RBO: I got nothin'

• I'm just worn out. It was a busy week, but there is a currently unbloggable issue affecting everything else- I promise I'll explain soon. In the mean time, I'm just too tired to write a good post- even for Scientiae, which I have missed the last few months. 
• I don't have anything else too exciting to report, other than I am really sick of snow and hope that we are done with it for the season (of course, the forecast for Monday night includes a chance of snow). 
• I am excited to vote next week, too- I thought our primary would be meaningless by now, so it makes it more exciting that things are still undecided.
  
• We have our second of three candidates in next week for the search I am chairing. The one last week was very exhausting for me, so I'm really glad we have them spread out over three weeks.
• I can't believe spring break is coming up! I have so much research work to catch up on that I should work all day every day that week on it. I hope that actually happens.
• Anyway- I'm just not feeling inspired to comment on any of the great things out in the blogosphere or bring up something thoughtful today, so this will have to do- I'm still here!

It's been a crazy week

I'll do a longer post soon, but in the meantime enjoy the peafowl visiting us in the snow!

More at Flickr...

I guess that works.

As seen all over.... I don't smoke, but I guess you could say that I like fire (people who know me might get that.)

You Are Cumin

You are warm, unique, and pretty dominant. It's also pretty likely that you smoke or like fire. You are energetic and intense. You definitely stimulate people.

What Spice Are You?

Short, whiny post

I am feeling incredibly sleep deprived, since I stayed up until around 11:00 watching political stuff, then had to wake up at 5:00 in order to shovel snow off of my driveway (to make it my 8:00AM class). I know- six hours should be enough, but I feel like crap. I also have a headache, now. I will probably go to bed when D does tonight and know that I'll feel MUCH better in the morning- especially because this irritating wintry mix will be GONE. No more snow until at least Tuesday. I don't usually look forward to spring, because summer is right behind it, but this year I can't wait! [end of whine]

Book Meme

Chaser tagged me....

The rules of engagement are as follows:

a) Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.

b) Find page 123.

c) Find the first 5 sentences and read them.

d) Post the next 3 sentences.

Mine is so terribly exciting. It's a remote sensing textbook (for one my classes this semester).

Knowledge of the subject of our interpretation- the kind of information that motivates us to examine the image- is the heart of image interpretation.  Accurate interpretation requires familiarity with the subject of the interpretation.  For example, interpretation of geological information requires education and experience in the field of geology.

I don't have time to go make a list, so if you are reading this- consider yourself tagged!

Blogger Meet-Up: Second Call!

OK, I didn't get too many responses to that last call for Bloggers, but I doubt there are too many bloggers out there from my own discipline, anyway. I'd like to appeal to any bloggers who live in Boston (or will be visiting Boston between April 14th through the 17th). There must be someone who lives there, right? So far, I have heard from two people attending the conference... Email or post a comment if you want to be involved in the meet-up!

New blog name?

OK, everyone. I have an assignment for you. I need to think of a NEW name for this blog. I am not officially an Associate Professor until July 1st, but I have been "granted tenure" (it's in our University newspaper and everything), so I'm not really "an untenured college professor" any more. I will likely leave the URL the way it is, but I would like to change the name. This blog is still a bit of a source of procrastination for me, but really has become more of a fun writing outlet, so I'm not sure that the procrastination theme really still holds. But what do you think? What name would encompass the sort of things I write about here?

Saturday Bird Blogging

More at Flickr...

Academic Interview Etiquette

I am chairing a search committee right now and we are in the midst of scheduling interviews. In the interest of being friendly, welcoming, and preparing for unforeseen travel delays, I have given my home and cell number to the candidates. One of the candidates called my house yesterday. At 9:30PM. I was in bed already*, so I didn't answer the phone. S/he had also emailed asking for good times to call. I emailed back this morning and said that anytime before 9:00PM would be fine (I also happened to mention that we are two hours later here than where s/he is). I did NOT mention what time that call came in last night, because I don't want to make him/her feel bad, but I really hope that doesn't happen again. Even when we're awake, we tend to not answer the phone that late- especially if the number is unknown. I'm not even sure why this person wants to reach me or why s/he seems so intent on talking immediately, when the interview isn't for almost a month, either. One other interesting thing is that I met this person last spring when I interviewed at her/his current department! Maybe s/he wants to get the low-down, since I was trying leave. We'll see.

*I arrived at school at 7:30AM yesterday and didn't get home until after 7:30PM. My day included teaching, meetings, lunch with a friend, and attending a visitation for another friend's father. By the time I got home, I had a splitting headache and went to bed early.

Blogger Meet-Up???

Psst! Hey! Are you going to AAG? If you know what it is and you're going, send me an email, because there is a blogger meet-up in the works for April! Woo hoo!

V-Day

For so many years I despised Valentine's Day. Before I was married, I spent very little of my life in relationships. I was always single and nothing reminded me of that fact more than Valentine's Day. So, you're probably expecting me to say that I love it now- well, guess what? I don't! We don't even celebrate it! I mean, it's a good excuse to eat chocolate, but H and I don't exchange gifts or cards. I stopped at the drugstore on the way home to get D some valentines for school, then the Hallmark store to get her stickers, and the grocery store to pick up soy milk. The floral section at Kroger was mobbed with people. The card aisle was full of men. I saw a colleague at check-out who dropped his wife's card as he was leaving. When he stopped to pick it up, he said that he was glad that remembered on time this year. Oh dear. Why should people be knocking themselves out over this? Aren't birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas enough? It just seems crazy to me. Is anyone else with me on this? Am I just too cynical? Am I sick in the head that I don't want a diamond pendant?

The Tropics in the Midwest

I went to Krohn Conservatory with D's Brownie troop yesterday. Here are some photos I took (more at Flickr). I always feel like taking close-ups of plants and flowers...

You can see the veins better in the larger photo.

Close-up of a BIG leaf.

My Favorite! A leaf with sunlight coming from behind it.

Lovely tropical flowers in Cincinnati!

Still here!

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger of late. I have been busy, but I don't think that is the only reason I haven't been blogging. I haven't been reading blogs either- my Google Reader now has over 200 unread, so I doubt that I will actually get to read everything. I was glued to the TV on Tuesday night watching the election results, but most nights I am crashing out pretty early. You see, I'm teaching at 8:00 three days a week, so my schedule has shifted to sleeping earlier. The semester is going along smoothly so far. I am giving my first exam to the Big Freshman class tomorrow, so we'll see if I made it too easy or not. We got the almost final word on tenure last week- the Provost and President gave their seals of approval. As of July 1, I will be Associate Professor with tenure. I had been told this was practically a formality, but I just learned that someone in another department (also in another college) was denied by the Provost! I don't really understand how someone can pass through their department, college, and a university committee and then have one person decide they don't get it. I'm glad I didn't know that before or I would have been freaking out! That really sucks.

I am also busy chairing a search committee. We are about to invite people for interview, so it's pretty exciting. I got to call a few of them to ask for missing letters and they sounded very excited to hear from me. And I understand why! You send out applications and just jump every time the phone rings that they are going to call you. It's very interesting being on this side of it- I've been on search committees before, but not chaired one, so this is my first chance to do those sorts of things. I am also working on another proposal- just a small teaching-related one. I have no idea how competitive it is, but we're sending it in next week. I have so much work to do on The Grant stuff. I have two RAs, but some of the work is too complicated for them and I have to do it. And I have no time. And I keep putting it off. I have two work-at-home days per week and that work keeps getting pushed aside for other things- getting ready for classes, working on that proposal, search committee meetings at our other campus... I am presenting at two conference in April and need to use some of the results... I should be OK, but would feel better if things were out of my hands and passed on to the RAs!

So, I have no real excuse for the blogging silence. I wanted to do a Scientiae post, but missed that one, too. I hope you are all having good semesters (or quarters) out there!