Federal Computer Week, written by then rising star Chris Dorobek, http://fcw.com/Articles/2007/09/16/Circuit_633659049783559373.aspx.

I even ran into Firefly fans when in China this last summer when we went to see a solar eclipse, https://www.ourownlittlecorner.com/2009/07/21/serenity-on-the-yangtze/.The Big Bang Theory Hearts Firefly

Serenity On The Yangtze

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For those who have come in late to the story, I am a member of what some might call a cult that worships Firefly and Serenity. 

Firefly was a TV show created by Joss Whedon, who among other things was the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which lasted less than one season. It was shown on the Fox Network who evidently weren’t exactly clear on what to do with a quirky, character driven, space western whose principals ran around in a spaceship, used six-shooters, rustled cattle, and whenever feeling strong emotions would rattle off a phrase or two in Chinese. 

The end result is that only 11 of the 14 filmed episodes were ever shown on TV and the show was canceled. 

I never saw Firefly on TV during that season. Serenity On The Yangtze