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I played a lot of #ttrpg in my youth and uni days, starting with D&D but not staying with it long. I spent a lot more time with these systems: FASA Star Trek, Victory Games 007, and #GURPS 2e and 3e. A friend dragged me back into D&D (5e) in 2023, and we use LEGO for minis and maps, because that’s how we roll.

My uni gaming group was a mix of physics majors and comp sci PhD students.

My current group is a mix of #AFoL and model train geeks.

I have also been dabbling in #astrophotography last couple of years, when I have time.

I am also responsible for a meme of sorts at the #BigFinish production offices.

@fizzixrat

responsible for a meme? instant follow

@mpax Torchwood, of course. :) Also Sarah Jane Adventures and even Class.

I did some volunteer work at the uni planetarium and observatory end of undergrad and a few more years. Mrs and I got married in that planetarium, in front of a Zeiss VI. I spent a lot of time there watching the Voyager press conferences and JPL feeds as a lad. (A selling point when I asked about volunteering a few months after the Neptune encounter - they remembered me hanging around answering science questions.)

@fizzixrat Cool. I got to meet the guy that wrote up the material on Neptune. I volunteer at Pine Mountain Observatory, which is part of the Univ. of Oregon. Central Oregon has grown a lot, which is ruining the dark skies.

@mpax Alan Stern was a grad student and postdoc near me when I was an undergrad. He had his eyes on Pluto then. It was fun to see New Horizons come together.

Co-discoverer of the F ring of Saturn was one of my profs and I first met him when I was in high school. Discoverer of the first discovered T rex footprint was also one of my profs too. (Had class with him the day of the press conference.)

Connections to the 2001 Nobel Physics Prize too

@fizzixrat Cool. They're awesome people to know.

@mpax Mrs has some interesting connections as well.

Francis Collins was one of her profs. He left shortly after to run the Human Genome Project and eventually NIH.

Also an interesting childhood connection to the inventor of the blood bank and a weird familial connection to the Unabomber

@fizzixrat Wow. The Unabomber is a scary connection.

@book I used to use clips of one of Garibaldi’s Starfury maneuvers in the classroom, to demonstrate Newton’s Laws in space.