Some days

I just don't know what to do.  I feel a little rudderless. 

I just read Mike Brown's book "How I killed Pluto and why it had it coming" (I think that was the title).  Pretty good.  He has this point though, where he realizes he doesn't put in the crazy hours as a professor he did as a grad student.  And he realizes if he wants to keep doing the side-bar stuff that he loves (looking for "planets" past Pluto) he's going to have to go back to working crazy hours. 

 

I feel that I'm in that kind of position.  There's nothing more I can accomplish in the 8-10 hours a day I'm working.  There's really nothing more I can accomplish than what I'm already accomplishing at my "real" job.  The only way I can add to my CV any more quickly, at this point, is to start dipping into the late-night or early morning hours.

 

Is that worth it?  Having the hours I'm awake set by children and a 'day job' makes it really difficult for me to work those crazy hours.  I don't even know if what I'd be working on during those hours (mostly older, unpublished datasets from earlier projects and meta-analysis) would be valuable additions to my CV.  I do know that if I try to do those kinds of things, periodically I'm going to get super-tired and just become a bear to live with. 

 

I don't know if that's worth it.  Until the middle of last summer, I was still dealing, in some way, with sleep deprivation related to children.  Maybe I still am.  Maybe after another month of getting to sleep through the night (thanks to littlest going to bed easily) I'll start to feel like working the early or late shifts won't be such a burden.

At work...

My connection to Pandora at work apparently routes through Washington DC (because of who I work for).    So all the advertising on Pandora is for things in Washington DC.

 

An ad for a dating website claiming "50+ women" just came up.  My first thought was:  "Wow....I would have thought there would be more single women in DC."

 

Turns out they were talking about women older than 50. 

 

My perception of Washington DC is getting weird.

 

In case you were wondering, Pandora, I also don't need a "white shirt".  There's literally an advertisement for a plain white shirt (like a button-up, under the suit, type shirt). 

 

DC is apparently populated primarily by men who want to date older women and need a shirt without any color.  Good luck with that?

24 miles so far...

I recently decided to start riding my bike more.

So I set a goal of biking the distance from my old house to my new
house.  This turns out to be around 750 miles.

I didn't really think that was a hugely daunting number, because i've
owned exercise bikes, and I could easily cover ten miles a night on
the stationary bike.

So I mapped out a couple of route:  1.2 miles each way to work, 3.5
miles to the end of my road and back.  3.5 miles is a nice short
route, something I could do in the evening without abandoning the wife
and kids for too long.

We'll start with that.

So i've done this for the past four evenings, and I have to say there
are some important differences between the stationary bike and the
real world:

1.  Hills.  Even though I am theoretically on a closed loop, somehow
the road is uphill each way.

2.  Bugs.  I'm not a fan of eating them.

3.  The dawning realization that a 12 year girl on a pink princess
bike has overtaken you on a hill...

Maybe number 3 could simply be re-phrased as 'humiliation.'

This week in amazing

3 big projects.

 

All due Friday.

 

And then next week I leave.

 

I love my job. 

 

:)

KICK ASS

Oh holy shit was that a good movie. I don't know if I've ever seen
anything that good in my entire life.

People sometimes tell me I'm prone to hyperbole, but those people are
crazy. Those people are the craziest people I've ever heard of in my
entire life.

But seriously, Kick Ass is a fantastic movie.

The inmates are running the asylum

So I'm always learning something about myself.

This week I've learned that if I'm employeed by the gov't, and a
shutdown is looming, I'm a fucking mess.

Damnit.

Apparently I can't even take another job during a shut down. Not that
I really had anything lined up, but still.

Judas monkeys

The tea party just about makes me want to stop drinking tea.

Judas.

Really?

Snow?  Again?  

 

Ok winter, you've earned a powerful new enemy today.  I'll remember this.

Big (L)east

I'm really confused.  I watched the Big East some this year.  I would have argued with anyone that it was the best conference.  I thought they were weak at the top compared to other conferences, but soo deep with 'reasonably' good teams.  

 

Not that I thought they should get 11 teams in the dance.  But I wasn't expecting every Big East team who had to play two non-conference foes to lose by the Sweet Sixteen!

 

Really though, I've thought all year that UConn was the best Big East team (actual game results aside).  I would really like it if they took down Duke. 

 

On a happier note:  KU looks really good.  And that confuses me, because they don't have a point guard and they start 3 small shooting guards.  My golden rule is "point guards get you past the first two rounds":  Based on the last two years I don't know anything.

 

This is why I quit filling out brackets.

Judas

I see these kinds of statements all the time, and it rarely sinks into
my exhausted brain. For some reason it did this time:

"Fidelity noted the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans hold more than
55 percent of the nation's wealth."

From an article on MSNBC saying that 4 of 10 millionaires don't
consider themselves wealthy.

5 percent of Americans hold more than 55% of the nation's wealth.

No, capitalism is working fine here...thanks.

Crushing

My elder son had a fever and (as a result) had nightmares yesterday.
We ran into his room to him screaming "NO NO NO" in horror. This
morning my wife and I talked about it, what could he have been
dreaming about?

Honestly, he could have been dreaming about taking a shower, which
elicited the same response last week. Still scared the bejesus out of
our younger child who was sleeping peacefully in the room with him.

000000

Some days I awake with the feeling of complete inadequacy. Like I
have been revealed as a terrible person. Guilt. Crushing shame.

I admit, I'm not close to perfect, but I was just as not perfect
yesterday, and I felt on top of the world.

Sometimes this feeling is very hard to shake.

Monkey so stupid

I always have to ask myself:

Am I doing better than I was when I was living in low-income housing?

Well, yes...I am in a lot of ways. I'm not going back if I can help it.

But I was a heck of a lot less exhausted in low-income housing. And I
felt stupid less often.

So I had that going for me, which was nice.

The Break

I am older than I used to be, which apparently means I'm losing my
ability to handle "doing nothing". I can't just sit around and relax.
Or maybe I could, but I get yelled at a lot when I try to do that.

-

There are few things funnier than a 3-year old carrying around a
blanket half his size suddenly turning around and legging it to avoid
a "three count" from his mother.

"I'm going to count to three!"

Giggle run giggle run giggle run!

--

I managed to relax last night for awhile by playing Call of Duty:
Black Ops. A good game, but everyone else seems to be better than me.
I'd feel inferior, but the game keeps track of the number of days
you've spent playing (literally), and so I'm less embarrassed from
losing to a guy who has spent a month in the game. I guess it adds
up, but a MONTH seems like a long time.

--

My wife is leaving for 4 days around MLK day. It will be just the
boys and I. This will be very interesting. My eldest overheard us
talking last night and started crying then.