"You do not even understand yourself."
Return to the Admiral's Bio
Be seeing you!
-- Michael "The Admiral" Zecca, starfury@eskimo.com
If you want to call them that. :-)
Presented "Inexpensive Magnetometers" as part of the NESTA Earth Science Share-a-Thon at the NSTA Regional, Detroit/Windsor, Oct. 1999.
Presented "Physics on a Budget" at the MSTA Annual Conference, Lansing, Mar. 2000.
Presented "Physics on a Budget" at the MDSTA Annual Conference, Southfield, Nov. 2000.
Attended AP Physics Summer Institute at Ball State University, June 2001.
Attended NASA NEW Urban workshop at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, July 2001.
Will be presenting "Weather Maps for Dummies" at the MDSTA Annual Conference, Southfield, Nov. 2001.
Will probably presenting something about the NEW Urban experience at the MSTA Annual Conference, Detroit, Mar. 2002.
I have been "Tuckerized" and otherwise referred to in several publications in the past few years. In no particular order:
Paul Cornell, who I came to know on rec.arts.drwho, named an alcoholic beverage, "The Admiral's Old Anti-social" (long story), after me in his Doctor Who novel Human Nature, from Virgin Publishing.
Nick Walters used "The Admiral's Old Anti-social" again in his Doctor Who novel The Fall of Yquatine, from BBC Books. I don't know Nick, but he just be a fan of Cornell and the Bernice Summerfield books or something -- the character who ordered the drink noted it was the "favourite drink of a heroine of hers."
Andy Lane named a subatomic particle, the zeccon, after me in Andy Lane's Doctor Who novel Original Sin, from Virgin Publishing. (Zeccons and blumons, named after Jonathan Blum, combine to make icarons.)
Andy again fused together Jonathan Blum and myself to make Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's temporary replacement, Rear Admiral Jonathan Zecca, in the Doctor Who short story "Where the Heart Is" in the short story collection Decalog 2, from Virgin Publishing. (In the original draft of the story, he had an underling named Michael Blum, the complementary fusion of our names, but the character was sacrificed at the beditors' behest.)
I find suspicious the number of references to "The Admiral" in Kate Orman's Doctor Who novel Return of the Living Dad, from Virgin Publishing, even if the admiral referred to is clearly not me. (It's not like I've ever thrilled Kate by quoting her in my .sig or anything. :-)
Check out the Winter 2000 issue of Absolute Magnitude magazine. The cover story is "The Cold Calculations" by Michael A. Burstein (my Evil Twin). It features a spacecraft named Zecca, which also appears in the cover art. Gee, I wonder who that ship was named after?
Andy Lane included the following dedication in The Babylon File (Vol. 1), from Virgin Publishing. Why? I used to supply him with copies of Babylon 5 off the US airwaves, well in advance of their UK airings. When my life got too busy (student teaching, wedding, moving to Michigan), I passed on that duty to the lovely and talented Lee Whiteside, in Arizona.
"To Mike Zecca and Lee Whiteside, and to the mysterious person in HM Customs and Excise who keeps opening the care packages they send me."
Keith Topping acknowledged me in his "Thanks to" list in his Dr. Who novel Devil Goblins from Neptune, from BBC Books. On short notice, I used the Web to track down for him a list of Nixon's Republican opponents for the 1968 Republican Presidential nomination.
Be seeing you!