funerals, hopefully the last for awhile

Yesterday we traveled to the other side of the state for the funeral of my wife's cousin. It was a beautiful day to cross the Cascade Mountains. There's been a tremendous amount of snow this winter; I'm not sure if I've ever crossed the pass when there's been that much snow. But the road was clear and the sun was shining, although it was as cold as 16 F just on the east side of the pass.

The funeral was in a small funeral home. A lot of tears, some quiet, some not. The man had a lot of family and friends from different parts of the state. It was hard to see the pain and sorrow on the faces of his mother, stepfather, and daughter (16 years old), other family (and of course my wife and mother in law), his many childhood and current friends. He had served in the Marines, and there was an honorary color guard, some made up of contemporaries when he served, a couple of active servicemen. It was complete with a 9 gun salute, Taps, and presentations of the American flag to his mother, daughter, and significant other.

After the funeral, we traveled back towards the mountains to a small town where my wife had lived for a time with her grandmother, in fact right across the street in the community hall behind the fire station. There was a reception, food and stories about him. The community hall has been there for decades, and it looked like some of the photos of local sports teams went back to the 1940's. In fact, my wife's grandmother had once served as president of this club years ago. Anyway, even though coming to small town like this sometimes feels like a movie, it felt right.

During the funeral, three songs important to the man were played (from CDs), including the Eagle's live version of Desparado. It got me thinking about what songs I might want played. I just told my son that a song called "Icarus" by one of my favorite groups of the 70's and 80's Kansas (still and active band) is one I'd like played. I'm not sure how well it would go over; after all it's a rock anthem. But the words are relatively appropriate.

Early in the morning sunlight
Soaring on the wings of dawn
Here I'll live and die with my wings in the sky
And I won't come down no more

Higher than a bird I'm flying
Crimson skies of ice and fire
Borne on wings of steel I have so much to feel
And I won't come down no more

chorus
Sail on, sail on, I will rise each day to meet the dawn
So high, so high
I've climbed the mountains of the sky
Without my wings you know I'd surely die
I found my freedom flyin' high
I've climbed the mountains of the sky

Floating on a cloud of amber
Searching for the rainbow's end
Earth so far below me,
I'm here alone, free
I can't come down no more

Why not?! It would be my funeral!

successfully submitted

All bits put together, all the corrections made. The latest proposal, the one to NSF, is out of my hands. the University should be submitting it to NSF shortly. It wasn't the most challenging one I've written or co-written, but it did take some effort to put it into a coherent whole. It was an intellectually stimulating exercise though, so it was definitely worth doing. Let's hope some funding comes out of it. Taking a molecular genetics approach to study pathogen (virulence gene) evolution and subsequent selection for increased pathogenic potential is a new way to look at ecology of infectious disease. In addition, the proposal describes how we'll try to determine if local/global environmental changes (higher marine water temperature, etc), is influencing this selection for more virulent bacteria in the environment.

Felt good to do it.

I'm pretty wiped out trying to get this particular grant proposal done. I think it's turning out ok but it has been a bit of a challenge to complete. I enjoy working with the two collaborators. I feel like I'm getting back to where I should be scientifically. I needed the challenge (I think I'm being a little mixed up here). Anyway, the university grants office wants it posted tomorrow. It's a proposal to NSF so everything gets uploaded to their site. But the university grants office wants to ensure it's all there and complete so then they're the ones who actually hit the submit button and send the proposal. I'm on the last set of edits, I hope.

Must get sleep.

funerals, more...

It's almost difficult to write the post below without thinking that, while deeply personal to friends and family, the deaths seem less important when one thinks of the death and suffering that is constantly happening on a broader scale.

The past weekend saw the 3rd deadliest day for American service people in Iraq since the start of the war almost 4 years ago. Over 100 Iraqis were killed in a double car bombing at an outdoor market. Almost that many students were killed the week before in a bombing at a Baghdad university. I wonder if the administration really, truly believes that an influx of more troops into Iraq will have any impact on the insurgents. Or, and to me more likely, they don't have a clue as to what will work and not work. I don't see how we can ever get out of this with any kind of victory.

funerals

We attended my brother-in-law's father's funeral today. These are always sad, emotional days, even though in this case, the man had lived a long life and was suffering from Alzheimer's. Next Saturday we travel across the state for the funeral of my wife's cousin. This will be even more difficult given the relative suddenness of his illness and his age (40).

conclusion

My wife's cousin passed away today, only a few hours after he was moved from the hospital to a hospice. Even after it became inevitable, it was till hard to hear.

sad situation

About a month ago, my wife's cousin (40 year old male) evidently fell while shoveling snow and hurt his leg. There was no obvious wound but those around him said he complained of a lot of pain. Within a couple of days, he was lapsing into a coma and was diagnosed with a severe septicemia, an infection coursing through his bloodstream. He was flown to Seattle to the university hospital where extraordinary measures have been taken to try to save his life. The infection was eventually diagnosed as a methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, one of so called superbugs that is resistant to most available antibiotics. At various times his blood pressure dropped to almost non-existence, he has had severe liver damage, one cardiac arrest, and eventually it's progressed to the point he has significant brain damage. A week ago it was made clear he will not come out of the coma and will not survive. The only measures being taken now are to make sure there is no pain, although it's doubtful he can feel any.

Now it's just the waiting left. It's hard on the family because there is no closure. Once hope is gone, waiting for the inevitable can be difficult; it's sad, emotionally and mentally draining. One of the major decisions the family had to make was when to stop efforts that all of the attending physicians came to regard as futile. It makes us all think about the value of life, but also how fragile it can be. It also makes me think about what I would want done (and not done) if this were me. My wife and I know we need to prepare living wills that spells out how far we want medical procedures to be taken if something like this were to happen to one of us. Having those kind of instructions available can only make a potentially very gut-wrenching decision easier to make.

Why it's sometimes hard to stay focused

As I wrote previously in a post about "Getting Things Done", I'm struggling with trying to define a system or work pattern that helps me to finish things and not get so caught up in distractions. I picked up David Allen's book, and while I've just started reading it, there is one quote in the first chapter that kind of sums up the problem. After writing that in the old days, knowing what you needed to do to get a job done was self-evident (getting a field plowed, working on an assembly line, etc.). When you were done you were done. Now in many professional jobs, and I lump basic science into this, it's harder to figure out what you need to do today, do it, and coming away with a feeling like you accomplished something.

"...for many of us, there are no edges to most of our projects. Most people I now have at least half a dozen things they're trying to achieve right now (my emphasis), and even if they had the rest of their lives to try, they wouldn't be able to finish these to perfection."

I think recognizing this is one step towards at least feeling better about what happens (or doesn't happen) in any given day.

sure I want one, but...

Yes, the new iPhone is more than I expected Apple to come out with. And yes, I want one. And yes, I need a new phone and I'd be willing to switch from Verizon to Cingular to get one (although I do have the problem of having two of our four family plan phones still under contract). Actually I more than likely will be switching to Cingular (the new AT&T) anyway since Verizon service sucks at the house and I know Cingular works. In fact I've been thinking about getting a so-called smart phone for quite awhile. And the iPhone is, what else can I say, very cool and would be very fun to have.

But in the end, I'm not sure I really need it. I have two iPods and am not one to listen to music wherever I go (but that is one cool interface). Watching short videos might be fun but wouldn't use it too much. On the go email would be nice, especially for work email (which is IMAP), but I end up getting a lot of large Word attachments that the iPhone cannot open (at least yet), so for all practical purposes I'm still tied to a laptop or desktop for email. Text messaging? Only occasional use. I would use the calendar and address book (I'd have to wean myself off of Entourage and move to iCal and Address Book), and the phone itself seems so easy and powerful to use. So maybe what I really need is a decent but less expensive cell phone that will synch contacts and calendars (Entourage or iCal/Address Book) with my Macs; I've even heard of one or two.

But (sigh....) I still want an iPhone.

I'll be staying put

As I wrote in several earlier posts (top 5, possible change), I have (had) been seriously considering a job change and had applied for a faculty position at a regional university. While I had made it into the top 10 of over 200 candidates, I was informally informed this week that I didn't make it into the top five. I'm frankly not surprised. The department in question is apparently going to go with selection of a younger, assistant professor (pre-tenure), and I wouldn't have accepted less than a full professor with tenure. I don't think for a minute this constitutes some form of age discrimination. Any basic science department is going to want a mix of early, mid, and late career faculty. A perusal of this department's web site shows a predominance in the latter two categories, and I would imagine there would be a strong desire to bring in a senior scientist only if that person is a superstar. I think I'm good, but not in that category. Otherwise, a junior faculty member is less of a financial risk; the starting salary is lower, and they are tenure-track, not tenured...a big difference. However, I did have my ego stroked a bit when my contact told me that I was the only senior/tenure applicant that made it into that top 10, so I have to feel a little good about that.

So what's next? I do have some things to think about. I'm going to have to work hard to turn things around to the point I don't feel as much frustration as I have been. It's starting to paralyze me in the sense I'm having trouble focusing on some key things I need to be doing, specifically writing some grant proposals!

Yet another modification

With some of the new tools provided by Blogger, particularly the "labels' capability, I'm switching templates (again), and will just keep the one blog for any and all stuff I write. I'm not really interested in publishing family names, and I'll continue to semi-disguise where I work (I suppose if somebody really wanted to they could find out from very early posts), the people I interact with, etc., but otherwise everything will be here.

MacWorld in two days

There's been so much hype about just what Apple and Steve Jobs will announce this week at MacWorld, I'm afraid anything short of the release of the new "iPod" cell phones AND Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard will be a huge disappointment. We'll see. In the meantime, i got a kick out of the following video of Leo Laporte regarding the Zune:

trying to get things done

I've been working hard lately trying to get myself better organized, mostly mentally. I'm writing a new grant proposal, but mostly I stare at the pages I've written, or distract myself with other things to do (or not do). Many of my distractions are real, that is, they are things I must do, respond to, etc. But many are not, and could be put off until later. Sort of like this.

During the past couple of weeks, I've been reading some stuff about Getting Things Done (GTD), a book and task philosophy marketed by David Allen. Actually, I first heard about this through listening to MacBreak Weekly, a TWIT podcast, specifically from contributor Merlin Mann, and his 43folders.com blog. I haven't spent too much time incorporating any major changes into my own work style yet, although I did spend some time this past week organizing my desk and office, filing, etc., basically clearing the decks. Part of the GTD plan is to come up with a system where you really can focus on a major task for long enough to accomplish whatever it is you need to accomplish. I've always been more of a last minute type of person, letting panic carry me through completing a task that didn't need to wait until the last minute.

Like writing my grant proposal.....which I will now get back to for awhile!