Smale Christmas 2012

Regular readers of this annual round-up will know that Alan has been working on a novel called "Eagle and Thunderbird" (or, sometimes, "Clash of Eagles") for the past couple of years. This year he acquired a flashy New York literary agent, and is busy doing some final revisions on the book before they pitch it to US and UK publishers next year. He sold a novella called "The Mongolian Book of the Dead" to Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, which appeared in the October/November double issue. He also sold a horror short story to Weird Tales, and an ancient Roman steampunk werewolf tale (wait, what!?) to an original anthology; these will be out sometime next year.

Despite all this, Alan remained gainfully employed at Goddard Space Flight Center. In addition to serving as Director of the HEASARC (NASA's high energy astrophysics archive) he took on a new role, as Deputy Chief Scientist for the Physics of the Cosmos Program Office. In addition, he published his first lead-authored science paper since returning to Goddard from NASA HQ, on long term variability in black hole binaries. He seems to be a bit busy these days.

Karen continues to work just 4 days per week, allowing her some free time to keep up with house chores and arrange home improvements (more on that later) on her day off. She celebrated (eh?) 25 years at Goddard in January and went to NYC in February to take some work-related web usability and design training. Karen attended a nature photography workshop sponsored by National Geographic in March and participated in an a cappella workshop in July. She joined the Goddard Photo Club this year and has since been elected to the board and has one of her photos on display in a building on campus. While getting a late start on this photo thing, she's trying to make up for it all at once.

Our big trip for the year was a spectacular tour of Peru and the Galapagos. We spent about 5 days in Peru, visiting Machu Picchu, Cusco and the Sacred Valley. Stunning landscapes and a fascinating history and culture there. Then we went to Ecuador and took a 9-day cruise around the Galapagos Islands, where we explored the natural world and got very close to lots of wildlife. (Our birding life lists are much longer now!) We were amazed how unafraid the birds and animals are in the Galapagos, and that we could get close enough that -- had we been allowed to -- we could touch birds and iguanas and sea lions. (And penguins!) In addition we visited Karen's parents in Tucson for a week in March, and took a long weekend hiking and waterfall-spotting in West Virginia. Karen joined Alan on a trip to Chicago for the World Science Fiction Convention (where Alan attended panels and chatted to other authors and Karen split her time between panels and architectural photography), and Alan went solo to Capclave in DC and the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto.

The Chromatics continue to rock out whenever possible. This year we played at the College Park Arts Exchange, Takoma Park Midwinter Festival, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the National Air and Space Museum, Art & Glassworks in Lancaster, PA, and the Brookside Festival of Lights, among others, and a compilation festive CD called "The More the Merrier" that included the Chromatics' rendition of "Star of Wonder" won a Wammie (Washington Area Music Award).

Back home in real life we suffered two power cuts, one caused by the violent Derecho storm in late June that put us out for six days, and the other due to the Frankenstorm (a.k.a. Hurricane Sandy) that nailed us for another two days. More cheerfully we redecorated our foyer, living room and upstairs bathroom and got a replacement water system. Alan's parents visited for two weeks in October, and in addition to a long weekend in New York they got the added bonus of sharing the Frankenstorm power outage with us. Yeah, they'll remember that trip for a while.

Finally, some sad news. In September, Karen's dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Karen was able to visit him for a week at the end of September, just after he started home hospice care. He died in his sleep on Thanksgiving morning and we attended the memorial service for him in Tucson in December.

We wish everyone a Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, and Great New Year.

Alan and Karen