Here are a variety of photos from our trip to Juneau.

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As part of the new website, SFWA will offer a “Featured Book” slot on
the front page. This will rotate books from Active SFWA members with a
release scheduled for the current calendar month.

In order to populate the list initially, any Active SFWA member with a
book coming out in the next three months or a book released in the
last six months may submit the ISBN, a 25-word blurb and the release
date to featuredbook@sfwa.org.

This morning, we had near white out conditions. This evening? Just a different kind of beautiful.

So, on this first work day of spring we get … A few inches of snow. A bit more a the house but I was in a hurry so I neglected to snap a photo.

In case you are wondering, no, this is not unusual. A few years ago we had snow on the ground in June. Usually though the first of May is the last for snow until the fall.

Today, NASA officially declared the Phoenix lander dead as the Martian winter sets in. By all accounts, the Phoenix mission was a tremendous success, completing scientific missions on 149 of its 152 days active on the Martian surface.

While it is possible that the thaw in spring might revive the Phoenix, it is doubtful as the Martian winters are very harsh and “…the temperatures here will drop to -180F, low enough to destroy circuit boards and crack my solar arrays,” wrote the human voice of the Phoenix lander in a guest blogging stint over at Gizmodo.

As I’ve read the various articles about these last days this evening, a line or two from a recent song popped into my head:

This was a triumph.
I’m making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS.
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.

“Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton

The last Twitter message today from the human voice of Phoenix was simply

01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000       <3

which is binary for “Triumph”, except for the emoticon heart at the end.

Exactly.

The white puff is apparently a fire starting at the base of the Oquirrh Mountains at about 2:05 pm, July 27, 2007.