An Unusually Balmy Morning

That's what the NPR announcer said. Unusually balmy.


I could have left the doors open to let the morning air in. The house is drafty, with single pane windows and questionable insulation. The damper for the huge fan that can vent to the attic is certainly not air tight. Yet, somehow, it can get stuffy in here. Leaving the doors open sounds nice.

Fresh air, NPR, and coffee. I mill around waiting for the sun to rise, so I can ride to work without worrying as much about be invisible to the vast ocean of Mercedes and Hondas that passively seek to kill me, guided by the forces of evil that release text messages into the ether just as i approach a crosswalk.

-I am not a squirrel, I will leave a dent-

The warmth is welcome. I'm trying to ride my bike to work as much as possible. I have not been successful in finding a way to work in an hour for running in my day. I suspect if I screwed around somewhere else a little less, it could be done. However, if I can get exercise and commute at the same time, all the better. I must admit. My ride to and from work is one of my favorite parts of my day. I'm trying to avoid the inevitable need to wear gloves and a hat. Last week I got chilblains a couple of times. The day is not far off.

An interesting aspect of the complexity of our digital world is that, instead of checking my email for messages for my parents, I must now search the Internet to find out what they are doing. While this situation has not yet reached the point proverbial sewing-tool-in-arbitrary-pile-of-silage, I am surprised to find a few pages of text here and there. To find not one, but two extra entries ghost written in my brother's blog explained much, and assuaged my lingering worries that they were in trouble somewhere.

I find that I do not miss graduate school at all, perhaps with the few lingering exceptions that I have very much changed fields, everyone I knew there is still there, and I now have to learn an entirely new body of material. I spend a lot of time asking people about the science that they do. I am more also more cautious than ever in attempting to analyze and explain what is going on. I feel very green.

I also feel really good. I pulled off my dissertation. I somehow found a job. We pulled off the move. We didn't go broke in the process. Reviewing finances last night, we'll be cash flow positive again with the next pay-check. Things are looking up.

And the dog is snoring in the other room.

The sun is up, it is time to go.

(and the thinkpad crashed, so you get to read this in the evening!)