My speech to the 2016 USA Science and Engineering Festival

On April 17, I was given the great honor and privilege to speak before the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC.

These are my prepared remarks. I mostly stuck to them, and didn’t improvise as much as I usually do, because I was more nervous than usual at this conference. I knew that I had to speak to children, their parents, and their teachers. I hoped that I would inspire them all to keep doing awesome things, and to do more awesome things. I also hoped that some of my remarks would be heard beyond the walls of the conference, because I’m doing my best to make a positive difference in the world.

Please keep in mind that these remarks are written to be read and performed by me, so they are probably not as strong when read as I hope they are when they are heard.

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I’m not terrified to speak to a bunch of college students. You’re terrified to speak to a bunch of college students.

Cincinatti Airport Sunset — This picture does not do the sunset I saw when I landed last night justice.

I’m in Ohio for 24ish hours, because I’m giving a talk at Miami University later today. I’ve given talks at conventions over the years, and some of them have even been successful. I’ve keynoted two PAXes performed at lots of w00tstocks, so speaking to large groups of people is nothing new for me … but this is the first time I’ve actually prepared a talk on a subject, and traveled across the country to give it to a bunch of college students.

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reach the beach

We had five minutes to get back to the ship, and we were at least ten minutes away.

I began making plans to spend at least one night in St. Maarten, while hoping that somehow one of the waves our little boat was racing over would drop us into a wormhole that ended at the pier. Then, I had an idea. “Hey, you can drop us off at that dock which is right next to the pier, right? We don’t need to go to a dock that’s a seven minute walk away, do we?”

“I can try,” the captain said.

Four minutes (which simultaneously felt like forever and also passed much faster than time typically allows) later, the closer dock was in view. It would be close, but we were going to make it. That’s when the little boat we were on veered sharply to port, and began to go toward the other dock.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“See that boat behind us?”

I turned and looked over my shoulder, aft (to use a nautical term), and saw a black Zodiac raft. On that raft were five men dressed all in black. Holding machine guns, which were also painted black. Mounted on the raft was a large machine gun. It was not black, but it was pointed right at us.

“Um…”

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I am no longer on a boat (despite what my inner ear thinks).

One of the primary reasons I got a waterproof point-n-shoot camera was so I could do stupid stuff like this:

HI FISHES I'M A BIG DUMB PRIMATE WANT TO PLAY — HI FISHES I’M A BIG DUMB PRIMATE WANT TO PLAY WAIT COME OUT I CAN’T BREATHE DOWN THERE WHERE ARE YOU GOING

Before I write anything here at all, I need to give an enormous and heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who made stuff and put it here while I was gone. I almost don’t want to write my own dumb stuff, because I’m dragging the curve down. I’m lucky and grateful to know so many awesome and creative people. If you haven’t, yet, go check it out. It’s way better than this thing I’m about to write, I promise.

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I’m on a boat (2016 version)

I’m about to spend the next seven days and twenty-two romantic nights on a boat with about a thousand nerds, and another thousand muggles who won’t know what the hell is going on all around them.

While I’m gone, I don’t plan to get online at all, because boat internet is expensive and slow, and taking a week off from being online is probably good for my mental health. If I’m lucky, I’ll come home with a finished draft of at least one story.

But while I’m away, I’ve lined up some really fantastic guest bloggers to write stuff and share creative things here. It’s probably the best team of interesting people I’ve ever been able to convince to come write here, and I’m really excited to get back from my trip and read what they’ve written.

So please welcome them when they introduce themselves, and don’t forget to be awesome while I’m gone (and all the time, really).