Last month I was in Portland, Oregon to give my Death from the Skies! talk for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry as part of their Science Pub series. It was, quite seriously, one of the best audiences ever. They were totally into it - having beer served at the theater probably helped - and almost everyone stayed for the 45 minute Q&A session, and the line to sign books was pretty long as well. I felt like a rock star. One person in the audience was Taylor Hatmaker, who writes for tecca.com. She wrote a wonderful article about the talk called 9 Terrifying But Mostly Awesome Facts About Asteroids We learned from Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait (which was also picked up on Mashable! W00t!), and it makes my cockles warm because she added more info about the facts that weren't in my talk. That means she liked this enough to go out and do more research, which is the coolest thing ever. That's pretty much the best thing a speechifier and science outreacher can ask for. To give you an idea of how much fun I had, photographer D. Scott Frey took a ton of pictures, including this one which is now one of my favorites:
See? I told you I had a great time! And clearly the end of the world can be fun. My thanks to Amanda Thomas, Andrea Middleton, and Scott Frey for all their help and hospitality. If you ever get a chance to visit OMSI, do so! <shameless plug> And if you represent a museum, University, or some other place that hosts talks, and you think I might be a good fit for your audience, then please contact my reps, Samara Lectures. They'll be happy to chat with you about it. </shameless plug>
Related Posts: - Portland, Oregon talk OF DEATH - If the Mayans were right, it was probably about Internet comments - In which I SEE the light - TED x ME
