My name's Gregg M. Pasterick; my Facebook "Wildflowers..." moniker is a consequence of my passion for the wildflowers of North America, which I have been able to chase around the country over the last 15 years, but I am no stranger to meteor showers (as some of you know). I began observing the Perseids in 1975, with absolutely no science in mind at all, but as a cosmic event to share with friends. It was, of course, "far out." An article in "Astronomy" magazine a few years later inspired me to plot the 1979 Geminids, which eventually led to hourly counts, which in turn led to color and magnitude distributions. By the 1990s I had turned the Perseids into a summer-long obsession, plotting and recording data, but by this time it was only one piece of the natural world that occupied me. I was also an organic gardener, a bird-watcher, a butterfly chaser, and a wildflower enthusiast. And I became a freelance nature columnist in Ohio; I eventually had weekly nature columns in papers in Columbus, Ohio, Michigan City and Chesterton, Indiana, and West Yellowstone, MT.

In early 2000 my wife and I quit our jobs and sold our house and took to the road as Hospitality Beatniks, traveling around the U.S. managing bed and breakfasts and motels; we have been at it ever since. It was because of our innkeeping gigs that I was no longer able to observe meteor showers with any regularity, but still, there were a few keepers in the there, the pinnacle being the 2001 Leonids from Donner Summit in California.

Over the past three years my wife and I have settled into a routine of summers in Alaska; winters in the desert. We are currently in Joshua Tree, CA; we will be returning to Healy, Alaska again this summer to manage the Denali Park Hotel (and by the time of the Perseid peak there is only a twilit sky for observing). I am also a singer/songwriter and occasional background actor in Hollywood.