Last weekend, Friday and Saturday, I finally got out of the house after two months to attend the annual symposium 100 Year Starship (100YSS.org) funded by DARPA here in Houston. For the past three years I've been able to hobnob with astronauts, TV stars, scientists, educators, crackpots, and other authors like myself discussing approaches to going to the stars within 100 years.

After that, I had a number of things to do, including getting my high-tech van repaired, and found that it needed a tuneup. Got that accomplished yesterday, but had to ride back and forth from the shop in my wheelchair on very rough sidewalk for a mile until I was sitting improperly in the chair and developed heel pain before I was able to get out of the wheelchair in the evening and into my old one that is much more comfortable and maneuverable.

As a result, I couldn't sleep last night with leg cramps and spasms that kept me up. One of the times my helper was up to help me turn, she noticed what she thought was a loud party next door. A couple of minutes later, she looked out the window in that direction and yelled, "Fire!" She was very frightened by what she saw, but managed to get me out of bed and into my wheelchair. Before I left my bedroom there was a loud knocking on the front door and the police were there telling us to leave.

As I left my garage door past my very expensive van, I was hit by the sound, smell, and heat of the house fully engulfed two doors down from mine. There were several small explosions and the flames were about 40 feet high throughout the entire house, lighting up the whole street with people scrambling for their cars and officers standing everywhere. A van in front of that house caught fire and its gas tank exploded later. There were no fire trucks in sight.

My helper  had grabbed my briefcase with important papers and drove her car down the street out of the way while we waited for the fire trucks to come. It was another 10 minutes and the house was completely gone when four fire trucks arrived. It was another half hour before we were allowed to return to the house, thankful that we were spared from losing everything to fire. Our next-door neighbors' house was scorched, but their new cars and belongings probably are okay in spite of the tremendous heat from that fire.

I'm grateful for being back on the Den writing this today rather than in a hotel trying to figure out how I could get everything back like I've known some friends and relatives to have had to do.

Ron