When I was in elementary school, one of my teachers gave me a very special treat. When the Virginia Education Association had its annual convention in Richmond, all the teachers at my school went to the meeting and the students got the day off. I don’t know what went on during the day, but they had special guest speakers during the evening — during the year in question, the guest speaker was Werner von Braun. My teacher knew that I was a space buff, and she invited me to come along and hear Dr. von Braun. I don’t remember what he said, but I remember being thrilled to have been able to hear him.

Today was also a very special treat. Bruce Melnick, Boeing’s VP for Florida Operations, gave a colloquium at the Almaden Research Auditorium, titled “What it’s like to fly in space”. Before joining Boeing, Melnick was an astronaut, and flew two Shuttle missions, STS-41 and STS-49. He shared some photos he’d taken on the messions (mostly STS-49), and just talked with us about what it’s like to fly in space.

Most of the time, when I go to a presentation at IBM, there’s a constant background noise — the pitter-patter of little fingers on Thinkpad keyboards. Not today. He held the audience’s attention, well past the time we were supposed to break. I wish I’d taken notes — but I was too wrapped up in the pictures and the talk.

It was one of the best hours I’ve ever spent at IBM.

I listened for a very short time and was struck by two things:

1) The style of music doesn’t appeal to me

2) The message, which doesn’t interest me, is extremely strong

This combination of ingredients sent me on my way very quickly, with no desire to return.

I tuned into X Country late Thursday night, about 9:10pm Pacific time. After listening for a few minutes, I expected to have about the same opinion of it as I had had of The Groove on Wednesday — blah. But I wanted to give it a fair shot, so I kept listening, and the more I listened, the more I enjoyed it. There were some songs I didn’t like at all, but they were more than balanced by the ones I liked, and I was also surprised to recognize a few songs.

Then Rogue Calls ended, and Cross Kin X began, and I really started to enjoy the music. I wouldn’t have expected to hear Rod Stewart’s “Mandolin Wind” on a country channel, but there it was. And it was surrounded by other, less familiar, tunes, most of which I liked.

The channel page leads me to believe that the music varies a lot from hour to hour here, unlike some channels, so other hours might have left me with a very different impression, but I enjoyed what I heard and will happily stop by again.

The Groove plays “R&B” headliners from the 70s, 80s and beyond — which is later than the period I listened to R&B music to any extent. So nothing I heard was particularly familiar. And nothing I heard did much for me. But on the other hand, nothing I heard offended me, either.

I doubt I’ll be back.

When I looked at the Fred page, I didn’t have high hopes for my visit there. But when I tuned in late on Tuesday, I caught the “One Revolution” show, with music from 1982, and I really enjoyed it. I even recognized several of the songs, much to my surprise.

I don’t know if the 90 minutes of programming I listened to is typical or not, but I’m willing to come back and find out!