I get to go be a writer for a week.  When you’re balancing hats like I am (CIO/writer/futurist), getting a bit of a break to be any one of them alone for a week is a fine and rare treat.  I will be on the coast in Lincoln City, Oregon, with the dog, a pile of writer friends and teachers, and a few too many tourists.  I’ll alternately work-shop and hide out.

Also of note for anyone around the Portland area, next Monday night (July 13th), I’ll be at Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing at a book launch event for the Footprints anthology, edited by Hadley Rille Books.  While I’ll be sorry to leave my nest at the beach for half a day (there’s that multiple hat thing even inside every job), I’m really looking forward to this launch, which is timed to be near the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing.  For more events, see the NASA website.

This is a historical event that’s worth commemorating.  While I agree with the common sentiment that many of us expected to see the first lunar landing, most of did not also think it would the last on in our lifetimes.  I hope it’s not.  I actually have high hopes for space in the coming decades.  Perhaps all the work we’re doing to change energy usage will result in a better way out of the gravity well.  Or on the less positive side, climate change may drive us to be sure we have different options (although that is NOT something I wish for).  Spaceflight is kind of like jet packs and undersea domes – harder than we thought it would be.  But I still think we’ll get there.

We’re already in the midst of the celebration, which started July 1st.  So sometime between now and July 24th, stop and look up at the moon, and imagine taking a walk on her.  And if you’re in the area, drop by Powell’s.