Escape Velocity

I will echo Rachel's sentiment that it seems as though we are likely to get out of here in one piece, at least one physical piece made up of several small pieces of luggage and various other items we can't seem to leave behind.
Because many coworkers are heading to a conference this weekend, I started saying good-byes today, which broke the seal on the Ark of Melancholy Feelings About Leaving Academics. I am feeling some guilt as well with coworkers giving me grief over not having this paper finished up and ready to go when I leave. Of course if I had waited until this paper was finished in order leave, this job that I am going to wouldn't have been there anymore and I would have started working on something else while I looked and then another job would have come along when I was in the middle of that project and on an on. From one academic job to another, one generally has 4-6 months and that is enough to wrap up a paper. But in the "real" world, they just aren't willing to wait that long for you to show up. Plus, to an academic, the only valuable output is a paper. Never mind all of the other things I have done and the microscope I built that is serving 5 projects. And never mind that my lab notebook and the documentation I am leaving behind is also very thorough and far beyond the trouble most would go through.
I guess this is one of the many reasons I am leaving academia. Up until today, I can honestly say I had been feeling rather light and free to be leaving this strict hierarchy and thinly veiled hazing that one must navigate in building an academic career. But the genetic seeds of a guilty conscience and their careful cultivation in Midwestern soil makes it awfully easy to fall into the trap of feeling like I am somehow doing someone wrong in leaving. In many ways, it is circular: I have decided that I don't share the values of many academics and that my talents are more suited to industry, but as I am leaving, the judgment of those academics is preventing me from being really excited about my new job. I wouldn't let those judgments and attitudes stop me from looking for a new job. So how ridiculous is it to let them keep me from feeling good about it?

hello from the hobo apartment

Ellis and I returned from Ireland on Tuesday. The apartment was freezing and looked like it was occupied by squatters. Also, I am sick with some sort of head cold that I hope is not a sinus infection. And Ellis is refusing to eat most of the food I offer him- maybe he doesn't understand that it's mealtime because we don't have a table. Finally, every time we start the laptop it gives us this message: "Your battery is charging normally, but reaching the end of its usable life." This is type of "every thing's fine, but for how long?" warning is so not what we need right now.

I have good news on my job front, optimism that we will make it out of here with sanity and marriage intact, and stories of cuteness from Ireland, but those will have to wait until I have more time to post.

Crime and Punishment

With all that we have to do for the move and the fact that my working life here is pretty much reduced to chopping wood for the next two weeks, and perhaps sharpening the ax once or twice in that interval, I am feeling without a creative outlet. I tried to sit down and play some music, but since my lovely wife took her lovely voice to Ireland, that endeavor broke down rather quickly. So, the other option is to write a blog post. Everyone who knows me will tell you that I love to tell stories, but many of those stories are inappropriate for the blog and I don't really care to fictionalize them nor have I ever in my life written a successful morsel of fiction. And by successful, I mean anything that I would put up in a public place with my name on it. But thinking about Ellis getting bigger and misbehaving got me thinking about crime and punishment in my family growing up. So here is a little essay for you that contains elements of three of my favorite personal legends.

I can only think of a small handful of times that my father, acting completely independently, felt the need to punish me with a level of distinction beyond the run of the mill grounding. I suspect he picked up his style from the drill sergeants that he found so deplorable as an old man of 23 in basic training, because his tactics relied primarily on humiliation. My sister, a tougher and more independent sort, carried an immunity to this sort of punishment and even reveled in the attention that it brought her.

When I was still pretty young, say six or seven, it was much more common for my mom to go out to do something in the evening, leaving us at home with my father. Occasionally on these evenings a visitor would drop in, a neighbor or friend from high school, and this was often the time when my father would feel tried and tested by one or both of his children. In response, he invented "The Jackass Corner", a punishment that the offending soul could end at his own determination by simply turning to face all those present, putting hands to head Bullwinkle style and declaring, "Nah-na, na-nah-nah, I was a jackass." This was the ideal social punishment for a serious little kid who preferred listening to the adults and of course was always seeking their approval. While I would stand in the JC for tens of minutes wondering if the adults present found my lack of nerve cowardly, or my resolve to not give in a sign of gumption, my sister would revel in the opportunity to say "jackass" and do a hip swinging dance during the oration. The only time she spent in The Jackass Corner was spent planning her choreography or the next caper that would land her back there.

We could spend some time here arguing the merits of this style of punishment and the way it may have damaged our psychological development. I doubt that the degree to which I am easily embarrassed as an adult has much to do with the JC and I also don't believe that my father made some sort of calculation, seeing that humiliation was a potent force with me and deciding to exploit it. While my father can count the antler points on a brownish deer against the brownish forest floor from a half mile away at dusk while driving a car with dirty windows at 75 mph, he just isn't that observant when it comes to people. Rather, I suspect my dad simply tried something and was lucky enough that one of his kids was the right kind of kid for that tactic.

By the time I was 17, visits from my father's old friends had become rare and I hadn't spent a moment in the JC in over a decade. I no longer got myself into trouble when visitors did come, shooting for more of an aloof disinterest from the edges of the group, while paying close attention for information that might be used against my father later in curfew negotiations. His best bud from high school was accommodating, supplying me with information that allowed me to make brilliant arguments such as, "while I would like to take the car and stay out until 2 a.m., I promise I won't drive to the other side of Toledo to go swimming in a gravel pit like Dennis says you did when you were about my age."

While I had been collecting embarrassing nuggets from my father's past, he had been waiting to create his masterpiece of humiliation based punishment. Early in my junior season of Lacrosse, when I was hoping to be a leader on the team and carve out a little more respect for my abilities playing a position generally designated for the bigger guys in a sport where I was already considered undersized, the last thing I wanted to be was late to practice. The early season practices take place in a gymnasium and consist of lots of running, which is generally doubled for anyone who is late. Somehow, that afternoon, I had gotten into a particularly nasty argument with my mother before practice, and she forbid me to take the car and refused to drive me to practice. After much hubbub, my father finally gave me the keys and told me to get out and go to practice. Still fuming at my mother, I apparently backed out of the driveway "driving angry" (is that possible in a 1977 Fairmont?), something I don't really remember, but he felt it deserved a strong corrective gesture.

I hustled into practice, we did our first bit of running and I was leading one of the groups in our first drill, when I heard a voice in the gymnasium calling, "Boy, boy." I looked, and to my astonishment, my father was walking down the stairs. "Boy, come on, you're goin' out to the woodshed, now." His diction and volume couldn't have been more perfect. In retrospect, I suspect he practiced the whole way to the high school, driving slow and lazy to make sure practice was well underway when he got there for his big entrance. Pretty soon, 60 high school boys, who I would see everyday for the next one and half years, along with several coaches, were staring, silent, as my father walked toward me and grabbed my shoulder pads to take me out to the woodshed.

Once outside, I got a rather boring lecture about driving safety, the value of cars, trust and how I had to learn to not let things upset me so much. When I suggested that I probably ought to pack up my equipment and come home, my father said, "Oh, no, you are going back in there." Of course I was, the punishment had only just begun. By the next day, I had total strangers at school asking me if I was the one with "the dad" and my new team nickname was indeed "Woodshed" which I'll admit was better than the poor guys stuck with "Schmuck" and "Flippersaurus".

None the less, it remained a team joke for some time. Our coach that year was only 22 and was fresh out of college. He had trouble earning our respect and had told us a few too many frat boy stories which didn't help. So after a week of particularly bad behavior on and off the field that included a bad loss to a team with far less experience, several academic suspensions and a puking incident involving freshmen and Kodiak chewing tobacco, we were getting a pretty good reaming, "I may only be a little bit older than you," he started, "and I know you know I was kind of crazy in college, but I showed up for classes, practice and games, in a tie on the bus for away games, and I listened to the guys teaching me the game. And, I didn't mistreat the guys on my own goddamned team, even if they were stupid enough to swallow Kodiak on the team bus. Now you are all going to start listening to me. Get used to the fact that I am in charge of this team. Unless Woodshed's dad shows up again, then he is automatically in charge until further notice." There were a few chuckles. "Now don't laugh too hard cause Woodshed is the only experienced player on this team who hasn't missed a practice and he could give 2 GPA points away to some of you lazy asses and still be academically eligible. If I have to, I will beat every ass on this team and invite Woodshed's old man back when I get tired."

It should be noted too, that this coach did take the time to make sure that the trip to the woodshed was indeed for show and that I wasn't getting my ass beaten on a regular basis.

good thing we're moving home soon

Because I am exhibiting the following signs of having lived in Europe too long if I plan to function again in America:

• Choosing mayonnaise over ketchup for dipping french fries.
• Inability to navigate a Tesco (UK/Irish superstore similar to WalMart). I have to seriously reign myself in to not be zigzagging through the aisles telling Bridget to "look at this....ooh look at this....hey, have you seen this before....look at this." She might as well be shopping with a third toddler.
• Being overwhelmed by TV in English. I am complaining about the fast cuts between scenes and the violence as if I am 96 years old. Much to Bridget's and Orrin's annoyance, I insisted that the only program we could watch was "The Two Fat Ladies." This show is the television equivalent of a warm glass of milk. The stories they tell are boring and the rate at which they cook is nearly glacial. Perfect for lulling yourself into a near comatose state.

Did I forget anything

The move home is starting to feel really real.

The tape measure on the floor in the first picture marks the distance within which every thing must fit while the couch base turned on end at the extreme right marks the height and width (cross-section) that is acceptable. Right now we have 4 cubic meters and are entitled to 5. Any ideas?

one more trip to Clonmel

Ellis and I are in Ireland to visit (and wait for the new baby) with Bridget, Orrin, and Silas. With any luck, Ellis's new baby cousin will make an appearance before Trey needs us back in Germany.


Silas and Ellis are pretty funny together, at least as long as we can keep our senses of humour. For instance, Ellis is trying to explore the various cabinets and drawers here and so Silas is forced to follow him around saying "No, Eh-lis! Don do dat! No! Not!"

More often, though, they are just out and out cute. For instance, when they do side by side butt wiggles up into the learning tower and when they sit together on the bottom step drinking juice from their sippy cups. They were also quite cute having some ice cream for dessert the other night. Each time the bowl was pronounced empty they would both indicate that they definitely needed more. When I inquired where we could find more, Silas would sprint to the freezer saying "I show you." Then they would both join me at the counter while I scooped some out. If Ellis was returning to the couch to partake of the ice cream, Silas would run back shouting "Come on Eh-lis!"

Pictures coming tomorrow.

Still the most wonderful day of the year

This is my second opening day at home in Germany rather than going to the north country. For those of you not from Michigan, I guess I have to explain that "opening day" refers to deer season, specifically, firearm deer season. Somehow in Michigan this day has extra special significance to those of us carrying at least one copy of the gene on chromosome 19 which conveys a strong desire to sit in a swaying tree with a loaded firearm on what is often the coldest day of fall. And then, if a bit of warmth does enter our day, it is only through old thermos coffee and the unnumbing of the hands found as you field dress a deer. Incidentally, the human genome project has identified this particular gene on chromosome 19 to be a member of the "hillbilly cluster" (Nature, 2007), a group of as many as 250 genes including others with colorful names such as "coffee does taste better from a thermos", "I feel better burning more gas", "farting is still funny" and the rare genetic marker for "I love to shoot the windows out of old cars". This large group of genes, and the fact that they are spread across all of the chromosomes, explains why so many of us revel in a few particular redneck behaviors but still prefer Scotch to Blueberry schnapps.

So, to all of you that got out there today, I wish a safe and successful hunt. If you need the meat for the freezer, then I hope especially, that if it was a deer and therefore brown, it ended up down, even if it was a little on the small side. I also hope you all caught a nasty cold with a bad cough, to give you a fair excuse to have a lot of cough medicine (wink wink) standing around the buck pole tonight once all the dangerous business with firearms is over.

strange bedfellows

I guess they're a causality of central heating and (relative to Europe) low energy costs, because hot water bottles barely seem to exist in America. It's a shame, though, since they are incredibly cozy. I never would have even thought to buy one and only did so when my midwife recommend I get a couple to ease labor pains (moderately helpful, with that, by the way). By October of last year, Trey and I each had to have one to keep our feet warm at night, even under a down comforter.

However, the sweetest type we've seen are the little ones that tuck inside stuffed animals for kids. I got one for Ellis hoping to reinforce a bed time routine. Little did I know how quickly it would work. After his PJs are on and his teeth are brushed, he immediately starts looking for his "cozy cow" and mooing. It's easy to see why these are so popular here in damp, cool southwestern Germany- they are pretty much like any other security item, but with the added bonus of helping keep the kid warm (good for trips in the stroller too). While it doesn't look like Ellis's cow model is available in America, you can see a few on offer by Amazon (I am particularly smitten with the moose and devil).

St. Martin's Day Part II: The Lanterns! The Parade!

In our region St. Martin's Day is often actually called Lantern Day. And even though it has religious roots, it's largely a secular holiday now and an important fall holiday in the seasonal calender here. So it was a typical annual activity to make paper lanterns at krabble gruppe a few weeks ago. The other mothers were amazed that we didn't celebrate it in America and repeatedly asked me, "What? Really, no lantern day?"

Like a lot of other key non-grocery items, the Lantern Day essentials are all sold by the stationary store in our town. They include: beeswax crayons, cardboard tops and bottoms for the lanterns, waxed tracing paper, and special electric lights to put inside the lanterns instead of candles. This last item was particularly difficult to purchase since I had no name for it in German (i.e., I had to describe it's use). Side note about how freaking patient the Germans are about standing in line: I was juggling several items plus Ellis just trying to get out of the shop and 3 people were standing behind me and the proprietor said, "Oh, I just better test this for you" and proceeded to open my light and a package of batteries, position the batteries, show me that they lit up, take the batteries back out, and wrap up by package. And through this whole time, no one behind me appeared remotely annoyed. Crazy.

So the lantern was made by coloring the paper with the crayon, folding it over, and ironing it. Then we glued it to the cardboard top and bottom. I did most of the coloring, but let's pretend Ellis did it, so there's a reason it looks the way it does. This photo shows its complex inner workings.

Sunday was a wet and cold day, but the rain let up just before dark so we bundled up and headed to the town hall, where the parade would reach its midway point and stop for the performance of a pageant of St. Martin's life. Trey said the pageant was a pretty straight-forward account of the splitting of the cloak (velcro cloak + wooden sword). I missed the pageant to return home and get replacements for the dead batteries in our camera. It turned out to be a bit of a fool's errand though, as you can see from the quality of the photos I took.

As predicted by Wikipedia, our parade was fronted by a rider on horseback and several enormous lanterns. As the parade headed through town, it was cool seeing all the candles in the windows and the night illuminated with so many tiny lights. The best part of the parade, though, was seeing all the other lanterns that people had bought and made. Some were very intricate, some silly, and the two major motifs were, strangely, celestial and animal. Trey and I were especially shocked to see how many safety-conscious German parents allowed their small children to have real candles inside their lanterns.

Ellis rode in the baby-backpack on Trey's back for most of the evening and really dug the little light that went inside the lantern, but was annoyed by the actual paper lantern and swung it around violently in an apparent attempt to destroy it. Ellis did like the music supplied by the marching brand and in this picture he's requesting Trey move faster so he can hear "more" of it. Trey was about as annoyed as this picture suggests. Luckily, the parade terminated almost exactly in front of our apartment, so after collecting a complimentary baked "Martin Man" we returned to the warmth of home.

freakin' cottage cheese and fruit?

Since Trey will be losing the convenience of an on-site cafeteria when we return to the US, I thought he might like one of those bento-style lunch boxes. Little did I know this would be an investigation of gender politics.

Zojirushi Mr. Bento:Zojirushi Ms. Bento:Does this seem fishy to anyone else? Would it have been so wrong to just call them "lunch size" and "snack size"?

St. Martin's Day Part I: Eaten in Effigy

Several folks asked if we dressed Ellis up for Halloween. We didn't and not just because I didn't think I could top this. The main reason was that people here don't do trick or treating or really much for Halloween at all. Luckily, there is a holiday that affords kids the opportunity to rove the streets on a cold, dark autumn night, searching for sugar- St. Martin's Day.

The Feast of Saint Martin is November 11th and seems to be widely celebrated in the Slavic and German-speaking world (note that other European countries are busy honoring the fact that they aren't German- speaking on November 11th). It commemorates Martin of Tours, most famously remembered for splitting his cloak with a beggar. Another bit of folklore holds that Martin was reluctant to become bishop and hid in a stable full of geese but was betrayed by their honking. Thus, the traditional meal for St. Martin's Day here is goose.

In our region, St. Martin's Day means a kids parade with lanterns and singing, some type of pageant, and eating, in addition to a goose, a "Martin Day Man." Ellis sampled one today, but wasn't incredible taken with it, despite it's raisin-y facial features. I'm not surprised, it tasted like very dry challah with a vanilla-sugar glaze.

The lantern parade and other celebratory activities are Sunday, so we'll delivery Part II afterwards.

and we're packing

After a couple days of hand-wringing, I've finally started actual packing. A few days ago I was bemoaning how I couldn't do any moving related activities with Ellis around: I would put stuff in boxes, he would take it out; I would clean, he would make messes faster; I would try to make phone calls, he would scream to crawl up on my lap. Happily, I've discovered it is actually possible to get some of these things done with Ellis awake. Nap-time, though, still represents a daily spike in productivity for me. But there is one thing I absolutely cannot do with Ellis around and that is use the tape gun. He demands exclusive use of it as apparently "tapegunning things" has been designated a union only job by the IUBB.

Why wait in line when you can take care of it online?

We nearly had our first casualty of repatriation. On hold with Travelocity, I was driven near to an aneurysm while changing our tickets around that should have been for a lovely Christmas holiday but will instead launch us on two months of nomadic apartment shopping and moving. You might think that all those rules about non-refundable this and that and the expense of changing tickets had put me on edge, but this is not the case. Instead, it was the recording played for me while I sat on hold.

In these recordings, a pair of acquaintances who we will call Jay and Tina, explain to each other in alternation the rules and regs of travel. Tina tells Jay about what the airline means when they say "non-refundable". Then Jay tells Tina that it is ok to go for coffee because she doesn't have to sit right by the computer until she receives her e-ticket. Then Tina tells Jay about the differences between an airline ticket and rental car reservation, which results in the line that titles this post. First of all, how is it that someone who doesn't understand how an e-ticket works can be an expert on the refundability of airline tickets. This is totally implausible. As soon as I heard her stupidly waiting for her e-ticket to show up in her inbox, not to mention that she didn't know she had her spam filter on, I totally set the bozo bit on her and couldn't take her seriously for the rest of this instructional series. Does Travelocity really expect me to listen to these idiots, discover the answer to the question I am trying to ask and hang up with a hearty "phew, got lucky on that one"? Do they think I am such a numbskull that I will finally get it on 11th time through the recording?

So, if you are feeling a little weird next week and you think you might be about to have a stroke or some other serious circulatory event, rather than waiting in line at the doctor, I recommend you take care of it online by getting on Skype and calling these bastards. If the thing cycles nine times and you aren't dead, you pass and can go on with your day. If you smell burnt toast, use your cell phone to call 911.

So let it be written

Just wanted to add a few things to Rachel's post about us moving.

As many of you have probably noticed, the blogging has been a little slow around here lately. That has mainly been because of the traveling to look for a job and all of the hand wringing about which job to take and if I should take any of them. I suspect that we will continue blogging, but with a few changes. I won't talk about work anymore at all and won't ever mention the name of the company, so those of you who know it, do me a favor and keep it out of the comments. I suspect that we will pull down the old blog and store it away for Ellis and us years down the road when we are hungry for a wurst and spaetzle and then we will launch a new one for the new adventure in Boston. Until then, we will continue to update here.

Request one: When we launch the new blog, we will announce it to family, non-blog friends and bloggy buddies who comment. If you are a lurker here and like reading the blog but don't comment, please comment on this post and you will get included in the announcement of the new blog. If you have the time, say why you visit us.

Request two: Suggest names for the new blog. The suggester of the chosen name will get to see their idea at the top of our blog during their hourly visits on company time. I mean, you are using it as a homepage anyway, right, so why not take a shot at personalizing it a little bit.

And beyond that I will say that I am really excited about this job and connections I am likely to make. It will be a big departure from academics, but I think that I am bored/overly comfortable in the open-ended academic format and at the same time very frustrated with the failings of the academic ideals. It was a tough call to decide to live in a city, but for a little while, I think this is what my career needs and once you are out of downtown Boston it starts to feel more like a bunch of towns anyway, some of them a little like Ann Arbor.

repatriation station

It's mostly family and friends that read this blog, so some of you already know that Trey has accepted a job in Boston and we will be moving in December. If you didn't know- now you do. We are going back to America! We are feeling both happy and sad about leaving Germany, but more on that later.

Now we just have to figure out how to do this international move in the other direction. That means finding a shipping company, packing, and finding someone to take over lease, and selling our furniture and car. Then we have to rearrange flights now that our Christmas vacation has become "permanent." Though this picture may lead you to believe Ellis is fully on board with the move, he's actually slowing us down at every turn. Anyone want to come over and babysit while we pack? Last chance to visit us in Germany, people! Christmas Markets start in late November!