Isaac Asimov died 34 years ago today. 30 years ago today, inspired by Asimov's lifelong habit of keeping a diary, I started my own diary habit, one that continues today. I woke up this morning and headed into my office, looking at the shelf of reference books beside my desk. In addition to half a dozen dictionaries and other reference book, there are 43 notebooks of various kids representing my handwritten diaries going back to April 6, 1996.
I pulled out the very first diary, an Avery Record Book which I got in an office supply store in Sherman Oaks, California. It's a slim volume because I was counting my pennies back then. I turned to the first page and read what I had written.
The very first thing I mentioned in that first entry was that I had finished read I. Asimov, Isaac Asimov's posthumously published memoir (a retrospective follow up to his massive 1980 double-volume autobiography). This was my 3rd time reading the book. I also mentioned starting to read Robert Heinlein's Double Star, which it turned became one of my favorite Heinlein books. I mentioned seeing the movie Babe. And I concluded the entry with a renewed desire to write science fiction stories and, someday, see them published.
I have been working slowly over the last year or so to transcribe and digitize these diaries as part of my personal digital archive. The archive now contains digitized schoolwork and artwork going back to kindergarten, and email going back to October 18, 1994—even before my diary. Indeed, as of the this morning, the archive contains more than a quarter of a million messages. By the time my diary is fully digitized, I'd expect there to be about 10,000 entires. I also have more than 7,000 blog posts archived there a well, making the archive a comprehensive collection of my output during my lifetime.
There is another coincidence today: The Artemis II / Orion spacecraft and crew will surpass Apollo 13's distance record from Earth later today, and head behind the moon, the first time humans have done so in 54 years. I've been following the mission assiduously, and I can't help but think that Isaac Asimov would have been delighted by this mission. Even more incredible than 30 years of diary entries is that fact that once again, we've gone to the moon.
