Doug wrote:
> Next.... 8^)
Julia Thompson, early 30s (can't remember anymore, don't feel like
calculating this morning), living in Austin, TX but to be moving to a
more rural address in the area later this year. (We won't be inside any
corporate limits when we move.) I've been married 10 1/2 years to Dan.
My son Sammy is 8+ months old now. (He was 5 weeks old exactly on our
10th anniversary.) We have 2 dogs, Briana, who is 10, and Miranda, who
will be 8 at the end of March.
I grew up in New England, first outside of Boston, then in southern New
Hampshire. I came to Texas to study at The University of Texas at
Austin in 1987, and never left the Austin area. (I got a BS in
Mathematics, if anyone cares.) The climate and the culture of the
Austin area agree with me better than any other place I've been, so I
plan on staying here.
I'm currently unemployed. (Then again, the baby, the building of the
new house and planning the packing are enough to keep me busy, and I'm
enjoying it all.) My last job was as a bookkeeper at an ISP, for over 4
years. I left that in July 2000.
I like going to SF cons; this year, I plan to go to AggieCon, in College
Station, TX at the end of March; ArmadilloCon, in Austin, in August; and
ConJose, the Worldcon this year, in San Jose over Labor Day weekend. If
anyone else is going to be there and would like to meet me, drop me a
line off-list closer to the con in question. I really enjoy meeting
fellow listmembers. (The last one I got to meet for the first time was
JDG, when I was visiting my sister in DC, in September 2000. I see Adam
now and again, and Marvin more frequently, since both of them are in
Austin and I've known Marvin long enough that he was at my wedding.)
I started reading SF under the influence of my father. He got _The Best
New Thing_ by Isaac Asimov out of the library when I was 5, and while it
wasn't my favorite book at any time, it stuck with me. (My favorite
part was the description of how the boy carefully poured his milk out of
the container, and it just stayed in a ball, floating in zero-gee, and
he'd just suck at it until it was all gone.) He had SF books out where
I could get at them, and once I'd shown interest, he'd recommend
specific titles he thought I'd enjoy. My first Vernor Vinge book was
_The Witling_, and if you just want something short and entertaining,
that's a good one. After he died, I inherited most of the SF books,
since neither my mother nor my sister were interested. Well, my sister
liked some of the fantasy, but when my mother moved 11 years after my
father died, I ended up with some of *that*, as well. _Sundiver_ and
_Startide Rising_ were among the books he left, and that's how I got
into reading Brin.
I like reading non-fiction, especially by scientists, but I haven't had
much time for that lately. I launched into 2 non-fiction books in
August that I haven't finished yet. Maybe after I get through _Kiln
People_, I'll be able to use whatever sort of time I managed to find for
that to finish those. I think my favorite non-fiction writer is Stephen
Jay Gould.
I think that's enough about *me* for now. Anyone else?
Julia
