I don’t know how much time or energy this will leave me for blogging. Maybe a lot: after all, I’ll be traveling quite a bit, which means a lot of time on airplanes. But be assured, I will still find no shortage of things to talk about…!

Me: The full rundown is on the Biography page for anyone who’s interested. But the blurb to the right pretty well sums it up. Way back when, I got my physics Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Then, for a variety of reasons mostly having to do with the lack of jobs in physics, I got a master’s in journalism. I’ve been working in that field ever since, and have remained fascinated by science and technology of all kinds—as well as math, engineering, national security, politics, history, film, bicycling and a good deal more besides. My main claims to fame, such as they are, include 10 years as a reporter at Science magazine during the 1980s, plus a couple of reasonably well-received books that I shamelessly advertise just below the blurb.

The Blog: I’ve decided to start blogging for a variety of reasons, none original to me. One, quite frankly, is to advertise myself; when you’re a freelance writer—”self-unemployed,” as the saying goes—you’ve got to make that a priority. Another reason is to see if I can do it; blogging is alleged to be the new face of journalism, and it’s high time I learned how. Old dogs and new tricks, etc. Yet another reason is to have a place where I can think through stories as I’m working on them, and/or talk about interesting aspects that don’t make it into the final article—or even talk about notions that might never see the light of day unless I publish them myself. Hopefully, a few other people will also find those discussions interesting.

The Name: Again, a full explanation is available on the About page, where—fair warning!—I wax poetic about the literal and metaphorical meaning of the word. But the main reason I chose to call the blog “Starclouds” is that I like the word. It’s evocative. It has a nice rhythm when you say it out loud. And if it has a certain dreamy, other-worldly, New-Age-ish quality—well, maybe that’s appropriate, too.

Substantive posts coming soon. First up (probably): a discussion of “Science 2.0″…