Daily Life in an Ivory Basement

Looking back, the last 5 years have, collectively, been rather overwhelming.

Five years ago, I was a big-mouthed 7th year graduate student. The biggest change in my recent life was getting a cat (first) and getting married (second).

Now, I'm the father of two (adorable) daughters. I have a minivan, a big house (plus mortgage) and a salary that is several times my grad salary (not necessarily saying that much...). I've got a PhD and am an assistant professor up for reappointment. I have six big-mouthed graduate students and four even bigger-mouthed post-docs. I've "graduated" one Masters student and an undergrad or three. I'd guess I've added almost half again to my stock of friends and acquaintances.

Very weird and fairly sudden transition!

Some thoughts:

Having kids is awesome. It's lots of work (especially for the primary caregiver, usually the mom) but a total riot of life and energy. One of the most amazing things to do with kids is to watch them sleep, which they do with the same total commitment that they give to everything else (...including throw tantrums).

Big houses with big backyards are surprisingly relaxing, if they're in reasonably good shape and require only upkeep maintenance.

Minivans? WAY AWESOME.

The job: Just like everyone else, professors get pulled between too many strong competing needs: the bureaucracy of science (running a lab, managing paperwork and money, doing reviews), teaching (billed as important but not seen as such), mentoring (fun and rewarding but a lot of work), and doing research (what we really want to do). The flip side of all that work is that we get to pick what we're going to work on, each day. It's worth it to me, but boy did it take a long time to get here - 15 years out of high school. It would really suck to take all that time to get here and find out that you didn't have a passion for research...

Actually, it's hard to overstate how fantastic the job is. Running a lab (or, more accurately, pointing it in some direction, feeding money into it, and seeing what happens) is as different from being a grad student or a postdoc as, umm, being a parent is from being single. Surprisingly fantastic good times amongst the hectic busy-ness, with a few rather miserable times (mostly paperwork). Hopefully it will get better once we actually publish some of the great stuff we have up our sleeves.

I'd love to be able to do more programming. My last in depth programming project led to an epic inbox disaster that I'm still working through, though.

--titus

I don't suppose anyone knows of a low- or medium-intensity pickup frisbee game somewhere within walking distance of Waikiki...?

If so, drop me a note -- thanks!

--titus

I have a habit of occasionally sending odd e-mails to my postdoc lab mailing list, for reasons that I cannot adequately explain. Here's the latest one:

Dear Bronner-Fraser Lab,

I would like to thank you all for your private letters of support;
between the blizzards of Colorado, the floods of Texas, and the
red-v-blue fighting in Michigan, it's been a tough year for us newly
independent Bronner-Fraser-ites!

Now that McCain has withdrawn his cadre from Michigan and Obama has
successfully captured the bastion of Michigan State (strategically
located next to the capitol of Michigan!), I expect the out-and-out
party fighting to die down, at least in the streets of Lansing.  While
fiercely partisan Reds will probably continue to snipe at us for a
while, Obama continues to clear Lansing block-by-block in his advance
with forces of crushing superiority.  However, the newly added wrinkle
of the pro- and anti-bailout forces (or, as they're known locally, the
Inflationists and the Depressionists) leads me to believe that we are
not long for peace here; more on that soon.

Overall, we've been very lucky.  Our compound is located far enough
away from densely populated areas that we haven't been affected much
by the fighting, and some of our local friends who are less fortunate
have bolstered our ranks.  Armored vehicles continue to roam the main
roads, but again, we're not close enough to them to be affected.  We
do have a local supply of drinking water, and so far the mine fields
are holding up; I do worry a bit about the ammo situation, but I've
directed everyone to switch away from automatics until we get a new
shipment in.

Internet has not been interrupted, although this is a mixed blessing;
I've had to stop communicating with one of the few remaining die-hard
conservatives I know, because his e-mails were correlated with attacks
by the local McCain militia.  I have come to believe that he was
hitting me with pro-Palin blogs as a distraction technique, although I
quickly saw through the tactic -- even the conservatives don't think
she's viable any more.

Anyway, I'll continue to keep you all updated as the fight continues.

best,
--titus

Please send ammo!

Just finished the book The Fragile Light, by David Nurenberg. Good stuff; independent author. Worth reading.

Briefly, it's a SF&F novel about a world where mutants are sometimes heroes, and more often feared; where there are Herotown ghettoes full of supers; and where only licensed heroes can join in the game. It reminds me a bit of the early Wild Cards books, but better written. A fun read.

--titus

On Thursday, May 15th, I finished my post-doc position at Caltech.

On Friday, May 16th, I officially started as an Assistant Professor split between Computer Science & Engineering and Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University.

On Friday evening and Saturday, we hung out down at the Caltech Marine Lab and partied.

As I type, I'm on a plane flying from California to Michigan, where my cat and I will spend our first night in our new house.

My wife and daughter will join me on Wednesday.

All of our stuff is en route and will arrive later in the week.

On Monday, I will start "directing" my new lab: I already have several local summer students, as well as a part-time research assistant. Two graduate students and a postdoctoral fellow will be starting with me later in the summer.

Hooray!

--titus