It’s a bit of a travel day for me again—I’m in St Cloud, sitting in a coffee shop for a little while, before heading off to the SCSU campus for…ALARIC’S GRADUATION! My oldest son is graduating with a double major in Economics and Political Science today. One less set of tuition payments to make, at last.
OK, it’s also good that he’s going to be a free and independent adult, and isn’t going to need me for anything anymore.
The regal old willow that has graced our front yard for longer than I’ve been alive, and which has sadly shown signs of advancing senescence, is scheduled for termination tomorrow morning. It’s a beautiful old tree, but its habit of dropping a ton of log every spring has made it a hazard, so we’ve decided to end it quickly, rather than a slow death by yearly spontaneous lopping of limbs.
I’ve had several people ask me about this tree, and several have mentioned their sorrow at its imminent passing. If you’d like to pay last respects, tonight is your last chance. Feel free to step into the yard and give it a goodbye hug (be careful, though, and don’t shake it too much—I disavow any responsibility for falling branches.)
The execution of the poor tree will be an all day job on Friday, and unfortunately, it’s got to be carried out in public. For those of you of delicate sensitivities, you might want to stay away from 3rd and College Avenue until Saturday.
I’m a traitor. Remember how I was going to lead the Science Caucus at YearlyKos? I was really looking forward to that and we had some great ideas for a productive session. I hope who ever takes over for me can use some of that.
That’s right — I’m not going to be able to make it to YearlyKos this time around. I’m bad. I’m selfish.
What came up is an invitation to something called a Science Foo camp, sponsored by Google, O’Reilly, and Nature … and it sounds titillating enough that I just can’t turn it down. So I’m abandoning the Kossacks this time around, but I’m sure there’s enough science talent going there that I’ll be easily replaced.
Come on, it sounds like Foo camp will be nerdvana. How could I possibly miss it?
This afternoon, I’m traveling to the Twin Cities again. Ricardo Azevedo is giving a talk at 4:00 in 150 Ecology at UMTC on “Sex, robustness and epistasis”. The title has one of those buzzwords that always makes me perk up and pay attention. You know the one I mean. Mmmmmmm, “epistasis”.
We’ve been experiencing a great howling windstorm since yesterday — it seems to be a common event every spring around here that we get a storm or two just to teach the trees that this is supposed to be prairie. Our excitement for the day is that this huge old willow in our yard lost another limb, something like what happened two years ago. At that time, a major limb smacked down on the south side of the tree; this year, an even larger branch smashed down to the north. That monster is significantly bigger around than I am.
Here’s Skatje sitting in the wreckage. She was very enthusiastic about getting out there and sawing at some of the lesser branches so we could swing the debris out of the road and the sidewalk. We’re going to have to get a professional tree service to take care of the rest.
We’ve been lucky so far — the deadfalls have paralleled the house, and no one has been under them. Looking at what’s left of the tree, the next big branch to go is either going to fall to the east and take out our car, or to the west and take out the neighbor’s garage. Old Man Willow is out to get us, we may have to terminate him first.
Knocked another one down — I finished the grades for the last exam in my genetics course (there is still an optional final next Friday). This was an important one, because I promised myself that if I could get them all done this afternoon, I would let myself go to the local theater to watch Spiderman 3 tonight. Those little internal incentives help a lot!
Larry Moran has already mentioned this recent article in Cell on this strange new fad of science blogging. He was interviewed along with many others of us, including me. I don’t know about this bit:
The rock star of scientist bloggers is Paul Myers, an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, who writes Pharyngula. With about 20,000 visitors per day, Pharyngula is currently the most popular science blog according to Technorati. Myers started writing about 4 years ago. “It was a casual decision. One summer I had some free time and started typing away. And people started coming to the site,” he recalls. “I thought that I would stop in a month or so but I didn’t. I find it useful for communicating with other scientists and the community.” Myers not only writes about his brand of science, developmental biology, but often discusses politics and religion. “The blog would not be as popular if it was only about science,” he says. “I am popularizing science using political issues as a hook.”
This just isn’t good enough. I need to know which rock star. The Roger Waters of the blogosphere would be cool. David Bowie would be nifty, too, although I’m not thin enough. The Keith Richards of science blogging would be troubling … but if I’m the Ozzie, I’m hanging it up.
My next Seed column was just sent off to the overlords. I love this time of year! Everything is coming to tidy conclusions, so I can focus on one thing at once instead of 10, get it done, and unlike the usual Lernaean Hydra-like state of affairs, it doesn’t bloom into two new tasks.
Then, tomorrow … no classes, so I’m going to be able to just rip through all my grading without interruption. And then Friday and this weekend I’ll be free to tear through a major administrative chore that’s been dogging me for the last few months.
Freedom!
I just gave the last exam of my last class of this semester. No more lecture prep, no more lectures, just a stack of grading that I have to finish by Friday (I do have one final exam to give, but it’s optional—the score they get on it replaces the lowest exam score of the term—and I expect only about a quarter of the class will bother to take it). I’m sure the students are even more relieved than I am at this point.
The end is in sight!
A colleague just let me know that I’m mentioned in the “Best of the Web” section of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. Yay! It’s a positive review!
It’s in the April 15 issue for all you subscribers.
