Twiddling my thumbs

Yo! ShinyNewEquipment Peeps! Whazzzzup?

I think it's pretty awesome that you provide free downloads of the "light" version of the software that runs ShinyNewEquipment so I can do my data analysis offline.

But do you think that you might get around to actually giving me said download sometime in the next century??

I applied for the download, and you approved it, and told me to expect a "confirmation email" with the link to the actual software package and the code I need to get it. My inbox has been looking pretty fucking empty for over 24h now. How long does it take you clowns to send out an auto-generated email?

I'm sitting on a steaming-hot-awesome pile o' data from this thing and I would really like to, you know, DO SOMETHING with it. Hop to it!

*Sciencegasm!!!*

ShinyNewEquipment is IN THE BUILDING!!

And it is sooooo niiiiiiiice.

I'm still a little bummed that it's the sub-optimal (for my purposes) rather than the super-optimal model, but it still eleventy times better than I was using before that I will get over it being not exactly perfect. Someday, when I am a grownup scientist I'll get the super-optimal one for myself. (Santa? Are you listening? I've been a very good scientist, and plan to continue along the same veins, so if it's alright with you let's just skip Christmas for a few years and bank all those presents for one of these when I get my own lab, ok?)

I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with this thing in the near future. Hopefully BH won't get jealous.

You know what else sucks?

Fire ants.

Proof that if there is a God, he surely hates us.

Since the water line to our house has sprung a leak, we have no running water at home (the ants do not care about this), and the front yard has become a giant mudpit with a small geyser in the center (the ants care about this very much). Since it has flooded them out of their home in the soil somewhere in the vicinity of my front lawn, they have moved to higher ground. Namely, into the potted plants which house my herbs on the second story balcony. This is not good. Fire ants are quite protective of their homes and resent any disruption (such as me picking herbs for dinner). Normally, to evict them I would simply turn on the automatic waterer that feeds my pots, which would make them feel rather unwelcome, and make neighboring pots equally unattractive. BUT! I have no running water!!

So instead I went nuclear with a can of RAID. (Bad hippie-kid!) This made the little fuckers squirm in agony, then come after me with a vengeance. I am now covered in 3/4 inch welts with a necrotic blister in the center of each. They itch like the devil. And, while I was successful in evicting the ant colony from their preferred pot, I have succeeded only in rendering my chives inedible due to the poison, and convincing the ants to move to the neighboring pot.

Also, I definitely have some kind of virus, and really really need the water to work again so the toilet can flush.

And my shit at work hasn't been working - crappy samples which are a supplier problem, not mine. Good: not my fault. Bad: kind of stuck with the crappy samples I can get at the moment.

And our ShinyNewInstrument is almost up and running...but it is the sub-optimal model. I have been under the impression all along that it would be the super-optimal model. Balls. I can deal but this really throws a monkey wrench into the works.

This is the Week of Crap.

Ugggh-gh-gh-gh....

Feeling stuffy and sore-throated. It is not allergy season here in the sub-tropics. Which leads me to conclude:

1) I've got some shitty little virus.
2) I've got the dreaded strep throat (if I have one more bout of that shit, I swear I'll take my tonsils out myself).
3) I've got residual symptoms from the cleaning binge I went on yesterday.

Please, for the love of all that is good and right in the universe let it be three. Let it be three. DangerDog has started his biannual coat blowout and the apartment hadn't really been cleaned since we got back from vacation (I'm not even going to tell you how long ago that was). Let's just say that it was dirtier than two possums fucking in the garbage can. As of yesterday, it's a lot cleaner, various closets are a lot sparser, and the Goodwill is a lot richer in terms of nice pre-loved things. All of which are good outcomes, but damn, the dust that was kicked up in the process!

Please let it be three. I cannot afford a sick day. I have two manuscripts to finish this week and my last round of fussing with the protocol for BigFuckingDeal Experiment before the ShinyNewToy is installed. Then it's all systems go. I need to be ready, not two steps behind. Please let it be three.

Fie upon you samples!!!

I did all the prep work just how you liked, but better than half of you wanted more time. So here I am, all by myself, my most excellent minion has gone home for the day, and now I've got to finish the rest of you with only this one set of hands. Why couldn't you have just been with the program and I could have processed you with everyone else? I hates you.

Inertia

OK, so I'm not totally gone,but posting will continue to be light for a while.

See, I'm having this problem with inertia lately (an object at rest cannot be stopped!). Usually when I have this problem it is because everything fucking sucks and I have trouble working up the motivation to do anything when it is all tres sucky (but I have coping mechanisms to deal with this conundrum). That is not currently the case. Things are going pretty fucking awesome on several fronts, and I really, really want to take advantage of that stroke of good luck and momentum. However, I am struggling to actually do as much as I should be about it.

I think it's mostly because I am juggling a squillion different balls at once, and so it's been very difficult to put several of them down and really focus on just one (or a few) that need to be my top priority at the moment. It would be a very good thing if I could make myself do this, because then I could just finish with those top priority ones and take them out of the rotation. Then I would have net fewer balls in the air and I focus my attention a little better in general.

A friend of mine said to me the other day that her favorite motivational strategy is to tell herself that any wasted day or wasted effort or just a day spent not as productive as she could be, is one more day prolonging her time here. (She's in grad school, so the getmethefuckouttahereandfast! sentiment is one I can sympathize with.) Thing is, I'm not sure this is a good strategy for me. I'm liking what I do and (for the most part) my working environment. Of course I don't want to be a postdoc forever, but it seems to me that I ought to be focused on quality (of publications, training, etc.) rather than counting down the days to just get out. Because what's on the other side? I don't know yet, and I should probably figure it out before I start racing toward the finish line (or so that I can start racing toward the finish line with some kind of prize in sight).

Any collective wisdom out there?

Blogging hiatus

Unbloggables afoot that are 5 parts exciting and superhappyfunland and 6 parts confusing and infuriating and making me alternately want to puke, punch someone, or hide under a rock for the next century or so. Probably won't around much for a bit, but have no fear, I shall return at some point.