personal
terrasig | February 21, 2008Back in January several science bloggers had an exchange that degenerated into discussion of the process and aftermath of the vasectomy.
Well, as PhysioProf is wont to say, today I will sack up, literally. As part of my gift to PharmGirl for her [significant] bday next week I will undergo the knife this afternoon to render me no longer able to contribute to the gene pool. Of course, I won't be completely sperm-free until 20 to 30 post-operative ejaculations, the thought of which brings me great comfort. We have had one child and do not anticipate wanting any more - we got us a good one the…
skookumchick | February 20, 2008Okay, so I've been coblogging with ScienceWoman for a little over a week so far. Which means I've been blogging as me, with no pseudonym to hide behind for the same time. What do I think about it so far?
It's terrifying. I haven't told many colleagues about this blog yet, and haven't had the nerve to add it to my email signature and such yet.
Before I decided to blog as me, I went and talked to my department head to see what he thought. He was supportive of me blogging as an outreach activity, but recommended I talk with the communication/news service people to see if they had any…
terrasig | February 19, 2008For more details on this story, you can go to Mark Chu-Carroll, Orac, Mike the Mad Biologist, or the Autism Blog. I just wanted to share my personal views on the need for childhood vaccinations and support a public information campaign from the AAP.
Until I started medical blogging, I had not realized quite how vocal was the community of individuals refusing to vaccinate their children, mostly at the urging of those who claimed that vaccines and related components caused illness in their own children. I will first say that no drug product, natural or otherwise, is completely and absolutely…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2008
Peering out of the windows of my new hang-out, a coffee shop that
just opened in my neighborhood. Guess who is going to get ALL of
my disposable income from now on?
GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].
I think I mentioned to you a few months ago (in November to be precise) that three banks opened in my neighborhood within one week of each other -- the first banks I've seen within 10 blocks of my apartment. This was really good, since one of those bank branches is mine (not that I have any money to speak of, except for the minimum necessary to allow me to cash checks written by my pet care…
terrasig | February 17, 2008Yes, this is a science-related post, just a little off topic. We don't talk about religion much around these parts because my Catholic school upbringing and torture by nuns gives me PTSD. But I grew up in a place where your family was either Catholic or Jewish - equal-opportunity guilt.
So it is with painful nostalgia that I received the following missive from my mechanical engineer/grease monkey Catholic school classmate - (hey Tom, get off the computer; shouldn't you be in church anyway?). Enjoy!:
Subject: Church Bulletins
They're Back! Church Bulletins: God bless the church ladies who…
jstemwedel | February 15, 2008Once again, Dave Ng at The World's Fair issues a challenge:
If you had to write your memoirs in 6 words, what would they be?
Writing that memoir today, here are mine:
Chemist. Philosopher. Parent. Blogger.
Grown-up? Someday.
Six words fit very nicely in the comments field -- what's your life story?
terrasig | February 14, 2008It seems that everyone in the sci/med blogosphere is offering Valentine's posts reflecting their areas of professional interest. So, here's mine:
Your humble Pharmboy came of age with glam, punk, and New Wave music but thanks to PharmMom, RN, and her then-college-aged ER co-workers, I have a soft spot for 70s soft-rocking singer-songwriters. Yes, Jim Croce, John Denver, James Taylor, and Dan Fogelberg.
So it was with great interest and nostalgia that I opened this e-mail a few days ago from the Prostate Cancer Foundation:
Dan Fogelberg, the singer and songwriter whose hits "Leader of the…
oracknows | February 13, 2008
I'm baaack.
Well, thanks to free WiFi at Panera's, I was never really truly away. Thanks to Comcast, I was away longer than usual. In any case, although between waiting for Internet access, running errands, and doing some snowblowing last night, I didn't have time to do the usual epic substantive posts that I'm known (and either loved or hated) for. That's unfortunate, because it figures that when I go three or four days without any Internet access other than that I can manage to find by having lunch or getting coffee at a place with free WiFi, lots of things that I would have liked to…
drorzel | February 12, 2008I don't get this Internet thing. I was sure that yesterday's dog dialogue about evolution would generate some traffic, if only from biologists whining that I didn't explain evolution correctly. But-- nothing. I guess I failed to include the magic attention-generating phrase-- "Darwin Day" or "Michael Behe is Dumber Than My Dog," or something.
Anyway, I've had a miserable cold that I'm just clawing my way out of, so I've got nothing brilliant to post. I did spend a bunch of time yesterday looking at some old pictures in response to a request related to an alumni wing-ding. I digitized a few…
jstemwedel | February 11, 2008Today was the last day of the semester for students to add courses, and the last day to drop a course without it showing up on one's transcript was a week ago. (The order of these two dates, it seems to me, should be switched, but I don't make the rules around here.) In any event, enrollments for classes have more or less stabilized.
Which means that I'm poring over iPhoto trying to learn each of my student's names.
See, my students all know who I am, although there is the occasional confusion about the right way to address me, not to mention the panoply of variant (mis-)spellings of my…
oracknows | February 11, 2008I hate you, Comcast.
I really do.
My hatred of Comcast also explains the paucity of activity on this blog over the last few days. You see, over the weekend, I moved to a larger house, and I've had no Internet access other than Panera's or Starbucks for the last three days. Before that, I had lined up a couple of brief posts over the weekend, as well as a rerun for this morning in anticipation of being back up and running this afternoon. Instead, here I am in Panera's having a tasty lunch but also posting a brief rant and explanation composed right after my encounter with Comcast.
I went from…
jstemwedel | February 10, 2008Hey, today is the third anniversary of my first post on "Adventures in Ethics and Science" at the original digs. I can honestly say that when I started the blog as a virtual extension of class discussions in my "Ethics in Science" I didn't imagine that it would continue past the end of the semester, nor that it would get scooped up to become part of ScienceBlogs.
A few notes before the cupcakes:
I've made some post-Blogroll Amnesty Day updates to my blogroll (and, with luck, didn't mess up any of the links). But it's not too late to tell me about a blog I really should be reading!
I…
terrasig | February 9, 2008Nineteen years ago, University of Florida junior, Tiffany Sessions, disappeared from her townhouse complex in Gainesville, Florida. What happened to her remains a mystery today.
While a graduate student, a certain pharmacology blogger lived for two years in the same complex as Miss Tiffany up until five weeks before she disappeared. Along with a few dozen other UF students, they shared the same running route that bordered the pasture of the university's agricultural institute. Some thought that she was abducted somewhere along her run but others say she was last seen talking with someone in…
jstemwedel | February 9, 2008I hold in my hand a letter from our Provost informing me that my sabbatical leave for academic year 2008-2009 is awarded.
Of course, this is contingent on:
My actually getting tenure (something which will not be official, one way or another, until May 23).
My filing a promissory note (basically, allowing the university to come after me for financial losses should I not return to my position after my sabbatical).
"Budget availability." Which ... have you heard that California's budget situation is not so good?
So, probably I have next academic year to do some serious writing, assuming none…
pharyngula | February 4, 2008As promised, here are the details on my debate this week.
Debate: Are Science and Religion Compatible?
An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse
with
Loyal Rue and PZ Myers
Sponsored by
Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists
Thursday, February 7, 2008
7:00pm - 10:00pm
West Bank Auditorium- Willey Hall
225 19th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
I must say I like the tagline — "An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse" — since I don't think this will be the kind of ferocious bloody battle some of you might be hoping for. Rue is a religious moderate, so I don't anticipate any…
jstemwedel | February 3, 2008By way of Abel and DrugMonkey (among others), I see that today is Blogroll Amnesty Day. Jon Swift has the must-read post on the origins of the day and what it means now:
The idea that links are the capital of the blogosphere seems so obvious that you would think an economist like Atrios of Eschaton would have realized it long ago. And as he is a progressive who has accumulated quite a bit of link wealth, you might also think he would be in favor of redistributing some of that wealth instead of just letting it trickle down. So when he announced last year that he was declaring February 3…
terrasig | February 3, 2008
Yesterday was the 1st anniversary of Blogroll Amnesty Day, originally proposed by a reasonably prominent blogger who used the occasion to relieve himself of guilt when purging his blogroll and building back up only a list of those he reads regularly.
I learned via my new homies, PhysioProf and DrugMonkey that Jon Swift and Skippy have proposed this day instead as an opportunity for low-traffic bloggers to blogroll even lower-traffic bloggers to help everyone rise up in notoriety.
Despite being here at ScienceBlogs for 20 months, I have managed to keep my readership to a small but select…
drorzel | January 28, 2008I don't drink coffee, and never have, but I used to drink a lot of tea. Unfortunately, I suspect that 6-8 cups of Earl Grey a day may have played a role in triggering the Great Stomach Unpleasantness a couple of years ago. Certainly, hot, acidic liquids with caffeine are on the List of things not recommended for heartburn sufferers.
I miss it, though, particularly because our science building is old, and the air-handling system leaves much to be desired (if you're rich, and would like a new physics building named after you, email me...). I miss having a nice, hot cup of tea to drink, or even…