personal
clock | September 13, 2007Well, I was busy with work and everything, but behind the scenes, Mrs.Coturnix took some vacation time and started completely re-doing our apartment with a help of two of her best friends. It already looks better than ever and feels great, but it is not done yet. Oh, no. This weekend, we'll be taking the cats to the vet, kids and the dog to Grandma's house, bringing in a truck and loading all of our stuff on it so people can come in on Monday and Tuesday and paint, replace the carpets and vinyl floors, etc., so we can move back in on Tuesday night. I'll be going back and forth between…
oracknows | September 13, 2007Today, on my way into work, I did something momentous, something that marks a turning point in my life. It was a small act, but one that has lifted a huge weight from me.
I put a check in the mail to pay off the last of my student loans. Free at last! And it's only been 19 years since I graduated from medical school, too!
Thinking about it, my overall debt when I finished medical school was relatively small, around $55,000 or so. True, it did balloon up to around $80,000 during the years when I could not afford to make payments due to the low pay of residency and the small stipend when I was…
pharyngula | September 12, 2007Would you believe the Urban Dictionary has an entry for PZ? It's lousy—I can't believe anyone uses the term that way, and I can't imagine how they pronounce it. And pzizzle isn't any better.
Myers, at least, has some punch to it: "Last name of any various white masked knife weilding bad muther *uckers." I still think most of these entries are jokes sent in by people, especially when the spelling and grammar are atrocious, and that they don't really have any common usage.
jstemwedel | September 11, 2007The good news: My department chair really likes the project I've proposed for my sabbatical leave.
The bad news: The smart money says that my leave won't be approved unless I cut down the amount I say I'll accomplish during the year off.
That's right. If you have a lot you want to get accomplished, you can't have time off to accomplish it, whereas if you have only a wee bit to do, you are most welcome to a leave.
Cue the dinosaur with the voice of Rob Knop to remind me to stop expecting things in academia to make sense. Meanwhile, I have some cuts to make.
terrasig | September 11, 2007[The New York Times and many bloggers are writing this year about "9/11 fatigue." Here is why I will always remember. This was posted here originally on 11 September 2006. ]
Let me tell you about John Michael Griffin, Jr.
Griff, as he was known in high school, was a friend of mine.
Late in the first half of our lives, he stood up for me physically and philosophically, for being a science geek. John's endorsement was the first time I was ever deemed cool for wanting to be a scientist.
Griff died an engineer and hero in the collapse of one of the World Trade Center towers five years ago…
jstemwedel | September 9, 2007Over-amplified live music. (You'd think a church group -- which is what this band turns out to be -- would be down with acoustic music instead.)
If we don't get our DSL back soon, I'm going to need some really good earplugs.
drorzel | September 9, 2007Friday morning, we woke up in Osaka, and from there, the "day" went something like this:
1 hour on the train from Osaka Station to Kansai Airport
2 hours at the airport
12 hours on a plane to Detroit
2 hours in the airport at Detroit
2 hours on a plant to JFK
2 hours on Long Island (getting our luggage and some food)
3 hours driving from Long Island back to Niskayuna
"Day" is in scare quotes, because I'm not really sure how much time passed between waking up in Osaka and falling into bed here. It was a lot. And, thanks to the miracle of jet lag, I'm wide awake at six in the freakin' morning,…
jstemwedel | September 8, 2007While sometime the phone would ring
Just as we were sitting down to eat
Or telling a bedtime story
Or trying to get out the door
Or drifting off to sleep,
There was a comfort in being
Reachable
By those who needed to reach us
And in whose reach we wanted to be.
But now, the unsteady dial tone is gone.
The earful of static has gone silent.
The landline, she is dead.
And verily, we might mourn,
Then let her rest in peace,
Survived by the cell phones.
But we need our DSL
As an academic needs her coffee*
(Or as a twentyish Objectivist needs his Rush CD),
And so we wait
For the phone company guy…
sheril | September 7, 2007* Friday Trivia: Who Said That? *
On Tuesday, I explained it's Hip to be Geek, but there's another side to the academic life that's more difficult... the moving part. Those of us pursuing the sciences have this pesky habit of skipping around the globe from one pursuit to the next driven by curiosity to understand the natural world. We love what we do, but it's bittersweet. While whisking off to the next exotic (or not so glamorous) locale is quite a romantic notion -- the thing is, somewhere along the way all this traveling makes home a confusing concept.
As you read this, my good friend…
jstemwedel | September 6, 2007The bullets are addressed to different people and organizations, and I doubt very much that some of them would recognize these were addressed to them even if they received an actual memo. (It's been that kind of week.)
Be it known that:
I do not at present have the power to be in more than one place at a time. If I did, rest assured that I would find more interesting ways to use it than simply getting two kids to soccer-related activities in different locations at the same time.
I wrote a detailed FAQ for my online class for the express purpose of helping students locate the answers to…
tqa | September 4, 2007
When it comes to teaching first and second graders about things, nothing beats the classroom pet. The little kids learn so many important things. They learn about animals. They learn about responsibility, and about the importance of taking care of things. And they learn about death.
A lot.
It's now the second week of school, and my son's second grade class is on its second hamster. We're scheduled to take the hamster home the last weekend of October. Anyone want to start a pool on what number hamster gets to take refuge in our house?
jstemwedel | September 4, 2007My tenure dossier is due in 24 days.
My application for a sabbatical leave is due in 3 days.
Is it really possible to wrap your head around the possibility of a sabbatical, let alone map out the projects you might complete during such a leave, before the tenure dossier is wrapped up?
(Maybe they're just messing with me.)
terrasig | September 3, 2007Today is the Labor Day holiday in the United States. This post originally appeared here on 4 September 2006. I cleaned it up and updated a bit but the discussion of the 1914 Ludlow Massacre seems particularly poignant due to this year's coal mining mishaps around the world.
"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for…
oracknows | September 3, 2007Continuing the wind-down from vacation... (Don't worry; the Orac-ian magnum opus-style posts will return whenever I manage to work my way back up to them again. Besides, it's a holiday; do you really want to read one of my rants today?)
One of the cool things about wandering around London was hearing and seeing the differences in language use between Britain and the U.S., differences which led to the famous saying about America and Britain being two nations divided by a common language, a quote that has been attributed at various times to Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, or even Winston…
oracknows | September 2, 2007Note: We're back in the U.S. However, it is a long holiday weekend here in the States, much like last weekend's Bank Holiday weekend in England. Consequently, blogging will be mellow until Tuesday. Don't worry, things will return to normal soon enough, but since traffic's down due to over a week of mostly reruns and it's even further down this weekend, probably due to the holidays, I thought a little photoblogging from our recent vacation might be in order. (Don't worry; I haven't forgotten about some pictures from my stop by the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, but those will probably have…
sheril | August 30, 2007During our casual 3.5 hour dinner last night, Bora and I got to wondering...
Why isn't North Carolina's Research Triangle in grand prize destinations for the 500,000 comment contest? Winner receives a 5-day trip to the greatest science city in the world and the three contenders are Boston/Cambridge, MA, San Francisco, CA, and Cambridge, UK. Not a bad selection by any means, but the Triangle is home to cutting edge science and policy institutes, top tier universities, governmental agencies, leading tech companies, and more groundbreaking research in one area code than anywhere else I can…
pharyngula | August 29, 2007She really hasn't changed a bit.
Well, maybe a little. Skatje (since everyone asks how it's pronounced, I'll spell it out: scot-ya) is turning 17 today, and guess how she's going to celebrate?
She's hosting the first ever meeting of the UMM Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists, with free pizza, free discussion, and free thought at the Morris Pizza Hut, at 7:00. She's a regular little godless debutante, I guess.
pharyngula | August 29, 2007This is so sad. There is now a Richard Dawkins social networking site, and I have no friends. Not even among those dour, hateful, amoral atheists. You'd think we'd be so perfect together!
pharyngula | August 29, 2007There is going to be a melee in Minneapolis, a testicle-twister in the Twin Cities, a bloody battle at the Bell — the framing debate is going LIVE, in an event sponsored by the Bell Museum in Minneapolis at the end of September. On one side, Mooney and Nisbet; on the other, Greg Laden and … uh, me, I'm pretty sure. I'm still juggling some travel dates, but I think I should be able to make it.
I think the plan, though, is to pretend I can't, so Mooney and Nisbet get all cocky. Then, just when Greg is down, trapped in a headlock by one and the other is doing the dreaded pinky toe pincer, I come…