thanksgiving

As I sit here in my office trying to figure out why my most recent experiment didn’t return the expected results I have to wonder “what am I thankful for.” It’s been a difficult week; things haven’t worked out nearly as well as they could have. I am feeling pulled in all directions and my family is almost a thousand miles away. I have my big projects to work on but at the same time I am helping with several others. I don’t know where the priorities are. My own homework and studies of things not related to my research are difficult enough.
But enough of my worries. I am grateful to be in graduate school, especially here at UNL. I have a great adviser and great lab mates who help out and are concerned about me and my well being. I am proving up to the task at hand and will somehow succeed. I am grateful for the church and the peach it brings to me. I am grateful for my roommate, he is a real help in these trying times. Mostly I am grateful for my wonderful wife and children. They support me in all my insanity and even though we’re not together right now I know they love me and care for me.

Happy Thanks Giving

Rough Draft

Here is the slide that I use when I want to give a 5 minute preview of what I am working on towards my PhD. This is the rough draft I would appreciate feedback.

The balancing act

Grad school is a careful balancing act. It’s all about making the right decisions and finding the correct balances. For example you want to spend the time on your research, in the end you cannot get a PhD without having a volume of original research under your belt; but you have to do well in your coursework as well. In addition you are usually going to be a teaching assistant and you will need to spend the necessary time preparing your lectures and grading and helping students. It all adds up to much more than the number of hours actually available in a given week (and that’s not taking into account that you can only ingest so much caffeine before your body shuts down). Plus at some point you must shower and wash your clothes. So what has to go? Where do you bend and flex? Last night for example I needed to give and grade tests to my 50 students. They had to have their scores back by this morning. I have a presentation that is 100% of my grade in one class that is due Monday, and I have homework that is due this morning in another class. What do you do? It’s not a matter of should have done this sooner it’s a matter of no time and it has to be done anyway. Oh well I don’t have time to rant anymore ;)
Love to you all

by the way my last post was when I was very tired it was meant to be a funny rant.

Horses hate daylight savings time

Horses don’t care if daylight savings has ended and you are supposed to have an extra hour to sleep in. They just know that you are late and that they are hungry. When we went out this morning according to the clock we were a bit early. But the horses knew that we were late and that they should have been fed much earlier. They calmed down once they had their food, but they were close to mutiny. Personally I can’t blame them.
Daylight savings is old fashioned and needs to be done away with. Just like the penny, inches, gallons, and Miles. (pun intended Just kidding bro.) But seriously, why should we continue with the old when the new is so much better? Like batteries, did you know that batteries were invented in the 1800’s? And that you car’s lead acid battery was invented in 1859? Even the state of the art Li ion batteries were invented in the 1991! That is last MILLENNIUM folks! We need to get rid of them! Throw them away and replace them with newer and safer batteries that are grown for a specific purpose. Have a nanobot that is programmed to turn people’s brains in to grey goo? I don’t think a triple A battery is going to cut it, you need a custom grown job. Need a battery for that new car growing in your garage? Heaven knows you don’t want one that contains heavy metals or that might stunt the growth on one side. Grow a series of batteries that can cope with the job, especially a series that is able to gather free energy as you drive. The next time you pick up your iPod remember that if the battery inside isn’t grown for iPod it doesn’t belong there!
Go plant some custom batteries today!