My Silly Life

To work or not to work, that is the question

2008-09-22T02:33:03Z

A couple of weeks ago, my government manager mentioned that she had been talking to our project manager about taking me on full-time through the next fiscal year. Prior to this, I only knew that my full-time employment was only guaranteed through the end of this calendar year. For any normal person in that situation, with no future job on the horizon, it would be good news that their employment could be continued for another 8-10 months. I'm not normal. Currently I work on three different tasks at work - one is a research task for 50% of my time, one is a web development/science support task for 30% of my time, and the last is an education and public outreach task for 20% of my time. I only like one of these tasks - the outreach task. The others are things to be tolerated (an loathed). Sadly, the full-time position that my one manger is offering, is actually an extension of the web development/science support task. This is the longest-running of my tasks, which started over 5 years ago. For over 4 years, I have hated that job. A big part of the problem is that I often have *nothing to do* - I'm not talking about nothing meaningful or nothing interesting, but rather nothing at all. Another problem is that when I write new text for a web page, I can't get anyone to approve the text. The result? First, I have a bunch of new web pages that I've worked hard to research and write, that just sit on my computer without going live. Second, our web pages get further and further out of date. And does my manager think that turning this into a full-time job is going to relieve these problems? My outreach position can continue my funding through May (at the 20% level), so I asked about maybe doing the new position at the 80% level through May so that I could at least continue some part of a job I like (that's not how I worded it with my manager, of course). She didn't seem to like that idea at all - she's convinced that they'll need me full time. As it happens, Andrew and I are in a position where we can survive on just his salary (pending a large amount of budget-trimming). So, do I take the full-time position just so I'm taking in cash, feeling like I'm contributing to the household? Do I take some time off? If I were to turn down this position, I would still be able to work the 20% time on outreach. In addition, I would plan on working on my writing - I've been told that my fiction is publishable, but to do that I need to polish up some of my stories and research which markets I should submit them to. The house needs a top-to-bottom cleaning and some work (painting and such). I'd also like to work on getting CraftyPhD up and running. Plus, it would be nice to have some time for my science blog. There's no way to fit all of that into my life with a full-time job. But, is this just selfish? Andrew supports my desire to turn down the job. But I'm worried about how much we need to trim the budget. Will he start to resent me for turning down full-time employment when I had the chance? Will I feel guilty over pursuing my interests instead of contributing to the household? I know that when I do find a job, Andrew and I may find our positions swapped, with him having trouble finding a position in whatever town we move to, but is that really a good reason to turn down a job now? I have to give my decision to my manager tomorrow. I'm honestly not sure what will come out of my mouth at that time. Wish me luck.

The Police in Concert

2008-08-08T02:44:28Z

This has been a summer of shows for me – The Lion King, Indigo Girls, the NSO's "Broadway Rocks", and the NSO's "Dial H for Hitchcock". But the highlight for me so far has been The Police. (Followed very closely by The Lion King.) I'll try to write up the other concerts here later, but I want to say a bit about The Police before it fades too much. I originally bought 2 tickets for The Police's concert in Pittsburgh. I wasn't sure who would go with me to the concert, but suspecting that I would drag along poor Andrew. Then I remembered that my aunt Maggie and I sang loudly to The Police on a drive down to the Keys one summer, so decided to invite her. No sooner did I get the words "I have two tickets to The Police in Pittsburgh," than Maggie was saying, "I'll go." Skipping ahead over our road trip (we totally got "Pixburghed"), and our fun for half a day in Pittsburgh (we really, really go "Pixburghed"), we made our way to the concert venue relatively early. We figured that we'd rather get there early and twittle our thumbs than get stuck in traffic or parking. The venue, The Post-Gazette Pavillion, was rather nice. It's an outdoor venue, and there are several food and drink vendors set up in a couple of cul-de-sacs on either side of the stage and lawn. (Maggie indulged in a glass of wine and a beer; I stuck with a smoothie). The concert itself was awesome! I heard later that the earlier concerts a year ago were a bit...er...well, not terribly good. But, this one was great - they seemed to have pulled it together over the intervening year. They played both Maggie's and my favorite songs ("Wrapped around your finger" and "Don't stand so close to me"). Sadly, our seats were behind tall-boy and big-haired-girl, but there were large screens, so we could see most of what was going on. And, they sat down during Maggie's favorite song, so we stayed standing and were able to see every minute of it. As with any moment like this – one that you'd always hoped would come, but not sure it would – it ended too soon. Our trip back to the hotel was another little adventure, but I'll have to decide later if it merits a blog post...let's just say that this was the one time that having an airport hotel did not make it easier to find (hee hee hee).

Yummy Key Lime Bars

2008-07-22T16:43:30Z

I went scrapping with Laurie last weekend, and when I go up to her place, I usually bring a treat of some sort. This weekend I made up a recipe after seeing key limes at the grocery store. It turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. So, for posterity, here is the recipe, with modifications I'd make next time in red. Summer Key Lime Bars Ingredients: Crust: 3 ¹/₂ cups graham cracker crumbs ¹/₂ cup butter, melted (1 stick) (I'd use ³/₄ cup next time) 1 cup sugar Filling: 16 oz. cream cheese, softened (2 pkg) ¹/₂ cup sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla juice from 12 key limes 12 oz pkg. white chocolate chips Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13" pan (I used canola oil spray, but it would probably be best with butter or butter-flavored spray.) Mix ingredients for the crust (graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and sugar). Reserve 1 cup of crust mix for later. Press the remaining crust mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake in oven for 10 minutes. While the crust is baking, mix cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and lime juice with an electric mixer until smooth. Reserve ¹/₂ cup of the white chocolate chips for later. Hand mix the remaining white chocolate chips into the cream cheese mixture. When the crust is finished (it will be set, but shouldn't be browned), spread the cream cheese mixture over the baked crust. Sprinkle the reserved graham cracker mix over the top of the filling. Finally, sprinkle with the reserved white chocolate chips. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until the cream cheese mixture is set. (The chocolate chips will brown -- I wasn't sure I liked that, but JD said that he like the chocolate chips on top.) Note: JD suggested that the filling section could be a bit thicker, so I thought that adding a small container of ricotta cheese might do the trick - adding some volume to this layer, but not adding quite so much fat and calories. I might try that next time.

On why I'm still leaving Netflix

2008-07-01T01:45:09Z

Those of you who use Netflix Profiles know that two weeks ago they were planning on unceremoniously removing the Profiles in September. On Thursday, June 19, at the very end of the day, Netflix sent out the following e-mail to their Profiles-using customers:

We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008. Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out. While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

I was pissed. I sent this note to them within an hour of the e-mail hitting my inbox:

I am highly disappointed to hear that you will be eliminating the Profiles feature of Netflix. To be honest, that was the best feature that you've created, and the one feature that truly set you apart from your competition. When recommending Netflix to friends and family, it was the highest selling point that I would tout. To add to this mistake is not offering customers a way to easily reintegrate their queues into one. My husband and I have three queues - one for me, one for him, and one for us - with over 100 movies in each. Consolidating these movie-by-movie into one queue will be a huge undertaking. A large enough undertaking that I might just as well start over at, say, Blockbuster Online. Over the past couple of years, we have occasionally supplemented our Netflix movies with a trip to Blockbuster, and while I don't like their business practices in general, I've been tempted to switch because of the convenience of trading movies in their stores. Please reconsider this decision. I'd rather stick with Netflix, but this is enough of a reason to look seriously at my alternatives.

I can, perhaps, understand that if one feature is slowing down the entire website, it may need to be eliminated. However, the slimy part is that Netflix's solution to them closing down my queue was to "consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out". People I know who manage databases have told me that it should be a simple database query for Netflix to reintegrate our queues for us. Rather than offer that solution, they wanted me to print out my queue, and re-enter my over 100 movies by hand to our main queue. To me, Netflix has shown its true colors. I know that Blockbuster is slimy, but then, they've never pretended to be anything else. Netflix pretended to listen to its customers, relying on power-users to drive some if its features. But as soon as Neflix felt that it had a large enough customer base, it was about to yank the one feature that most power-users used. June 23, I signed up for Blockbuster Online. I've already switched my queue over, and have movies in my house. Now, a week and a half after the original announcement, I got this from Netflix:

You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are. We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you. -Your friends at Netflix

Too fucking late. Netflix, you and I are no longer friends. I know that I'm now onboard with "the evil empire", but that means that they can't disappoint me. If they screw up like you guys did, at least it won't be a surprise.

Graduation!

2008-06-01T03:15:58Z

A week ago yesterday I graduated! It was a moment I think many of us thought might never come, especially during the past 6 months, but I'm happy to say I did it. I decided to go through ceremonies for several reasons -- the first was that I promised my dad that I would. When I quit grad school in 2001 with "just" my master's degree, I decided not to go through ceremonies, and my dad was fairly disappointed. I didn't want to celebrate my master's, though, because I felt like it was a defeat, rather than a triumph. I was quitting short of my goal. More importantly, though, I feel like I needed the ceremony as a kind of closure. The defense was a bit of a let-down because I didn't have the sense of accomplishment when I finished. The graduation ceremony gave me at least some of the sense of closure, the sense of accomplishment. I even walked away with a real diploma! Here are a couple of pictures of my hooding ceremony, from Peter Teuben, a member of the astronomy department Felicia graduated, too, and here she is in her regalia (I still need to make her hood, though): I'll post a report from the grad party that followed last Saturday later; hopefully tomorrow.

Hee hee hee!!!

2008-05-14T03:17:22Z

Felicia's cap for graduation is ready: Now, if I could just get the gown the right color, I'd feel pretty good.

Regrouping

2008-05-13T21:51:18Z

I know things have been quiet around here lately. I was hoping that after I defended that I would magically find a new fount of energy which would result in a flurry of activity both in my life and in my blog. Truth is, I'm tired. I've been tired for months, and I have a feeling that it's going to take an equal amount of time to recover. We did take a long weekend in Myrtle beach a couple weeks ago, and I have to say that it did wonders for my morale. For the first time in a long time, I can say that I was truly happy. I went into sensory overload in the Build a Dino Store there, but a good kind of sensory overload. We played loads of mini-golf, and also played in the ocean. (All of my Myrtle Beach trips are here.) We haven't gotten on our bikes this year yet, and that's probably going to wait until mid-June, after I get back from a meeting in St. Louis. I haven't gotten into my scrapbooking yet, though hopefully that will pick up this weekend. I have had loads of ideas for blog posts (pink? in a John Deere store??), but lose interest by the time I get to a computer. I promise that I'm coming back, and I'm getting less tired and more happy every day, but I have a feeling that its going to be a while before "My Silly Life" is terribly active again. I'm trying, though.

Not really a big surprise here...

2008-05-06T00:51:04Z

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Literature Nerd
Drama Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
Social Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Thoughts on finishing my thesis and PhD

2008-04-23T20:21:19Z

I suppose I haven't blogged this here yet (though it did make it onto Galaxy Girl), but I successfully defended my PhD on April 11. Since then I've been working on revisions, but they need to be turned in by Friday, so will be completely done in just a couple of days. Just after I turned in my thesis three and a half weeks ago, I started hearing things like, "You must be so happy to be done with your thesis," or "You must be relieved to have that done," or "You must feel a real sense of accomplishment." The truth of the matter is that I didn't feel happy or relieved. I chalked that up to the fact that I still had my defense to worry about. For the two weeks that followed, I put together my dissertation talk. In some ways, it sounds like an easy thing – after all, it was only to be 20-25 minutes. However, being asked to turn 5 years of work into a 20 minute talk is a real chore. I debated taking auctioneer lessons to learn to talk faster, but settled on giving the digest version of much of the work, and hitting on the important and interesting results. I also studied the concepts in my thesis, so that I would be ready to field any of the weird questions my committee might come up with. All the while, I knew that I would finally feel a sense of accomplishment once the defense was over. I won't mince words. I was very nervous the day of my defense. I won't go into details, but I have to say that as it was becoming obvious that the private questioning by the committee was drawing to a close, I was surprised. I had thought it would be more of an ordeal. Maybe it was because I tried to keep the mood light in the room, at one time even calling one of the committee members a "crazy man" (in jest, of course). But, after it was over, I still didn't feel my sense of accomplishment. Don't get me wrong, I was relieved that it was over, but I didn't feel like I'd done anything great. Since then I've been working on revisions to my thesis, and taking some much needed R&R as I can. Will I feel the sense of accomplishment that I keep hoping for when I submit the final thesis to the University on Friday? I have a bad feeling that the answer is no. Any regular readers know that I have struggled with my thesis and my role as a grad student ever since I returned to finish my PhD in late 2002. I've debated quitting since about a year after I returned. I discovered that I don't really like doing research, at least under the constraints that my thesis imposed (i.e. meetings only once a month at most, and very little interaction or discussion on my thesis science). I've kept going, it feels, only because I'm the kind of person who finishes what they start, rather than finishing to satisfy my need to follow my data and analysis to a logical conclusion. In some way I felt trapped, miserable in what I was doing, but unable to stop because I don't like to be a quitter. It seems that my thesis has become more an object of distain, hurt and frustration, so it's hard to view it as a grand accomplishment. It feels more like I've decided to stop hitting myself in the head with a 2-by-4 after years of thinking it was the right thing for me to be doing. There's not much sense of accomplishment in finally ceasing something that has caused so much pain and frustration. Maybe in a year or two I'll feel like I've accomplished something. For now, I want to throw my thesis across the room every time I look at it.

Just relax...

2008-03-31T01:41:06Z

Want to know what's up with my thesis? Check out Galaxy Girl. And I just have to say that I have the best husband in the world. He gave me a gift certificate for a nearby day spa after I finished my thesis this weekend. Now, do I get the 1-hour full body massage or the sampler package that includes a 20-minute seated massage, 30-minute facial, and manicure? Decisions, decisions.

Up late...

2008-03-27T08:53:02Z

It's amazing how much late-night (or really early-morning) advertisements on TV resemble my spam e-mail folder. I've already seen two commercials to enhance "that certain part of the male anatomy", a couple for the "girls gone wild" videos, and another promising large-breasted women.

Have pistachios. Need M.U.L.E.

2008-03-19T00:00:05Z

I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the Socorro days. For those of you who have no clue what the title means, the last year that I lived at the House 'o Bob, he set up a Commodore 64. A favorite game for all of us residents was M.U.L.E. In particular, I remember one day when Mushi and Matt were setting up a game of M.U.L.E. I'm pretty sure I had a pile of homework, but they talked me into taking an hour out of the day to play a game. We sat with the front door open, a spring breeze cooling us, and a pile of pistachios in front of us. The twinge of nostalgia came with a small bowl of pistachios and the scary amount of work I need to get done by yesterday. I can't help but think that a good game of M.U.L.E. right now would make this thesis-thing better.

Don't piss me off...

2008-03-17T21:18:11Z

...because I have no restraint left in my system. If you want to know why, check out Galaxy Girl's latest post.

Are YOU ready?

2008-03-11T15:30:12Z

It's coming!!! On Friday, everyone can talk like a physicist. Not sure how to do that? Check out the FAQ on the Talk Like a Physicist blog. And for those of you physicists who do not think you talk like a physicist (like me), rest assured, you do.
[Cross-posted at Galaxy Girl]

E2

2008-03-07T17:21:23Z

Found this via Sweetie and took it on a wee break from my thesis-writing. I don't really agree with much of what this says - I think like a conservative?? 0% independent, outgoing and optimistic? There are some flaws in this personality test. But here are the results...

E2: The Everything Test 2

There are many different types of tests on the internet today. Personality tests, purity tests, stereotype tests, political tests. But now, there is one test to rule them all.

Traditionally, online tests would ask certain questions about your musical tastes or clothing for a stereotype, your experiences for a purity test, or deep questions for a personality test.We're turning that upside down - all the questions affect all the results, and we've got some innovative results too!
Version 2 is leaner, meaner, and features a more mature and varied set of questions than the previous test. Enjoy!

Character Traits
Analytical	40%
Artistic	17%
Driven	20%
Emotional	0%
Horny	71%
Independent	0%
Musical	27%
Optimistic	0%
Outgoing	0%
Political	44%
Religious	0%
Romantic	50%
Social	0%

Life Experience
Criminality	14%
Intellectual	50%
Relationships	33%
Sexuality	58%
Travel	36%

Politics
Your political views would best be described as Liberal, while philosophically you tend to think like a Conservative.

Socioeconomic
Your attitude toward life best associates you with Upper Middle Class. You make more than 91% of those who have taken this test, and 28% more than the U.S. average.

You tend to think more like an artist than an engineer.

Location-wise, you would probably be a good fit for the Suburbs.

TAKE THE TEST
brought to you by thatsurveysite

[Found via Di Has Stories...]