Finally, there’s Adot’s NotBlog, a commentary site written by Asa Dotzler. His views on life, the universe, and everything are all over the map!I also serve Gemini Observatory and Subaru Telescope as writer and editor. If you’re a regular reader of their web pages, or GeminiFocus, you’re seeing some of my work.Happy Day after Solstice! I missed posting yesterday because I was out reveling in the glow of the shortest day/longest night of the year. It’s now officially winter in the northern hemisphere, although it hardly looks wintry here in New England. If you’re in Colorado or any of the other states hit by the big blizzard, you have my condolences about the hardships and my envy that at least you have snow.
Last week I introduced you to a few of my blogrollees. These are folks whose blogs and sites I’ve read and enjoyed, and figured you would, too. Obviously my link to Loch Ness Productions takes you to the place where my husband and I do our main business.

We started out years ago just selling his space music (which he produces under the stage name GEODESIUM). Then we branched out into planetarium show productions, and we’ve been involved in some 40-odd productions over the years. Now we’re branching out again into other productions, such as soundtracks for short astronomy animations and, in a project starting in 2007, we’ll be producing astronomy vodcasts for an observatory.

In addition to that work, I also work out my writing jones by doing writing and editing for a variety of places under my own company (which you can read more about here.) Under those auspices I worked on the Griffith Observatory exhibits as the main writer (see samples at my online Griffith Tour).

Okay, enough about me. Let’s get to some other blogrollees listed on the left. During the recent Weblog Awards competition, I made a note of Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy Blog and asked you to vote for him. The main contender—and eventual winner was
Pharyngula. This is a cool blog for those of you who palpitate over cephalopods. Even if you don’t, you should go check this page out. It’s witty, interesting, often very sharp, and written by PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at University of Minnesota, Morris.

Next, give a look to our friends over at Hubble Space Telescope. All the cosmos is laid out there for you to inspect, and they’ve got image libraries, games for the kids (in all of us), and much more.

Finally, there’s Adot’s NotBlog, a commentary site written by Asa Dotzler. His views on life, the universe, and everything are all over the map!

As you can see, science—and writing about it—can be a lot of fun. Thought-provoking, even. I’ll be adding some more pages to the blogroll over the next few weeks, so keep your eye on the left column during your visits here.

Look down the left side of this blog and you’ll see my Blogroll. Like every other blogger, I can’t resist posting links to places that I like to visit so that you can visit them, too. I thought I’d introduce you to a few of them today, and I’ll work my way through the list over the next few weeks.

Friends of the Observatory is a non-profit group that supports Griffith Observatory. I’ve been under contract to them to work on the Griffith exhibits, and they are a fine group of people to get to know. Membership (at various levels) in the group gets you various goodies, including the chance to spend as much time as you can spare in one of the world’s most beautiful public observatories. You don’t have to live in LA to be a member; the membership hails from far and wide, and each month you get a copy of the world-famous “Griffith Observer” magazine.

BadAstronomy is the page of Phil Plait, the infamous Bad Astronomer. He got started writing his site back in grad school, debunking the silliness of pseudo-science and science poseurs (like the folks who believe in gods on Mars and Planet X and all that other stuff that makes for fascinating reading on Usenet). He also makes legitimate sport of all the bad science we see in movies and on TV. You know the kind: spaceships making sounds in space, Arnold Schwarzenegger breathing CO2 on Mars, that sort of thing. Phil’s in the running for a Weblog Award, so go vote for him here. He’s a great guy, and his head probably won’t swell too much with all this praise I’m heaping on him. Besides, he has a link to me, so that counts for something. And, he’s offering a bribe, er… incentive. If you vote for him, write about it on your blog, and send him the link, he’ll let you post the cool image below on your site.

The third one I’ll write about today is Olduvai George. George is the Indiana Jones-esque pen name for illustrator Carl Buell, whose page I first ran across from a link on another site (isn’t that how we find our best ones?). This guy does the most fantastic natural history illustrations you’ve ever seen. If you (or someone you love) is into ancient animals and enjoys delving back into time to see how animals have evolved throughout history, this blog is the place for you. I’ve learned things there I never learned in geology class (probably because geology focused on rocks and not on animal evolution). This guy is amazing.