well I've never done that before

I was pottering around the Blogosphere, as is my wont, eating a 3 Musketeers (if a Yank) or a Milky Way (if a Brit). I lumbered over to the EXCELLENT and full of WIN Scary Duck for he does make me laugh and squirt coffee out of my nose on the keyboard (even if I'm not drinking coffee!) and saw a post about a band I didn't called The High Fidelity.

Apparently The High Fidelity was/is the band that evolved from the awesomely good Soupdragons (Glasgow's second finest export after my mate Lefty). Well, Scary Duck had linked a couple of The High Fidelity videos for his reader's perusal and I had a click.

And I liked it.

And I went to iTunes and downloaded the fucking album. On the basis of a fellow blogger's admitedly biased opinon and the ravings of the usual fucknut hordes that comment on YouTube videos.

This had better be good. Or else Mr. Duck (Scary) will find himselkf KILLED TO DEATH by an irate ex-pat Englishman who's down ten bob on a dodgy techno/pop album from 2002.

Does it work?

A chum over at Nature Network alerted me to a groovy "offline" blog writer called MarsEdit. I'm playing with my 30 day free trial...Let's see if it works!

Sweet nectar of sunshine where have you been!

Holy shit. I mean, whattheeverlivingbuggeration!

I have discovered the nectar of the GODS!! What the fuck have I been doing all these years! I must be blind... a fool!

Dr. Pepper Diet is FUCKINGDELICIOUSLYAWESOMESAUCE!

I HATE the original Dr. Pepper though. Root beer tasting shit water. But this stuff. FUCK ME...

Like liquid sunshine, wrapped up in your first kiss and coated in the feeling of awe the first time you realised you were in love!

Godamn! Now I'm horny too!

...it might, of course, just be the fact that the sun is shining for the first time in weeks, the temperature has risen to a giddy 15C (61F) and I have a three day weekend starting in 2 hours time. My sap is rising and I'm feeling deliciously sinful. And I thank Diet Dr. Pepper for it.


....coming down off this buzz tomorrow when I'm hungover, it's raining and the temperature has dropped to 40F is going to fucking suckass, and I don't think the DDP is going to help...

Let the mayhem begin!

Fuck me. We're a week into the bloody year and it's absolute mayhem already.

I'm stuck between two very senior faculty who communicated poorly when working on a collaboration for a grant application. Now they're fighting over gets to be Principle Investigator (the boss position), and it has devolved to actually deleting each others names from the fucking budget on every iteration that goes round!

What the fuck?

And then another Faculty member came to my group asking for help with an NIH Training Grant. That's due in 2 fucking weeks!! TWO WEEKS! What the everlovingbuggeration?! She asked me if I could help her write it.

NO.

I will edit and do some basic project management for you, but I don't do education and I don't write bloody training grants. My name won't be on it and I won't get any money out of it. Sorry mate. No free lunches at The Ivory Tower Cafe.

Then, just now, one of our Very Senior Faculty, and Chair of one of the large clinical divisions called me in my office in a screaming panic that someone had stolen his data. he has a $40,000,000 (yes, that's 7 zeroes) clincial project and had been storing his data locally, in his office. Someone obviously pointed out that this is a Very Bad Idea and is why data get compromised and that folks like me exist to prevent this from happening by running centralised secure servers. Anyway, they moved his data to a remote server on campus and bob's yer uncle, it's gone.

He was about to call the fucking FBI when someone pointed out he should probably call me first. I called our IT department who found that a Windows Update had activated the local firewall and so his data was actually, theoretically, too secure!

Anyway. At least that was solved easily. I have a LOT of issues with our IT group. They provide a below zero level of support sometimes, and for certain issues (like now...the only Linux DBA is on vacation and so of course one of our Linux servers has gone down and no one can do anything. It took a week of emailing and calling to find out they couldn't do anything for the next week. What the fuck is that about eh?)

However, some of the guys there are fucking awesome and full of WIN. I wish e could get something unified going on. Between academic computing (essentially my operation) and Information Technology there need to be a very high level of support and, dammit, camraderie. We are all in this together, we serve the same fucking population, albeit from different perspectives. Why can't we get along?

It wasn't like this in other places I've worked, and it's making all of us look bad. I am getting fed up of receiving shitty emails and phone calls for things that IT should have taken care of. And I am fairly sure they could say the same thing.

New Year Resolutions

Hello Reader,

Well, I'm on my last day of work before taking a few days annual leave and then our Administrative Closing. My institute is very good to its staff (probably because they pay us so badly), and with just three days annual leave I get almost 2 full weeks vacation. I'd love to be going somewhere or doing something, but a combination of no money and no travel visa mean I am stuck in this city I call home for those 2 weeks. I likely will be bored out of my fucking mind by the end of the week.

Anyway, time to think about New Year's Resolutions and so on and so forth. Mine are easy, and one has been a constant for the last few years, which shows how successful I've been at keeping it.

1. Quit Smoking.
I am a smoker, and have been on-and-off for about 20 years. Like most addicted and habitual smokers I love and hate it with equal measure. The long term health implications are horrifying though, and as I expand into early middle age I really REALLY need to quit/stop/cease & desist. So, wish me luck, Dear Reader. This one is tied into #2 on my list and I hope they go together.

2. Get back training.
I've been training/playing at Muay Thai, or Thai Boxing, for almost three years, but recently due to work and family I had to take a break. I meant to take a break for a couple of weeks and it has stretched into almost three months. I've lost nearly 10lbs (4-5 Kg), and it's not healthy. Because I'm not training I'm also more inclined to go for a pint (or two or three) after work, and obviously I'm still smoking. Muay Thai is famous not only for being one of the most brutal martial arts, but also one of the most aerobic, so getting back into training should help me with #1. And, of course, give me more stories of brutal and painful injuries to share. So far the list is 2 knockouts (with resultant concussions), two broken noses, four broken ribs, one dislocated finger, one cracked shin, one cracked foot, one dislocated fracture of the toe. Fucking brilliant!

3. Time Management
One of the reasons I had to take time off from training was that I was getting seriously behind in my non-direct work duties. Like most scientists I don't stick to the 40hr work weed. When I was a labrat I did more, but I still put in 50+hrs each at the day job. On top of this I'm taking a few graduate level courses to get a Certificate in Clinical Project Management. My training is in molecular genetics and neuroscience (with a light dusting of electrophysiology/biophysics), but now I'm an Administrator (ooh that cursed word) in a Clinical Science Institute, I need to pad the old resume out a bit.

Last semester was Biostatistics (excellent fun, but very time consuming with homework), and Fundamentals of Clinical Investigation. Finals have been taken and I'm happy to say I passed Biostats, and should have passed FCI barring a complete fuck up on the final exam. It was to critically evaluate a clinical study (using Zoledronic Acid (a bisphosphonate) post-operatively to reduce re-fracture and mortality after traumatic hip fracture, if you're curious) and I hope I did well. Seemed like a good study, and they certainly stuck to the CONSORT review outlines.

Anyway, on top of this I am on the Board of Directors for a national charity. We represent a very substantial number of people and have been taking a little heat recently for focusing too much on the small/procedural issues, and not the "larger" picture. Well, that's partly because the charity is young, and we've been working very hard on getting the organisational aspects of the charity in place, and now we're looking to expand. This position is time consuming enough, but I have been nominated for one of the Governance Chair positions on an internal committee and it is going to take a amassive amount of my time. I really struggled with getting everything done this year and got some stick for not keeping up woth everything I needed to do. Things are going to be tougher next year. I thought about resigning my position, but then lookerd at some of my fellow Board members. Without doubt they are excellent, motivated and talented people. Some are in the middle of mid-career job transitions and one of our more senior Board members just accepted a Chair at a very prestigious medical school.

If they can do all this and keep up, why can't I? no excuses Dr. Tideliar.

So, between my Board duties, and classes in Epidemiology and Legal & Ethical Aspect of Clinical Research, I am going to be very busy. Quitting smoking will add an hour a day, or so, on to my work week. And getting to the gym will keep me out of the pub and bring some focus back into my life. And that focus i can reflect in my job and extra-curricula actives.

Fuck, there's a certain, beautiful symmetry to my plan huh? I must be a genius or something.

What are you planning for next year? Maybe we can all encourage each other in 2010.

Merry Christmas, Dear Reader,

T

2 weeks?

Dear Reader,

Fuck. Sorry. Really busy right now.

Building webpages

Forgetting to sit finals for biostats

Sitting (late) finals for Biostats

Sitting Clinical investigation finals

Getting my house ready for the Grandmother Invasion in a couple of days (actually failing at this, because we don't have a bed for her sleep in yet...)

Being generally fucking awesome (although in desperate need of a haircut)

...normal service will resume when I once more have to write 500 words of filth laden detritus upon you. Next week, probably.

What a bunch of wankers!

Thanks to the Lay Scientist and their new Carnival of History I have discovered 'mongst other Things, a most won'drous new Blog. Hi thee at once, nae, sooner, if thou canst to:

Georgian London

As a Londer myself (albeit, barely), and an avid amateur historian I can think of no finer way to pass my idle lunchours than exploring Georgian London (and often, by extension, Britain) than Lucy Inglis' blog.

And to make matters better, the first post I arrive at is something near and dear to my heart, and furtive scrabbling hands...

ahem,

Anyway, go check out A Frotted History... in church Mr. Pepys? Good grief!