I was a bit skimpy on the details before, but now you can find a list of all the specific times and places you’ll be able to find me when I make the grand rounds of central California.

Travel season begins again for me. I’ve already mentioned that I’m off to Winnipeg this weekend; the weekend after that is the Science Online conference. And then the whirlwind begins: I’m invading California, singlehandedly. Here’s my schedule:

W, 1/20: UC Santa Barbara
Th, 1/21: UC Davis
F, 1/22: Berkeley
Sa, 1/23: UC Santa Cruz
Su, 1/24: De Anza College (Cupertino)
M: 1/25: CSU Chico
T: 1/26 Sacramento City College
W: 1/27: Stanford
Th: 1/28: Sierra College

That’s insane. I may regret this when I stagger away from that grueling series. At least I’m giving the same talk at all of them, on creationism and complexity, so I won’t have to struggle to keep the topics straight.

And that’s not all! I’m coming home from California to hop on a plane to Ireland! I’m still working out a few details, but I can tell you that I’ll be speaking at University College Dublin on 2 February, and Galway on 4 February. I’ve got pending invitations from Cork and Belfast that I’m still trying to squeeze into the schedule; I may do both if I can work out transportation, but I’ll do at least one of them. It would be nice to visit all four so I can say I’ve done Ireland east, west, north and south.

And then I come home in time for the Darwin Day madness! I’ll be going to the University of Northern Iowa and South Carolina. More about those later.

I’m a fan of the comic strip Lio — the one with the weird little kid with the pet squid and whose antics clearly make him a descendant of the Addams Family. The strip for Christmas eve was a little different, though.

It hit home for me because the day after Christmas is my day of melancholy. It was the day after Christmas, 1993, that I got a phone call from my mother to let me know that Dad had died, unexpectedly, suddenly, quietly. It’s a memory that colors my holiday season every year, and it’s a strange thing — the grief and sadness never go away. One of the lies we always tell ourselves is that the pain will go away with time, that we’ll get over it, that time heals all wounds, and it’s not true. Every loss is forever raw, and we can feel it all again with just a thought or a reminder, like a Christmas phone call to the family. The older you get, the more of these moments of grief you accumulate, and they never leave you.

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I’m going to be speaking at the U of M tonight. I actually have to leave soon for this, because we had a light snowfall yesterday, and last I checked, the roads were slick as shellacked snot. I’m giving myself lots of extra driving time to improve my odds of actually getting there intact and with a still functional vehicle.

Also, some of us will be meeting at the campus club in Coffman Union sometime before the 7:30 talk. Feel free to stop by and say hello!

Skatje and I are here — the roads were good and we made it plenty early. Stop by the Campus Club (4th floor of Coffman Union) any time before 7:30. If you take too long, all the salmon will be gone, I warn you.

My house is in chaos! The cats are yowling in panic! My fingers are fragile little icicles at the ends of my arms! It may be quiet here for a while. This morning, the contractors showed up to install new doors on my house — wonderful energy-efficient insulating doors to replace the old thin sheets of plywood — that were ordered way back in October. The first step, of course, is removing all those old doors, opening up the interior to the open air. In Minnesota. In December. And it’s snowing, lightly.

Anyway, if you think this is a perfect opportunity to charge in and penetrate the normally tight security in my lair, I should warn you all that the missing doors are currently manned by burly guys with nail guns and drills, and will soon be replaced with steel-framed thick slabs. With wall-mounted computer-targeted lasers, yeah, that’s the ticket, and exploding doorknobs. And I’ll be warm again, I hope.

No worries. Doors installed; house warming up. Urge to kill… fading… fading… fading — rising! Fading… fading… gone.

I’m interviewed on the latest edition of The Big Podcast by two people on two different continents at the same time, via the magic of technology. Check it out!

I’m going to be on radio station KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA, at 10:15am California time (12:15 Central time). You can also listen in via the web.

This is a left-wing Pacifica station, so I’m sure they’ll be piping it into all the California shopping malls in place of Muzak, so if you’re out shopping, maybe you’ll hear me too.

And wouldn’t you know it, right there in the title it announces that I’m mild-mannered. Next time, I swear, I’m gonna…I’m gonna…I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Maybe I’ll take off my glasses. Maybe I’ll cuss, darn it.

I’ve got to do something to shed this teddy bear reputation. A tattoo, you think? Get my teeth filed all pointy-like? Stop taking showers?

I repeat: Skepticon II was a blast, and I think what really contributed to the fun was that there was a lot of young people organizing it and in the audience, and no stodginess was allowed. Make sure you go next year — it really was one of the more entertaining and enthusiastic meetings I’ve gone to this year…and it was held in the heart of the Bible Belt, in the city otherwise best known as the capitol of the AssGod church.

I have to answer a couple of questions I was asked repeatedly. I dazzled everyone with my sartorial flamboyance, and on the first night I wore my infamous crocoduck tie. I’m sorry, you can’t get it, at least not yet. Josh Timonen had it made, and so far, only Richard Dawkins and I have one. Maybe it will show up in the RDF store someday, or maybe it won’t.

On the second day, I was asked about the Creation “Museum”, and ripped open my shirt to reveal a portrait of the epic battle that was waged on our visit. People asked where they could get that, too (although one audience member showed me hers — she’d already got one). This one is easy.

PZ Myers, DJ Grothe

Just go to Jen‘s store, and you can order them right now. You can also get it on a black shirt, too.

You’ll have to get your own boy toy, though.

By the way, the photograph is by Ziztur — who has a nice blog.