Could this be it?

This was one of those interesting weeks. Just before Thanksgiving, I was offered an interview for the Director position of a NOAA lab in South Carolina. I'm not going to go into specifics, but if it's offered (and there's three candidates that have been interviewed), my wife and I have a major decision to make. Much like the job I interviewed for earlier in the year, it represents quite a change in our living situation, the impacts on family and kids, and so on.

On the other hand, it represents an opportunity to become part of one of the best laboratory facilities within NOAA with state of the art research and scientific expertise in ecology, health, genomics, bioinformatics, and environmental chemistry. It's a way better fit than the previous job I applied for, and would be a real career advancement, with quite a large set of new esponsibilities. While largely administrative, I think I made it clear during the interviews and my seminar that I still am in the position of maintaining a science presence with a lab and post docs/grad students. Evidently I impressed, and I do feel it was one of the best seminars I've ever given. I know that members of the laboratory science board expressed the same sentiments, and so did members of the executive board including the chair of the board and Director of the adjacent lab that's in the same set of national labs within this part of NOAA.

I'm on the flight home now.....my wife and I will have a lot to discuss over the weekend. Supposedly the decision could come (unofficially) as soon as Monday. Oh, boy....

historic day

It really is an historic day. The people of the United States of America have not only elected the first President of color, but also seems to have finally rejected the politics of ideology. Of course this is not universal. I hope that President Obama will prove to those who fear this result that they need not. We all need to work together to tackle the many challenges we face.

Let's get the election over with

Last night I was on the phone with my mom and told her I was going to be watching the Obama infomercial. Following is an email she sent me along with my response. I love my mother dearly but could no longer remain silent when she and other family members seem to so easily buy into the false, out of context allegations against someone who I hope in the next 5 days is the next President-elect of the United States. Anyway, it was a chance to write a short essay about my feelings.

On Oct 30, 2008, at 9:40 AM, "Mom" wrote:

RIGHT OBAMA AND HIS ADVISORS----- THE REVERAND AND I USE THT TERM LOOSELY-------JEREMIAH WRIGHT! AND OTHERS!!!!!! AREN'T YOU JUST A LITTLE CONCERNED?

On Oct 30, 2008, at 10:30 AM, Mark wrote:

Hi Mom,

I debated whether to send this, but your message kind of set me off. Just a few thoughts.

I'm not concerned at all. We all have nutty associates in our past, and it doesn't define us. Wright lost a screw along the way but wasn't always like that. Sure throwing Wright under the bus as soon as some of this stuff surfaced would have been the right thing to do politically, but personally I also think it would be hard to immediately disown your pastor.

Listen, I respected McCain back in 2000, and he certainly would have been a better President than what we got. But his campaign this time around has been nothing but lies, deceit, and devoid of any new ideas on how to run the country. His judgement has become questionable (Palin, etc) and his knee jerk and impulsive reactions to almost any new situation and challenge is more than a little worrisome. Back in 2000, the Bush campaign destroyed McCain with some pretty underhanded tactics, tactics using lies, smears and innuendo that he absolutely abhorred.

At the time, McCain essentially said that he would never run such a campaign--he was too honorable to get down in the mud like that. However, for this campaign he ends up hiring the same people and running the same kind of campaign. Where's the honor and honesty in that? And take the week of the initial financial meltdown. McCain "suspends" his campaign to make a big show that he was going to Washington to "handle" the situation. It was such a bogus, grandstanding stunt, and it backfired (even Republicans said he did nothing substantive to help the situation). Besides I want my President who thinks be able to handle more than one crisis at a time--it's called multitasking and that's what they have to do, everyday. And what do I want in a President? I want to be inspired, I want new ideas. Truly, what does McCain offer? The only thing we hear is innuendo about past acquaintances, phrases taken out of context, but nothing substantive about how we get out of the economic and foreign policy holes we're in.

And one last thing regarding Palin--I want our elected officials in such high offices TO BE SMARTER THAN ME. Not some nitwit who can't string two complete, grammatically correct sentences together without having them written out for her or memorized. But what really frosts me is her definition of real America and real patriotic Americans--it'sso narrowly defined and not inclusive of all Americans who love this country, regardless of race, religious and personal choice beliefs, or political affiliation. Her speeches are full of buzzwords that basically say Obama is unAmerican because (a) he's black and (b) has Muslim friends. I have Jewish, Arab, Hindi, gay, pro-choice friends....does that make me less of an American?

Love, Mark

Springsteen: "I want my country back"

Why he's the Boss

"'Hello Philly,

'I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next President of the United States.

'I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real. Opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

'I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities. The distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

'I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

'They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.

'So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.' "

(Via Joan Walsh in Salon.com.)

Definition of Community Organizer

I swear the Republican Party is on crack and wants to win at any cost. They are sleazy, lying scum bags. I don't think I've ever felt so pissed of during a presidential campaign. One of the points they keep trying to make is when discussing executive experience for governing, Palin and McCain have it, while Obama has only been a "community organizer" (wink wink). The constant reference to it, first by Mr. 9/11 Rudy Giuliani, and then repeated often by Palin, is deeply offensive in so many ways. Joe Klein on Time's Swampland blog laid out just what Obama did as a community organizer:

What a Community Organizer Does:

This morning, I received a press release from a group called Catholic Democrats about the work--the mission, the witness--that Obama performed after he got out of college. Here's the first paragraph:

Catholic Democrats is expressing surprise and shock that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's acceptance speech tonight mocked her opponent's work in the 1980s for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.  She belittled Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer in Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago, work he undertook instead of pursuing a lucrative career on Wall Street.  In her acceptance speech, Ms. Palin said, 'I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.'  Community organizing is at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching to end poverty and promote social justice.  

So here is what Giuliani and Palin didn't know: Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed--job training, help with housing and so forth--from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord's work--the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the war in Iraq, which Palin described as a 'task from God.')

(Via TIME: Swampland.)

Sounds like a faith-based initiative to me. What also upsets me about this is that our son has been developing a very high sense of social justice, and I can see him doing something like this as he moves through college, or even after. He's even talking about joining the Peace Corps. You just have to hope that vomit like this doesn't end up turning the young idealistic people of today away from public service.

I hope people wake up in time to call bullshit on the whole lot of them.

Almost empty nest

We moved our son to his college dorm last week. He started classes today. Strange feeling for both of us. Even though our daughter is home, it really does feel like the end of a major chapter in our lives, and the start of another. Certainly not lacking for things to do though, with work, several home projects to do and complete on the house, the band, and so on.

Maybe even start to write more. I certainly could use some discipline here.

graduation weekend

The long graduation weekend is over. It had its ups and downs, expectations met and not met, joy and disappointment.

Obviously it should have been all positive, yet maybe that's impossible with young adults and their parents, and the parents with their parents.

Maybe that's enough said.

another life passage

i can't believe my baby girl is graduating from college this weekend. Where did the time go? It's all the usual cliches. But with things like this, time really does seem to go far too fast.

We head out in the morning for Spokane, then down to Pullman (WSU) for the big day on Saturday.

I'm not going anywhere...

...at least not now. Early last week the oh so very formal "form" arrived in the mail. Just a standard HR form with several lines that could be checked, depending on the purpose of the communication. The line "you were found to be qualified for the position but another candidate has been selected" was checked. No phone call, no feedback. I suppose I could call or email. However, my supervisor (who knew I was interviewing and knows many of the principles) is attending a meeting this week where many of them will be. Maybe I'll hear something through him. Oh, and yeah, it did go to the inside candidate. But he is well qualified.

Would I have gone? Even though I knew it was a long shot, I pretty much had decided that I would probably have taken the plunge. My wife was willing. Time to get my mind back on things here.

Now, we really have to focus on our kids graduating and getting my son to pick a school. One he likes has a soccer program he could probably contribute to, and the coach likes him. It's a very conservative evangelical Christian school a couple of hundred miles away. We have no problem with 99% of the school curriculum and mission. However, one major tenet is the believe that sexual immorality includes homosexuality, and that is a belief that we do not accept. Both my wife and I have had gay friends who are very moral, it's not even a view I've ever considered to be acceptable. So while it's an easy decision for my wife and I, It's a bit tough on my son because he really wants to go there. I wish we had completely read the mission statement before he applied.

more post interview thoughts

I’m writing this on the flight home from West Virginia. It’s a relatively easy drive from the science center I interviewed at to Dulles Airport in Virginia, outside of Washington DC. One can easily visit DC from the location of the center after about an hour and a half drive.

Still mentally decompressing and self-exit interviewing today. I woke up today thinking that I really hope I’m in the running. Before coming I was more ambivalent. It would be such a challenge although I think, I know I could do it. But certainly everything would change. I guess what I think about most is the impact on our parents, and on our kids. That’s the hard part for sure.

Today I was given a tour of the area a very knowledgeable ndividual, who also happens to be a contract officer who covers two local ARS stations. Very quickly one realizes the history of the area, civil war battlefields everywhere, and towns such as Harper’s Ferry, Leesburg, Mecklenburg, and so on. WV is a little depressed economically compared to Virginia and Maryland, and in fact many of the employees live in those states because of the school districts. I guess we wouldn’t have that worry, and one could get a big house and a lot of land for about 2/3 the same thing would cost in Seattle. So while many people drive from 20 miles away or so to work, I bet we could find something much, much closer.

After the area tour, Greg and I toured the station itself and I saw the complete operation, including all of the fish rearing and water treatment facilities. The latter includes both pretreatment (hard water, high calcium because of the limestone), and effluent treatment. Available lab space is more than adequate, as well as office space for techs and post docs. Major equipment is largely shared across projects but there’s everything I could think of needing, thermocyclers, real time PCR, DNA sequencers, micorarray readers, colony pickers, and so on. Project funding seems adequate and they’re sitting pretty good this year and next. There is certainly more detail in the project and reporting process than NOAA, but upon reflection, it doesn’t seem that bad. Research planning follows a five year process, then annual milestone reports.

I’ve gone back and forth all day as to where I think I stand in the process. I know the internal candidate is good, and has the background and history of working at the station. I know the other outside candidate is very good, certainly much more personable than I am, very respected in the aquaculture community since that’s the . What I have over both of them is much longer term government administrative experience, initiating research projects, mentoring students and staff, and so on. There’s probably more I should have talked about, as I expected there were things I now wish I would have said or at least articulated better. Oh well, that’s the experience part of the process.

I’ll be following up with the Area Leader tonight with a few budget questions and a thank you. As I finish writing this I’m thinking I want to be in the running. When I re-read paragraph 2, I’m not so sure!

Interview complete

Well, today was the day. A very long day in fact. As outlined in the last post, I spent the day giving a seminar, meeting with the selection panel, meeting with the lab scientists and general staff, and a final meeting with the selection committee. The process ends tomorrow with a tour and the long flight home.

Do I want this if offered? It would a tremendous change of life and lifestyle. So many things to think about. It would be very challenging job.

interviewing

I've been away from home for a week and a half, three full days to go before returning. The first week was a vacation with my wife--it was a celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary. I'm still on the east coast, attending a conference at which I gave a talk yesterday. Getting a little tired of hotel rooms, and I look forward to getting back home and sleeping in my own bed.

So, I am getting a job interview with the research center in West Virginia (see "options"). it's in two weeks and from all the information sent me, it will be pretty intense. There are three candidates. Besides the the seminar, there is a 3 hour session with an interview panel, tours, meetings with lab heads and staff, and a final meeting with the agency area head. My boss knows, out of fairness I told him. It's a weird feeling. It is so far away and it would mean starting over research-wise. huge life change for my family. It may be very tough on my son, but he will be starting college next year. Really tough on both our moms.

But all this is getting ahead of myself. The other two candidates are very, very qualified, and actually more so because of their closer experience with fresh water aquaculture. It will be a good experience. Nervewracking, but positive.

the end of my third browser

As quoted from Slashdot, it's the end of the line for Netscape.

Netscape Finally Put Down: "Stony Stevenson writes to point out that Netscape has finally reached end of line with the release of version 9.0.0.6. A pop-up will offer users the choice of switching to Firefox, Flock, or remaining with the dead browser, but no new updates will be released. 'Nearly 14 years after the once mighty browser made its first desktop appearance as Mosaic Netscape 0.9, its disappearance comes as little surprise. Although Netscape accounted for more than 80 per cent of the browser market in 1995, the arrival of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the same year brought stiff competition and surpassed Netscape within three years.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I used Mosaic and Lynx (text only) before Netscape, but then it came along as the first, I believe, "commercial" browser. it was the best for awhile. But later versions sucked on Macs, and even IE was a better choice for the longest time. After the transition to Mac OS X, I used early versions of Omniweb before settling on Safari (with occasional dalliances with Firefox). The sale to AOL killed innovation in the browser....I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

BusySync 2.0 Will Sync iCal with Google Calendar

BusySync 2.0 Will Sync iCal with Google Calendar: "BusySync makes iCal work the way it ought to work right out of the box.

(Via Clippings.)

I installed BusySync a few days ago to get my calendars syncing again. I still use Entourage's calendar, but had figured out a few years ago how to get a WebDav server running on my work desktop and use it to sync an iCal calendar. Kind of convoluted, but any new addition to Entourage would use sync services to add the same event to iCal. And then, to sync my laptop calendar, I'd vpn into my work network, let the two iCals sync, and that was it.

But then the WebDav server config I had going broke after my Leopard upgrade. During the conversion to BusySync, I dumped all calendar entries into iCal from Entourage. That's when I found thousands of old entries back in 2001-2003 that never auto deleted. In fact there were only about a dozen unique entries, with hundreds to thousands each. This was obviously due to bad syncing (I suspect my Palm Tungsten); all were repeating events anyway. Once I manually deleted all of these, sync services did it's magic to sync everything between iCal and Entourage, and Busy Sync does it's thing between two Macs over the internet.

'We remove Vista'

Couldn't resist this one...

A computer shop's sales pitch: 'We remove Vista': "After reading today's story about Windows Vista's first year, reader Bruce Finlayson of Seattle sent along this photo that he snapped in October outside a computer store in Milford, N.H. ..."

(Via Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog.)

Application UI consistency with Tiger/Leopard

(author note: I don't write reviews often (why bother!) and certainly don't expect this to be read by anyone except, perhaps, by the unfortunate person who accidently stumbles over this inane blog. I'm mostly jotting this down to warm up for some other writing I have to do.)

Like most Macintosh owners, I use iTunes and iPhoto a lot. In addition, however, there are two additional applications I use (or recently started to use) that follow the same general user interface as iTunes or iPhoto. Both are powerful applications in their own right. And for my money what makes them better is due in large part to the common look and feel. These UI designs include the configurable menu on top, the list of critical information and folders on the left hand in a panel that is light gray/blue, list of stored items in the default top pane below the menu bar, and a bottom pane that displays items specific for what the application is designed to show. Double clicking on an item then removes the top pane, filling the entire window with the item. I suspect this is due to common developer's tools and programming libraries provided by Apple and takes advantage of specific GUI components (Cocoa, Carbon, whatever, it works). Whatever it is, I like it. These applications are Papers from mekentosj.com and NetNewsWire now free from NewsGator.

Papers

Papers is an application written by a couple of young scientists (Alexander Griekspoor and Tom Groothuis) in the Netherlands while they were post docs in a cell biology lab. It's main purpose is for creating a library of PDF files, complete with important metadata and complete citations, and is primarily designed for use by scientists as a repository of journal articles. Citations can be imported from several on line resources including PubMed, the Web of Science, Google Scholar, and several others. A variety of documents can be imported, although the predominant use is for PDF file storage. Once imported, complete citation data can be automatically 'matched' to the PDF file by either using the DOI number, or via a variety of built in on line searches, such as an author search of PubMed. Journal articles can in turn be matched to existing citations through a built-in Google search function, which more often than not finds the appropriate PDF, usually on the publisher's web site. The entire library including the PDFs are searchable via a subset of Spotlight indexng, with built-in filters, such as title, author, journal, keyword, etc. PDFs can be read in a window, or a click of a button will open the PDF in full screen mode, like iPhoto. One can organize papers in a variety of collections. Articles can be added to collections manually or by the use of smart folders, which collect appropriate papers based on keyword AND/OR filters, much like smart folders in iTunes. Finally, it can import from or export to EndNote citations via XML files. Papers was an instant hit in my laboratory.

It's a powerful application and is Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or 10.5 (Leopard) only.

NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire is an RSS News aggregator originally authored by Brent Simmons and now owned by NewsGator. I had tried using this when it was still a 1.x release but then had little use for it. Lately I've been using iGoogle as my RSS aggregator, but since NNW is now free, I thought I'd give it a new look. First, second, and third impressions have been favorable. It's fast, can synch subscriptions and articles between more than one computer (via .Mac or through a free NewsGator account), and uses the Safari web rendering toolkit to display complete web pages within the news window. Articles or snippets of articles can be selected and automatically sent to a blog editor (such as MarsEdit), complete with appropriate link and citation. While I'll still use iGoogle as my browser home page, since most of my web reading are news sites I see myself using this more and more.

OK, there's a couple more I should mention. MarsEdit (orignally written by Brent Simmons and then further developed by Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software) which I'm writing this with and mentioned above), and the Leopard Finder window also follow these guidelines. All in all, I truly appreciate the consistency. In fact I may just have to buy MarsEdit once my 30 day evaluation period expires.

options

In the next week, I'm submitting a job application to another government science agency. It's for a research director position at a mid-sized lab on the east coast. I've been informally recruited, and it's intriguing enough to at least apply and maybe get an interview. I'm not sure I'd take it if offered, as this would be a tremendous change in terms of where we live, much different than the move contemplated last year. But as I said, intriguing. As a research leader I would be administratively responsible for the entire lab including ~10 principal investigators with about ~25 projects and a total staff of ~35, but also responsible to maintain an active research program. The center is more than adequately funded, and the leader is also supplied enough funding (and space) to bring in post docs and technicians to do so. I've visited the place (a few years ago) and it's a great, relatively new lab, that is well-equipped and designed right. There's designated administrative and IT support, including the all important bioinformatics support.

What's not to like? Well distance from family (almost the other coast), including our kids who are at the age where they won't want to move there (one will be graduating from college, and the other will be just starting college, somewhere in the northwest. Getting ahead of myself here though, as usual.

yet another weight update

A little weight update. Keeping it off, still 164. Running has been pretty consistent except for a little down time due to ITB syndrome (ilial tibial band). Pesky hamstring strains, that I usually try to run through. I've had several physical therapy sessions, some with ultrasound treatments. At my age I just have to be careful about stretching. I have lots of them to do according to the PT.

warranties?

This post on TidBits is a bit alarming and good to file away for future reference. I too replaced my MacBook Pro with a 200 Gb Hitachi Travelstar 7K200 hard drive purchased from OWC.

When is a Warranty Not a Warranty?: "I've discovered this in the worst manner possible, by finding out that Hitachi's standard operating procedure for warranty replacement is, literally, a 'slow boat from Asia' approach. A replacement hard drive had to make its way from Singapore to California, taking an estimated 7-10 'business days' (in December, that's extended thanks to the holidays), after which it could be sent across the United States to me in Ithaca."

(Via TidBITS.)