Who is Dr. Shannon Moon, anyway?

Personal | Professional

Commercial Pilot (Instrument Airplane, Single-Engine Land/Sea, Multi-Engine Land, Glider), Flight Instructor (CFI Airplane & Glider) and Certified Ground Instructor (CGI, Instrument & Advanced). Engineer and Computer Scientist, currently research affective computing to quantify and correlate human emotion and performance levels in flight and flight simulation, as well as working in in the enterprise engineering space.

I am an uber geek that grew up with a main frame in the garage and pre-TSR80 homebuilt computers. For a number of years I worked as a paramedic in EMS services in both rural and metro environments. I enjoy teaching, and have been a certified instructor for AHA Basic Life support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support Courses. In my (not so) copious spare time, I fly fixed wing aircraft (land and sea), sailplanes,  hangliders (no more hangliding) and tinker with my Camaro. I’m also a CMAS certified SCUBA diver. Books are a favorite pastime (I should own stock in amazon.com!) I have raised over a dozen wolves, so it should be no surprise that most of my friends have 4 legs and a tail. I have been a director on the board for the Florida Great Pyrenees Club Rescue, a 501c charitable organization that has rescued over 1200 Great Pyrenees and pyr-mix dogs. When not playing with my furry friends, I am often busy researching the application of affective computing, building mechanical (robotic) ones, tinkering with MAME cabinets, painting Sumi-e, or fiddling around with a half dozen different musical instruments. Jazz drumming is my current musical passion.I am a self professed “Steampunk Girl” and am an avid fan of steampunk engineering and subculture. I informally practice Taoism and Zen Buddhism.

What are some of your hobbies?

Flying! I live to fly! There’s nothing else like it. I fly airplanes, seaplanes, and sailplanes and my hanglider (hangliding is now out of the question following a devastating crash in 2010, and a lingering issues). Leonardo da Vinci said it best; “For once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been, and there you will long to return.”

MMORPGs. Star Wars Galaxies is was my favorite before it shut down (I was a pre-patch 9 Jedi!). (Shen & Vesper on Flurry). I also like World of Warcraft, and used to play City of Heroes/Villains on the Justice and Freedom servers (gone now too, sigh, just like Tabula Rasa, another favorite). Update: Star Wars the Old Republic is my new favorite… I’m on RP servers with the legacy surname name “Shadowolf”. I also have high hopes for Star Citzen, the arena module shows great promise! I was a backer!

Bonsai horticulture. I loved growing and training these beautiful little trees.

Sumi-e. I don’t profess to be a great artist, but I love the simple elegance of this Japanese style of ink painting. I’ve posted a few of my works in my online gallery.

Music. I love music! I love listening to it, and I love playing it on jazz drums, celtic harp, saxophone, classical guitar, electric bass, or synthesizer.

Robotics. I love building autonomous bots to do all sorts of weird things. My favorite platforms are Lejos (for Mindstorms) and IntelliBrain.

Classic Arcade Games. I love the old games like Gorf, Defender, Battlezone, or Tempest. I’ve built several custom MAME cabinets that harken back to the old cocktail tables and classic arcade cabinets.

Juggling. I love to juggle. I am totally fascinated by particles systems, particularly one I create myself. I love to juggle while riding (or maybe that should be crashing!) my unicycle.

 

Tinkering with my my beloved Camaro. I’ve added a custom hood, and performed interior cosmetic mods, as well as both interior lighting mods (custom led trim), and exterior lighting mods (headlight halos, illuminated badging, custom tailights, illuminated wheel caps, “knightrider” style scanner, and more).

Reading. I love books…mainly the Sci-Fi/fantasy genre, but I also love many of the old classics like Hemingway, or old poets like Poe and Frost.

What kinds of pets do you have?

I don’t tend to think of the four-legged critters who share my household as “pets”. To quote Heinlein, I think of them as “junior citizens”. They’re my family, and my friends.

Currently furry family members include several dogs adopted from the Florida Great Pyrenees Club Rescue. In the past I have had friends who were domestic felines, ferrets, cougars, wolves, and wolf-hybrids,

What are some favorite books?

There are so many I don’t know where to begin.

• Tolkien – not just Lord of the Rings, but all of his books, poems, stories, and unfinished tails.
• CS Lewis – Chronicles of Narnia
• Heinlein – almost all of his works, but Starship Troopers and Have Spacesuit Will Travel are my favorites
• Theodore Sturgeon – most of his works; he was a real genius and ahead of his time
• Hemingway – he appeals to the existential in me
• Poe – his work has such great insight into the depths of the human soul
• Glen Cook – The Black Company Series & the Garret Series
• Douglas Adams – all of his stuff, not just the HitchHiker series
• Warp Graphics/Pinis – Elfquest (graphic novels)
• Neal Stevenson – everything, but particularly Diamond Age and Snow Crash

What are some favorite movies?

• Star Wars. The original trilogy touched an entire generation. The prequels…well…at least Return of the Sith was better than the ‘Ewok Christmas Special’. We will not speak of Episode I & II. Update: We REALLY won’t speak of the post-Disney movie abominations. UGH! Just…UGH! .
• Close Encounters
• Lathe of Heaven (but the book was better)
• Green Berets
• The Great Train Robbery
• Battle of Britain
• Always
• Princess Bride
• High Road to China
• Lawerence of Arabia
• The King and I
• Auntie Mame

What kind of music do you like?

I don’t restrict myself to one particular genre. From classical to alternative there is a lot that I like. I do tend towards “angstful” works such as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or Garbage’s #1 Crush. Don’t get me wrong though. I don’t only listen to woeful wailing. I’m also quite a fan of happy Rave, Jazz, Celtic music, and bagpipes. And weird stuff like Kate Bush or Mouse on Mars. Rumor has it that I like Dolly Parton’s music, but if you ask me, I’ll blatantly deny it.

What are some of your favorite poems?

• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
• Anabelle Lee by Edgar Allen Poe
• The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

What are some of your favorite television shows?

• Myth Busters
• Mail Call
• Futurama
• Adult Swim (does this count as a show?)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Xena
• Bill Nuy the Science Guy
• Dead Like Me
• Pushing Daisies – fast paced and funny, I suspect it won’t last! (Update: canceled without warning, sigh)
• Heroes – Super Heroes! Super Villains! Comic Book Prophesy! WHEE!
• Bionic Woman – not high art, but who didn’t like to run in slow motion like Steve Austin when we were little kids?
• Battlestar Galactica – but there better be more space battles and less of this oogy soap opera self-aware artsiness in 2008!
• Life – the nonsense Zen prattle of Detective Cruise amuses the heck out of me!

What’s your favorite color?

Blue! No, yellow! (If you’re not a Monty Python fan, don’t worry about it). Seriously though, I guess black….although technically black is the absence of color…

Do you have geek code?

—–BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK————
Version: 3.1
GAT d- s-:- !a C++++ UI++++ P++ L++
W+++ E— N++ M– V– PS+ Y+ PGP+ t–
5++ X+ R* tv- b++++ D— G h++ r++ x?
——END GEEK CODE BLOCK————–

Why did you answer all these questions?

Why not, lol. Actually, I am not always comfortable talking about myself, and I find it easier to throw this stuff out into cyberspace where hardly anyone looks at it (although I do get a new question posted to me once in a blue moon).

Do you REALLY own a tank?

Ok, how did someone even know to ASK this question? Nope, not anymore.