You must have noticed that there wasn't too much effort on this blog over the past couple of weeks (except for the elaborate and too successful April Fools hoax). I've just been so busy lately. So, here is a quick recap, and some pictures.
Back on March 21, I went to Duke University to participate in a panel called Shaping the world, one job at a time: An altruistic/alternative career panel. From education, to public health in the developing world, to science journalism, writing, blogging and publishing. The room was full (80 people? Perhaps 100?!). I am not sure one hour was enough for all five of us to say everything we wanted, but I did manage to explain what PLoS is all about (especially PLoS ONE). Sheril was sitting in the front row and she took these pictures. Abel was sitting right next to her, and wrote more about one of the other panelists. As usually happens at such meetings, the most useful part was the hallway chatter right after. I talked to people who may be interested in publishing with us, or collaborating, or applying for an internship.
On March 22 we met at Miltown in Carrboro to say farewell to our friend Bharat. The weather was nice enough to sit outside. Anton (actually the waitress using Anton's camera) took this picture. Bharat is going to Vancouver Island, all the way on the West coast of Canada to do some environmental work. There are many science bloggers in that part of the world, so perhaps they can invite Bharat to their blogger meetups (I cannot tell you his blog as I used his real name in this post, but I can facilitate connection).
Then on March 26th, again the weather was good for sitting outside at Milltown for a joint meetup between BlogTogether and the Orange Politics Happy Hour. There were about 20 people there, some old friends (including OP hosts Ruby Sinreich and Brian Russell, the camera master Wayne Sutton and Ginny Skalski from NBC, the Facebook guru Fred Stutzman, the Carrboro mayor Mark Chilton and many others), some new to me and fun was had by all. And we all had Moo.org cards to exchange with each other. They all tried really hard to get me on Twitter, with no success... ;-) Wayne took a bunch of pictures, but here is one of me, so my Mom can see that I look decent when I go out to meet people. Actually, I was dressed up for a funeral I went to earlier that day.
On March 28th, Sheril, Abel and I went to Duke and talked about Science 2.0 and blogging to a class on science/policy communication, which was great fun, and interesting pictures are circulating on the Web (check the links).
In the meantime, I got engrossed in reading the entire Framing Science flare-up, but decided not to write anything myself (except a few comments on a couple of other blogs) as I did not want to draw even more attention to it - that would be bad framing ;-) Greg has collected the links to the first wave of these posts. Now a second wave, quite more sober and mature, is popping up around the blogs so take a look.
Last week I went to the dentist twice. I was always so proud of my perfect teeth...until I lost dental insurance five years ago. Now there is something rotten with pretty much every tooth in my head. Finally employed and insured again, it's time to aggressively pursue a pearly smile again. They did the two most critical teeth first, those that needed swift rescuing. We'll do the rest in May and June.
I am also busy organizing my European trip - primarily the first part, in the UK. You can meet me in London or Cambridge. Then I'll spend a weekend with Henry Gee (and no, I will not divulge all the PLoS secrets to a Nature editor!).
I am preparing myself for two panels (one on Open Access, one on science blogging) for the science FEST in Trieste, Italy, as well as an article in their journal there. I hope Franc will be able to come to Trieste so we can finally meet.
Later, I will be giving a talk about Open Access at the Ministry of Labor in Serbia and, hopefully, also at the Medical school at the University of Belgrade. I will enjoy my Mom's cooking, meet my highschool and equestrian friends and local bloggers.
Bjoern is organizing a dinner for me and local bloggers in Berlin. On the way back, I will stay one day in London with my cousin and will be back home on May 3rd, just in time for the NC primaries/caucuses - perhaps I will make up my mind by then (and European media may help me clear my mind about US politics). Anyway, if you are in any of those places at any of those dates, please let me know and let's meet.
I think I'll take Amanda's book and Vanessa's book for airplane reading, then buy some SF once I am finished with these.
This morning I finished my last BIO101 Lab (just the lab - no time for the lecture and lab combined) and turned in the grades, so that is one more thing I don't have to worry about for a while. And tomorrow I will start working on my poster for the SRBR meeting.
Due to the popular consensus, I have already scheduled all the Clock Quotes for the duration of the trip. I will do the "My picks from ScienceDaily", and YouTube videos, and "New and Exiciting in PLoS" as regularly as I can while abroad. I will also repost some of the stuff from the Archives, e.g., some Greatest Hits and, as I tend to do every year, my Clock Tutorials for the new readers. And I will post pictures from the trip every day. So, there may not be much of new, long, deeply thoughtful posts next month, but there will be something every day.
Finally last Thursday, I met a bunch of friends at Town Hall Grill. Lenore, Andrea, Catharine, Rosalyn, Sheril, David and Vanessa were there. The food was delicious, and the pictures are under the fold (blurry, as the wine was too good to resist):
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Ouch, I can commiserate with you on the tooth problems, I've had major dental issues over the past couple of weeks, it is no small issue! Tooth pain is on a whole different level than any other kind. I'm glad you're on the way to getting things fixed...hang in there with that crazy schedule of yours!
I saw your comment on Elizabeth Edwards at Pandagon. Well done! Thanks! I've been a fan of George Lakoff before George Lakoff was cool; we had to study him back when I was in grad school lo these many years ago.
I think I might try to see if I can find footage of those interviews where she specifically uses those tactics, because (not to blow my own horn unduly, but) if anyone who has the time can analyse what's going on and write instructions for other people on how to do it, it'll be me. (I am a technical writer with a formal background in both rhetoric and writing/communications teaching theory and practice, so I think I might be a know-some-of-it on the subject.)
I can commiserate with the tooth failure problem, too. As a teenager I wore braces for four years, and after they came off, I had a lot of cavities to be drilled out and filled. Unfortunately the family dentist believed in using as little anesthetic as possible, and it was an amazingly unpleasant experience. So I was not lacking dental insurance, but couldn't be talked into seeing a dentist for another decade.
The end result is that I have a mouthful of gold (I jokingly refer to my current dentist as my precious-metals broker). Of course, current dentist believes that dentistry should be painless. But still, I'd be several thousand dollars richer if I hadn't gone that decade without dentistry.
Dude, you really are a demented fucking wackaloon, you know that?
Anne-Marie and Karen: yes, I think the dentists were quite surprised with my enthusiasm, asking for as many ultra-long sessions as soon as possible. But nothing bothered me more over the past couple of years than the steady deterioration of my teeth.
Interrobang: For my readers - this is the Pandagon thread you are referring to. Perhaps Crooks & Liars have the videos. I'd love to see (and help make, if I can), such a resource, and the Rockridge folks may be able to help. I would like to involve some SciBlings, perhaps, in building the science-related entries.
PP: You know that I know that you know that you are correct.
Just wanted to bring this to your attention, new study linking dental issues to your area of expertise: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080405095747.htm
Thanks. I saw that and posted in 'My picks from ScienceDaily' the other day. I am very suspicious of the claim and will have to wait to see if and when that actually gets published in peer-reviewed literature. The claim is just too grand, methinks.
OT, I will try to have additional interviews posted during my trip, as well as a couple of guest-posts by other good bloggers.