I can ride my bike...

There's only 5 months down in 2008, and we already have a winner for the "Best Song of 2008" award. This one is, of course, in the running for All Time Greatest Song Ever award, which I will be handing out when people quit making music.

Meanwhile, here's the Flobots with Handlebars....actually you're going to have to type that into google, because I'm sending this post via email, and i can't embed video or links in the ole email...or can I? I also like this song, although I think the singer is trying to be weirder than she really is...how weird can you be with perfect studio editing? If you listen to the song without the video, it doesn't sound weird at all, but I still kinda like it. I think this is me admitting that I've been listening to too many absolutely hideous radio stations since I moved to the middle of the country. Pretty much anything sounds amazing when your options have been Metallica, ANOTHER spin of "Life is a Highway" or that stupid Alicia Keys song again (just shoot me). If there's one thing the main-stream music radio stations have got down, it is how to turn a perfectly fine song like this one into a reason for me to drive my truck into a ditch. Other good music? What, there's other good music out there? How about the fact that I still think Jack White has resurrected Kurt Cobain (girl....you got those hands...that heal!)?

I'm alone right now, in the center of the country, with wife and child slightly to the left on the map of USA, but I will soon be soaring over their heads and moving slightly N, to arrive at the home state of Mormon-ville. Aside from inland salt waters, that's about all I know about where I'm going, so I guess I don't know anything. Oh, and I still haven't practiced my talk...so lucky people in my audience. Fortunately, my talk isn't until the last day...so no one will be there anyway.

When I'm alone, I tend to play the music really loud, and I just started up another song...you know how volume is on youtube (variable from song-to-song)...wow. I almost got knocked out of my chair....that was a little too loud.

Other stuff

- What, I've been away from Webcomics for too long? I'm just going to point you at this bit of awesome (that everyone's probably already seen), this surprising poignant bit of observation, of course the cool three-parter from Penny Arcade, I'm kinda interested in trying this sometime, I think this is about the whooping cranes, and is probably pretty honest. And I know its the in thing right now, but here's another comic about the semi-hilarious war between hang-glider pilots and helicopter pilots.
Of course, nobody is more scornful of cliche than I, and this is why.

- The NBA. I'm torn, I really am. On the one hand, I've hated Kobe Bryant for so long I'm not even sure I remember why it began. Oh yeah, it was when he was such a whiny baby over the course of his entire career. On the other hand, I hate the Spurs tremendously. There's nothing I wanted to see more in their first round series against the Suns than Shaq accidentally breaking Tony Parker's hand in five places ala Bobby Jackson. But no...we couldn't have that happen, could we. And then we couldn't have the most exciting semi-finals imaginable with a Derron William/Chris Paul matchup. And we couldn't even get the Paul-Kobe supermatch. No...we have to watch the freaking Spurs and Lakers, again. And frankly, the Spurs are huge underdogs. I don't know how they managed to beat the Hornets, cuz I didn't get to watch those games, but they've got no shot at all against the Lakers.
Which sucks, because nobody else has any chance against the Lakers either, unless Tayshaun Prince suddenly turns back the clock 3 years.
So who am I rooting for now? The Spurs and Pistons? Excuse me? The worst Finals imaginable. A Finals that would remind everyone why every summer I decide: That's it, I'm done with the NBA. A Spurs are, in general, a crime against basketball, and the Pistons are borderline ridiculous. So I guess I'm rooting for the Lakers-Celtics matchup, which would bring out so much 80s nostalgia that I might have to ignore the Finals anyway.
Did this ramble get anywhere? No, probably not. I guess I'm rooting for the Lakers, because Pau and Lamar have always been awesome, and it would be cool if they ever got recognized for how good they are (not to mention Farmer).
But let's just keep this straight Spurs. There was a time when I was in your corner, when I rooted for your team against the dreaded Lakers, when I believed your triumph meant the chokehold of the NBA dark ages was over. But you spoiled that by turning Bruce Bowen from a solid defender to a cheap-shot artist, when the Duncan face became more important to your success than anything else, when you hired Robert f***ing Horry. While the Lakers are like some kind of damned vampire that can't be killed, only wounded, you are more like a zombie. You are hard to kill, but that doesn't mean you're alive.

In Milwaukee, at SETAC

Someone has tickets to the Milwaukee Bucks game!

K always drives. He also parallel parks...really close to the curb.

The main ceremony was supposed to take place at 6 30....Central Time.
Oops.

Here I am, in Milwaukee. Looking up, at a mirror.
This was even a little weird in real life.

I'm in Milwaukee. Attending SETAC.

The Colts are on....

I drank a beer and three glasses of wine.

I ate some food.

I registered and got a neat bag of stuff.

I don't believe in organizations and their ability to cause change....but hey, this is kinda fun.

K and D are here. I'm way more drunk than them.

Boston Sucks.

Some things I learned today

I spent my day instructing, teaching, entertaining, and educating (in no particular order) a bunch of 7^th and 8^th grade students. I figured, naively that this would be about like providing content for 9^th graders.

That’s just not true.
Here’s why, I think: 9^th graders are constantly exposed to people (Sophs, Juniors, and Seniors) who are more mature than they are. As a result, their behavior tends to become more mature than their physical age alone would suggest.

8^th graders, by contrast, are constantly surrounded by people (6^th and 7^th graders) who are far less mature. As a result, they act far less mature.

I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

Here are some ways that this manifests itself:

1. They never shut up.

2. They do not respect their peers...at all.

3. They don’t care.

4. Even the smart ones.

5. They never shut up.

6. They just want to get done and go ‘play.’

I find that last one to be kind of a cute concept. Does anyone really remember how to play? Jeez, I had forgotten. I can’t imagine being that carefree. There was just a constant barrage of screaming and yelling going on for hours this evening.

Here are some handy tips if you end up needing to create content for a group of middle school students:

1. However much you think you need to have ready: Double it. I figured I’d push 7-8 hours of content easy with what I had prepared, based on what had happened with a group of 9^th graders. No way, I ended up filling about 4.5 hours! Ug. I felt terrible. We ended up spending the rest of the time fossil hunting, which was fun, so I guess it worked out.

2. Remember all those points in your talk where you ask questions? Yeah, that’s not going to work. You need to ask specific people questions. I can’t tell you how many questions I asked today that were greeted by absolute silence. I should have been pointing to individuals and asking them questions.

3. Tell them to shut up. Apparently they always hear “be quiet” or “stop talking”. Telling them to shut up worked pretty well.

4. These guys have the attention span of...well, 7-8^th graders. That means any concept has to be explained in a 5-second burst. You might be able to string together several such bursts, but then again, you might not. Come to think of this, I’ve had this problem with many adults as well.

5. Try not to scream or laugh incredulously when nobody remembers what you said two seconds earlier.

6. Do you remember what you thought was cool in middle school? You do? Good. None of that will be remotely interesting to these kids. So just accept that.

7. Apparently the idea of herding cats could also be applied to middle school kids. I would have gone insane if I’d had to keep track of these guys, but the teachers here just sorta allowed the swarm to move. When I was in middle school, if you’d given us this much freedom, we’d have trashed the Dwight Eisenhower Memorial and gotten our middle school banned from ever returning. Oh wait. That’s exactly what happened. Apparently my wife’s dad (who lead this group) commands much more respect from his charges.

Busy busy

Well, it's 7 30 and I should really go back to work, but I'm going to take a moment to tell you all what's going on:

- Mouse update: 2 mice down, hopefully no more to go. We've alerted the calvary (the maintanence guys at the station) and we're now optomistic that the problem is under control. I hope so, ***king mice!

- Weather update: Oh my god. Seriously. I...the weather is just astonishingly beautiful here.

- email update: So some of my emails are getting picked up by spam filters. If you emailed me something and haven't heard a reply (assuming it has been a few days) let me know and I'll try re-sending. I have no idea what's happening.

- I gave a talk Update: Yeah, I gave a talk at OU today about Food Quality and Toxicity. The talk went pretty well, except that some prof asked me a confusing question. I had put up a graph of how varying nitrogen:phosphorus ratios in media causes changes in the growth of duckweed, and he said (out of the blue incidentally): "But do you know what causes that change?"
"Sure, nutrient limitation."
"No, I mean, what causes it."
I still really don't know what he meant. One of the graduate students I know there thought he meant that since I only showed the N:P ratio, it could be that the nutrients were so high that we were seeing toxic effects, or so low. But if that's what he was implying, he certainly didn't say so. I was very confused, and, of course, it threw off my timing for awhile. I think I did really well overall however. I really wish I was a more natural public speaker. I feel comfortable speaking in front of groups, but I really need to know what I'm going to say or else I get completely discombobulated.
This time I had a really good idea of what I wanted to say.

- Update on the Newspaper article about me: What? You mean I didn't mention that a reporter for the OU Daily wanted to do a story on me? Really? Well, after my talk I was interviewed by a brave reporter from the OU daily who I'm not sure really understood the distinction between postdoc and graduate student (until I explained it). Hopefully I won't come off sounding like an idiot in the article. There should be an on-line version of the story that I'll link to when it comes out.
I also got to interview her about what it is like working for a daily college newspaper. As I'm sure everyone has heard ad naseum I used to be the editor of our campus paper. That paper was just a bi-weekly, but with our staff of six we ended up having a ridiculously hard time finding enough material to fill the pages. I figured that student-editors/reporters at a big college like OU were essentially full-time employees at the paper receiving credits for that work. Turns out not so much. This poor reporter was getting paid to write at least a story a week, but she was still taking a full-time class load and working a real job. Sounded pretty rough.

- High school students: Tomorrow morning I'm going to be one of two researchers from the station entertaining/educating a group of high-school students from a nearby town. There are 55 students coming! Wow! Fortunately the whole event is only going to last 2.5 hours, so even if it goes badly, at least it will go quickly. And the person helping me out has done this several times before.

- Waking up in the night screaming update: So apparently I have lost my mind. No, literally. Last night (according to my wife) I jumped out of bed and began screaming (at the top of my lungs) and doing that 'brushing off bugs' motion with my hands at 4 in the morning. As I said, this is what my wife says. I was completely asleep. When I woke up I was standing at the foot of the bed, my wife was hollering at me, and I was sweating profusely and my heart was racing.
I have no idea what the hell happened.
My wife claims she will hit me in the head if I do this again. I don't think she's kidding.

- My uncle is coming up from Thursday-Mon/Tues. That means my updates will be probably nonexistant those days. That also means that on Friday I'll be in OKC for the Suns-Hornets game. I can't wait! Two of the best point guards in the league! We've even got front row seats on the balcony! Yay!