Friday, March 30, 2012

Episode CIII: March Madness

The month of March has sure kept me busy! Here is what I have been up to:

Work

Believe it or not, I have been WORKING HARD recently! I have been in the lab for enough months now that my experiments are starting to go well, which means I have a lot of things to be doing. It's a good problem to have, but sometimes it gets exhausting. On top of that, I am trying to apply for some government funding for my position (not really for the sake of the money, but because it's a good thing to have on a résumé.) Now let me tell you: applying for government funding is possibly the most tedious, time-consuming, makes-you-wonder-if-life-is-really-worth-living, sort of affair. In other words, it is paaaaiiinful. And then once you get it all done with, you have somewhere around a 10% chance of actually securing said funding.

Just to give you an idea of how tedious this grant application stuff is- it took me almost all of March to finish this grant. I finished it yesterday. And then I immediately started filing taxes (including moving, multiple states, rental income, Meg's self-employment, etc. etc.) and it felt like a walk in the park in comparison.

 [This = Piece Of Cake]

Finally, on top of all that I am working on writing a little chapter for a specialty book (not the kind of book a normal person reads) about the work that I am engaged in, which is due mid-April. So there you have it. I have been working hard this month.

School

My wife was blessed with a hard decision to make- should she go to M.I.T. or Harvard for graduate school? Well, after a week or two of exploring her options, she has decided to follow me to Harvard! That's right, my wife and I are both going to be Harvard Crimsons!

[This is correct- Harvard teams are officially named after a color]


Birthday!

Did everyone know that it was my little bro's 21st birthday this month? If not, you should wish him a happy 21st! I spent a fair amount of free time producing this music video for his special day. If you didn't catch it on facebook, perhaps you will enjoy it here:

[Click the square icon in the lower-right-hand corner for full-screen birthday partying]

And Finally: March Madness

I am putting this post up on Friday. On Saturday, my alma mater, the University of Kansas, will be playing in the Final Four. Perhaps they will win, perhaps they will lose. Either way, it's been a pretty fun year to be a Jayhawks fan. I didn't say it's been pretty, mind you- I said it's been fun. And that is what college basketball is for, right?

[This is the story of the season for our 'star' point guard- fast, loose and out-of-control]