It Really IS Rocket Science: Surfing With The Alien: Surfing With the Alien

Brad Branham skipped away from a long career in engineering and software on NASA projects, defense contracting, and scientific pursuits. He enjoys writing slice-of-life adventures. The settings may be rock’n’roll, fantasy, science-fiction, or other unusual locales but people and their antics are what fundamentally make a story entertaining. In between writing spells, he spends his time on gaming, plinking bass guitar, random software contracts, reconfiguring computers and networks, and random shiny things that get his attention. Brad got his B.S. in electrical engineering at Rice University in 1981, knows just enough Japanese to get into serious trouble, and has some college Russian and high school German under his hood. He has had an eclectic career ranging from actual rocket science to neurological research support and even was the Network Wizard at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) for a few years. ＂I get asked about my hair versus my career a lot. I’ve worn my hair pretty much this way since the late 1970s. Sometimes a bit shorter, sometimes longer. It never seemed to bother anyone at the Department of Defense or anyone who actually mattered. I was recently amused by some elderly uncivilized twit in a parking lot who called me a ＂hippie＂ after I said hello to his dog. He was the right age to be same type of guy who called me that in 1979. The hateful little sods never got over the improved freedom of society I guess - and they never figured out the difference between hippies and the descendents of Vikings and other marauders either. Turns out I’m nearly 70% Scandinavian by DNA (despite my name being Irish in scope), so my construction of chain-mail and ownership of swords, axes, shields, and helmets was my inner DNA talking;) ＂