For All You Canadians Out There...

Heather and Erin, this one's for you: Attack Beaver

(It's a 30-second video, so it might take awhile to load if you're on dial-up.)

Or if you're a fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, check out the Chronicles of Narnia Rap. It was broadcast the week before Christmas on SNL. Somehow it gets funnier every time you watch it.

Staying Sane in Suburban Maryland

I've been staying at Ed's house for the last week and a half. He gets up and goes to work in Washington D.C. every morning and I get up and go in the next room

and try to think up some new brilliant "accounting research" ideas to work on all day. Being in a small room with bright red shag carpet and no one to talk to all day is starting to eat at my brain, as evidenced by the conversation we had yesterday while I was laying in bed watching him get ready for work:

"I'm wearing these jeans to work because they match this shirt."

"And because it's casual Friday."

"It's not Friday. It's Thursday."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Thursday comes after Wednesday, which comes after Tuesday. I'm surprised you didn't know that."

"Oh. I really thought it was Friday."

My New Favorite Blog (Other Than This One, of Course)

Check out the BPS Research Digest blog. Every two weeks, they post a bunch of short articles summarizing some of the most interesting recent research results that have appeared in the British Psychological Society Research Digest.

Here are some interesting recent posts:

Imaging the Brain to Control the Mind

Virile Artists to Blame for Schizophrenia's Prevelance?

Trying to Predict Who Will Be a Happy Doctor (That one's for you, Heather)

Southwest Airlines Rocks

I arrived at Ed’s house safe and sound today.

I had a flight from Oakland to Baltimore with a 25 minute layover in San Diego. Having a layover that short is cutting it close, but Southwest is notoriously on time (and usually early) so I wasn’t too worried. When we left Oakland 15 minutes late, I started getting worried. Really worried.

I asked the flight attendant when we would be arriving and told him that I was worried, and in a happy, cheerful, Southwest-flight-attendant fashion, he said “Don’t worry, we’ll get you there. Do you have your running shoes on?”

A few minutes before landing he came over and told me that we would be arriving at gate A1 and my plane was leaving from A10 ten minutes later. Okay. Cool. No problem. Then he said “although it sounds like it should be easy to get from A1 to A10, you actually have to go out and come back in through security.” What? During the Christmas rush? In 10 minutes? Are you smoking crack? Then he told me that there were 8 of us trying to make that flight and that a Southwest employee would be waiting to escort us over. Okay, maybe the Southwest dude can bribe the security people to let us go to the front of the line.

But when we got off the plane, they kept us in a little group and took us out the little door of the jetway. We went down the stairs to the tarmac where they walked us over to the other plane. Then we went up the little stairs next to the jetway and hopped on our plane. It was very cool. Definitely thinking outside the box.

The other plane was not very far away and it was at the same terminal, so what’s up with having to go through security again? At most airports you can get to any gate once you are through security. I’m adding San Diego to my lists of airports to avoid for layovers.

The other one on the list is Reno, where the terminal is full of slot machines that make loud obnoxious noises. The worst offender is the Wheel-of-Fortune-themed machines that start playing music every 2 or 3 minutes with a loud voice that says “Wheel! Of! Fortune!” An hour of that is enough to drive anyone stark raving mad.

P.S. It was sunny and 75 degrees in San Diego. Remind me why I don't live there? Oh yeah, the job thing.

Home Free

Two hours ago I posted my students' final grades and finished teaching. Yippee!

Tomorrow I head to Ed's house for a month where I will be relaxing and thinking up new research ideas.

I will be calling upon all of my efficient packing skills to pack a month's worth of stuff in a carry-on bag (I have to admit that I do keep a few clothes at Ed's house so that I don't have to bring them back and forth). Last time I checked luggage on Southwest Airlines at the Oakland airport at Christmas time, there was a three-hour line. Everyone was missing their planes and they were putting them on the next available flight once they got through security.

When people complained, one of the Southwest employees said "we weren't expecting this many people today." Um, Southwest is the only airline in that terminal. Did they not know that they sold tickets to all of those people?

Ode to Microsoft Word

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
I hate thee for thy paperclip that won’t
get out of sight, I hate thee when thou
freezest up, oh yes, with all my might.
I change my doc to landscape view, inserting
columns too. I change my mind and put it back
but just get grief from you. The margins are
too wide you say, the column widths too great.
You will not change it back for me, despite
my growing rage. There are no columns now,
you dolt, don’t tell me that there are. I turned
them off and all I want is what I had before.
I loved thee once, in times long past, you seemed
so wondrous then. I’d leave thee if I could, but
now that Microsoft has a freaking monopoly on the whole world, I can't!

Ergonomics 101

I couple of weeks ago I went to an ergonomics workshop (because my back hurt and I was willing to try anything to make it stop). They gave us all kinds of advice, which I tried out and then promptly started ignoring as soon as my back felt better.

For example, there's the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, you should spend 20 seconds looking at something that is 20 feet away to rest your eyes. Or the rule of thumb that every 20 minutes you should spend 5 minutes doing something besides using your computer to rest your hands. ("Make a phone call or go get a drink.")

Sorry, but I don't have 24 phone calls to make every day. What I do have is a huge problem with distractibility and I don't think that interupting my work every 20 minutes is going to help.

Tonight I'm in my office finishing revisions on a paper that has to be resubmitted today. Or sometime before the editor, who lives on the east coast, gets to work tomorrow. I guess that puts my deadline somewhere around 5am Pacific Time.

Anyway, I'm tired and my eyes hurt, so I decided to set my computer alarm to tell me to go for a 5-minute walk every hour. And you know what? It's actually helping me feel better and it's probably helping me to avoid twisting every muscle in my back and neck into a gnarled mess from sitting hunched in front of my computer without a break for 10 hours.

Now, if I could just hire a massage therapist with my research budget...

Self Control

Recent research suggests that self-discipline is a much better indicator of future academic success in middle school kids than IQ. That means I must have a REALLY HIGH IQ to make up for my lack of self-discipline, or I would be asking if you want fries with your order instead of teaching undergrads how to allocate the cost of drilling an oil well to the byproducts of oil extraction.

Speaking of self discipline, it's taking all I have not to blog about the ridiculous and funny requests that I get from students sometimes. They're all juniors and seniors, so you would think that they would have their act together by now. In all fairness, most of them are really great and I'm going to miss some of the ones that I've had a lot of interaction with this semester. But I worry about a few of them being able to function in society once they get out of here.

Scottish kids among world's most overweight

I saw the headline and thought "Wow, someone's worse than us?!" and then I read further.

"'Twenty percent of children classed as obese puts Scotland pretty much in the same league as the United States,' said Neville Rigby of the International Obesity Taskforce"

sigh.

Arachnophobia

Last night I saw a spider on the wall. Normally, if it's below waist level, I smash him with my foot. If he is above waist level, I grab a flip-flop and use it like a fly swatter. It's messy, but effective.

Ed kills a spider by taking some toilet paper, picking it off the wall and smashing it between his fingers. He likes to do it with as little toilet paper as possible - either to avoid waste or to gross me out knowing that he can feel the bug through the toilet paper as he smashes it.

Last night I saw a spider running across my wall and I decided that rather than smash his guts all over the wall with my shoe, I would stop being such a ninny and use toilet paper to smash his guts on the wall. (I can only dream of the day when I'll be brave enough to pluck him off the wall without leaving a mess.) I grabbed some toilet paper, wadded it up a little, and jabbed at him. An important detail at this point is that this spider was really booking it across the wall. As a result, I missed and he ran onto my toilet paper wad and then onto my hand.

The reason I usually use a shoe is because I'm terrified that the spider will run onto my hand and up my arm when I'm trying to get him. So I'm afraid that last night's little mishap just set me back 10 years in emotional spider-killing development.

I'm going back to using the bug-zapper that Heather bought me. It's a vacuum that sucks them up and frys them on a high-voltage grid. Mmm, toasty.

Why I'm Glad I Live in California

Boston yesterday:


View from my front porch, today:

The Deadweight Loss of Christmas?

Growing up, we usually told each other what we wanted for birthdays/Christmas and then got each other those things. There were a few surprises, but not too many. One year my mom broke her foot, so when we all came home from college for Christmas, we went to the mall and bought ourselves what we wanted and then came home and wrapped everything up. (I think I started wearing some of the new clothes before Christmas and she made me take them out of my closet and wrap them up on Christmas Eve.) Then we put gift tags on everything, addressed them to ourselves, and put someone else's name on the 'from' line. The surprise on Christmas morning was seeing what we had gotten everyone else. ("Hey Russ, let's see what I got you.....Cool.")

Now, I call up my family before their birthdays or Christmas and ask them what they want. Usually they are happy to tell me, I buy it for them, and then they are happy to get something they wanted. As a result of my early childhood gift-giving-training, I'm totally at a loss as to what to get people who don't tell me what they want. My sharply-honed sense of economic efficiency tells me it's silly to spend a lot of money on something the other person may not like/use/want/etc.

Economists agree with me. Some have estimated that the deadweight loss of Christmas in the U.S. economy is about $4 billion/year. (Deadweight loss is the difference between what the giver pays for the gift and the value the receiver places on it.) Unsurprisingly, the deadweight loss is largest for non-cash gifts from extended family and gifts between people of widely different ages. The loss is smallest for gifts between close family and friends.

Is all lost? Should we all agree to send each other checks and gift cards and dispense with gift-giving altogether? This article suggests a few reasons why we shouldn't abandon gift giving quite yet:

"First, recipients may not know their own preferences very well. Some of the best gifts, after all, are the unexpected items that you would never have thought of buying, but which turn out to be especially well picked. And preferences can change. So by giving a jazz CD, for example, the giver may be encouraging the recipient to enjoy something that was shunned before. This, and a desire to build skills, is presumably the hope held by the many parents who ignore their children's pleas for video games and buy them books instead.

Second, the giver may have access to items—because of travel or an employee discount, for example—that the recipient does not know existed, cannot buy, or can only buy at a higher price. Finally, there are items that a recipient would like to receive but not purchase. If someone else buys them, however, they can be enjoyed guilt-free. This might explain the high volume of chocolate that changes hands over the holidays.

If anyone is planning to buy me chocolate for Christmas, you can minimize the deadweight loss by choosing Lindt Bittersweet Fine Dark.

Good luck, holiday shoppers. Fifteen shopping days left.

Cutting Edge Baking Technology

There is a Bed, Bath and Beyond right by my house and I like to go there and wander around and look at the tantalizingly cool house stuff. A couple of months ago, I spied the coolest thing ever: brightly colored silicone baking pans. I wanted one really bad, but I didn't buy one until two days ago (I conveniently left my muffin pan at Ed's house over Thanksgiving, so that I would feel justified in buying a new one). Check out its cool floppiness:



Last night I initiated my new pans with a batch of rolls.



Here is my consumer review of the pan's features:

Floppiness: Extremely cool when the pan is not in use. Enables pans to be stored in tighter spaces. Slightly problematic when pan is full of dough - requires either the use of both hands or a gentle flip of the pan to get it onto the oven shelf. It is unclear how the floppiness would affect the structural stability of a cake pan full of batter. The store did have red 12-muffin pans with a removable metal support frame so that they could be handled more easily, but the little blue ones were cuter.

Price: These were $9.99 each. The 12-muffin pan with metal frame was $29.99.

Convection: They seemed to cook very evenly. The bottoms and sides of the rolls were slightly more golden than the top. The pan's edges were cool to the touch in a minute or two after taking them out of the oven. I thought I could detect a funny taste when I first took the rolls out, but they tasted fine the next morning. Next time I'm in the roll-baking mood, I'll bake half of them in the floppy pan and half on my baking stone (which cooks things like cookies and rolls perfectly - except that the rolls come out as formless blobs.)

Other Features: Dishwasher safe and oven safe to 500°.

Recommendation: Jury's still out on this one. I'm not planning to buy any more right away. Here are some of the other pieces that are available.

Pet Peeve #2

People who step out into a cross-walk from behind a parked car when you are 10 feet away and going 25mph and then give you a dirty look for not slamming on your breaks and then most likely skidding through the crosswalk anyway.

It's called inertia, people.

Cutting Edge Medicine

A new study found that marital strife can delay wound healing. The researchers gave married couples small wounds (don't worry, their suffering was for science). Then they asked them to have a 30 minute conversation where they were rated (probably by grad student slaves) on how hostile their interaction was (some of them were asked to talk about something they agreed about and some about something they disagreed about.) On average, the couples with more hostile interactions took one day longer to heal (six days versus five).

So next time Ed disagrees with me, I can yell "Stop it! You're keeping my paper cut from healing!" Except that I wouldn't yell it, I would say it nicely so that it doesn't hurt him.

Decorating for the Holidays, Second Try

I decided that my hearth looked retarded and that I should try again. Despite my complete lack of ability to imagine what an item on the store shelf would look like in my house, I think I did okay this time. Here are the before and after pictures.

Before:



I’ve had that silver garland since I was at BYU 10 years ago. It’s looking pretty ragged and since new garland can be had for the amazingly low price of $1.99, I intend to throw it away. But right now it’s in a pile on the floor, because I don’t have the heart to take Christmas decorations and actually chuck them in the trash. I’ll put it in the pile of things that Ed has to throw away when I’m not looking.

After:



Mmmm, much better. Imagine the gentle scent of pine wafting through the air while Christmas carols play in the background. (It was surprisingly hard to find pine-scented air freshener at Target, by the way. If you sell fake trees and garland, the fake pine smell stuff should be sitting right next to them.)

Unisex Bathrooms

We have unisex bathrooms at work and I only have one thing to say:

If you can't aim, sit down! Geez.

Thanksgiving

I went to Washington D.C. for Thanksgiving where we had dinner at the fabulous Heather Craw's house. It was Ed's birthday the next day, so we had a little celebration for him:



On Saturday, we got to hang out with Heather and Kent and Erin Duerichen (who was in town to see her sister) and got a little Scrabble action going on:



Finally, Ed and I bought a Christmas Tree and decorations and put them up at his house. It was really fun. We're a little family with a Christmas tree.



To see more pictures from last weekend, click here.

Things that Go Bump in the Night

One night when I lived in Palo Alto, I woke up at 4am to a lot of commotion outside. I looked out the window and there was a family of raccoons in the backyard. The mama was chilling out by the fence. Two of the kids were tumbling around and wrestling with each other in the middle of the grass. The other two kids were trying to push over our tiki torches. They were each standing on their hind legs next to a torch, holding it in their little hands and rocking it back and forth.

The other night I again woke at 4am to noise and commotion outside my window. This time, I obeyed my rule to never investigate when you hear a strange noise (that's how people always get killed in movies), so I just laid there. At first it sounded like something was being scraped back and forth across something hard. Then that sound stopped, and there was a funny squeaking sound - or rather a series of short, rhythmic squeaks. Then the scraping again. Then the squeaking again. Etc.

The next morning I went out to investigate, half expecting to find a dead, tortured animal laying there. Instead, I found this:



I guess a little critter got ahold of a neighbor kid's squeaky toy and decided that there might be something tasty inside....

Childhood Treasures

I've tried to travel light in my adult life. When I moved to Stanford five years ago, all I brought was what would fit in my car. Last time I moved, I had to rent a 14-foot truck to carry everything. Stuff multiplies.

The way I've been able to travel light for the last 13 years is to ditch stuff I don't need in my parent's basement. Now that I'm grown up with a real job, a husband and a rented house, I decided that it was time to take my stuff off their hands. (This also happened to be my chance to get it moved for free. Thanks new job.) When I was up there 8 months ago, I sorted through a lot of it and threw away the stuff I didn't want. My parents finished getting everything together and packed up last month and the movers brought it about 4 weeks ago.

There were 49 boxes of stuff. Yes, 49 boxes of treasures that I have done without for the last 13 years and wouldn't have missed if they had fallen off the truck on the way here.

We have a very small house and just when I had finally gotten everything from Palo Alto unpacked and put away, this stuff arrived. Half the boxes were full of books, which I unpacked and put on shelves, but the rest is still sitting there in boxes. There's no place to put it if I unpack it, but even if there was, what do you do with all of your childhood stuff? I thought I could be cold-hearted about throwing stuff away, but I'm not as tough as I thought I was. I've got old trophies, old formal dresses, notes from old classes, souvenirs from study abroad trips, and 15 boxes of other stuff that I probably won't need anytime soon, but can't stand to throw out or give away.

Do you still have stuff at your parents' houses? Are they going to make you take it away some day? Have my parents shirked their storage unit duty by foisting this stuff on me?

Decorating for the Holidays

I was sitting on my couch after work, watching a stupid reality show about two families that traded moms for a week and one family loved to hunt and had a freezer full of meat they had killed themselves and the other family were vegans that protest for PETA and only eat raw food and well, you can guess how it went from there, when all of a sudden I got the urge to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and buy a new table cloth. I love that store. Of course, when I got there the indecision took over and I became completely immobilized. After staring for a long time at the table cloth choices, I finally decided that I would try for a holiday look, so I bought a dark red table cloth, some candle trays (for red and green candles that I have at home), some tall white candles, and a big shimmery cream colored candle for a centerpiece.

When I got home, I draped my Christmas lights and garland (which it took 20 minutes to untangle) over the hearth and put my new table cloth on the table. But darn it, when I get things home they never look like I imagine when I'm standing in the store looking at all the options. The table cloth is more of a rusty red than a Christmasy red and the fabric is pretty casual looking, so it doesn't coordinate very well with our quasi-formal-looking dishes. And the black candle trays with colored Christmas candles on them don't really look that great. And the tall white candles I bought don't fit in my candle holders. Why do the home decorating gods hate me? I try. I really do.

So Who Reads this Thing Anyway?

I checked the hourly logs from our site tracker today and here is what I found (number of visitors refers to the number of unique visitors that went to the blog during the indicated hour):

5-6am: 1 visitor - this had better be Devin or Ed (the times are Pacific Standard Time) because none of the rest of us have any business being up at that hour.

10-11am: 2 visitors - one of those is me. That's when I arrived at work today (before you judge me, I should tell you that I washed my dishes that had been piling up, ironed my shirt, took out the trash and watched an episode of the Colbert Report before work - I did not sleep in until 10am).

4-5pm: 1 visitor - I think this one is Heather writing her post.

5-6pm: 3 visitors - Alright! 3 in one hour! We should sell advertising. Ok, fine. One of these was me again. So shoot me for compusively checking the blog every five minutes.

9-10pm: 1 visitor - Not me. I was watching Invasion and then Master and Commander because I have a seriously dangerous TV addiction now. Wait, it's from my IP address. Okay, it was me. I was multi-tasking.

10pm-11pm: 1 visitor - It is I. Just doing a little blogging before the muscle relaxants knock me unconscious. I think I can feel my quads relaxing as I type.

Back Pain, Part Deux

My back has still been giving me problems, so on Saturday, I decided I would rest it by laying on the couch and watching TV all day (I'm also just lazy.) Big mistake. By Sunday, I could hardly sit down without pain. I started to cry during church - not because I was feeling touched (actually, I was feeling touched, whacked and kicked by the kids behind me) but because my back hurt so bad.

So this morning, I finally figured out how to see a doctor under my new health plan and I made an appointment. It turns out that when your back hurts, laying around is bad for you and walking is good for you. Who knew?

She gave me some drugs and I went back to work. As soon as I got there, I popped in a pain killer and 30 minutes later I started feeling better. I also started feeling a little whoozy. It became quickly apparent that I wasn't going to be doing any ground-breaking research today, so I decided to get some little administrative things done. I kept forgetting what I was doing, so I whenever I changed tasks, I wrote down what I was trying to do (i.e. send an electronic photo to Stephanie). Then when I was browsing through my picture files and I forgot why I was doing that, I could refer back to my note (oh, yeah. Send a picture to Stephanie.) A couple of times, I forgot about the note and just sat there staring at my computer. I wasn't really making much progress on my chores, but I didn't think it was a good idea to drive until I felt a little more clear-headed. When I finally thought I could remember who I was and where I was going for long enough to get home safely, I gave up and left. These are the days when it's nice not to have a boss.

Flying Puppies

I just got back from New York a couple of hours ago. I flew on Jet Blue. Little TV's with live direct tv for everyone: Cool. Giving everyone crappy headphones that don't cover their ears so that in turning up the sound loud enough to understand the dialogue over the airplane engines, they also subject everyone around them to whatever they are watching: Uncool. Sitting within earshot of 5 people that are doing this: Very Uncool.

At the beginning of the flight, the flight attendent asked the woman sitting in the window seat next to me if she would be willing to trade seats with someone because that person had a pet in a box and someone sitting by them was allergic to it. Then the flight attendant asked me and the guy on the aisle if we minded having a pet on our row. Among the thoughts that raced through my mind: "Is the pet going to sit in that seat by itself? Is this person going to hold a pet in their lap for six hours? Is it potty trained? Are you serious? If I put Ed in a box on my lap, can he travel for free?" We both gave her a blank stare, paused, and then hesistantly said, "Um, okay." Luckily some other flight attendant brokered a seat-swap deal with someone else before my row mate could switch. In the end, our little row struck up a nice rapport and it was a pleasant flight.

I have to go home now and hand out Halloween Candy. Happy Halloween!

I've decided to restart my old blog

We'll see if I actually post a reasonable amount. But since I have very low standards for that other blog, I might actually do it.

:)

Groundhog's day?

Yesterday I had yet another discussion about how most people don't do their physical therapy, which lead very nicely into a discussion on people's horrible eating habits and lack of exercise--as well as how they are all surprised that they are overweight. Perhaps the thing that was odd about this conversation is I wasn't leading it...I guess that I did spark it what with my knee, but the guy I was talking to went from PT to lifting, gyms, people's eating habits etc. I had just gotten back from a 3 mile run (YEA! I can run again. Well I'm building up.) And I went to JJ&F's grocery to bet something to eat. (Heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, and some gummy bears). Anyhow, one of the guys who works there asked me if I had just worked out and off the conversation went.

I wonder if there are just some conversations that some people are going to have over and over again. Maybe for you it is about the second law of thermodynamics, or perhaps relativity...but for me it seems to be about working hard in physical therapy, working out hard, and eating right. Maybe eventually I will move on to conversations about the existance of black holes and the creation of the universe...but somehow I doubt it.

For fun, what conversations do you find yourself repeating with randomly diffrent people?

I'm Too Young for Back Pain

For the last 10 days, my back has been hurting. It's like a pulled muscle or pinched nerve in my lower back, on one side, right below my waist. I know that I should go to the doctor, but I just signed up for a new health plan and I didn't get my ID card until last week and I don't have a personal physician yet and it's hard and whine, whine, whine.

I've tried Advil. Nothing. I've tried Yoga - but I can't figure out how to contort myself into a position that stretches that particular spot. I also tried laying on my back with tennis balls under me while I scoot around so that the tennis balls massage the muscles on the sides of my spine. Ok, I'm getting desperate. I'm going to try a heating pad when I get home tonight. I've had this before and eventually it goes away, but in the meantime, it's not getting better and I have to sit on an uncomfortable airplane seat for 5 hours tomorrow. Maybe if I'm too sore to sit for long periods of time, I can skip the first session of the conference on Saturday morning (see rant below) and sleep in without guilt.

The Early Bird gets a Headache

I'm having problems getting up lately. If my bed gets a point for every minute that I sleep in past 8am and if I get a point for every minute that I'm up before 8am, the score for this week so far would stand at:

Bed: 332
Me: 0

I'm going to a conference on the east coast this weekend and it starts at 7am on Saturday. WHAT THE &*$#????? Did they forget that they invited people from the west coast? Do they not know that 7am Eastern Time = 4am Pacific Time? Do they not know that professors in my department don't come to work until 10am? And that's when they're NOT jet-lagged.

At least I don't have to present until 1:30pm, so I can nurse my "I'm-not-supposed-to-be-up-this-early" headache with a diet coke all morning while I try to wake up enough to function.

Postscript (Sunday, Oct. 30): I just finished the aforementioned conference and I have to admit that it didn't start until 8:30am on Saturday (and noon on Friday). I'm not sure where I got 7am - there is a conference at Berkeley this Friday and I think that one actually starts at 7am.

Can't. Stop. Watching. TV.

Between my new dedication to working while I'm at work and my TV addiction, I'm afraid that my blogging has really suffered lately.

I got Dish TV 10 days ago (or rather, Ed signed me up for it while I was at work one day) and now I find myself wasting hours glued to the TV. I start watching a show that catches my eye, and then I can't stop. My DVR (Tivo-like thing) can record on two channels at once, so I surf through the channel guide gleefully telling it to record everything that catches my eye. Tonight it told me that I have already recorded 62 hours of TV. 62 HOURS! I can't watch 62 hours of TV. I started deleting. Bye, bye 5 episodes of "La Esposa Virgin" (I am not going to start watching a Spanish soap opera to practice my Spanish.) See ya later 10 episodes of various Star Treks. Hasta la vista Law and Order.

I really don't know what's come over me. Heather had TIVO last year when I lived with her and this didn't happen. I just taped a few Star Treks and Law and Orders and I would watch them on fast forward with the closed captions on (I can read fast). Unfortunately, this machine doesn't seem to have that feature. Although it does let you keep watching your show up in the corner of the screen while you surf the Guide to see if there is anything more deserving of your attention.

I just have to keep myself from picking up the remote in the first place, because one peek and I'm gone.

Putting Parkinson's Law to Work for You

Parkinson's law states "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Or more generally, "the demand upon a resource always expands to fill the resource." How can you put Parkinson's law to work for you? By using the Law of Procrastination, which states "don't do anything until the following equation is true:

Time required to accomplish task = Time left until it has to be done."

Keep in mind, however, that the Law of Proscrastination only brings lasting happiness if you also obey the Law of No Guilt, which states "you must not think about a project or feel bad about not getting started on it in any way, shape or form at any time until the equation above is true."

Working Hard

Last Friday I decided to keep a log of what I'm doing every minute of the day at work. Even bathroom breaks get recorded: 4 minutes - potty break. I figured that if I did this for a couple of weeks, I could better see how I'm using my time and how I could be more efficient. (Because I don't feel like I've been getting much done lately. Somehow every little task seems to stretch out into hours of alternating between working and engaging in highly distracting non-work tasks.)

So I'm at the end of Day 2 of OCD record keeping and I've gotten more done in the last two days than in the last two weeks. It turns out that the very act of recording my activities makes me work WAY more efficiently (because I don't want to write down "web surfing and eating dry cheerios - 2 hours"). Ed pointed out that it's like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. That was a pretty good observation, but not nearly as good as the last time I worked quantum physics into a conversation:

Ed: (name withheld to protect the innocent) says completely contradictory things. They're so contradictory that I can't understand how she can even believe them both at the same time.

Me: Oh really? Was she trying to tell you that an electron is both a wave and a particle?

Berkeley Time

Every activity or function at my church starts at least 10 minutes late (except for Sunday services that start on time, even though most members trail in over the next 10 minutes). Of course this has become an old joke - "Is that 6pm Mormon time?" someone might ask. And lots of groups have this little joke - I've heard people refer to "Jewish Time", etc. So when I got to Berkeley and heard people saying that everything starts 10 minutes after it's scheduled, and calling this "Berkeley Time", I assumed that they meant that, as in most organizations, everyone shows up late to everyting. But no, they told me. If you are scheduled to teach from 1pm to 1:50pm, that means that you really teach from 1:10pm to 2pm. If you show up at 1pm, the previous class will still be in there.

At first, I thought I was being punked. Show up ten minutes late to my classes? Riiiggghhht. When I found out it was for real, I just wondered, why?

This convention applies to everything, not just classes. Meetings, workshops, seminars, and everything else start at ten minutes after the hour. After being at Berkeley for two months, I've come to the surprising conclusion that this system really helps people to be on time. There are always a few people who just don't get it and always show up at the posted time. But at the meetings I've been to, almost all of the people are there a few minutes before the meeting starts.

My theory is that this funny timing convention gets people to things on time because it changes how they think about the 10 minutes before the meeting: I know that a meeting scheduled for 1pm really doesn't start until 1:10pm, but in my mind the time between 1pm and 1:10pm is really meeting time, so I don't mind using it to walk to the meeting and I leave my office at 1pm and show up a a few minutes early. If the meeting really started at 1pm, I would feel like any time that I had to use walking over there before 1pm, was MY time, and I would leave at the last second and almost always be late.

So there you have it. Another example of how framing matters.

Research

A student came to my office to ask me some questions about the homework and then she told me that she liked my class and asked if I was teaching it next semester. I said no, we only teach during one semester. She seemed really surprised (s stands for student):

s: but I told all of my friends that they should take this class from you.

me: thanks, but I'm only teaching during the fall this year.

s: what do you mean?

me: well, I teach this semester and then next semester I can focus on doing research.

s: are they sending you back to stanford?

me: no, I have a full-time job here.

s: so why don't you teach next semester?

me: because a big part of my job is doing research. and I don't get much done when I'm teaching. that's what I'll be doing next semester. all of the professors only teach for one semester every year so that we can do research.

s: it must be nice to get the summers off

me: actually, I'll be doing research. RESEARCH.

I know it's hard to fathom what accounting professors might research. If you watched me all day, you might mistakenly think I must be researching web surfing. But really, I'm thinking up brilliant research ideas.

(insert name here) needs

My brother and his friends are doing this cute thing on their blogs, and I felt like joining in. You search google with "(Insert your name here) needs" and list some of the best ones that come up.

Devin needs lots of repetition and needs tasks broken down to one or two steps (SO true!)
Devin needs to be less nerdy than she was in her tryouts (Also probably true.)
Devin needs his daddy, and Nicole needs you to show her that you will cross any desert, swim any ocean for her. (I just had to include that entire sentance. It was too perfect. I know it's potentially stealing one from Nicole, but it did start with Devin needs!)
Devin needs a black female partner
Devin needs twenty-thousand dollars (Wouldn't that be nice?)

:) Your turn.

Another haircut

So in late July I got a haircut. I asked for an "A-line bob." I was so nervous that he didn't understand the "A-line" part that he even drew it out for me to feel more comfortable. A beautifull angle with the front longer. Okay. Good. So what did I end up with? A bob where my hair was *shorter* in front. (Although if it was completely sopping wet and I tugged on the front, as he apparently did when he cut it, it did seem *slightly* longer in front.) Now I normally don't splurge on haircuts, but this was a seemingly good salon and one of their more senior (and hence more expensive) people.

After that experience I re-grew my hair and yesterday I went to a cheaper place (ie. a semi-nice salon where the cuts are $30-$50 instead of $50 up) where I figured I could boss them around more and if it turned out badly at least I hadn't spent a fortune. It sort-of worked. Basically I went in, told the whole story and said "I want an A-line bob (indicating angle with hands). Leave as much length as you possibly can in the front, but cut the back shorter." She moaned and groaned and complained the entire time that the front was too long. I was happy. That meant there was a decent chance I was getting the cut I wanted.

Today I inspected my new cut properly for the first time. It actually looks pretty good. It's *still* only barely longer in the front, but it is longer. So it looks good.
On the left side of my head.

On the right side of my head the front is shorter.

Sigh.

I'm going to let it be and once it grows out *again* I'll try some other place. But this is definetely getting to be annoying.

Seriously, is it so hard? A Bob. bob. but with an angle. I think I might just go to supercuts next time. They couldn't do worse, could they? Or could they...

Ebb and flow....

Why is it that work always seems to happen all at once? I am trying to decide if this is a particular function of my job, my personality, or a commonality for everyone. Partially it is my job. Last week was consensus. We had a big consensus meeting that I was incredibly busy preparing for all week... Serious after-hours prep in fact(although that was partially caused by the fact that my car was getting fixed and so I carpooled with Chris all week--so I tried to live Chris hours. That was so tiring!
Partially it is probably my personality -- I feel the need to do every project/job the moment I receive it or can. Hence times of extreme busyness can be followed by times when I am done. And since, unlike Chris, I am not good at making up work for myself (hence never would have made a good researcher) I do run out.
Perhaps this is a trend that is similar for everyone? Or perhaps only to people who tend to prefer to do projects -- work with an ending point? What do you think. Will I always be oscillating between times of extreme busyness and boredom, or will I someday find a way to smooth out my ebb and flow?

Publicity Photo

Yes, I will soon have a publicity photo. That's what they call it here. It's the picture where I'm supposed to look like a real HBS professor. Is it convincing? I keep asking Susheem if I look like a real Professor, and apparently every once in a while, with my suit and leather briefcase, I get really really close.

So anyway, I'm teaching now! Overall it has been a lot of fun. Very tiring and time-consuming, but fun. The students are all really bright and have interesting experience. They ask good (sometimes too good) questions. And the case method is fun - I get to turn things back at them so often. But class is so unpredictable with the case method. Yesterday I had my least structured class ever. The discussion just went in directions I hadn't expected, and there was no clear way to reorganize it. It's okay though - I'm pretty sure they still learned stuff. Probably. Something.
:)

Actually, I have heard through a couple people that some of my students have been saying very good things. Yay! It means so much more when they're saying it to someone else.

Having to go in to work and having a clear task every day is pretty different from non-teaching-professor life, but I really like it. You know, for variety. Not permanantly.

(Oh, and if any of you know how to make the picture smaller without making it look grainy, let me know how. I know that I can set the width to a certain number of pixels, but then the pic just doesn't look as good. Thanks!)

Bizarro

Here is what I saw for 2 hours yesterday afternoon when I wanted to blog. I wanted to blog really bad. And I wanted to read other people's blogs really bad. It was very upsetting to have my blog taken away from me like that.

Today on the way to work, I had my left hand on the steering wheel and when I pushed a button on the radio to change the station, the automatic door locks engaged. The button that is supposed to activate the door locks doesn't work (I have to lock with with the keyless entry remote) and hasn't worked for a long time. My car is evolving.

Our New Place

Here is a picture of our new couches. We had to go with a sectional because our house is too ridiculously small to have a separate couch/love seat. They're microfiber and they're pretty comfy, but I have the feeling that they won't be tough enough to hold up for very long if kids enter the picture.



Here is the view from the hallway toward our kitchen table (yes, it's a banquet table with $3 lawn chairs from the drugstore around it). We'll get a new table eventually, but it's not very high on the priority list (getting a new car before mine dies is the first priority at the moment).



I really need Heather Craw to come out and tell me how to decorate our house. Everything is white (doors, door and window trim, window blinds, walls and ceilings), so it looks really plain and unadorned. I feel like I should put up some window treatments and hang tapestries on the walls or something.

Killing Time

First there was google, a search engine that was leaps and bounds beyond its nearest rival that made finding information on the web oh so easy. Then Yahoo games. Who knew that so many people liked to play boggle online? Next came CNN - what better way could you waste your afternoons? And of course, CNN has to be followed with Slate for a more substantive follow-up on the daily news. Then came the blogs - every morning I check my seven favorite blogs to see if there is anything new/interesting. And don't forget TheMovieSpoiler and Apple movie trailers - yes, it kills your appetite for actually going to movies, but it's a lot quicker and cheaper.

But my new web-surfing passion, the grand daddy of them all, the time killer to kill all time killers, is Wikipedia. Yes, it's an online encyclopedia (yawn) but it's really cool. The articles are up-to-the-minute current and are hyperlinked to related articles/concepts. If you have a tabbed browser, it's a dream. You can keep opening cool-looking links in background tabs as you read an article and then read the related articles and the related links. I spent 2 hours reading about science fiction books, the Fermi paradox and Von Neuman probes this afternoon. Everything you can think of is there, from popular novels (now I don't have to read The Da Vinci Code) to detailed science and math concepts (check out supernovae), to up-to-date information about current events (read all about Harriet Miers or the guys who won the nobel prize in physics today).

The only problem with it is that sometimes the pages load slowly (it's run by a non-profit group and there are no advertisements or fees for using it, so they have to rely on donations to upgrade their hardware and bandwidth). I will be sending them a donation soon.

Dirtball

No, it's not the name of our new pet pot-bellied pig -- it's my car. It hasn't been washed since my dad washed it when my parents came out for our wedding. It's not dirty for lack of a bucket, hose, spray nozzle, liquid car washing soap, a car washing mitt or a squeegee, because I have all of those things. I just haven't been in the car-washing mood. If I knew where a self-serve cash wash was, I would go there and hose it down, but I don't feel like figuring out where one is. Maybe Ed will wash it when he comes this weekend after he finishes cleaning the spiders and spider webs off my porch. We're thinking our next car might be brown.

Who's that girl?

I spent two hours yesterday working on changing my name. I already got my new driver's license (after a miraculously short 20 minutes at the DMV) and my new social security card (which required a visit to the social security office). At the bank I had to bring in my marriage license and a photo id with my new name. Credit cards were easy - I just called them up and two days later a card arrived with my new name on it.

I also have to contact my cell phone provider (partly done), insurance agent (done), employer (done), brokerage account manager, utility company, internet provider, water company, garbage collection company, the alumni associations of every school I've attended, the U.S. passport agency, and many more that I'm sure I will think of eventually. The biggest hassle so far? Frequent flier programs. Both Southwest and United Airlines are making me photocopy our marriage license and send it to them in the mail. That's right. If you want to steal my credit card, just call them up, pretend to be me, and tell them that you have moved and changed your name. But don't even think about trying to steal my frequent flier miles, because they're on to you.

Test Time

I gave my first exam last week and all 158 enrolled students showed up (plus 1 extra student who appears to have dropped the class before the test, but came and took it anyway.) I considered this a miracle, since it never happened when I taught large classes at BYU. There, the students go to a testing center (a large room with hundreds of desks where proctors roam up and down the aisles all day) anytime during a 2 or 3 day period to take the test. If it is scantron test, it is graded when they leave and they get a printout with their score. Invariably, someone would show up to my office after the test ended and tell me they forgot to go take it.

Now I am dealing with the complaints (generally revolving around the fact that I didn't give partial credit for incorrect answers). Some of them are pretty inventive, but I won't reprint them here, because I don't want to get dooced (definition: to get fired from your job for blogging about sensitive work details).

Anyway, teaching is pretty fun. Sometimes students come during my office hours just to shoot the breeze. In most of my lectures, I spend most of the time working out problems on the board with them, which I like (and which they seem to like better than powerpoint slides). Semesters seem so much longer than quarters, though. I've been teaching for 5 weeks already and at Stanford, they are just starting fall quarter this week. Five weeks down, eleven to go.

Early Riser

Ever since I got back from the east coast on Monday, I've been going to bed early (between 9 and 10:30) and waking up early. This morning I got up and did two loads of laundry, baked some crab cakes, oiled my countertop, watched a morning news show, and took out the trash before leaving for work at 8:45. I feel so productive. Now I'm at school blogging instead of working, which is hurting my average productivity immensely, but oh well.

Unfortunately, the first time I stay up until midnight and sleep in until 9am, it will be all over and I won't be able to fall asleep early anymore. What is need is some good relaxation techniques. Or sleeping pills.

I'm also coming to the frightening realization that I'm on the 9-end of the 'most people need 7-9 hours of sleep per night.' I don't want to need 9 hours of sleep. I don't like going to bed early (and my husband doesn't like going to be early) and I feel crummy when I sleep in late. But when I don't set my alarm (which is always) I sleep for about 9 hours. Maybe I need a more comfy bed so that I can get more quality (and less quantity) sleep. Has anyone tried one of those Tempurpedic-type (memory-foam) beds?

Lock the Door, Please

On my trip over the weekend, I used the bathroom in the plane twice. Both times, the sign on the door said the bathroom was vacant. Both times, the bathroom wasn't vacant. When I opened the door, the person inside yelped and pulled it shut.

Finding and securing the lock inside an airplane bathroom is not rocket science. Given that it keeps your fellow passengers from opening the door when you have your pants down, you'd think it would be worth the effort.

Yackers

I spent the weekend in D.C., which means I spent all day Friday and all day yesterday travelling.

There are always people on the plane who yack loudly for the entire flight. Listen people, no one wants to hear your life story for 4 hours. Not the people in the row in front of you, not the people in the row behind you, and certainly not the poor soul in the seat next to you who is getting yacked at. Seriously, I would rather sit in front of a fussy baby. It's a lot easier to tune out.

I flew on Southwest. They can turn around a plane in 20 minutes. What is their secret? First of all, they do a good job getting the cabin cleaned up before they land. For example, they ask us to fold up our blankets and return them before landing, instead of leaving them on the seat. As the last person is leaving the plane, a flight attendant walks behind them cleaning up so that by the time that passenger is off, they are ready to board.

Their second trick is the no-seat-assignment policy. (I have to give credit to Ed for this observation). The B-group and C-group always get in line the second they get to the terminal. The A's dally a little, but they are usually all lined up and waiting by the time boarding starts. Yesterday, the plane we would be on for our flight to Maryland arrived 20 minutes early to Oakland, and as soon as the passengers started to get off, everyone who wasn't in line jumped up and got in line. A Southwest employee announced that we wouldn't be boarding for 20 minutes, but no one budged. They all just stood there for 20 minutes (except for me - I was sitting in a chair reading my book). When we did start boarding, I noticed that no one but me joined the A-line late - I was the only one that wasn't in line. If you have an A-boarding pass, you can always get a great seat, even if you are the last A, so what's up with that?

At any rate, they are able to get every single passenger to get in line and be ready to go the second they are ready to board. That's why they can land a plane, get everyone off, and fill it back up in 15 minutes.

Best Husband Ever

And no, it's not mine. Or yours.

It's my coworker's husband.

Last weekend he made her "Breakfast In Tub"! He "forced" her into the Jacuzzi and then made her breakfast and brought it to her. And this week he made our entire department this super-yummy chocolate dessert with rasberry sauce and whipped cream. It was his mom's bakery's signature dessert! (Yes, his mom had a bakery. And apparently he learned well.)

Susheem gave me a foot massage. That was nice.

Mmmmm.... Chocolate. Jacuzzi. Breakfast.

Keeping track of our visitors

Nikki suggested that we add sitetracker to keep track of our visitors, so I have done this. Any comments? Like it/Hate it...Need to password to get in and see our visitors? Let me know.

Scary

As you can see, I am in serious need of cable tv. Or an antenna that costs more than $9.99.

Last Sunday I was bored, so I read the synopses of all of the episodes of the tv series "Lost" (which I had never seen before.) Last night I watched it for the first time. I didn't realize that the show is actually pretty scary. And I'm not good at scary. When I watch scary movies, I spend most of the scary scenes with my eyes closed and/or ears plugged. Last night I kept muting the scary music because I couldn't handle the suspense, but I kept going because I really wanted to know what was in the hatch.

After Lost, I left the TV on so that I could get unscared, only to get drawn into the premiere of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers type show that only intensified my feelings (again, there was a lot of muting of scary music). I finally calmed myself down by watching the news (because the lack of scary music on the news makes real hurricanes seem a lot less scary than hurricanes caused by aliens to hide their secret landing).

By the time I went to bed, I was able to fall asleep. Because I knew that if anyone tried to get me, I would wake up and spray them with the trusty can of mace that sits on my nightstand. Ooo-Yeah!

Early Risers

I have to teach a phd student seminar in which we discuss a paper that will be presented by a guest speaker later in the day at a research workshop. We are having problems finding a time on Friday morning when the seven students can come, and it looks like we are going to have to have it at 9am. That right, 9 A M. I gave them the option of doing it sometime on Thursday afternoon/evening, but they chose 9am. Where did these people learn to be grad students, anyway? They obviously aren't being socialized properly.

My advisor never came in before 11am and never wanted to see me until 4pm. Ah, the idyllic days of yore. The only thing that gets me to work before 11am now is the fear of having to park a mile away.

Leaving Well Enough Alone

I don't know if you guys have noticed, but I occasionally go back to my old posts and revise them because I decide that what I wrote was stupid. Why? Well, when our blog becomes famous and people start reading the old posts because they just can't get enough of us, I don't want them to think I'm stupid. Why do I always think I'm stupid? One of the requirements for grad school is that you check your self esteem at the door. I turned in my dissertation three weeks ago, so I'm waiting to start feeling smart and capable again. Waiting. Waiting.

Every day for the last three years I've wondered what it would feel like to turn in my dissertation and turn off the constant nagging voice in my head that was always telling me I needed to work on it. Not that I listened to it - but it was always there, like an old friend. Well, now I know. I miss it. I need a project. Yesterday I was thinking that maybe I should learn to knit. Six months ago, I would never have considered knitting/crocheting/embroidering/sewing anything unless WalMart-seeking missiles destroyed all of the cheap textile goods in our country. (Not that I buy my clothes at WalMart, but you get the idea).

Today I decided that I will study for my Ham Radio license, which, according to my husband makes me the queen of the übernerds. We'll see who's calling who a nerd when I save us by calling for help when an earthquake cuts off all phone communications.

Candy

I don't have a wireless router, so I have to string a cable to my living room so that I can surf while I lay on the couch. Why don't I have a wireless router? Because it's one of the many things that Ed already has but is currently using in Maryland. And if I buy one, I won't need it when he moves here in March. So I tell myself I can just tough it out until then. I gave in and bought a TV because I knew I couldn't last until March without one. I bought an $8 toaster at Target because Ed has a nice toaster oven. I chop my vegies by hand because Ed has a food processor. Just kidding. I haven't eaten any vegies since the first week I lived here. The ones I bought on my initial "stock the fridge" shopping trip are mostly rotting in the vegie drawer. That's my guess, anyway. I haven't really checked on them for a month or so, so I can't say for sure.

I was watching an infomercial about some diet where you pay $300/month and they bring you food every week (I was too lazy to change the channel. And I only get 2 channels anyway, so the likelihood that the other channel was showing anything better at that time of day was small.) The food didn't look too bad, and I actually considered it. Not because I want to go on a diet (which I don't) but because someone else would bring meals to my house and all I would have to do is heat them up. Then I thought about how I have a whole freezer full of Trader Joe's frozen food that just needs to be heated up, but I don't eat it because it all takes an hour to cook and I just never feel like waiting that long (I already ate everything that can be cooked in less than 15 minutes). Instead, I eat Easy Mac (yes, it's microwave macaroni and cheese - 4 minutes), cheese and crackers (15 seconds prep time), Power Bars (Cookies and Cream is my flavor of choice lately) and candy (Long's drugstore had big boxes of Hot Tamales on sale for 79 cents. I bought them all.) I know I should be eating better, but IT'S JUST TOO HARD. I need my husband to get over here and cook for me. Husband, are you reading this???

Go Cal!

I went to my first Cal football game yesterday with a friend of mine who is an alumnus and has season's tickets. It was really fun. We were down 7-17 at half time, but came back with some exciting plays to win 35-20 (we were playing Illinois). I even managed to produce a couple of pieces of Berkeley clothing to wear to the game. The only disappointment is that our cheerleaders don't do ridiculously dangerous stunts. I had to watch the Illinois cheerleaders to get my fill.

My friend was determined to show me as much Berkeley coolness as possible. We parked in the secret faculty parking lot right across from the stadium (wahahaha) and then ate lunch at Top Dog. After the game we got candy at the campus bookstore and then walked down Telegraph. It was all very cool and fun.

I am now beginning to understand the level of anti-Stanford sentiment that floats around here. When everyone shouted "blue!" over the word 'red' during the national anthem (...and the rockets' red glare....) I thought hmmm. Then I started seeing a lot of anti-stanford slogans on the student's shirts (we were sitting next to the student section). When some poor guy showed up with a red hat and all of a sudden 100 people were pointing at him and chanting "Take off that red hat!", I realized that I am firmly entrenched in bear territory. I never got the sense that Stanford students went to that much trouble to hate Cal. (I only went to one football game, so maybe I missed a lot of anti-Cal antics, but I did go to a lot of basketball games and I didn't see any there). So now I understand that people are really sizing me up when they ask me suspiciously, "So how was it coming from Stanford to Cal?" I might have to change my answer from "Fine" to "Stanford? I hated every second. The palm trees, the club-med atmosphere, the beautiful weather, the air conditioning - It's nothing but a breeding ground for sissies."

Reality TV and Jeopardy

Do you ever find yourself wondering, "why do dead bodies always float face down?" Well, here's your answer:
Why do dead bodies float face down

I finally got a TV yesterday and yes, it has changed my life from a lonely silent existence to a life full of talking heads and reality tv. Last night I watched Couples Fear Factor. The first stunt was a physical activity where the man and woman held on to opposite ends of a rope while hanging by their ankles at opposite ends of a beam while the beam spun around faster and faster. It kept going until one of them let go of the rope, which made them both fall in the water. Because of the setup, the force exerted by the rope on each of them was proportional to the body weight of the other person. In other words, the women were at a huge disadvantage because they were all smaller than the men. Immediately afterwards in the boat that picked them up, the men were huge jerks - all but one of them were ripping into the woman for letting go. In reality, once the force (which was increasing with the speed of the spinning) exceeded her grip strength, the rope would slide out of her hands - none of them just let go.

Fortunately, several of the women were vindicated during the next stunt when they had to use their mouths to find coins in pies made of maggots and stuff, and then drink a shake made of ground maggots, duck heart, etc. One of the mean guys threw up, which almost got them kicked out and another guy couldn't drink the shake (they were drinking it together, so the woman drank most of it). Sissies.

I always assumed that they made sure that the stunts had no potential dangerous health effects. (I mean, is it reallly safe to eat live maggots?) But then I read a New Yorker article about leeches in which someone from a leech farm said that Fear Factor had contacted them about buying some leeches, but never asked if they were safe to eat.

You will not be seeing Ed and me on that show anytime soon. But if you tune into Jeopardy tonight, you will see our friend Michael Shirts go up against a guy whose been on for 15 or so episodes.

Puppies, Babies, and Countertops

Check out this great post about raising puppies (and kids): Mormon Mommy Wars. I know my kids are going to realize right away that I can't actually force them to do anything and then they will never mind me again.

On a mostly unrelated note, we didn't have enough storage space in our kitchen, so we bought a modular cabinet from Ikea (you pick out the countertop and cabinet separately). We picked a nice looking wood countertop only to find out that we had to cut it down to size ourselves. Ok, fine. We're mormon - it only took 10 minutes at church to find a retired guy with a saw who was happy to help us. Then they gave us the wrong sized cabinet - so we had to brave Ikea on Labor Day. Yes, it was my worst shopping nightmare come true.

We finally got the cabinet put together and were trying to figure out how to attach the countertop when we read in the instructions that we have to buy a special Ikea oil and treat it every three days for 2 months. Not only did I have to go back to Ikea AGAIN, but now I have needy countertop. "Um, no, I can't come over tonight. I have to oil my countertop."

After the first couple of treatments, I have to admit that the oiled wood is looking very spiffy. When I get my house cleaned up, I'll take pictures for you guys.

The saga that is my knee...

So we removed the hardware (good) and put my knee back together. It was healing along seemingly well. But Monday it started to hurt in a certain spot, and it just got worse every day. By Wednesday evening I had started to get worried. Since it was not better Thursday I made an appointment to go in. This is what it looked like:


Does this look infected to you?

A big red spot, kind of swollen and sensitive. Suggestive of an infection if you ask me. I was fully expecting antibiotics...however, when the nurse practicioner took a look at it, she said that she wasn't sure (since there was no puss). She thought that it might just be inflamed. She said that I should just watch it, and if it got worse come back. (Note this is Thursday--right before a long weekend). Apparently it just wasn't bad enough yet...


If the red gets beyond the black lines, then we panic...


They drew these lines on it and said that if the red gets outside the lines to come back...and by the way, not to worry, there is a doctor on call over the weekend...
Somehow, this was, to me, a fairly disappointing response. I mean, it hurts plenty--I don't particularly want to wait for it to get worse...

meanwhile, this morning--it looks the same. Not worse so I can go get it fixed, but certainly no better...

Arg-Medicine can be so frustrating--there just isn't that much which they know with certainty.

Done at Last

Great new look for the blog.

I turned in my dissertation to the Stanford registrar today. Then I tried to drive home, but my car overheated. Since we are planning to buy a new car this weekend, I seriously considered renting a car and abandoning mine if the repairs were going to be expensive. Luckily, I was only half a mile away from the Barron Park Shell in Palo Alto, where I had taken the car before, and they were nice enough to look at it immediately. Thirty minutes later, they told me that my coolant was low, that they had topped it off, and that it was running fine now. They also tested the system, but there were no leaks. When I asked if it was low because I suck at maintaining my car, the mechanic just gave me a look that said "You know it, baby."

In the meantime, I missed my office hours.

Then I drove to my old roommate's house to sit on her porch and check my email, only to find a pile of emails from my students who can't get the book to do the homework that's due tomorrow. I call the bookstore and find out that they are out of the 70 copies they ordered, but will order more right away. 70? There are 170 students in the class. Ok. I have 100 students without a book and there is homework due tomorrow. No problemo.

So I called my assistant and had him make copies of the chapter they are supposed to read for the next two class periods and I sent out an email to the class telling them they can get it from him. Five seconds later, the email comes bouncing back, telling me that I don't have permission to post to that email list. HELLO. I'M THE PROFESSOR.

I'm sure I will get the hang of Berkeley bureaucracy soon enough. In the meantime, I'm just glad I got my car fixed and got home. And I'm glad my office doesn't face the field where the marching band practices every afternoon, so that I can only hear them faintly instead of full blast.

gas prices

First I must say though: oooooo pretty. :) I like the new look for our blog.

Now, to the gas prices. So I take the train and bus to work. On the way, I pass by 2 gass stations right next to each other. They were selling regular for 3.29, plus for 3.39 and premium for 3.49.

So, what are prices like in CA?

The funniest thing was the reaction of the people on the bus. I heard at least 3 people gasp out "And there are still people filling up!" hehe. Public transportation users are funny.

I will post a pic soon. (Must go home and take one first).

Enabled comments...

Ok, I've enabled comments. That is a really different process than last time I did it. Now you can just click a button--no more inserting the correct HTML code into the right place...So much for my learn HTML goal.

Devin--You need to post a pic with your new hair.

Nikki--the really easy way to post a pic is simply to hit the landscape picture above when you are making a new comment. It will allow you to browse on your computer and find a picture to put up.

Work email is indeed a tricky line to walk. You don't want them to be overly long and hence annoying, in fact you would like them to be short and humorous--but it is hard to do funny over email at all- and then in an 'official capacity' and to people that you don't know, it is almost hopeless--but press forward--I believe in you!

Hi again. My usual randomness:

Very cute picture and a good idea. I'm not good with title ideas...

I'm totally obsessed with wedding photo albums now. I guess since the wedding itself is over, this is my next thing. But we haven't even gotten our pictures yet! It will be much easier to be obsessed once we get pictures. :)

Apparently a family friend (very very rich and really into photography) made an amazing album with 8x10s from the wedding (the type of album where each picture is matted) and framed 3 8x10s and gave all of that to my parents, plus a few extras. My mom sent me 4 prints but I really want to see the rest of the stuff. I feel like we got the leftovers. :) Of course, the leftovers were very nice too.

Our other "hobby" is unpacking wedding presents and packing away all our old stuff. We're making really good progress. We're going to have to make a trip to a thrift store soon - we have *so* much stuff to donate. If you know anyone in Boston who needs house/apartment stuff (luggage, pots and pans, plate sets, kitchen appliances, bakeware, glassware, silverware - we've got it all) let us know.

Oh, and I'm doing this introductory Accounting workbook. It's so much fun!!! It's like doing homework. I love homework.

(I did chop my hair off 3 days after we got back from the honeymoon, but I haven't done it again since then (dispite a few urges))

Suggestions for the new subtitle of our blog:

Three married women. Three jobs. Zero babies.

or

Three weddings. Three haircuts. (Devin, have you chopped your hair off yet?)

or

Something to do while we're supposed to be working.


And with that, I have to get back to work.

Proofread BEFORE you send

I sent an email to someone in the copy/printer place, asking how to connect to network printers. My exact words were "I can't figure out who to print."

I reread the email after sending it and sent a follow up emailing saying, "Actually, I need to know "how" to print, not "who" to print.

Later he sent me a response to the first email telling me that that he didn't know and that I should contact the computer helpdesk (which I did) and he gave me their email.

Then he sent a response to the second email saying, "I guess you are still having trouble. Here are is some additional contact information that might be helpful" and gave me a lot more information.

At that point I realized that he must have not read my second email until after he responded to the first and that he must have thought the second one was a totally snotty response to his lack of ability to help. I responded and tried to explain what I meant and apologize, but I feel like a dufus.

I think I'll go take him a chocolate bar tomorrow and apologize again.

That's why you should never try to be funny over email. Especially to people you don't know.

Almost Done

Cute picture, Becky. I'll have to figure out how to upload pictures too. Then I can show you guys my new house.

I finally finished the last paper in my dissertation and sent it to my committee today. It's such a relief. Now I just have to keep from slacking off long enough to write the introduction & conclusion to the whole thing, put it all in dissertation-happy format, and do any revisions they request. It should all be over a week from Monday. I seriously don't know what I'm going to do with myself all day. Unpack my house, I guess.

I'm grateful for the deadline I'm facing because it made me stop analyzing and start writing the paper. And amazingly, as I wrote I was able to wrap my mind around the issues much better and I think the final product is pretty decent. I guess the moral of the story is to do what older academics always tell you - spend some time writing every day.

Photos

becky at cheesecake factory
Originally uploaded by rbrunson.

I think that since we do not see each other nearly enough anymore that we really should start to include photos occasionally. (I reccomend Flickr hosting service -- makes it really easy to upload and blog photos)! I'm excited about the rebirth of this blog as well. Nikki--so glad to find that you got such a cute place! Devin--have you gone back to Boston now?

Oh, also I think that we might consider a name changed as well as subtitle change -- any ideas?

Empirical Work

I'm working on an empirical project to include in my dissertation. I started this project in June and thought it would be fairly straight forward, but combining data from different sources and performing tons of random analysis is really hard! I've rerun my data-generating code 8 billion times, because I decide I need another variable, or I didn't calculate something just right early on. Ugh!

But I'm working a lot harder that I do when I'm doing theory work (which entails a lot of laying on my bed thinking with my eyes closed) and it's actually a lot of fun to do all the coding. I'm using Stata because (1) Ed has Stata for windows and using the stanford unix servers remotely is a pain in the arse and (2) I have a massive aversion to SAS. Stata was very easy to learn (it helped that I could query Ed when I got stuck) and it's really easy to generate all kinds of stats on your data very quickly. Maybe I never really gave SAS a chance, but I'm going to stick with Stata for now.

I'm nearing the end of most of my projects and I'm teaching this fall, so I'm worried that I'll let myself get caught up in that and not start any new projects until after December. So I would love to start something coauthored to keep me in the research mode. I'm still really interested in the paper on returns and eps numbers that end in 9. It's random, but it seem really interesting. I'm at a loss about what to work on theory-wise right now. I'm so sick of my dissertation that I can hardly stand to think about transfer pricing or intangibles ever again!

Houses vs. Apartments

I'm so excited for you that you're going to have a real house! It seems so much more grown up and settled. I love our apartment, but I still feel a little like a college student living in it. I wouldn't know what to do with a real yard of my very own, but it would be so fun to learn!

Let me know when I can come visit!

Oh yeah, that reminds me. You are officially invited to come visit us (as long as you are not a stranger randomly visiting this blog). :)

Work-wise I am stuck in a major rut - I can't get myself to do anything. More on that later. But I think we need to write that paper together sometime soon! It would be so fun, and I know we'd get it out quickly.

Yay!

I'm so happy that you blogged, Devin. I tried to resurrect my other blog with Heather and Sarah and Erin, but it didn't work out. I put a post up there and emailed them all, and it just sat there all alone for days and days.

We found a house to rent in Albany and I'm getting excited to move (I'm not excited to leave Ed, but it will be fun to decorate the house). The house is really cute - it's yellow and has a cute backyard. It has two bedrooms with wood floors and roomy closets.

In the meantime, I just found a paper that finds totally opposite results to the empirical paper I'm working on, so I've been spending all day yesterday and today trying to replicate his results. Mine are more robust, but I want to be able to at least explain his.

Hi! So it was a bit of a slow year post-wise, huh?

:)

Just over a year later...

Nikki suggested starting up again to keep in touch, and I think that's a fabulous idea, so here I am. Susheem and I just got back from our honeymoon. I love honeymoons. I'm trying to convince him that we need to do them more often, but he says we can only have one! (Although I'm pretty close to getting him to agree on a 25th anniversary honeymoon.)

I'm married!!! The wedding was so fun. I hope other people had fun too. I can't wait to see the picture and video. I don't want to go back to work yet! Now that wedding planning is over I just want to sit around and appreciate how well it went for about... oh... a month or so. :)

I've spent today sitting around and reading the new Harry Potter book and a friend's blog. She (Cathy - BM) started it up about 6 months ago and I never looked at it before! I finally did, and it's hilarious! And she writes so much. I knew she was into it, but I didn't realize just how much. Well, that was today. Yesterday was about 2 hours on the phone with UPS trying to track down a package. Apparently one of their guys didn't know that "THE RECEIVER PICKED UP THE PACKAGE THAT WAS BEING HELD FOR THEM" was UPS code for 'the package is waiting to be picked up and noone has picked it up yet.' So we thought some random person had picked up our package. I don't know whether to be more annoyed at him for not knowing their code or at UPS for having such a ridiculous code! And apparently "THE RECEIVER HAS MOVED. UPS ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE RECEIVER TO COMPLETE DELIVERY, NO DELIVERY WAS MADE;THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED." is code for 'no address change is neccessary and none has been made and no random person at this other address has been told about the package for them to just come in and take.' ... sigh. The more I deal with UPS, the more I appreciate the United States Postal Service. Fast, Cheap, Through rain sleet or snow...

:)

Okay, this is my first post back. I bet you forgot how random I can be on this thing! I'm so excited to start this up again. I can't wait to hear all about what's going on with you two.