Congratulations, Jason Kuznicki

My partner-in-blogging Jason Kuznicki is now Dr. Jason Kuznicki. He successfully defended his dissertation and completed his doctorate in history from Johns Hopkins University. He is now demanding to be called His Royal Highness, Master of All He Surveys, but I'm sticking with "Grand Poobah". Seriously, congratulations to Jason for slaying the ABD dragon and scaling the ivory tower. It's an enormous accomplishment that caps off many years of hard work.

The last friend of mine to get his PhD was Wes Elsberry and there are a couple of funny stories that accompany that one. Shortly after he finished the program, we were at a conference together at Berkeley and Genie Scott of the National Center for Science Education presented him with a Friend of Darwin award, given to those who have worked hard to defend science education in America. After she handed Wes his award, she took off her jacket and began to remove her shirt; this was a bit of a shock to all of us, to say the least. Alas, underneath she had on a t-shirt that paid homage to the fact that the NCSE had so often called on Wes to help them with one project or another while he was working on his dissertation. It said:

As we were walking back to the hotel after the meeting that night, Wes said to me, "Someone came up and congratulated me on receivign a 'Darwin award'. I imagine I'm the only person that has ever been said to." I'm guessing he's right.

P.S. If you don't get that last joke, go here.