A Decade

 I was looking at the time stamps on this site. Yes, it's been a decade and maybe more since I have posted anything here or elsewhere (unless you count my "work" blog, but that is a different story). A lot has changed in that time. My family has grown, and we have experienced joy, loss, sorrow, and hope. I have a few wonderful children here, and many more that I have not met and whom I hope to meet in the hereafter. I have gone through an entire cycle of starting as an assistant professor, earning tenure, and leaving for a new job. I'm now an associate professor at a Catholic university, for what it is worth. The unfortunate rise of generative AI has ruined much of the internet, and while there remain a number of people still writing online, it seems to me that many more have given up.

What brings me back, after all this time? And why here, as opposed to my older more established blogs (or, to creating a new one)? My original blog still exists, but in an un-accessible state. I think I can go in and get the best of my posts form it (I can access the blog's editor), but it is not really accessible to the internet at large anymore. My other project blog--Nicene Guys--is not accessible. I may ask the friend why build the back-end whether he still has the old posts, but I don't have any plans to re-constitute it. And I have considered creating a new blog--it has been a decade, after all, and so revisiting this one seems like an odd choice. I have considered two titles (Passing the Fruits, or After the Chores Are Done). Perhaps I will visit these, and perhaps if I sustain work here, I may transition to those instead.

I've been wanting to take this back up for some time, but the timing hasn't been good. There have been some doubts: will I be able to sustain this, will it really make the world a better place? And what should be the scope? For now, I want to keep the scope relatively limited, mostly short posts to be written with a short time. Let's see where it takes me.

A part of why I am here, hopefully with more regularity, is that my wife has been encouraging me to get back into doing this. It's a sort of self-care, I suppose, but she is much more supportive of my writing again than she was when I stopped. Our family is in a different place, I suppose, and hopefully for the better. Here's to more decades, I suppose.

TMM: Runnup to Graduation

My dissertation adviser actually used the G-word during our last meeting. There is a strong probability that I will be finishing up this semester--or else not at all. I'm certainly scrambling to get the thesis written up (technical writing takes more time than any other sort I've tried), though I really wouldn't mind if I ad through the end of summer to get stuff finished. Either way, it means that I will likely be looking for a job soon, and possibly having to move.

That in turn brings up the perennial question, which I've had since marrying a woman whose family lives approximately 1500 miles away from my family: where will I move to? Moving to the Pacific Northwest (to be close to my side of the family) or staying here (to be close to hers) would both be nice, as I suppose would be moving to somewhere in between so that both sides are within a two-ish day drive.

I have certain states in which I really don't want to live. The four at the top of my list are New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and California, especially in or near any of their major cities. Tragically, many of the jobs available for people with my background are in those four states and in the major metro areas. These are the kinds of things that I wish 18-year-old me had known when picking a field of study, or even 21-year-old me had known when choosing a graduate school program (I could have gone into electrical engineering or medical physics, for example).

Of the evil four, New York has done the most recently to antagonize me: see governor Cuomo's recent remarks, in which he essentially tells conservatives and faithful Catholics that they have no place in New York. However, it's only a matter of time before one of the others (I suspect California) ups the ante'. And depending on how much America as a whole slides under Obama and his successors, I suppose it may not really matter which state I live in 20 years from now.

Suffice it to say that I'm looking forward to graduating, but not so much to moving, especially if we have to move to LA, San Francisco-San Jose, New York City, Boston, or Chicago. God help us if we do.

Weekend Finds and Musings

Some happenings, findings, and musings from the last week:

1. I took my wife and daughter to Chinatown (Austin) last weekend. I had kind of forgotten--despite being surrounded by Chinese folks in my lab--about Chinatown. It would more accurately be called SE Asia-Town, but that doesn't role off the tongue quite as well: most of the stores in that little area (really, an extended strip-mall) are actually Vietnamese. In any case, we visited one such place, "Short and Sweet," to buy some smoothies. The whole store, it turns out, exists to raise profits for a charity called "Peter's Clinic," which looks like an excellent little charity. They are apparently trying to build clinics (pro-family, for children, with doctors and pharmacists) in Vietnam to help the poor there. Better still, they have an affiliation with the Dominican sisters in the area. Consider donating to this, if you're looking for a charity.
2. Professor J Budziszewski has a website and a blog. He sent me an email with links and then said "feel free to share," so here you all go. Professor Budziszewski is a convert from atheism and nihilism to Catholicism and Natural Law. A lot of his writings have to do with conscience (and its inescapability), and he is one of the kindest people and best professors I've ever met. He's also a pretty good speaker, and many of his books are published by ISI (one of my favorite organizations).
3. Sports musing: now that Texas has been blown out at home in conference, their chances of winning the Big12 are all but shot. Nevertheless, it would be an interesting scenario for them to beat Baylor (a longshot, but interesting), assuming that Oklahoma State also picks up another loss, such that UT wins the conference and goes to the Fiesta Bowl. They would presumably be favored over whoever they face there (likely UCF), but I wonder--if they then get upset in that game, they will have the same 9-4 record as last year. Do they then fire Mack Brown for the record, or keep him on for winning the conference? The fans are mostly back to clamoring to see him fired (even if the Longhorns actually do win the next two), and they'll only get louder when he loses to Baylor.
4. Second sports musing: it seems to me that USC's big win ends up hurting at least one of two conferences in the bowl games. The first is the Pac12, which will almost certainly not get a second BCS bowl game despite being arguably the deepest conference in the country. The second is probably the B1G, which is all but guaranteed one BCS bowl now, unless Michigan State springs a massive upset in their conference championship game (a suddenly 1-loss OSU team becomes a big possibility for an at-large birth). Stanford fans now need to root for Oregon State and/or Arizona to beat the Ducks--or for Fresno State and probably NIU to pick up a loss apiece before the season's end. Or, they can put conference strength aside and root for South Carolina to beat Clemson--and hope that Ohio State and Baylor win out.
5. A nice relaxing weekend taketh away the stress and frustration of a miserable week at work. Sadly, my graduate student career of late has had few nice relaxing weekends and many long and frustrating weeks. I can't finish my project/dissertation/defense soon enough.