This whole tax thing is pissing me off. Big companies can evade billions in taxes, but if Trump's tax plan goes through, I'll have to pay taxes on my tuition waiver -- which by most estimates will double what I owe. Fuck. I was so happy to be finally making five figures...all I want is to be able to not lose money while I'm finishing up school.
Birds A friend made halloween costumes for our birds. The birds hated them but they were patient with us for a little while at least. My wife started a tumblr for our chickens: https://chick-it-out.tumblr.com/ Life Research progresses inexorably. I've given 4 variations of the "what is research/grad school" talk/conversation in the last week, which is always fun, although it's sometimes tricky to be honest without sounding too negative. Online dating is kinda weird. This is a good town if you're into single moms...
I gave a talk on Bash yesterday; you can see the slides if you're interested. Figured out that it'll take 3-4 weeks to print my lab book, which effectively means it needs to be ready to print by the last week of November, so that's where my Thanksgiving break is going to go...
My wife's quitting (always fun when the C*O tells you "in your position I would leave"....), which is good for her sanity. I think right now the plan is for her to finish out her degree so she can qualify for more interesting jobs. Meanwhile, it looks like every department on campus is getting an 8-12% budget cut next fiscal year which is going to make things very interesting, and not in a good way. However, my advisor says it's likely I'll have some research funding in the fall! Figured out that the MR2's low oil pressure was in fact the sensor wire being loose; tightened that up and things seem OK again. Hopefully I'll be able to get it legally on the road soon.
The work is definitely its own reward, although you won't find me complaining about getting to drive it! I didn't know much about working on cars beyond how to change oil and rotate tires before I bought this one. I printed off a shop manual for it that explains more or less how to do about any procedure; for everything else, there's friends and enthusiast forums. Friends are especially good to have because they can be persuaded with food to lend tools and help out on bigger projects.
I'm still alive. One step closer to getting my MR2 running again. My wife's getting screwed over at her job and it's the same shit that I've seen over and over again at this university since 2010: the people who care have no power to make things better, and the people who have the power are only out for themselves or are sucking up to the people above them in the hierarchy. We're also getting chickens here in the next couple of weeks, so we'll be building a coop here soon.
I have a meeting this afternoon where I will hand my advisor the final draft of a 50+ page survey paper and thus close the door on a three-year chapter of my life. I'd say more but I have to finish writing the damn thing if that's going to happen... EDIT: fuck academic publishers. How hard is it to put complete citation information somewhere online? EDIT EDIT: or we could just add some more stuff instead, sure...
Wait, it's Wednesday already? Had a friend come in from out of town, so we made a campfire in a fire pit my wife dug out in our field and roasted some sausages and drank beer and looked at the moon. It was a nice change of pace from either working or feeling guilty for not working. Looking forward to reading Devac's important works in science. Good thing I've got a break next week!
Probably to avoid centering things on yourself; perhaps to reduce the distinction you draw between yourself and 'the world'. A more holistic view.
It's week four of the semester already! How? Teaching is fun, and I spoke with one of my students and he said he wasn't confused about how loops work, so I guess that means I'm doing a decent job. We'll see if that's true in general on the test next week. I am slowly cleaning up the last bits of the elephant of a paper I've been working on for 3 years. Hopefully it'll be out the door this month or next (my advisor thinks this month, I think not...). Someday I will find a spare hour or so during the day to go pick up oxygen and acetylene tanks since I have the rest of a torch setup now ( kleinbl00 thanks for telling me to stop fucking around and just get one already). Once I do that, I'll have everything I need to make one part for the MR2 and it will be "done" more or less!
My first car, an '86 Toyota MR2, in all its current glory: I miss driving it; hopefully I will get to do that this summer again. It's been almost two years thanks to me procrastinating on working on it. My wife's car, an '84 VW Rabbit: She's a little worse for the wear nowadays, but hopefully the MR2 will be drivable soon and I can take some time to patch her up right. I only have pictures of the beater truck ('91 F150) doing truck things: And, the latest addition: another damn '86 MR2, this one with a supercharged engine that needs a rebuild. I got it for cheap thinking it'd be a good parts car, then realized it's in really good shape and that I couldn't bring myself to cut it up. So, this one's a long term project, now. 
