Almost break week

and Eldest Daughter is in town, looking into doing her MS at my school (thank goodness for tuition waivers!).

Still waiting for news on Youngest Daughter's various college applications.

I had my "visit with the Dean" yesterday, which was nice. He is spending a half hour talking to each faculty member, sort of a "getting to know you" kind of deal. He came in, sat down, and said, "I'm here to---WHAT IS THAT?!"

Directly in his line of vision was my mini-claymore, given to me by YD, with the Munro clan motto of "Dread God" engraved on its blade.

Hee hee.

Then I showed him my other weapons and we spent a nice half hour talking about his John Deere tractor, farming, industrial engineering, and my kids. I did manage to ask him about a retroactive startup package, and he agreed it would be a good idea but stopped well short of saying "Sure!"

Oh yeah, and he also mentioned that the tenure goalposts will be moving but I already knew that.

Back from the campus visit

and thank God that is the last one. Every one has involved a slog through blinding snow.

Behind on work now, what else is new.

Why am I up so early?

Gee, I dunno. Could be any or all of these:

• Youngest Daughter has to jump through yet another hoop to finish high school. Major meltdown yesterday over that.
• More tuition payments are coming, thanks to #1.
• Still owe $300+ to the CC for one class, $900 to the music school for other classes.
  
• College plans for YD are getting more and more dicey thanks to #1.
  
• Eldest Daughter is still out of work.
• Son is having difficulty putting together his thesis committee.
• Various other family worries.
• My friend P is not doing well, health-wise.
• Have to do the taxes next week in order to fill out the FAFSA for YD. The last three years, we have had to pay, big time, despite having the maximum withholding.
• Various other money worries.
• The One is weakening my country, as I knew he would, and putting us in terrible danger, as I knew he would.
• Honor killings have come to WNY and no one seems to be too upset about it; mainstream media is painting it as "domestic violence".

So yeah, I'm up.

Four degrees of separation

We found out yesterday that we do indeed have connections with victims of the plane crash. Lives intertwine in Western New York, even for those who have left in search of more opportunity. Although no one near and dear to us personally has been lost, we know that each of the 50 victims was near and dear to someone, and most often that someone was here in the area.

Students at a local high school have started a Facebook page urging producers of ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition to build a new house for the Wielinski family, who lost their husband and father, their home, and all their possessions in this tragedy. On Friday, I had e-mailed one of the local talk show hosts suggesting the same thing. Today I printed out the EMHE nomination form and will mail it tomorrow. It's hard to comprehend the magnitude of the Wielinskis' loss. Perhaps, if enough people lobby the network, some small part of the pain this family feels can be assuaged.

Still waiting

So far, 32 names have been released. 18 more to go.

I don't usually like Donn Esmonde's writings in the Buffalo News, but he captures things pretty well here:

A prayer for our community
By Donn Esmonde
News Columnist

How does a community wrap its arms around itself? Continental Connection Flight 3407. Newark to Buffalo. The name and number are forever set in the fixed concrete of history, in the frozen pain in our souls.

In a gruesome fireball, a plane filled with our neighbors is down. A house in Clarence is obliterated. Fifty people are dead. Fifty people, many of whom walked the same streets we do, shopped at the same stores, sent their kids to the same schools.

As the days pass, we will learn their names and we will hear about their lives. But there is a larger truth that, in a sense, will frame every one of those details: We are them, and they are us.

Buffalo is a city in name, a small town at heart. Most of the people on this plane were, to a lot of us, a friend, a co-worker, or a neighbor.

Those of us who are more than a few degrees of separation from the victims still are connected to them by our shared hopes and dreams for this community. We all want to see Buffalo someday rise out of the economic mire. We all know the meaning, in all of its layers, of Wide Right.

Flight 3407. It is too much loss to fathom. It is too much pain to comprehend. It is too much grief to bear.

If this had been a small plane, if this had been a few deaths instead of 50, the tragedy still would have been front-page news. Increase that hypothetical loss exponentially, multiply the grief, factor in the agony of the victims’ loved ones, and it adds up to something unfathomable.

It is too much to digest. It is too large to wrap our arms of comprehension around.

We hear details of ice on the plane’s wings and wing flaps shifted for descent and landing gear lowered — and then a sudden pitch and roll. It will be weeks before the cause of the crash is determined. But the possibility that a simple, weather-related mechanical malfunction — of cables frozen or controls unresponsive or de-icers inoperative — caused the obliteration of this much life is surreal. The flesh-and-blood consequence seems too monumental to chalk up to malfunctioning cables or ineffectual fluids or a coating of ice.

One official who got close to the crash scene told me he saw airline seats scattered in the debris, and human limbs. Hours later, he seemed stunned, almost disbelieving.

We are stunned as a community. The cumulative loss has taken a piece of our collective heart. For many, the pain is personal. Hundreds of mourners filled the pews for Friday’s prayer service at Clarence’s Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church. Among those seeking solace in shared grief was Michele Potter.

She and Doug Wielinski worked together at the old Outokumpu American Brass factory. Flight 3407 landed on Wielinski’s house. His wife, Karen, and daughter, Jill — in one of the tragedy’s small miracles — somehow got out. Doug did not.

Michele Potter wiped tears as she talked about the man who collected sports memorabilia, loved antique furniture and spoke at high school assemblies about his service in Vietnam. When the elderly woman across the street needed something fixed at her house, Doug Wielinski grabbed his tool box.

“He was that kind of guy,” said Potter, hunching her shoulders against the cold in the church parking lot. “He was just full of information, such an interesting person . . . I just feel helpless. You can’t do anything but pray.”

That is how this feels. This is what this disaster is about. Take Doug Wielinski, absorb his life and death, and multiply by 50.

It is too much pain to process. It is too much grief to fathom. It is too much hurt to heal. It is beyond us. It is part of us.

One and the same. Now, and forever. Amen.

Horrible, just horrible

Buffalo is a small room; separation is much less than six degrees. Certainly this tragedy will affect many in the region. When I heard the news, my concern was for my sister, whose house lies in the flight path and is just three miles from the crash site. When she heard the news, she was afraid that I was on the plane.

What a sad day.

Bwahahaha

I have an Obamarrhoid colleague, who delighted in posting really objectionable anti-Bush cartoons on her door, and who took shots at President Bush in every way she could in completely unrelated venues. When I first started at this school, she included me on her e-mailed anti-Bush jokes--until the day I got a message with an animated gif of Bush turning into Alfred E. Newman. I'd had enough of this crap, so I sent back a "Since we are sharing" e-mail with light-hearted pokes at Democrats and an animated gif of John Kerry morphing into Herman Munster. The anti-Bush e-mails stopped after that, but the insulting cartoons and the incessant snarking kept on.

Now that Obama is in office, and is fair game for jabs and pokes, she suddenly doesn't want to hear puns on porkulus bills, selling Senate seats, tax cheat IRS heads, etc. Yesterday, as our faculty meeting was breaking up, another colleague made a remark about "stimulus" and she said "Okay, now, that's enough." I laughed and walked out. Turnabout is fair play, and payback is--well, you know.

What I did today

7:30-9:30 a.m.

• Got up.
• Took medicine.
• Got washed up.
• Got dressed.
• Ate a bowl of oatmeal.
• Packed up my computer and a lunch of mini-peppers, a stick of string cheese, and three slices of pepperoni.
• Made a travel mug of tea.
• Drove to work.

10:00-11:30 a.m.

• Meeting

11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

• Walked back to my office.
• Read and answered e-mail.
• Met with a student.

12:30-1:00 p.m.

• Lunch with Mary (salad)

1:00-3:30 p.m.

• Worked on park dataset.
• Worked on ASQ database.
• Created a scholarship tracker database.
• Answered more e-mail
• Started grading.
• Had peppers, cheese, and pepperoni for snack.

3:30-5:30 p.m.

• Drove home.
• Put towels away.
  
• Spent about 15 minutes cleaning bedroom.
  
• Made pierogies for Youngest Daughter.

5:30-6:00 p.m.

• Drove Youngest Daughter to class.

6:00-8:15 p.m.

• Made dinner (grilled cheese with pepperoni and onion).
• More grading.
• Answered e-mails.
• Started revising student’s IRB form.
• Took out garbage.

8:15-8:30 p.m.

• Picked Youngest Daughter up from class.

8:30-11:00 p.m.

• Watched Top Chef.
• Finished grading.
• Answered more e-mails.
• IM’d Eldest Daughter.

How to tick off a colleague

Dear Ms NewProf,

I understand the first year on the tenure track is difficult. I understand you have two children. I also understand you have activities outside of your job.

But.

There is NO EXCUSE for ignoring e-mails. I know you got them, because your friend Ms NewProfToo sent me a message and in it discussed your response to my e-mailed questions--nice to know what you think about this issue, even if I had to find out accidentally, second-hand.

Thanks a pantload. Really makes me eager to work with you on this project.

Best regards,
Dr.Mom

Blah, blah, blah

Nothing much to report. Work, drive around, pay bills, pick up cat puke...same old same old. No news on the Eldest Daughter job search front.

I think I shall make some popcorn and watch LOTR while I try to translate SAS code into R, and go to bed early tonight.

They're coming out of the woodwork!

All of a sudden my grad students are appearing in droves, wanting pre-proposals and proposals and reports read and commented on and defenses scheduled.

I counted up and I have TWELVE students in various stages of finishing. Whoa. No wonder I can't tell if I am coming or going!

Oink oink oink oink

VARIOUS LEFT-WINGERY:

1. $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts

2. $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program

3. $300 million for grants to combat violence against women

4. $2 billion for federal child care block grants

5. $6 billion for university building projects

6. $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships

7. $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion to provide “youth” summer jobs for people up to the age of 24

8. $1 billion for community development block grants

9. $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”

10. $650 million for digital TV coupons, including $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”

POORLY DESIGNED TAX RELIEF:

11. $15 billion for business-loss carry-backs

12. $145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits

13. $83 billion for the earned income credit

STIMULUS FOR THE GOVERNMENT:

14. $150 million for the Smithsonian

15. $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters

16. $500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities

17. $44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters

18. $350 million for Agriculture Department computers

19. $88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building next year

20. $448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters

21. $600 million to convert federal auto fleet to hybrids

22. $450 million for National Aeronautics and Space Administration

23. $600 million for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

24. $1 billion for the Census Bureau

INCOME TRANSFERS:

25. $89 billion for Medicaid

26. $30 billion for COBRA insurance extension

27. $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits

28. $20 billion for food stamps

PURE PORK:

29. $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

30. $850 million for Amtrak

31. $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship

32. $1.7 for the National Park System

33. $55 million for Historic Preservation Fund

34. $7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”

35. $150 million for agricultural commodity purchases

36. $150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”

RENEWABLE WASTE:

37. $2 billion for renewable energy research

38. $2 billion for a “clean-coal” power plant in Illinois

39. $6.2 billion shall be for the Weatherization Assistance Program

40. $3.5 billion shall be for energy efficiency and conservation block grants

41. $3.4 billion shall be for the State Energy Program

42. $200 million shall be for state and local electric-transport projects

43. $300 million shall be for energy-efficient appliance rebate programs

44. $400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments

45. $1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries

46. $1.5 billion for green technology loan guarantees

47. $8 billion for innovative technology loan guarantee program

48. $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects

49. $4.5 billion for electricity grid

REWARDING STATE IRRESPONSIBILITY:

50. $79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund

I didn't get the big teaching award and other random stuffage

Oh well. I could have used that $1000 prize.

So, Eldest Daughter went back to the City Too Very Far Away today. :-( But on the bright side, she has an interview tomorrow!! She got a phone interview yesterday for this job, and of course aced it, so now she is meeting them face to face. Go, ED!

My rogue grad snowflake refuses to go away. She had asked our office staff to call her when I was in! They asked me if they should, and I said no. She is pressuring me to sign off on her master's project, but I've not had any contact with her and have no idea what she did--and I am not meeting with her to even see it. I talked to the grad coordinator, and he is backing me up which is great. Today I sent her a "Sorry, but no" e-mail in response to her long missive "explaining" where she has been for the past year. Hopefully I won't hear from her again.

Best way to tick off one's adviser: do nothing, then drop off the face of the earth for a while, then come back and insist on approvals for work the adviser has never seen. I had a classmate who did that. He thought he could walk in, hand our adviser a "completed" dissertation, and skip all the qualifying exams and other hoops we lesser mortals had to go through. I kept telling him that was a good way to get his whole committee angry with him, but he wouldn't listen. Sure enough, he reaped the rewards of that strategy--he had to re-do a lot of work because the committee had problems with what he had written. The committee, if it works properly, gives insights and suggestions because they have expertise in the general area the student is exploring. It's kind of dumb to set up a committee of experts and then ignore them completely.

Another snowflake in my online class told me she gives up, she doesn't understand probabilities and statistics, and wants to know where to go for help. Uh-huh. She has not asked me ONE QUESTION. She has not posted to the "clear as mud" fora I set up every week for questions on the lecture material. I am betting she hasn't followed my tips for how to succeed in the class. I asked her if she had, and advised her to ask me about the topics she doesn't understand, and of course I have not heard a word from her since.

Kitty Son is staring at me. That means it is time for bed.