Not quite dead yet
Holy crap! Check this out! TEXT!
Yeah, writing is mysteriously appearing in this space, and that’s because despite all the stuff that’s been happening recently my fingers have not completely broken up their relationship with the keyboard. And what “stuff” could have been happening? Well as an e.g., in an unrelated order of importance…
- Various forays to various weddings
- Diverse friends moving away from here forever
- My Ph.D. defense
- My own getting married
See? Told you “stuff” was going down.
The last two of that list were done on the sly. We did a stealth, ninja-type wedding, and my supervisor likes to spring graduation on her students within weeks of the anticipated date. I’m still going to carry on doing pretty much the same thing for a bit though, I need to finish stuff up, and postponing the job search isn’t an entirely unattractive option. For now I’ll do a mini post-doc.
Helping in Haiti
If you haven’t already done so, I’m giving you a nudge toward providing cash to help people survive the fallout of one of the most devestating natural earthquakes in recorded history. To help you decide where to most effectively donate your money I recommend looking at the ratings on Charity Navigator, as well as the list on NPR. I chose Partners in Health, who have been providing healthcare services to the poor in Haiti for over 25 years, via their sister organization Zanmi Lasante. I found they were independently recommended several times.
Something else I discovered is that you should under no circumstances send things which aren’t money. This can actually hinder the relief efforts, since it is extra boxes of stuff that aid workers have to sort through and deal with:
“Of course, the donors were only trying to help, but misplaced intentions actually worsened the suffering. Buried under care packages and out of date antibiotics labeled in Thai and Chinese were the world’s most advanced malaria medications. Meanwhile along the coast, people who had just lost homes and families writhed in malarial fever for lack of treatment.”
So just stick with the credit card…
Lake effect
Taken while on a three o’ clock saunter around the lake:
And taken on my usually rubbish phone camera! Apparently even its paltry pixel count can’t put up a fight when faced with such a delicious increase in daily maximum temperature, and blueness of sky.
Fairly Hot Friday Linkage
Instrumental edition. To keep the eye you aren’t pretending to do work with entertained we have for your internetting pleasure….
- The BeoTime alarm clock — homing in like a laser-sighted jaguar on that group of people whose love for woodwinds is only slightly surpassed by the huge piles of money lying around their castle. Yours for a tad under four-hundred smackaroos.
- A woodier woodwind – Like the arboreal George Mallory, this guy had an inextinguishable urge to get all homnidy with what nature had provided. Unlike Mallory this meant wiring up a tree in his backyard and then bowing the crap out of it.
- Playing the black keys – If, like the NYPD, you are finding it hard to relinquish the mechanical ball of joy which is your typewriter AND your wax-cylinder gramophone is currently in the shop for repairs then this musical typewriter might be just what the old-timey doctor ordered. Then again, if you enjoy your music to actually be composed and, you know, pleasurable perhaps it’s better to pass.
Have a good weekend! I have not one, not three, but TWO work barbeques to attend over the next two days — although surprise suprise, now that it’s Friday the weather is switching from as sunny to possible to dribbling water. Oh dear.
Plane Talk
Here I am back around again, without a weekend to seperate me on holiday from me at work. Bugger. The current jetlag status is: PASSABLE. In this direction it’s just like staying up a bit later than usual. Particularly if one manages to grab a bit of on-plane, in-flight, in-seat, shut-eye. As I did, repeatedly, in morsels medianed by that head-snapping-up maneuver. The one that’s obligatory when falling asleep upright.
Usually I find it really hard to fall asleep on planes. Hell, it’s hard enough to fall asleep in bed. I think it helped that the aisle I was plonked at the end of — aisle seats are the way forward for flights longer than an hour, due to toiletery priveleges — had only one other person in it all the way across the breadth of the plane. Initially there was another guy sitting next to me (who began the trip by deftly consuming a bag full of breadcrumbs and mayonnaise) but he resat himself after our frontward neighbours were still (loudly) talking about UK/USA culture clashes after two hours.
But not before making some under his (mayonnaisey) breath comments to me about how he’d never experienced anything like this in all his years of flying.
It didn’t bother me. Actually it was fascinating. Neither of the two knew each other until they became seating partners, and they had a chair between them. After about three seconds of conversation it was clear that the XYish one wanted more than just a bit of chatter, despite wives and boyfriends being brought up. There were some awkward almost hand contacts, and possibly a comment about, errr, how beautiful she looked when asleep, when he had to wake her up to go to the toilet an hour before we landed.
And she was having none of it.
I know, I’m a dirty little eavesdropper. But it was so conveniently right in front of my face.