personal
jstemwedel | December 6, 2006It started when someone asked Dr. B. for advice about starting a Ph.D. program with three kids in tow. Since then, the question has been bouncing around the academic blogosphere, with posts you should read at Academom and Geeky Mom. Although this is absolutely the worst time in the semester for me to fire on all cyliders with this one, regular readers know that I've shared my own experiences in this area, so I can't stay completely out of it.
A brief recap of the current conversation:
Dr. B. notes the many ways graduate programs set things up that are easier for the childless than the child…
pharyngula | December 5, 2006Since Orac is confessing to a stupid thing, I thought I'd repeat my own public admission of stupidity.
Public Service Announcement: Things Not to Do
Don’t carry batteries in your pocket.
This evening, I was stretched out on my recliner, enjoying a little light reading, when I smelled something odd—an odor of burning, and a faint chemical reek. I looked around and saw nothing, but the odor was getting stronger. I set my book aside, looked down, and saw something no man likes to see: tendrils of smoke rising from my fly. Then, I felt searing pain from my thigh. I jumped up and danced around (to…
jstemwedel | December 5, 2006You know how I was sick last week? I was all responsible and stuff, drinking lots of green tea and getting to sleep early and all, and over the weekend I actually felt reasonably healthy for like a day and a half. And now? I seem to have caught another nasty cold.
Which is to explain that this post may reflect my current state of not partaking as fully of consciousness as I generally like to. Also, in the interests of your own health, you should avoid licking the screen while reading this.
*Belle Waring has been sick, too, and it sounds like her bug is nastier than the one I have now,…
drorzel | December 5, 2006For those who care, I'm "interviewed" over at Page 3.14. The scare quotes are because the interview was actually an email response to a list of questions, which is why parts of it sound stilted. Still, free publicity...
oracknows | December 5, 2006As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not perfect.
I know, I know, given the (usually) tasty (usually) Respectful Insolence⢠dished out nearly every day here, that's a hard thing to believe, but it's true. In fact, occasionally I even do something that is so unbelievably, incredibly, outrageously boneheaded that there's only one thing to do: Blog about it.
About four months ago, I decided I needed (in actuality wanted) a new cell phone. So I perused the offerings of Sprint, the company I happen to be with right now, mainly because of an insanely cheap plan that we managed to get a few years ago…
jstemwedel | December 4, 2006As promised, I'm sharing the rules for the card game that my extended family played all through my youth. The idea here is that a set of rules for a bunch of favorite card games, a deck or two of cards, and a promise to play some of these games could make for an inexpensive -- and personalized -- holiday gift. So feel free to use this, or to share your own favorite card game (especially if it's one that hardly anyone outside your little circle seems to know about).
The name of the game is Shanghai (though I can't tell you why it's called that -- I don't know), and here's how you play it:…
jstemwedel | December 1, 2006The most recent Ask A ScienceBlogger question is:
What's the funniest lab accident you've ever had?
Those who know me can tell you I like to laugh, but I'm having trouble coming up with a lab accident that I'd call funny.
During my doctoral research in chemistry, lab accidents were anything but funny. The time the waste-trap didn't work right? We had to call a HAZMAT team to clean it up. The time my glass reaction vessel went smashy-smashy? I had to hie myself to a glass-blowing shop with the detailed internal dimensions (which, luckily, I had measured and recorded mere weeks before) and…
drorzel | November 30, 2006For those who care, a picture of my new car (I picked it up Tuesday, but didn't get around to cropping down the pictures until this morning):
In keeping with Ford's general policy, this shot is sort of a three-quarters angle-- as Kate pointed out, the glossy brochure from the dealership doesn't include any pictures full on from the side. She thinks it's because the car has a certain hearse-like aspect from that angle:
I think she's just, um... jealous?
No, wait, she's pretty much right. I don't care, though-- it's a new car, and it's mine all mine.
jstemwedel | November 29, 2006It turns out I've been a member of the Americal Chemical Society for three years now. How do I know?
They sent me a new mug.
While I enjoy my weekly issue of Chemical & Engineering News -- which, I imagine, most ACS members see as the most tangible benefit of their membership -- I must confess that I really love the mugs.
Last year, for my second anniversary of membership, they sent me a mug with helium (element 2) on it. This year, the third anniversary, it's lithium (element 3). On the first anniversary, there wasn't a hydrogen mug, but rather a pop-up card featuring hydrogen.
So,…
drorzel | November 29, 2006We've been having intermittent troubles with our DSL service for the last couple of months, and recently placed a service call to try to get Verizon to do something about it. Just a few minutes ago, I got a "courtesy call" from them, to inform me that they're still working on the problem, and they care deeply about having us as customers.
The message was a recording.
Yeah, nothing says "We really appreciate you, and want you to be happy" like an 8 AM robo-call.
jstemwedel | November 28, 2006My better half has been a frequent classroom volunteer leading science lessons in younger offspring's kindergarten class. This has made it fairly apparent to us that there's very little of what either of us would identify as science in these lessons.
Most recently, the science lesson centered on nocturnal animals. However, the activity the kids did was primarily a matter of drawing and coloring and cutting and affixing paper with glue. There was a wee bit of classification in here (glue the nocturnal animals on one page and the diurnal animals on the other), but significantly less…
drorzel | November 28, 2006Barring some sort of bizarre catastrophe, in a few short hours, I will take possession of a brand new Ford Freestyle. It's got lots of nifty features that the Taurus doesn't have, but there's one thing it lacks: a tape deck.
This is important because I have become accustomed to listening to my iPod in the car, through a tape deck adapter. The new car doesn't have a tape deck, and it doesn't have an obvious "Aux. In" plug, so it's not clear to me how I will be integrating the iPod with the new ride.
The options would appear to be either an FM converter, or some sort of after-market automtoive…
jstemwedel | November 28, 2006I have a question for the scientifically informed hive-mind:
Why is it that no matter what I do, I end up with a head-cold by a few days after Thanksgiving?
Back when I was doing the frightening make-fifteen-dishes-to-bring-to-the-potluck Thanksgivings (with graduate classes and teaching and research in the background), I could kind of understand the sneezy fallout as a natural consequence of too little sleep and too much stress. Whose immune system wouldn't strike back against such rough treatment?
Similarly, when the kids were smaller and they brought home every exotic virus they could…
drorzel | November 23, 2006The table is set:
The turkey is in the oven, the house is clean, and two car loads of relatives are on their way. Our first time hosting Thanksgiving dinner is on track.
Wish us luck, and take a moment to be thankful for the Pauli Exclusion Principle, Democratic control of Congress, and friends and family with whom you can share holidays.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
j7uy5 | November 23, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving!
About the image: it's big, I know, kind of slow for those with dial-up,
and it's going to mess up the formatting of the page for those with
lower-resolution monitors. I did shrink it some, but
shrinking degrades the quality quite a bit.
The above image is from the Wikipedia
article on pi (π). It was
made
by John Reid.
This image is from
href="http://www.tonidunlap.com/pumpkin_pie.htm">Toni's
kitchen; it depicts pumpkin pie with orange marmalade.
pharyngula | November 22, 2006So Skatje is setting up a new weblog, and she's looking for suggestions for a new name. Make a suggestion! Just to make it interesting, let's make it a contest: whoever comes up with a wonderful idea that Skatje accepts will receive a fabulous prize plucked from my collection of biology textbooks, and including some spectacularly cheap plastic cocktail squid.
You might also drop a hint that she really ought to have her father's blog on her blogroll. I'm feeling rebuked.
pharyngula | November 21, 2006Watch out, Minnepolitans—I'm going to the bowling alley. Anyone else interested in picking up the physics of bowling?
pharyngula | November 18, 2006What if Stan Lee worked for Chick Publications? You'd get apocalyptic tracts with giant planet-eating space men.
(via Pen-Elayne)
This is all you're getting from me for a while. I just finished a 9 hour long meeting (freaking uncivilized, if you ask me), and next I have to go attend some god-awful Christian propaganda — my daughter is the stage manager for the high school production of "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat", so I have to go — and I suspect my day is going to continue its trend of ongoing frustration and exasperation. It is in my best interests to avoid further posting to…
j7uy5 | November 18, 2006The Game just started. I am not going to live-blog it, in the
traditional sense, but
I am going to make a few comments.
The student newspaper at UM is the Michigan Daily. Right now,
their entire front page (
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/images/Remembering_Bo.JPG">screen
shot) on the website is a memorial to the recently-deceased
former head coach, Bo Schembechler.
Michigan
got the ball first; the kickoff went out the side of
the end zone. They started on the 20, then marched down the
field with the same level
of precision as the marching band, and with about the…
pharyngula | November 18, 2006
On Tuesday, I'll be in the Twin Cities to pick up #2 Son for Thanksgiving break, and as long as I'm there, I've been invited to join in the fun of this month's Cafe Scientifique: it's the Physics of Bowling, to be held at Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis. This has the potential to be very interesting, since they're pitting the best of BRB bowling team against…scientists. They promise that there will be science-based bowling tips, so maybe there's hope. (Anyone else remember Egghead Jr., the smart chicken in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons who excelled at sports by scrawling formulas to calculate…