Eight years of waiting

My husband has been considering what his next car will be for as long as we've been dating. If you aren't sure, that would be 8 years. He's been saving money for the "next" car for at least the last 4 years. I've lost count of the number of auto shows, showroom visits, and test drives that have gone towards this endeavor. In the beginning, it was fun to think about in a "sometime in the future" way. A few years in, it became a more serious undertaking and I found myself getting invested in each of the cars on the list. A few years after that, I had more or less given up on a new car materializing. I was worn out from the search years before it was over and, by this year, just nodded and (sometimes) smiled when a new option was raised. Mostly I was just hoping it would all get wrapped up soon.

In the end, it all happened far quicker than I would have guessed. After (truly) exhaustive research, we are now the proud owners of a Tesla and are learning about the (frequently weird) switch from gas to electric cars. For starters, it's a lot quieter. Though, compared to the 2003 Mustang with the extra-loud, after-market exhaust system, that was pretty much a guarantee for almost any new car. I'm not sure it has fully sunk in that we will not need to be stopping at gas stations any time soon though my husband has already noted the days he would usually be stopping to fill up. (Not to worry, my Subaru will keep making routine gas stops.) In the meantime, neither of us has any intuitive sense of what a "good" Watt-hours per Mile (WhpM) rate is - something that will take a while to get used to after a lifetime of considering MpG.

My husband has also now gained bragging rights to the nominal title of "best environmentalist in the house," leap-frogging any of my efforts to compost, recycle, and reuse. If I was still living in the UP and bike commuting, I could probably maintain the lead in this household not-a-competition-competition but there's no way for me to manage bike commuting in my current circumstances in TX (I checked). I walk to the grocery store... does that count?

All joking (and Tesla shaped keys) aside, from a technological perspective, the car is really cool. For starters, the largely touch screen based interfaces make me constantly re-think the definition of "car." The driving itself is incredibly smooth and my husband has not yet stopped being as excited as a child on Christmas morning about the acceleration. Especially considering my day job, which involves a lot of LiDAR data collection, analysis, and processing as well as other forms of remote sensing, the technology and algorithms that drive the car's autopilot fascinate and excite me like a child on Christmas. The system has definite limitations but seeing all that technology realized in the day to day world is amazing.

Also the key is indeed really cool. Apparently, we're both five years old at heart.

Unexpected and Uplifting

We sold our home in Texas back in August 2017. At the time, I had six months remaining on my contract at University of Houston. Some good friends of ours were nice enough to take me in and give me a place to live for the duration. Back in August, I was optimistically sure that I would find a job long before the end of January. By Christmas, I was beginning to accept that I wouldn't be relocated to Atlanta by the new year.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I was offered a contract extension for six months and my boss was willing to let me work two weeks of each month remotely. I was genuinely torn between wanting to move to Atlanta and live full time in my own house with my own family and wanting to continue with a job that I really enjoy. I decided to take the contract extension, which left me needing to find a new place to live. I considered getting my own apartment, which sounded really nice in quite a few ways. All of our furniture and kitchen supplies had long been relocated to Atlanta though so I knew that option was possible but impractical.

Another close friend offered me a quick save when they found me a place to live with another woman who was married and living apart from her spouse for a while. The opportunity seemed too good to pass up with one unfortunate downside- the new arrangement would move me across town, over an hour away from the SE Houston area I had lived in since 2015. So, with no small degree of sadness, I let my friends in the area know. I also let the volunteer group I've worked with since 2015 know that I wouldn't be around anymore for routine activities.

By 12 hours after my "last" volunteer meeting, I had received no less than four offers for places to live. I was floored. I was stunned. There was crying involved. Most of all, I was panicked. In true 'me' fashion, I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings and also wanted to work out what would be best for me. In the end, I took up one of the offers from a fellow volunteer.

At risk of repeating myself, this transition has been really difficult. It's been tough emotionally, mentally, and even physically, especially when I'm bouncing from place to place, getting little sleep and plenty of germ exposure. Being surrounded by so many amazing people in both Houston and Atlanta though has made it easier every step of the way. That was certainly true before my most recent move but it was really driven home for me in the face of so much generosity.

Science Fails

There is a lot of good science out there and often I finish reading a paper feeling proud and impressed by what researchers have done. They can't all be winners though. I am currently involved in writing a review paper. For anyone not familiar with that terminology, a review paper covers a large swath of material within a sub-discipline. It's a little bit like a summary paper- it summarizes the work of a lot of people and (hopefully) puts all the research in perspective. A review paper, then, involves reading a LOT of other papers. My last review paper had a reference list that exceeded 20 typed pages.

For the current review that I am working on, I have already read roughly 40 papers. It can get a little (or a lot) tedious and is a type of work that I prefer breaking up into manageable chunks with time for "real" research activities in between each piece. Anyway, none of that is really important. When you read a lot of papers, you are bound to come up with a few that are not winners. I have been so amused by these that I decided to blog about them so that, hopefully, you can be amused by them too.

I'll leave any identifying information off of the blog. The works referenced below are not bad works. Sometimes in science, you have to prove something very obvious so that you can take that information and use it in a more in-depth study later on. I myself have had to write some obvious statements in papers because sometimes it is what is called for to prove your point. So, these are not bad works. The authors are not bad scientists. The science in their papers did move their respective fields forward. But WOW were there a few noteworthy, less-than-brilliant, conclusions in the bunch. So, without further ado, I present you the most winning science I've encountered recently.

More snow takes longer to melt.

Inter-tree distances increase following wildfires.

Just remember, you read these breaking, newsworthy assertions here first (probably, unless you've also read these remarkable pieces of human ingenuity).

Well Meant, Poorly Executed

Let's categorize my current situation as special. I am in a position where it is far easier to get a job if I have a job to begin with. That statement could easily apply to people in any number of careers but tends to be especially true in an academic setting where much of my suitability in the job market stems from having published papers and submitted proposals recently. So, after much conversation and debate, both I and my husband have agreed that, while living apart is difficult, it is the best choice for the long run. We reevaluate our decision frequently.

Last month, at a conference for work, it came up a few times in conversation that I am looking for a new position in a different city to accommodate my spouse's career. While horror was not the universal response, it was the predominant one. At one point, I was discussing my situation with another female scientist who immediately asked why I was "throwing away my career to live with my husband" with a look on her face that I will never forget. She, I was informed, had lived in a different state from her husband for years. I am sure that she was trying to be supportive. Somehow. The whole encounter made me feel awful and gave me plenty of food for thought.

Plenty of research groups, advocacy groups, and individuals are busily trying to assess why women are getting PhD's at the same rate as men (in many, though certainly not all, fields) but there are still far fewer female faculty than there are male faculty. It is certainly a complex issue and I have no intention to even try to fully address it here. However, the attitude that the female scientist embodied, that I have been faced with more times than I have bothered to count, probably doesn't help. I would like to believe that she thought she was encouraging me, a young scientist, to pursue my own career. Her attitude though was dismissive of my relationship, my spouse, and my feelings. It did more to discourage me than it did to encourage me. Her immediate, uninformed, assumption that both I and my husband value his career more highly than mine (we don't) was infuriating and embarrassing.

There is a flip side to this coin (story) though. Last week, I was sent a series of emails from a well meaning friend asking why I hadn't just quit my job yet so that I could go live with my husband. I was informed that it would be the better decision for us regardless of what I or my husband thought. They were, again, probably well meant. I struggled to not reply sarcastically or in anger. I was, in fact, somewhat boggled as to how to reply. It took me a whole 24 hours. While it was the most aggressive instance of this I have encountered, it was far from the first.

I remain thankful for all of our friends who understand that we are currently doing our best in a less than ideal situation. I am especially thankful that most of my actual colleagues understand that I'd like to have a good, challenging job and also be able to live with my spouse. I am always open to talking with people about their opinions and, especially, their similar experiences. My family's decisions might not be someone else's though and that's okay.

Goodbye to 2017

I can't say that I'm sorry to see 2017 go. In so many ways, it's been a great year. It's certainly been an exciting one. We hit the ground running last January (figuratively, not literally) with my knee surgery and my husband's new job. It seems like one thing after another since then. A year ago today, my outlook for 2017 was that it would be a quiet year. I expected we'd settle more into a routine in our still new home in Houston and maybe tackle a renovation project. We had exciting plans to re-finish our garage. Obviously, that all went out the window with our relocation back to Atlanta. Suddenly we were putting our house back on the market and living long distance yet again. 2017 hasn't been quiet or peaceful. It's been exciting and distressing and a lot of things in between.

We're roughly eleven months into our relocation and there is no clear end in sight. At times the process has made me feel incredibly isolated and alone. I've been unable to find a new job that will allow me to move and have been unwilling to give up a job and a career I love. We are making it work to the best of our abilities. On the flip side, I have been incredibly supported by close friends and family who have been doing everything in their power to make this transition easier on me, on my husband, and on us and our cats as a family. So it's safe to say that 2017 was difficult and stressful but that we were also incredibly blessed.

As we say goodbye to the year and I hope for a smoother 2018, two quotes rattle around in my head, giving me hope for the year ahead.

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up." Anne Lamott

Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." G.K. Chesterton (This quote is paraphrased but it is a popular paraphrasing of the original and it is my favorite variant.)

I hope, if you're reading this (or even if you're not), that your 2018 has had more ups than downs, more triumphs than failures. Regardless of what 2017 looked like, I hope your 2018 is even better yet.

Seven Nights, Six Beds

Alternate titles for this blog include “Up in the Air” and “It’s socially appropriate to drink at 10 am when…” Okay, so the second one is probably a little too verbose, but still accurate. I don’t need to get into the details here but I will summarize them by saying that, once upon a time, I had a very reasonable November travel schedule. My very reasonable travel schedule was tossed right out the window when I volunteered for a work trip that was originally not supposed to take place in November at all. Details. So, rather than having only two November trips scheduled with a whole four days in between (reasonable right?), I ended up with three trips scheduled all within the same week.

Shortly after volunteering for this insanity, I started regretting it but the whole thing was so last minute that I couldn’t exactly say “oops, this was a horrible idea, I’m out.” So, my last seven days ended up looking something like this:

IAH – EWR – IAH – SLC – SFO – SEA – SLC – IAH – (driving interlude) – HOU – ATL

Over the course of seven nights, I will have slept in six different beds. All of which leads me to question whether sleeping in an airport terminal (SEA, in case you’re interested) actually counts as sleeping in a “bed”? I’m willing to put that up as a poll; feel free to comment your vote. ;-)

If you’re ever stuck overnight in SEA, let me know, I have some tips. So, it’s day seven and tonight I’ll be sleeping in bed # 6 (my own, thank God). I officially have no idea what time zone I’m supposed to be in but I do know that, by lunch, I will have been in three different time zones and, by dinner, I will have been in all four of the contiguous time zones in the US. All of which brings us around to our two alternate blog titles. It’s safe to say that I’ve been up in the air for the last week and that I am definitely having a drink to celebrate being on the downslope of this nuttiness. My phone says it’s a little after 10 am and I’m pretty sure that it is currently on Mountain time. Thankfully, that means it’s after 12 pm on the East coast and, since that’s where I’m ultimately headed, that’s all that counts. Right??

Thoughts and Prayers

In the wake of another horrific shooting, I've noticed a new trend on the internet. Maybe it isn't even a new trend; maybe it's just the first time I'm seeing it. Regardless, a number of people I know are decrying the "thoughts and prayers" statements that seem to follow every natural and unnatural disaster.

Personally, I usually avoid making public thoughts and prayers statements. I don't take issue with them but I do believe that what I pray about is between me and God and rarely anyone else. I would even cautiously say that I understand where these statements come from. Some people want to see civic and legislative action, others want people to foster a stronger community through more tangible actions. The statements I have seen against thoughts and prayers are varied but they all play on the theme that "thoughts and prayers are not enough."

They may not be enough. If I believed that thoughts and prayers were enough, I would probably not be involved in a possibly unhealthy number of volunteer activities. We do need to do more. We need to do more every day and not just on the days when there's bad news. That said though, thoughts and prayers are a beautiful first step for many people. If you hold a faith, thoughts and prayers have a real and powerful meaning. If you don't hold to a faith, thoughts and prayers are still a gesture of goodwill and of compassion, often for people that you've never met. I would argue that we could all use a little more of both those things. Especially for my friends who aren't religious, I hope you'll suffer a few thoughts from me on how very real thoughts and prayers can be.

The last few weeks have been incredibly difficult for me. There isn't much anyone can do. However, friends who call or text to tell me that they are thinking of me and praying for me help me incredibly. The same was true during Hurricane Harvey. Yes, friends may have helped by donating to charities helping to rebuild Houston or maybe they helped by sending water and other supplies to the area. Though these actions helped so many people, none of them helped me personally but the many, many thoughts and prayers that people offered up made me feel more loved and less scared. Those thoughts and prayers were one of the most touching and important things to me during Harvey.

Thoughts and prayers might not be enough, especially when we are faced with real tragedy, but they are something and to a great many people they do foster community and understanding. Perhaps, rather than decrying thoughts and prayers, we could ask what comes next?