Science Monkey

If you live in Florida and haven’t already done so, go vote. I know the Democratic party has essentially disenfranchised us for the presidential primary, but there are other important issues to be decided. There’s this stupid-ass (in my opinion) constitutional amendment to decrease property taxes and here in Gainesville we have three city commission races. (Feel free to email or pop by the lab if you want my opinion on the races)

I’m proud to say that I cast my vote for Senator Obama. I really like most of his politics, I think he has enough bipartisan respect to actually get his programs implemented, and…well…he’s goddamned exciting to listen to. I hear his speeches and get optimistic about the future of the country, and that’s not really something I’ve felt before from a presidential candidate. I remember seeing then-Governor Clinton come to Gainesville in 1992 and liking him a lot, but not to this degree.

My second choice (and it was actually a really difficult choice) was John Edwards. I think I actually like his politics a little better than Obama’s but don’t think he quite has the horses to make it to the end of the race, which is a huge shame. I can’t tell you how much I’d love to see an Obama/Edwards ticket…

“Why you not in cat form, though?”

For reals! So it’s been a while since I’ve rapped at ya, for which I’m sorry. I hope you had a nice long weekend, with perhaps a little marching yesterday? I did not march, for I am not much of an activist, mostly because I’m lazy. I don’t have anything exciting to share, but I’d like to ramble a little and let you know I’m not dead.

Emma had a couple of days off (in a row!) this weekend, so we got to spend some nice time together. Much of the time was spent sleeping, as we were both bitten by a tsetse fly, I guess, but at least it was time together. We also dragged her mom bowling on Sunday morning which was hella-fun. I bowled remarkably well, too, which always makes the time more fun. Well, maybe not remarkably well, but certainly above average. For me. Yay. If you ever want to go bowling with us, let me know. We tend to go Sunday mornings after breakfast, when it’s both cheap and empty. Good times.

I worked some more on my scarf, too, finishing another dozen rows or so. It’ll get done, eventually, but not anytime soon. That’s okay. I’ve got the bag sitting on by the couch, so whenever I sit to watch more than five minutes of TV I make myself do a row or two, which I’m hoping will get me in the habit. I’m supposed to get my camera back from my folks tonight, so I’ll try to get a few pictures up before I go to bed. I’ve made a few mistakes but am pleased with how it’s going. Early in the knitting I somehow added a stitch…I think I went through a particularly thick bit of yarn but can’t figure out where. And yesterday I noticed a screwy edge — it had a little indentation in it — and found a loop that I had evidently dropped. Hee hee. Oh well. These little things give it character, right?

Speaking of character, I wore my hat for my walk to work today. I’ve got this really nice, leather hat that I wish I wore more often (visible in my Happy New Year picture a few posts down), but am too much of a chicken to wear outside. Consequently, I wear it while playing WoW on the computer. It was cold this morning, though, and I couldn’t find my knit hat, so what else is a boy to do? I wore my favorite navy sweater, a scarf that Emma made me a few years ago, and my hat and I think I cut a rather dapper profile, if I do say so myself. I caught a few people smiling at me as I walked, but it was smiling in a friendly manner, not a OMG-what-a-tool manner. Or so I choose to believe.

Back to work. Type to you later.

I started on my second knitting project last night, but the first one that I plan to complete. Emma and I went down to our favorite local yarn shop and bought for me some nice, boy color yarn (a deep, rich blue) and a pair of needles. After some preliminary fumbling last night, I remembered how to cast on and then Emma showed me how to actually knit. Woo! The scarf is probably going to be too wide but I don’t care. Well, not too much. I did about ten rows last night and am starting to get it figured out.

I also broke down and ordered my own pair of bowling shoes this past weekend. They won’t be as hot as Emma’s shoes, of course, but I like the way they look. Emma and I have been bowling pretty regularly and really enjoying it. We stink, of course, but it’s fun. Maybe we’ll even join a league one of these seasons?

Okay, time to work. Type to you later.

I’ve been meaning to share these pictures for a while but have been lazy. Emma bought me a knit-a-monkey kit (yay!) and I have started to work on it. Sadly, I think it’s a bit above my skill level at the moment, but I’m excited to work on it.

Here’s me with the kit:

What do you do with this stuff?

Oh! Is chopsticks! Right?

Cast on, huh? I can do that.

This stuff is hard! Or maybe I don’t have great fine-motor skills.

My first night’s progress.

After that step, the pattern calls for increasing by one stitch on the next row. I could not figure out how to do it. Just bumfuzzled me. Oh well. My plan is to learn how to just knit something simple, then come back to this.

Oh, Emma was working on her own monkey at the same time that I was knitting. She, however, can increase.

So, 2008, huh? A new year. Time for new resolutions, eh? Or — at least — a new look at the resolutions from last year. I’ve refined them a little this year, by which I mean I’ve dropped out the ones that seemed too ambiguous…what exactly did I mean by “Spend more time with friends and family?” That’s not a good resolution to follow. Spend one night a week hanging out with friends. That’s concrete, at least. Not something I’m actually likely to do, but a good idea.

I went out yesterday and bought a new moleskine for the new year. I started out “saving” last year’s for more momentous or memorable things but eventually realized that that was silly. I’m going to try and use this year’s as a additional memory module and write down nearly everything in it. Towards the fall, I started taking notes from my Data Reviews in the notebook and it was nice to be able to flip back to recall just what we talked about a month previous rather than just relying on my fuzzy memory. There it was, in black and white. Well, blue and white, as I tend to use a blue pen most of the time. Anyway.

The funny and talented writer A.J. Jacobs writes in his new book, The Year of Living Biblically (which I’ve just started reading but is fantastic! Go buy a copy today! And get The Know-It-All while you’re at it! Confidental to A.J.: did that make your Google search? Can I get an autographed copy?), about the idea of cognitive dissonance. That is, acting like a certain person can tend to actually change you into that person after time, so that you’re not acting any more. You just are. Sort of like Method Acting, but for real.

I bring this up to remind myself (primarily) of how I’m going to try to follow my resolutions. I want to be the sort of person who is at the lab from 8 in the morning until 6 at night, making significant progress towards graduating each day, but I’m not him. To become him, I’ll start acting like him and see how the acting transforms me. It’s an experiment and I’m a scientist. Let’s see how it goes.

As an aside, that’s actually not what I thought the term cognitive dissonance meant, but he is the Know-It-All, after all, so who am I to argue?

Happy New Year! At least, happy new year to those of us celebrating today, January 1, as the arbitrary day on which the new year begins. Or so my curmudgeonly father-in-law reminds us.

I hope you have had a nice wintertime break over the past few weeks. I’ve taken most of it as a mental health vacation and am feeling relatively good at the moment. Well, I have a slight headache, but that’s beside the point. Oh, and I am not very happy with Michigan’s football team. Again, beside the point.

Over the next few days I’m going to put up my resolutions for the new year and take a look back at 2007. However, that can wait until tomorrow. For today, I want to wish you a happy new year, full of peace and love.