Not long ago, I received an email from the Mount St. Helens Institute saying they were going to be posting my Prelude to a Catastrophe series as their Holiday Reading series, by way of trying to get to 2013 likes by 2013, and would I be at all interested in helping? And I was both flattered and interested in helping, so I plugged them a bit on Facebook, and was prepared to do a big push here and at Rosetta Stones if they needed a further plug, but it appears congratulations are in order instead:
Congratulations, my darlings, you did it!
So that seems like the right geology-related picture to end 2012 with. It’s been a hell of a year, one in which I went from amateur science writer to really-real science writer who can introduce self by saying, “I blog for Scientific American” – I think I’m saying that without blushing, mumbling, and looking away now. It’s been a year in which I got published in a really-real paper book. It’s been a year in which I’ve gotten to know Mount St. Helens more intimately than expected, and discovered that people will go the distance with you as you engage in a marathon series. It pops up in the oddest places at the oddest moments, like that moment when MSHI told me they’d picked it to help them get to 2013. And that feels good, to have written things that people like, and find useful.
We’re not half done yet. And there’s so much more. There’s so much more to see, and do, and show you, and I can hardly wait. 2013 will be a good year for geology, my darlings. And it’s all because of you. Without you, there would be no such thing as ETEV on FtB, or Rosetta Stones, or Prelude to a Catastrophe/The Cataclysm, or the power to help MSHI make it to 2013. Without you, I’d still be doing geology, but I’d have no one to show it to. No one who would ooo and awww(e) and ask for more. Certainly no one who would ask questions that get me started on finding out new and interesting things. Certainly no one who would teach me more than I ever thought I could learn.
So, if you haven’t yet, and you’ve got a Facebook account and you wouldn’t mind, go like the Mount St Helens Institute so they can go further than they ever dreamed. Pour yourself a toast, and drink to your awesomeness. And come along with me into this new year, during which we will go so much further than we ever have before.