[Lao American Writers Summit] Getting There, Seattle 2017

We’re all excited about going to Seattle for the 4th National Lao American Writers Summit. But as we’ve all learned over the past 6 years, it’s very handy to have an understanding of how expensive your plane ticket might be. To help you and your friends budget, here are recent figures that represent our best guess of how much tickets might be from key cities you’re departing from, if you buy it within the 54 day window from Thursday to Sunday.

We're calculating it this way because a recent study suggests that 54 days before takeoff is, on average, when domestic airline tickets are at their absolute lowest price. Ideally, if it's not possible to book it 54 days in advance, shoot for something between 112 to 21 days before your trip. This is within the “prime booking window” for the lowest prices.

These prices are not official, but drawn from the average for most airlines. If you find a price that’s even lower, go ahead and snatch it up, but this is your typical ideal target for a roundtrip fare. See if the Lao American Writers Summit is in the cards for you this year!

Minneapolis: $340
San Diego: $194
San Francisco: $200
Anchorage: $203
Atlanta: $317
Boston: $260
Chicago: $300
Columbus: $379
Denver: $150
Des Moines: $368
Detroit: $306
Fresno: $226
Milwaukee: $330
Las Vegas: $175
Miami: $400
Missoula: $233
Nashville: $300
New Jersey: $340
New Orleans: $342
New York: $300
Philadelphia: $360
Phoenix: $200
Portland: $169
Providence: $450
Raleigh: $290
Tampa: $360

We hope you can join us!

Ichthyovenator: The Sail-Backed Fish Hunter of Laos

I thought I'd covered this a while back, but in 2012 in Laos, they found the fossils of a new variation of a Spinosaurus. Paleontologist Ronan Allain and his co-authors described the partial skeleton of their find the journal Naturwissenschaften.

According to the Smithsonian, "The dinosaur, named Ichthyovenator laosensis, appears to be the first definite spinosaur known from Asia. (A few probable spinosaur teeth have been uncovered, hinting that there are skeletons still waiting to be found.) Exactly how long ago this dinosaur roamed Laos is unclear. While Ichthyovenator was discovered in Early Cretaceous rock, the deposits could be anywhere from about 125 to 112 million years old."

Hopefully it won't be too long before we make additional discoveries that can give us insights into the strange and wondrous world of such creatures. The dinosaurs of Southeast Asia are just only starting to be understood, although it seems increasingly unlikely we'll discover a living specimen. But then again, you never know.

[Roadtrip] Robolights of Palm Spring!

As a speculative poet, you learn to expect you're going to run into a lot of strange things out there in the world, especially out in California which more than earns its reputation in many corners, but especially Southern California.

Earlier this year while attending Comic Con Palm Springs, I had a few hours before registration and found myself face to face with the famous Robolights display created by artist Kenny Hassan Irwin. He began this project some 30 years in 1986. I can all but guarantee you will have never seen anything like this, especially during the holiday season.

This is officially "the Largest Residential Light Display In The US" with more than seven million lights as of 2008, it is known as the most unique light show found anywhere.

It works on the question, "what happens when combine Santa Claus and Robots?" It's a trippy, subversive experience open to the public, and while I might question 'family-friendly' I certainly can't deny the enormous amount of effort that's gone into this spectacle. There are some four acres of these robots, some 230 in all by a recent estimate.

You can encounter everything from rocketsleds to aliens and other examples of assemblage art that weigh approximately a kiloton from his family's business and neighbors donating junk to him that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill. It's all easily as impressive as Tio's Tacos in Riverside.

ROBOLIGHTS is open to the public from Thanksgiving 2012 to January 9th 2013 4:30-9:00PM every single day, including holidays and rainy days. You can also arrange for private tours, and if you enjoy the macabre, the humorous, the festive, then this is worth a stop. You can see more examples at my flickr album, but really, you have to walk among everything to get a full sense of this wondrous installation. You can find it at 1077 E. Granvia Valmonte, Palm Springs, CA.

I think it's a space that's tremendously conducive for a speculative poet's imagination of what we recycle, what we salvage and automate, what we reclaim and combine. Where is our future going, and what does the junk of our past say about us?

Ziggy Stardust Snake among 163 new species discovered in Golden Triangle

"Biologists working in the Greater Mekong area have identified a staggering 163 new species, including a horned lizard, a rainbow-headed snake dubbed “Ziggy Stardust,” and a newt that looks like a Klingon from Star Trek."

The “Ziggy Stardust” snake bears the rainbow-like patterns of its namesake and was discovered in Laos.A distinctive gecko with pale blue spotted skin and piercing dark eyes was found in Laos. "Because of the incredibly high diversity of the gecko family, it took sophisticated DNA analysis to differentiate this individual as a new species." It's now known as the Bonkowski gecko.

In total, the WWF found 20 new species in Laos including 5 types of gecko, one snake, and 14 plants. The gecko types include Gekko aaronbaueri, Gekko bonkowskii, Gekko sengchanthavongi, Gekko boehmei, and Cyrtodactylus soudthichaki.