The Troubadour

Monday, November 18, 2013

Six Amazing Mysteries You Should Know About Our Solar System. The Imaginarium.

Hello Troops,
The Troubadour is a great way to start your week. Tonight you can learn the six mysteries of the solar system and participate in an imagination stretching experience with the Imaginarium. I'm feeling better just for posting it. Imagine how you'll feel after reading it.

Six Mysteries of our Solar System

In this day and age, our species has accomplished several note-worthy feats. We’ve sent human beings into space and touched down on the moon. We’ve been able to visit and probe each and every one of the gas-giants that reside in our solar system, revealing our local neighborhood to be full of many incredible worlds. We’ve even sent two separate probes on their way into interstellar space. An accomplishment that is slightly sullied considering the fact that we’ve even been able to figure out the mass and composition of planets and stars that are hundreds of thousands of light-years away from home. Even with our book of knowledge growing by the second, we would be naive to think we have all the answers, so much still needs to be uncovered about our own back yard. Here, we dive into 6 of the most intriguing mysteries of our solar system... Read More

The Imaginarium
Are you ready to be imaginationally stretched?

They're everywhere and there's no stopping them.

A nursing student was found this letter and gift card in a book she was buying to prep for her nursing exams.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

An Enemy From the Dark Returns. Space and Science News. The Imaginarium.

An Enemy From the Dark to Return!
It's time to finish what I started four years ago.

The Children of Perikoi: Episode Two

An Enemy From the Dark

Hello Troops,
In 2009 I started writing the sequel to my original Space Center mission, The Children of Perikoi. I wrote 12 short chapters before life got hectic and I lost interest. A coupe Friday nights ago, as I was getting the boys on the Discovery Space Center's overnight camp ready for bed, Brandon Wright (camp manager and DSim partner) told me he had found the story while reading old Troubadour posts.
"I finished the 12th chapter and couldn't find the rest. Why did you stop writing? It's an awesome story."
"Writing a mission story like this takes a lot of time," I replied. I was pleased he spoke highly of my roughly edited draft of a mission. "The Children of Perikoi is one of my best stories," I continued. "I wanted to see it all the way to the end, but couldn't find the time or drive to finish. The ending is locked up here," I pointed to my head. "I just have to get it from my head and onto the blog."
Brandon's interest has renewed my determination to make this last push to finish my story about a group of academy cadets who find themselves trapped far from Earth in a bitter battle between alien forces determined to get revenge for what we did to their operations on Perikoi. Remember, the story is in draft form and roughly edited. My ultimate goal is to have this story turned into a simulator mission. This gives many of you aspiring space edventure mission writers an opportunity to see a mission take shape from original draft to final script ready for telling in any one of our many starship simulators throughout Utah County.
Links to the chapters are below. Next week I'll post Chapter 13

Mr. Williamson

P.S. You'll be pleased to know that I used real Space Center staff as characters in this story. You may recognize some of the names.

An Enemy From the Dark: Chapter 1

Chapter 10 Continues. Then Ch. 11

Chapter 12
Chapter 13