I'd just like to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU to our glorious leader for coming up to Kendal to give a talk to my astronomical society last Monday night. It was a cracking evening, enjoyed by everyone who attended, and a full write up can be read on my "Cumbrian Sky" blog, a link to which you can find at the bottom of this post as usual.

It was great to have a chance to chat with Doug for a while in Wetherspoons before the talk, over a mixed grill and a burger, and to get some insight into "behind the scenes" at UMSF. And, without getting all "Lassie" here, I have to say that as was the case when I met Doug the first time, when he visited this part of the world last year, I was just amazed at how he genuinely doesn't seem to realise how important and influential a Forum this is, how much we all love being here, and how grateful we are to him for giving us this opportunity to share in this golden age of solar system exploration. But it is... we do... and we are, so cheers Doug.

Sounds fun! When will Dougstock come to LA?

Same rule applies - you pay the travel expenses and I'll be there Kembal, Kentucky, I'm not bothered.

It was a lot of fun - I first gave that talk at Christmas for the BAA, but I re-'wrote' it with Keynote on my MacBook last weekend, and added a few videos to jazz it up a bit. Stu's got a great crowd of enthusiasts up in Kendal, and I have to admit I've never seen someone give the mandatory sky-notes type prequel to the guest speaker with such enthusiasm. A good crowd makes a good talk, so much kudos for Stu for assembling one and putting me infront of it

Doing it all again in York on Friday - http://www.yorkastro.co.uk/

Doug

Well, we gotta talk to Emily about that, then...TPS has deeper pockets then me by several orders of magnitude! I'm sure you'd have a ball giving this presentation at the Griffith Observatory, ideally coinciding with, say, the Phoenix landing. Not sure if they can afford the extra security needed to stop you from escaping to JPL for EDL, though...

Of course Doug would want to visit MSSS down here in San Diego while he was in California.

(And he could visit Shamu, as a bonus)

Hell - got to see the local wildlife, I'm seeing Knut when I go to Berlin