“I’m going to call him ‘Buckley’, just like you guys do”, Alex states as we start walking into the Barnes and Nobles in Montrose. Beth explains to him that he needs to call him ‘Mr. Buckley’, and show him some respect since he is the grown-up. Alex grouses a bit, something that he has mastered in his nine short years on this planet, but grudgingly agrees.

We go into the store and up to the Children’s Section, but no Buckley. Beth points across the upper level to an older gentleman with greying hair speaking over in the history section. Crap, with the graying hair, goatee, and sideburns he looks very…well, bookish. The whole ensemble is finished off with a blue sports coat. I feel like I’m going to have to start calling him ‘Mr. Buckley’ now.

Hurrying over, we manage to grab some seats to listen to Buckley talk about being an author, and about his wildly popular Sister’s Grimm Series of books. Alex and I just finished reading through book one the night before (I’d like to take credit for the timing, but it was a complete fluke) and he was incredibly excited about the whole experience. During both the talk and the question and answer session following, Mike speaks about how all his experiences - time on the David Letterman show, working on shows such as The Fairly Odd Parents and Sponge Bob Squarepants (Alex practically exploded at this one), down to working at the nearby Olive Garden - have helped him write.

During the book signing, Alex and Beth go up with a stack of five books (Sisters Grimm - No one can buy just one!) while I spend some time talking to the rest of the Olive Garden refugees that have come to see Mike. There is a post-signing party over in Copley, but we have to get Alex home as he has an early morning baseball game.

I keep glancing over to Alex while I’m talking - he’s definitely excited about this whole visit. And Buckley is so….well, I guess I have to say “smooth”. He’s thoughtful, he’s funny, and people seem to definitely like talking with him and he seems to enjoy the interaction in return. Alex gets all his books signed, and gets a picture (which I’ve put at the start of this post) as well. After the signing winds down - which entails Mike signing his name about 100 more times on stock books to be sold with the little autographed sticker on them, Alex gets a personal review of book three, The Problem Child, from the author.

Ironically enough, I don’t get to say a word to Buckley - I was going to talk to him when Alex was asking him questions, but by the time Alex finished he was off with someone else. No worries, I can always email him later, and I’m sure he’ll be back to Ohio around the time book four hits the shelves.

It’s nice to see a friend achieve success. I have a google alert defined for Buckley (I have a number of more narcissistic alerts setup for various permutations of my name as well), and the bulk of the web pages and posts concerning him are uniformly upbeat and enthusiastic in their praise. My family are fans as well - we’ve sent his books to a friend in San Diego (who ironically enough has a pair of daughters that are eerily similar to the Sisters Grimm in the book) and we’ve suggested the series to parents at football, baseball, and basketball here in Manchester.

Despite the success (and no matter how you slice it, being on the New York Times Bestseller list is a pretty good indication of that success), Mike remains just the way I remember him. Case in point - I told Mike that I was impressed that he had written these books at a wedding last summer, to which he shook his head and replied that I “didn’t need to be impressed”. I don’t need to be, but I am.

Yesterday was Ten Amendments Day, a celebration of - in essence - our constitutional rule of law, unencumbered by religious dogma. Why Ten Amendments Day, you may ask? Well, this day is a counter to the propaganda riddled Ten Commandments Day that is being sponsored by (who else?) fundamentalist Christians. If you want to see their site, go through the Ten Amendments Day site above. First off, it provides detail to the half-truths, out of context quotes, and other garbage that you get on the Commandments site. Secondly, that means I don’t have to link to them.

You see, in their world we need to have more public displays of the Ten Commandments - it’s a way to defend our country. In their words:

With secular humanists waging their attacks at home and the looming threat from the international radical Islam - people of faith become the line of defense - this is the “Wall of Jerusalem”, and you are the watchman God placed.

Ahhh, yes. The Secular Humanist Cabal waging it’s war against people of faith everywhere. Of course, going by their quote above, being a member of an Islamic sect disqualifies you from being part of the “people of faith” clique. The frequent mentions on this site to the “Judeo-Christian” tradition of our country probably disqualifies you if you’re Hindu, Buddhist, Shitoist, or any of the plethora of non-Christian religions. Atheist? Well, you’re right out - probably even below the dreaded Islamic extremists. One other thought occurred to me - is the “Judeo” bit really true or necessary, save as a cheap attempt to show that it’s not a “fundamentalist christians only” club? I haven’t noticed many Jewish activists protesting the removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings or arguing about how we need to have morning Torah readings in our public schools recently.

Not stopping there, they go a bit further and remind us that:

The Ten Commandments and all other references to God, which have served as the moral foundation and anchor of our great country, are systematically being removed from public places. Public displays of the Ten Commandments and other symbols of our faith have been a powerful visual testimony to the fact that the United States of America is “one nation under God.” Their removal from public places shows that those with a secular humanist agenda are intent on destroying the moral heritage of our nation.

If you’re so inclined you can download their antique-parchmentesque “proclamation”, replete ten commandments, American Flags, and a Bald Eagle suitable for signature and framing. Then they urge you to write your Congressman or Senator and have them vote on the “Constitutional Restoration Act” to limit the ability of judges to…well, judge on matters of Church/State Separation.

But don’t take my word for it - view both sites, and do your homework. Research the origin of the Ten Commandments, and the origin of various other rules that were laid down in the Old Testament. Research the assertation that we are “a Christian Nation, founded by Christians”. In essence, think for yourself.

In an odd coincidence, Alex and I were on the National Archives website about a month ago, and I had downloaded scans of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the other amendments. We read some of the text together, and talked about how important these documents - these Charters of Freedom - are. To me, one of the key freedoms is the assurance that our country will not provide any special consideration to a religion or belief. However benign it may seem that way is the first step down the road to theocracy.

Let me close out with a quote by Thomas Jefferson

“It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own”

Alex, Beth, and I have been watching Cosmos together over the past few weeks. Well, to put it a bit more truthfully Alex and I sit on the couch and watch Cosmos while Beth plays her current game of choice on the Zodiac on the futon and listens to the Cosmos.

Why just listen? Her answer is that she loves Dr. Sagan, but he has a very “sing-song type of voice” that just makes her feel sleepy, so she needs something else to occupy her attention. Unfortunately for me, I’m thinking my voice exhibits the same qualities because she often nods off when I’m talking with her as well. So don’t feel so bad, Carl - you have company.

Sharing the same title as this post, the most recent episode we watched covers our planetary neighbor. Carl Sagan looks at Mars, both from a scientific and a historical perspective. He relates the fantastic tales of Mars - the stories of strange races peopling the red planet from Edgar Rice Burroghs, H.G. Wells, and Ray Bradbury. He reviews the case of Percival Lowell who was convinced (wrongly so) that there were canals on Mars which - to him - proved that there was an ancient race desperately trying to keep life in a dying land by taking water from the polar ice caps to the equatorial region. Equally importantly, he traces the ancestry of our robotic and manned space missions back to Robert Goddard who, while reading The War of the Worlds in a tree on October 19, 1899, found a spark of inspiration in the Red planet:

“As I looked toward the fields in the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make something that could rise to the planet Mars. I imagined how this thing, in a small size, would look if sent up from the ground at my feet. I was a different boy when I came down from that tree. For, at last, my life seemed to have some purpose.”

All of the exploration of space - manned and unmanned - can be traced back to these thoughts by a then 17 year-old Goddard. One spark of inspiration.

Alex alternated between rapt attention and complete uninterest - but this no longer bothers me, as it seems my son has this amazing ability to appear completely oblivious to the world around him only to come up with some detailed observation when you try and trip him up by asking a question. As I tell people, it’s one of his many little “gifts”.

Alex asked a number of questions during the show, which I tried to answer as best I could during the commercials. That’s always a difficult time for me - his enthusiasm is sometimes so great he shoots off on wide tangents with every statement. I try and redirect him without quashing his thirst for knowledge. It’s not always easy.

There was a small moment of family humor during this - I was explaining to him about satellites and he asked what the first satellite was. I told him about Sputnik, but he chose to interpret the name as Spudnik which he thought was really, really funny - saying (more than once) “hey, they named it after me. I’m Spud. That’s Spudnik”.

We finished up the night by getting on the computer and reviewing the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars 2K4 website. This is where I saw the effect of the Cosmos episode - Alex spent the entire half hour before bed time watching videos, looking at pictures, and working through the various interactive features they have on the website. We went back and reread this post from the day we went to NASA two years ago and attended a session with some of the MER project scientists. When it was time to go to bed he asked me if we could go out to this site and “explore” (his word, not mine) again.

As I tucked him into bed we talked some more about exploration, rovers, and satellites. His enthusiasm is both boundless and infectious, which got me thinking and looking at his from his perspective.

Right now, we have two robots crawling over Mars exploring the surface of an alien world while other robots orbit and observe the planet. But it’s more than just Mars - New Horizons is speeding off to an encounter with Pluto. Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer are photographing the universe as it was millions upon millions of years ago. The Deep Impact mission provided us with a close up view of the inside of a comet. Stardust has returned material from a comet back to earth for further research. Not to be forgotten, Voyager and Pioneer provided us with our first views of the far reaches of our solar system.

The bulk of this information is available on the internet. The upshot of all of this on a very personal level is this fact: Alex and I are able to walk into my office and - within minutes - call up an array of information that 25 years ago would have been unthinkable to any scientist.

Talk about living in a world where the fantastic has become commonplace.