{"id":327,"date":"2014-12-22T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T17:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/?p=327"},"modified":"2014-12-17T20:46:07","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T01:46:07","slug":"my-favorite-book-lighter-than-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2014\/12\/22\/my-favorite-book-lighter-than-air\/","title":{"rendered":"My Favorite Book: Lighter Than Air"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lighter<\/a>
Lighter Than Air<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On one of my California trips, I visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where they had a sample of aerogel on display.\u00a0 This substance is like Jello with all the moisture pulled out of it, leaving a stiff solid that is mostly air. It is very light. I speculated about what it would take to go the next step — make a solid where even the air was pulled out, leaving it so light that it was in fact a solid that was lighter than air.<\/p>\n

While these thoughts were going through my mind, we were on a trip in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.\u00a0 This is very much a land of its own.\u00a0 Even people who live in Michigan tend to forget it\u2019s there.\u00a0 On the shoreline of Lake Superior, there is a lovely little town, Munising.\u00a0 While we toured the surrounding forests and took the tour boat along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, I was constructing this story of a garage inventor with his lighter than air foam, and the next door kid who is given access to his device.<\/p>\n

This novel is slightly different than most.\u00a0 While the character is in high school, he was younger than my typical character and more like me when I was that age — not quite interested in girls yet.\u00a0 He also had a best buddy that was modeled after a friend of mine — the guy who knew tools and could build anything.\u00a0 The hero could build model planes.\u00a0 The buddy could build the engines.<\/p>\n

It was fun working out the design of the fake flying saucer the two were going to use to prank their school.\u00a0 Let\u2019s be honest, it\u2019s the kind of thing I\u2019d like to do if I were given the opportunity to play with a gadget that grew lighter than air foam.<\/p>\n

It was also intriguing working out the more serious threat that swept up his little sister into a dangerous situation.<\/p>\n

So, with the satisfaction of working out how to build a flying craft to the memories of the lovely lake port town, Lighter Than air is my favorite.<\/p>\n

More about Lighter Than Air<\/a><\/p>\n

Next up — My Favorite Book: Falling Bakward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On one of my California trips, I visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where they had a sample of aerogel on display.\u00a0 This substance is like Jello with all the moisture pulled out of it, leaving a stiff solid that is mostly air. It is very light. I speculated about what it would take to go… Continue reading My Favorite Book: Lighter Than Air<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,5],"tags":[26,12,8],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-5h","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}