What I did today...

For the first time in...oh, months probably...I have science to do. Not a little bit, but a lot. I have a grant to write. I have two papers to revise and submit. And I'm editing three other papers. And I'm working on a research idea.

So yes, I am finally getting back into that which I love.

And yet I'm sitting here with my brain completely fried and I'm unable to work on any of that. And I tried...judas I tried. Take the grant. I think I'm going to title it something like:

"Mapping the distribution and impacts of fish obstructions caused by road crossings in Kansas."

The grant only has to be 2-4 pages long. The granting agency tends to hurls money at projects like this. Oh, and there's also $50k sitting there from the state to provide a match.

So great! Right!?

I start to write, and it is gibberish. It isn't even comprehensible. I'd barely call it English.

Fine.

I'll work on Catchment Stoichiometry.

I just need to read through these papers to see what I'm missing in my citations.

Open paper. Stare at paper.

I might as well be staring into the abyss. I, seriously, have no idea what I just read. So are there good relationships between inorganic nutrients and catchment characteristics in this paper or what?

I re-read.

Stare.

This is the kind of exhaustion I have after a day like today. I spent 6 hours in a meeting on the topic of mitigation banks. Every single time I opened my mouth to speak, even when I said: "Fine, let's just forget it and move on", I managed to spark a 35 minute discussion that usually ended up so far from my original point that even I had to think hard to remember what I was asking about.

I swear, some people are trained to repeat the same things over and over again as if that mantra will answer a completely unrelated question.

All I want to do right now is go home and chase my son around the living room, hit the gym for an hour, and think about nothing at all.

Instead, the odds are good that I'm going to spend the rest of my 'per diem' on a ticket to Harry Potter (Wife and I already saw it once).

(I wrote a lengthy review/thoughts on the movie that somehow got deleted. To sum up: It was good if you'd read the book and I can't imagine what it would have been like without having read the book. I'm not really liking this director.)

Am I going to be able to get all this science done before my vacation?

I guess we'll see....

Oh, and here's some more awesome music:

White Stripes (Effect and Cause):

Johnathan Rice:

Mountain Goats (Yes yes yes!):

My Teenage Stride:

The Weakerthans: