http://philoctetes.org/Calendar/Parallel_Universes_The_History_of_an_Idea/
I didn't get to talk about Lost until 92:00, but I got to field a completely off the wall Kubrick question at 100:00!
Wednesday, June 16
Thursday, June 10
it has happened...
At 227 pages and 55,000 words, I am finally so sick of this book that I'm making random work for myself. Here is a list of the projects I need to deal with all of a sudden.
Oh… also… I'm writing in my blog! Things must be bad if I've resorted to THAT to avoid writing the book!
- I have agreed to speak on a panel discussion about the history of the idea of "parallel universes" in Manhattan this weekend.
- I have agreed to turn a rough outline developed during a science faculty retreat into an 8 page universal rubric for science writing across the program, filling out all three performance columns with criteria.
- I have agreed to serve on a new University committee that is meeting three times in JUNE!
- I have agreed to another week of consulting work, writing a new unit for high school science.
- I have agreed to help write one, perhaps two conference abstracts for a meeting in Miami. The meeting is in March 2011, but the proposals are due in August.
- I have agreed to travel to Washington DC in July to serve on a peer review panel for the National Science Foundation
Oh… also… I'm writing in my blog! Things must be bad if I've resorted to THAT to avoid writing the book!
Sunday, May 30
Thursday, May 6
knots...
The floors in this cabin are knotty-pine, a style which I dislike at a gut level because it reminds me too much of the house where I grew up. The room where I would lie in bed making eyes and faces out of the wood paneling.
Faces that watched me while I slept.
Faces that watched me while I slept.
Thursday, April 8
i seem to only blog on the train…
Which means once a month. I happened to look at my archive links in the sidebar a few days ago, and if you compare the number of posts each year - it's kinda pathetic what a shadow of its former self this bog has become. Bleh.
Anyway, I'm heading into the city to meet with some students. I put in an application for a pile of student assistant money through the Provost's office, and actually GOT IT, so I have $2000 with which to bribe student minions to do my bidding. I have a project lined up for them and need to meet with them to get them started on it. Which also means I have to squeeze in about a dozen other tasks that can only be done on campus and which now pile up for a month until they can justify the $24 round-trip train ride.
Besides the usual work-related stuff, I need to get to the Apple Store to fondle an iPad, and then over to the over-priced but service-oriented running store to get a decent pair of shoes. My return to running has been marred by an ill-fitting pair of mail order shoes, and I'm just going to give up on them, as much as it pains me. I need to just get over it and accept that decent shoes cost $100.
So in order to accomplish all this in one day, I managed to drag myself out of bed by 5:30 to catch the 6:00 train, which is better than I did last time I went in to the office. It feels really unreasonably early. The sabbatical is totally spoiling me. Going back to work full time in September is going to be a serious shock. I'm not looking forward to it!
Meanwhile, the writing is moving along, if sporadically. Some of the decrease in pace is planned – I had given myself a week off for the kids' Spring Break, and then a couple of weeks off to work on "other projects". Not that much is getting done on the other projects, but I'm trying to do a little looking ahead to my fall courses. I am still planning my week-long "retreat" at some point in the next 2 months, and I got approval from my Chair and my Dean to spend the money from my research fund on a bin in the woods. I think I found the perfect place - only 90 min away and with a piano and a very airy great-room that's perfect for yoga. It's not ALL about the writing. If I can reserve the last week before Memorial Day, I plan to use the retreat to actually FINISH the book. Then come June, I can hand it over to the wife for copyediting. So, the project is still basically on schedule, which is… well, surprising, to say the least.
I think I'm going to spend the rest of the train ride dealing with some student incompletes and other nagging issues. Stay tuned for a giddy iPad mini-review on the way home.
Anyway, I'm heading into the city to meet with some students. I put in an application for a pile of student assistant money through the Provost's office, and actually GOT IT, so I have $2000 with which to bribe student minions to do my bidding. I have a project lined up for them and need to meet with them to get them started on it. Which also means I have to squeeze in about a dozen other tasks that can only be done on campus and which now pile up for a month until they can justify the $24 round-trip train ride.
Besides the usual work-related stuff, I need to get to the Apple Store to fondle an iPad, and then over to the over-priced but service-oriented running store to get a decent pair of shoes. My return to running has been marred by an ill-fitting pair of mail order shoes, and I'm just going to give up on them, as much as it pains me. I need to just get over it and accept that decent shoes cost $100.
So in order to accomplish all this in one day, I managed to drag myself out of bed by 5:30 to catch the 6:00 train, which is better than I did last time I went in to the office. It feels really unreasonably early. The sabbatical is totally spoiling me. Going back to work full time in September is going to be a serious shock. I'm not looking forward to it!
Meanwhile, the writing is moving along, if sporadically. Some of the decrease in pace is planned – I had given myself a week off for the kids' Spring Break, and then a couple of weeks off to work on "other projects". Not that much is getting done on the other projects, but I'm trying to do a little looking ahead to my fall courses. I am still planning my week-long "retreat" at some point in the next 2 months, and I got approval from my Chair and my Dean to spend the money from my research fund on a bin in the woods. I think I found the perfect place - only 90 min away and with a piano and a very airy great-room that's perfect for yoga. It's not ALL about the writing. If I can reserve the last week before Memorial Day, I plan to use the retreat to actually FINISH the book. Then come June, I can hand it over to the wife for copyediting. So, the project is still basically on schedule, which is… well, surprising, to say the least.
I think I'm going to spend the rest of the train ride dealing with some student incompletes and other nagging issues. Stay tuned for a giddy iPad mini-review on the way home.
Sunday, March 28
Thursday, March 25
living in a fisheye lens...
The weird focus around the edges is probably due to the different distances to the background objects - I'm hoping the focus will be clearer when it's pointed at a flat, uniformly lit classroom wall.
Anyway, $20 from a weird little Hong Kong gadget website, and can now shoot lectures from my MacBook that show the whole board instead of just the middle section. The only downside being that the videos will have the slight appearance of being seen from the viewpoint of the Discovery's HAL-9000 computer.
Friday, March 19
daddy...?
One of my kids saw me reading this book and, for a moment, thought I had made a book with a picture of myself on the front...
That wouldn't be so funny if I didn't get this result once from a computerized "find a famous person who looks like a picture of you app"...
Silent Dave Strikes Back!
That wouldn't be so funny if I didn't get this result once from a computerized "find a famous person who looks like a picture of you app"...
Silent Dave Strikes Back!
Friday, March 12
overly obsessive...
... with a little thing called "VERSION CONTROL":
The weekly drafts of the book also get backed up in THREE places.
The weekly drafts of the book also get backed up in THREE places.
Thursday, March 11
taking a break from the sabbatical…
Heading into the city on the train today. Enough stuff piled up that needs to be taken care of in-person to justify the twenty-some-dollar train ticket. Plus there is a big faculty meeting today, and I figured I could earn some brownie points for showing up. Comes to meetings while on sabbatical!! So dedicated!!
I guess it's been a while since I've posted an update about the writing process. Things are going ok. I'm not smashing my daily word counts like I had been at the beginning - lately I've been just as likely to put in a 750 word day or an 825 word day as the 1100 - 1200 words I was knocking out in January. But I think that's ok, because I've been spending more of my mornings tweaking things that are already written, and thinking about the bigger picture stuff - including how the book is going to fit into the actual class it's being written for. So I've added some things like discussion questions for the chapters which hadn't been part of the original plan, and which take more thought than just writing.
I did take some time off from the book, but it was mostly intentional - a week to go to a conference, then a few days when the wife's Mom was visiting. It took a while to get back into the rhythm of working, but I'm still pretty happy with the progress overall. I passed the 40,000 word mark last night, and the book (as currently formatted anyway - paperback novel sized) is around 165 pages. Enough chapters are finished that I'm starting to drake the final touches - things like graphics and display-equations and whatnot - formatting stuff I've been putting off. My guess is, I'll start working seriously on those things in April.
In non-book-related news, I started back running the other day. It was 50ยบ, so I suited up and did two ½ miles with a little 1-minute walk break in between. It was a little huffy-puffy, but not as bad as it could have been considering I've been away from it for 3 months or so. As my karmic reward for exercising, I came down with the flu less than 12 hours later. The universe can fucking suck it.
Heading into the city on the train today. Enough stuff piled up that needs to be taken care of in-person to justify the twenty-some-dollar train ticket. Plus there is a big faculty meeting today, and I figured I could earn some brownie points for showing up. Comes to meetings while on sabbatical!! So dedicated!!
I guess it's been a while since I've posted an update about the writing process. Things are going ok. I'm not smashing my daily word counts like I had been at the beginning - lately I've been just as likely to put in a 750 word day or an 825 word day as the 1100 - 1200 words I was knocking out in January. But I think that's ok, because I've been spending more of my mornings tweaking things that are already written, and thinking about the bigger picture stuff - including how the book is going to fit into the actual class it's being written for. So I've added some things like discussion questions for the chapters which hadn't been part of the original plan, and which take more thought than just writing.
I did take some time off from the book, but it was mostly intentional - a week to go to a conference, then a few days when the wife's Mom was visiting. It took a while to get back into the rhythm of working, but I'm still pretty happy with the progress overall. I passed the 40,000 word mark last night, and the book (as currently formatted anyway - paperback novel sized) is around 165 pages. Enough chapters are finished that I'm starting to drake the final touches - things like graphics and display-equations and whatnot - formatting stuff I've been putting off. My guess is, I'll start working seriously on those things in April.
In non-book-related news, I started back running the other day. It was 50ยบ, so I suited up and did two ½ miles with a little 1-minute walk break in between. It was a little huffy-puffy, but not as bad as it could have been considering I've been away from it for 3 months or so. As my karmic reward for exercising, I came down with the flu less than 12 hours later. The universe can fucking suck it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)