Last night I presented the annual Stolee Lecture to an audience of about 60 BVU students, faculty, and staff. When I saw the beautiful video projection set-up they had, I asked the audience if they’d rather see slides of my trip to Mars, or hear me read a story as originally scheduled. They voted overwhelmingly for the Mars talk, so Mars it was.

Iowa people are quiet, polite people. They didn’t react a lot, or ask a lot of questions, but I’m told the talk was well received.

After the talk I wrote 1630 more words on the steampunkish story. It now stands at 7003 words and still isn’t quite done, which is unfortunate as I was asked for 3000-5000 words. Once it’s finished I will see how much I can cut, and then I will probably have to beg the editor’s forgiveness for going over. We will see.

Woke up this morning to snow. Two or three inches of wet, slushy stuff, still coming down, and a hard cold wind. I am assured this will not affect my ability to get to the airport. I really hope it doesn’t cause any problems, because I’m tired and I’m lonely and I want to go home and see my sweetie.