The next President...

...Of our university will be one of these people. Let's say that there are some individuals out there that I'm relieved to see are not on the list.

On the way back

A quick note from the crummy complimentary computer in the hotel lobby... I arrived safely, did my short course, which was very useful and informative, and am now getting ready to wind my way back via the scenic route to the airport to head home.

More later!

Spread your tiny wings and fly away

This could be my last entry for a few days, as I'm flying to Bethesda, Maryland tomorrow to attend a short course. I don't know how much 'Net access I'll have until I get back on Saturday. My laptop is way past due for a replacement, so I will be looking for internet cafes or something to deal with emails, online teaching, and my journal. Hopefully I'll be too busy to worry about 'Net withdrawl symptoms.

I'm nervous about all the stuff I'll be missing while I'm gone. We have a job candidate coming in (#9 for this year!), who I won't get to meet. Ugh. I have animals in the lab that need occasional inspection. And students want attention, too. They need advisement, they need questions answered, and so on.

I'm pleased to be leaving on a positive note, though. I was actually able to sit down and run an experiment with one of my students today. And that always rocks.

RAHC update

Let’s see how the RAHC is coming along, shall we?


Okay, this is really just an excuse to show off a picture with my new digital camera, a beautiful 4 megapixel number from HP. My parents are upgrading, and while they liked this camera a lot, it didn’t take repeated pictures fast enough for doing the wildlife photography that they enjoy (and are, I might add, extremely good at). You might get a few more pictures in this journal from here on in. This is much better than old pictures of the RAHC I've taken and showed in this journal before (here, e.g. – though the crane adds a certain visual interest that the black tar paper, or whatever it is, doesn’t.)

New paper (again)

The final version of my "loss of giant neurons in scyllarids" paper is up at Arthropod Structure and Development (requires institutional subscription to Science Direct). Yes, I know I was telling everyone about that this was available as a pre-print less than two weeks ago, but this is the final version, with proper citation information and everything.

And it feels good. :)

Not for the faint of heart

CBC Radio Host Peter Gzowski once did a feature on Morningside about the reluctance of people to discuss just how much they made. This reticence seems to continue even when those salaries are in the public domain -- as they are in this university. That's right, you can find out how much everyone makes at my institution -- including me! -- here. I'm not listed by name, but if you know the department and the job level, you can pretty much narrow down what anyone is making to a very small range.

For an assistant professor in biology, it is somewhat depressing reading.

In a fit of masochism, my colleague Mike and I were trolling through the figures, looking for highs and lows, and it doesn't take long to realize that we're in the wrong business. (The wrong business if your main goal is to make money, anyway.) There are assistant professors (my job level) in the College of Business Administration who are making more than many full professors in their own department. Needless to say, they're also making more money than full professors in other colleges (including, needless to say, my own department). That just strikes me as wrong. Why are people in business worth so much more than other faculty? I mean, are they responsible for educating that many more students? Are they creating new knowledge? Are they really in that much demand elsewhere?

More projects completed! Huzzah!

The paperwork has been signed and our Department Chair got copies, so I finally get to welcome Dr. Anita Davelos to our department. Anita was hired in the genetics position we've been advertising for. She'll be bringing some expertise on the genetics of bacteria to the department, although her own research focuses more on ecology than genes.

Just so you can prevent personal embarassment if you should ever happen to meet her, her last name is pronounced with three syllables, not two. It's "Da-vel-los," not "Dave-los."

To paraphrase some classic Uncanny X-Men covers, "Welcome to UTPA, Anita. Hope you survive the experience."

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In other good news, I finally packed up the last manuscripts for "my" special issue of Journal of Comparative Physiology A today. This will be an issue containing papers based on the "Mechanisms of behavioral switching" symposium I organized last year for the Animal Behavior Society meeting. One reason this pleases me is that at the end of the symposium, the participants did a bit of "soul searching" on whether it was worth talking about neural mechanisms at an behavioural meeting, because attendance ran low near the end of the day. If it was kind of a misguided place to hold the symposium (and I'm not convinced it was), having all of the papers together in one place will make bring it to the audience that maybe wouldn't normally attend a meeting like ABS.

But just to give you an idea of scientific efficiency... I had 8 speakers at the original symposium. Two declined to present manuscripts, saying they were too busy to write them. The symposium was August, and the original deadline was January for receiving the manuscripts. I won't mention how many of the six authors made it, but let's say it was nowhere near all of them. Sigh. However, many harrassing emails and extensions have gotten three-quarters of the authors to get their papers in. I'm looking forward to seeing the final thing in print, as always.

It seems like such a cliche, doesn't it? Professors being bright, but disorganized and not really good with deadlines.

Hello Internet, I missed you while you were gone...

Something untoward happened to power somewhere on campus, which left me email-less, web-less, and generally bereft of all manner of the 'Net for most of the day. The shaking of my hands is now slowly starting to subside.

Meanwhile, I managed to get a "letter of intent" for a grant off yesterday. This will be the third for this particular foundation I've submitted. So far, I haven't even been asked to fill in a full application form. Will the third time be the charm? We shall see. Stay tuned.

Bring on the dancing... robots

Science fiction isn't what it used to be, because we live in a science fiction world. It seems like pretty much everything that was once the domain of that genre has either been done, or is being done. Compare the communicators on Star Trek to you average mobile phone; the Trek communicators couldn't even take a picture!

This morning, reading this story in New Scientist reinforced that view. Sons has an experimental robot called QRIO, and is making the rounds, and I must say that those demos are danged impressive. In particular, this movie (you'll probably have to save it to your hard disk; right click your mouse and choose "Save as...") is a sight to behold. Four robots dancing.

Robots, and how humans will relate with them, is one of the classic themes of science fiction. One need only look at this summer's release of I, Robot (based on Isaac Asimov's classic book). The ad campaign for the movie is a very clever imitation of the sort of real ad that Sony might have for its QRIO robot.

Just like cloning mammals arrived sooner than most people expected and left people scrambling for how to deal with the situation, I'm starting to think that we'd better start doing some serious thought about the legal ramifications of robotics.

I hate forms!

Arg. I send in a travel application, requesting a trip to go to Bethesda to attend a short course by Cambridge Electronic Design. I ask for the university to take pay for the travel using funds I was awarded from a Faculty Development grant. I get back... nothing. Is it approved? It is not approved? It's a mystery.

Anyway, without an “okay” to remind me, I forgot to check into the travel arrangements. They are, of course, sitting on the travel officer’s desk, and they’re waiting for me to book flights, etc. Of course, now that it’s closer to travel time, the flights are going to be more expensive... Argh. Argh. Argh. Yes, it’s partly my fault for not checking sooner. But still... why does so much information stall on other people’s desks?!

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Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles!

We have a new ice machine! And it seems to be working!

Of course, getting the ice machine was not without its trials. They were having some issues about putting in filters for the water, so they wanted to order some new filter holders. Turns out that in the time it took to order the machine and get it here, the holders for one of the filters went out of production. Yes, one last absurdity of the slower than slow process it takes to get anything done on this university.

No joke

Today was a good day because:

1. Nobody pulled any significant April Foolery while I was around.
   
2. I managed to do an experiment with a student.
   
3. The temperature has been rather cooler than this time last year. Fingers crossed that it stays that way for as long as possible.
   
4. The preprint of my paper is up, as I mentioned in an earlier post.
   

Announcing a great advance in science!

April Fool's! It's really just my new paper, which, though I'm pleased with it, is a modest advance in science.

If your institution has a subscription to Science Direct, you can now read a preprint of my newest paper on-line, here. Click on "Articles in Press, and you'll see an entry by "Faulkes, Z." I encourage downloading the PDF for purely selfish reasons: on the journal's main page, they keep track of the most downloaded papers for the year. And yes, I'm vain and enough of a shameless self-promotor to want to try to create a "NeuroDojo effect" to push my paper way up there in those ratings!

Ye merry job hunte

Apparently, two of our four positions are about to be filled. The candidates have indicated that they're about to sign on dotted lines, which is refreshing news indeed.

Meanwhile, I'm now in the hardest par of the day: the last three quarters of an hour until my 5:45 p.m. class (groan). It's tough, because I've been here all day, pretty much the last few people hanging around in the department have left (if they didn't leave long ago). You're just left with time to kill, really.

Project: Searchlight

Okay, so our department is trying to fill five tenure-track positions this year, and I'm chair of the Search Committee. We started four of those searches back in fall, where we did reviewed CVs, did phone interviews, on-site interviews, the whole shebang. So far, we've had two of those positions where we extended the job offers and the candidates said "No." So we're not quite back to square one, but in one case, we're almost back to square two. As Marvin the Martian once said, "Back to the old drawing board."

I'm not sure what's going on with the other two positions. I think offers should have been made, but no word on whether anyone has signed on the dotted line yet.

And because our fifth position was created late in the game (in January), we are just in the middle of trying to get applications finished now.

We could be at this all summer.

In press / Sense of triumph

I finally fixed my photo problems for my upcoming paper in Arthropod Structure and Development. So I can now tell you the full citation information for my next research work:

Faulkes, Z. (2004) Loss of escape responses and giant neurons in the tailflipping circuits of slipper lobsters. Arthropod Structure and Development 33(2): 113-123.

The digital object identifier (DOI) is 10.1016/j.asd.2003.12.003. Accept no substitutes!

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I feel a fantastic sense of triumph in identifying my very first word in today's Target puzzle as the often elusive nine-letter word. Sometimes, I rock.

Up there Cazaly

I was never a sports fan until I lived in Melbourne. But enthusiasm really is contagious.

Melbourne is arguably the most sport-mad city on the face of the planet. Put two teams in uniforms, and people will show up for it. And Australia rules football is the Melbourne game. I caught the bug while I was there, and now footy (as it is otherwise known) is the one sport I actively follow. I decided to become a Melbourne Demons supporter, because I thought of myself as living in Melbourne rather than one of the many suburbs with their own team. (Fitzroy, where I was living, had merged with Brisbane some years before I lived there). Now, I may be the only person in the lower Rio Grande Valley to watch the footy games shown on Fox Sportsworld. Even though they show the games almost a week after the fact, not live. Even then, I probably still don't qualify as a real footy fan, since I only watch the weekly hour-long highlight show.

I bring this up because this is a much anticipated weekend in Melbourne: the start of the new home and away season. This article examines how footy takes over the minds of people for half the year. I note with a sense of relief that a neurobiologist is one of them.

For my part? "Go the Dees!"

A day in miniature

Here was my Monday: Get up. Teach. Teach. Break. Meeting. Meeting. Meeting. Teach. Go home. Excercise. Bed.

That was the week that was

A very odd week, by all accounts. And since I'm doing the accounting, I get to declare that it was odd.

It was a week where I either got quite a lot done or very little. I'm still not sure. Every time I turned around, it seemed as though some thing or other would leap into my field of view and demand attention.

The best example was on Wednesday, when I got an "urgent" email to revise some figures for a paper I have coming out in Arthropod Structure and Development. Someone at the publisher's emailed me, saying that two of my figures weren't reproducing properly, and that they needed new, revised copies right away if this article was to go into the next issue of the journal, which is scheduled to "go to bed" next week. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon making the changes, and emailed them back. I promptly got an auto-response email saying, "I'm away from my desk, and will be until next week." I love the irony of someone declaring this to be urgent but not being there to deal with it. In fairness, though, someone else at the publisher did check the email and let me know they'd got one of the figures.

I was also a bit nonplussed that after a week's break, I didn't see any of my Honors students until Thursday. And there's one I still haven't seen since the break. Note to myself: light fire under butts of students.

In my capacity as Search Committee chair, we've also started the process of looking for a fifth position. Which means more folders to make, more forms to mail, more phone interviews, more travel arrangements, and so on. Assuming we get any applicants, of course.

And because I don't have enough to do, I'm working with a group on campus that is trying to put together a so-called RIMI grant (short for "Research Infrastructure at Minority Institutions"). I'm going to try to write up a request for a confocal microscope, a very useful (but still very expensive) piece of kit for a biologist to have.

And yesterday was day five away from the office this year. I went and tried to find some new clothes. I got to feel guilty about being away from the office and feel guilty about spending money all at the same time. It was really awful. I had the worst feeling that something bad was going to happen because I was away from the office. Okay, not "Universe about to collapse" bad, but maybe "small section of university turned into piles of rubble" kind of bad. (Yes, my sense of self-importance is that over-inflated.)

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Let me take the opportunity to welcome Christopher Eccleston to the role of Doctor Who. To the best of my knowledge, I've never seen anything he’s done, which is great. It’ll be wonderful to experience the role afresh, with no per-conceived notions as to how someone’s going to play it.

Good luck, mate. You'll need it.

"You get what you pay for" and "That aching feeling in my bones"

Last weekend, I went out of town for two days after I'd bought some crayfish from a local grocery store. I only paid $4 for the lot, so I thought this was a bargain. Turned out of the 30 I bought, one lived until today. So, by mid-week, I ordered some more crayfish from a biological supplier. Ordered about 24, and only 1 died. But this time, I spent over $70 dollars.

The sad thing is that on a "cost per crayfish basis...", only a couple more from the grocery store would have had to live for it to be more economical to buy them there than from the biological supplier.

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Meanwhile, by yesterday afternoon, I was wondering why my legs felt stiff. Didn't stop me from going excercising last night. But when I crawled into bed, I thought, "I recognize this feeling. I'm getting sick, aren't I?" Ack! And I was on the money -- I feel fairly woozy, and am alternating between slightly hot and chilly. It's a pity, as I was thinking of going out tonight, but I don't think that's going to happen. I'm just hoping I've recovered before my 7:45 am class in two days time.

Breaks

You go away for a couple of days, and what happens? 28 crayfish die in their tanks, raising a substantial stink. Buying from the local grocery store was a mistake I shall not make again. I'll buy from scientific suppliers instead. Unfortunately, our secretary's out until tomorrow, so I won't be able to order until then.
Nevertheless, it was very nice to up the days away from my office to three for the year. I went off to Austin and got in touch with my inner geek and played L5R at a tournament there on Saturday. Fared very poorly (ranked 55 out of 71!), but it was a good break even so.

Now that I'm back in the office, I'm working on a short introductory article for the special issue of Journal of Comparative Physiology A I'm working on. Also have many things to be done relating to the Search Committee. Still, the lack of classes has given me enough flexibility in my time that I was able to finish calculating and filing income taxes yesterday, go to the optometrist today and get new contacts and the first new glasses I've had in at least 8 years.

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This news piece is the sort of thing that you expect to see in a comedy routine...

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A few days ago, I mentioned Bernard Pivot's questionnaire with regards to my least favourite word. Here, as I suggested I might do, are the rest.

1. What is your favorite word? Facetious.
   
2. What is your least favorite word? Incentivizing. Thank you, Belinda Stronach for introducing such an unnecessary and unneeded awful word!
   
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Seeing other people turned on. Seeing other people excited about what they do brings out more energy and excitement from me. (I think this question, and the next, are about the toughest questions in the set.)
   
4. What turns you off? Boredom. It's easy to be disinterested in anything, and people do it all the time, because "the world bores you when you're cool."
   
5. What is your favorite curse word? Bollocks!
   
6. What sound or noise do you love? The sound of ice cubes cracking when you drop them into a freshly made tumbler of iced tea.
   
7. What sound or noise do you hate? Ringing mobile phones when I'm giving a lecture.
   
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Science, to some extent, gives you a chance to do many professions at once. I would probably be a non-fiction writer, or be involved in publishing. But of course, being a scientist means that's one of the things I do anyway, so I'm not sure if that's a legitimate answer.
   
9. What profession would you not like to do? Police officer. We had a lot of RCMP officers as family friends when I was younger, and while I have great admiration for what they do, I don't envy them the job.
   
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? "I never knew that [insert famous discovery by ZF here]..."