I do read a LOT of science fiction...

And it's probably why I find this kind of thing so interesting, but it is still amazing how this Grade 12 student won in his age category for an annual NASA competition to design a space colony. His actual design is here - complete not only with tech specs, but proposed education, taxation, government systems as well. And even better, he used free Google software to do most of the sketches.

Conceptually, that's pretty impressive, especially for a 17-year-old.

I know most of the "space exploration" stuff has fizzled out in favour of us taking care of this planet, though we're still doing a lousy job at that. But projects like this -- in relatively close orbit, set up for specific tasks - may be feasible and even necessary someday. Who knows?

coming up next month

Since I've always liked things like food and paying my phone bill, I'm doing heart tests in Toronto for a month (as part of a longer program training me to do a lot of heart tests in a lot of places).

Because of this, I'm commuting via the GO Train - possibly even the convenient new 7:17 one.

And.... this is great! here's why:

1. great location: I'm not going to Windsor or Ottawa for a month - that's a big relief.

2. great walking: I get to walk on both ends of the commute - walking places is one of my favorite things to do, and right now I only get to a few days a week.

3. great use of time: I have one uninterrupted hour in the morning and one in the evening on the train to/from work. Instead of pulling together scraps of my time, late nights and one afternoon. essentially, I'm getting two more usable hours in each day to work instead of giving up time to commute. And I'll have the time to fulfill my priorities because of it, in an environment I have to stay in one place and focus on what I'm doing. That's a big win for me.

4. great opportunity: I can see people I haven't in months or years; return to places I used to frequent, pick up things I can't get here (Burrito Boyz!) and learn from a great teaching hospital in an area i know - and then come home every day!

5. great time frame: it's one month. so whether it turns out to be an excellent month or not, it makes a good test run. And it lets me know if I could do this again in the future without compromising my job here - maybe even improving it, or if it's something I really could only do part-time.

Yep, pretty great so far.

I also go for this training at the end of this month -- I missed the opportunity to do it last year, so I'm glad I can do it now. It may seem too pre-programmed to some, or too much of a "one-size-fits-all" (well, "four-sizes-fit-all" really) way to go about doing premarital counselling, but I've seen it used successfully by so many people of different ages and affiliations, I think it'll be worth it to have those tools.