Appreciate and Destroy

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So close!
One more week of anatomy, then five months of ass-busting will be over!

Sarah's birthday was yesterday and we had a great time staying in and generally relaxing. She has an iPod nano to play with now, I think I did OK on the birthday present!

More later!

One month into the new course
We've just finished the first big block and we're holding together with the new anatomy course but just barely. We anticipated almost all of the challenges related to shortening our course but we didn't appreciate how little time there would be available DURING the course to get things done. If we had been able to have all the class materials prepped in advance (fat chance when the change happened with two-months advance notice) it would be nicer but as it is we're strapped trying to get all our lectures finished before they are given. We are also having a difficult time meeting with all the students who would like additional help/coaching. We are managing but there is no time for rest, especially since we are still one person short in the course.

Going to Evansville to see Sarah's family over labor day. Not sure how well I'll do going cold turkey off of wor but I'm willing to give it a try!

October 6th is getting closer... Then I fear I may have already be tapped for some thankless and boring administrative tasks. I fear that people at my school think I'm far more ambitious than I actually am.

The long days are finally paying off
After working all summer for little reward, anatomy started today. The course is radiacally re-designed, running 9 weeks instead of the previous 7 months. It is the only course during that time (with a couple courses popping up briefly) and the students will be able to concentrate on anatomy and nothing else.

It has been hellish getting the course ready (it's still not completely there) but at least now students are in the lab and we can enjoy actually teaching rather than just preparing to do it.

Amidst all of that, I've added children's classes at the martial arts school to be sure we can accomodate our increased rent. So far so good, we're in the 2nd full week of kid's classes and I have five regulars. Adult classes are going along as well as ever and our place looks great. Pictures will be coming as soon as we paint the walls inside.

I'm still busy but things are looking better! More anatomy stuff is getting done over time and I submitted an article to a journal today. Hopefully they'll take it!

I got the word out to the local papers about the martial arts school and the upcoming classes. The school is still under construction but its looking better and better, pictures soon!

Updatey lately
Hi everyone,
Busy busy. Here's the current rundown.

I'm getting ready for the anatomy remediation course this summer - it runs June 22-July 27th and I'm the faculty member in charge, so even though I won't be in the lab every day during that time (except for 8 days), I'll be in charge of putting tests together and running the adminsitrative side.

The fall anatomy course has now been shortened from 7 months to 9 weeks (we are not losing course hours, just giving the course in a much shorter time) and I'm in charge of setting up the new schedule. That's mostly done, now we need to add a bunch of study-at-your-own pace modules that I started filming today with the summer workstudy crew. There is a good chance that I could be appointed course director this year, I think that would be fine with me.

The Japanese students have postponed until later on in the fall, we'll know more later.

I got a two-week teaching offer from a medical school in Grenada for late October - all expenses paid! I'll check into it and more info later!

Need to write up and design two research posters for the July anatomy meeting in Cleveland.

I have a paper I'd like to write up for publication (I could get it done in a week if I could find some un-obstructed time).

I'll be re-aaplying for tenure this year since last year's experience was so much fun. Paperwork is due to my division head in one month.

Rent on the martial art space I've been renting is doubling on July 1 and I need to add more classes. Looks like a childrens class 2x per week and a conditioning class for adults will be the ticket. Hopefully that will keep the landlord paid. Now I need to get the word out and advertise ASAP.

Sarah is doing really well and we've been trying to work on the yard, adding plants and pulling weeds.

I hope to be much less busy very soon and come visit some of you, whoever it is who's reading this!

Heading to Pittsburgh for a weekend of hard training. this will be the first since my knee surgery, infection, etc. so I'm curious to see how it works. I've been doing the therapy and working it out so it should handle the weekend well, I'm more worries about my cardiovascular fitness since the knee has precluded my usual methods of getting into shape.

I got my first book published and it is available on amazon: Pete's Book. Not bad if you've got a spare $105 lying around. I have no idea how or why there is a "used" copy available for $231...

Work has been a hassle lately with reorganization of the curriculum and big shifts in anatomy. Add to the problem that my request for a two-month supplemental salary was denied so I have filed an appeal and we will see what happens. Worst case scenario, here all summer with the visiting Japanese group and anatomy remediation and then taking three unpaid months off in the fall. I've started looking to see if any other med schools need an anatomy course taught during those three months.

Down down and away!
Leaving tomorrow for a conference in New Orleans - this will onyl be my 2nd visit and my first vist post-Katrina. Back on Wednesday, hopefully smooth travelling the whole way.

This is a meeting of the Experimental biology conference that includes a meeting of the American Association of Anatomists. I've somewhat soured on this meeting over the last few years and unless this conference really wows me I may stop attending unless I have a real reason to attend. It isn't that it is not fun and interesting but there are other conferences that are a little more directly relevant to the educational research I do an the teaching issues I face.

But on the upside: Bourbon Street. Never dull - let me know if you want any beads, I'll do what ever it takes to fill my quota!

Sad news
Hi all, no big emotional turmoil but it's a bit sad that my pet snake of 22 years has passed away following a tumor removal. Sadly the tumor had grown too large and surrounded some big blood vessels that had to be tied off during the operation. Sarah performed the procedure like a champ and spent almost five hours working hard to remove the lump but the area behind the operation did not recover. I got to monitor snake anesthesia and dopler of the heart, which was actually pretty taxing since the snake went into too slow breathing and heart arrhythmias several times. Sad day.

Yay Friday!

It has been a weird week. New president at the school has lots of ideas and wants all of them implemented ASAP. Faculty are running around in a panic. Some of it justified, some of it not. Meanwhile the promotion and tenure process is beign revamped so I have not idea whatsoever how to prepare for it... you know, now that I need to go through the whole damn process again.

I submitted a revised portion of my dissertation to be published through a German publishing house, it isn't a "prestigious" publishing hosuse but it is legit and if they accpet it, I may have some copies of a very nice-looking book to pass out to people!

I spent most of the week organizing the upcoming musculoskeletal system I run in late May and I got in touch with all the on-campus and off-campus faculty to brainstorm ways to make it better and it looks like this OUGHT to be the best year yet.

Anyone in academia reading this is about to become very jealous; I alos spent this week catching up on nearly ALL my backlogged journal reading and it feels unbelievably good to have reengaged the literature in my field, worked with ideas that other anatomists have put out there, and to have CLEARED A HUGE PILE OF STUFF OFF MY DESK!!! Ahhh, that's good.

Funny fact - the CEO and majority owner of the Pitsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney, was just appointed the United States' ambassador to Ireland.

Have a great week everyone!

Irony defined
I got a spam email today offering to sell me a huge file containing the contact information of medical ethicists.

Bummer news - feeling bitter.
My bid for early tenure was rejected by the P&T committee. While that is not a huge slap in the face in-and-of-itself, the irritating part is that throughout the whole process I was repeatedly told how much they enjoyed working with me and what good work I was doing and that they don't want to lose me to another institution.

I think you will probably agree that they have a funny way of showing it.

Regular tenure happens at the 5 year mark and it looks like I will have the joy of going through this bullshit yet again in 2 years.

To keep myself entertained in the meanwhile, here is a link to some other anatomy positions. I don't have any plans to move on, but I'm certainly feeling less appreciated here, so... feel free to vote for your favorite alternative!

http://www.clinicalanatomy.org/jobopenings.html

Back to Lewisburg + news
Sarah and I made it back from San Antonio a-ok and she wasn't too badly beat up by the army - she got a couple scratches but no worse for wear! Her graduation was nice (and fast!) and we got to have a mini-vacation in San Antonio. Not bad but we weren't overwhelmed. The downtown area was nice, we hit the Alamo and the Riverwalk. Riverwalk is nice enough and has some good restaurants, but be ready to spend some money! They ought to try doing the same thing in Denver. We did find a very cool movie theater/restaurant/bar - the Alamo Drafthouse - which was the high point of the trip. It was Sarah's first night of freedom, so we wanted something brainless and amusing, so we saw "Paul Blart - Mall Cop" and we got exactly what we signed on for.

We made it back and just now got back from the Pub where Beth Patterson (one of our favorite singers - she's from New Orleans) was playing. She'll be here until Tuesday, so we'll be getting our fill!

Made it! I'm in San Antonio with Sarah. Don't start being too happy though, we both had to rush off to a computer lab to finish up some work (me) and Army surveys (Sarah) before tracking down a laundromat for her to get her gear clean before tomorrow. I'm currently sitting at 34 hours without sleep (way down from my old tolerance for sleeplessness in college) and we'll probably collapse as soon as we get to the hotel. But... despite the best attempts of deer in the road and the Atlanta international airport, we are finally reunited!

Friday at 6:00 AM I leave roanoke to go see Sarah!!! She graduates on tuesday and we should have a some time to catch up before we leave on Wednesday. I cannot wait!! Its in San Antonio, so I'll get to check out a town I've never visited before (at least as an adult) and maybe get over my knee-jerk dislike of all things Texas. The temptation to shout "The stars at night, are big and bright!" in front of the Alamo may be too much to resist.

Sarah has been gone for two weeks at officer training school in San Antonio. She's out in the field until Saturday so I haven't heard from her for four days but she is having a really intense but exciting time. The highlights involved throwing herself at the ground repeatedly while holding an M-16 rifle and navigating by compass during the night. I'm really proud of her but I'm getting a little stir crazy here - taking care of all the animals in getting repetitive and I'm really very impressed with the military sposes who have to manage the house + children for far longer periods of time. Sarah's roommate apparently has five kids who are being watched over solo by their dad, who I will never meet but I have a huge amount of admiration for. I'll be heading down to San Antonio on the 13-18th so that I can see her and attend her OTC graduation! I can't wait to see the changes that a month of military life has made for her!

Sarah being gone has thrown my sleep cycle into a tailspin, so I'm writing this at 4 Am after attempting to sleep for several hours and failing utterly. I'll go to the gym around 6 and then a shower +coffee will get my through my lecture tomorrow and part of lab, but teaching martial arts classes from 7-10 is going to be rough. I'm dreaming of getting back to normalcy here once Sarah's training is done.

I am insanely happy that the Steeler's won their sixth superbowl - I think New England is the most likely team to pull even unless the 49's have some bizarre miracle season. Best superbowl ever? I haven't seen all of them but it was definitely the best one I've ever watched. Tremendous defensive playing by the Steelers (at least until Arizona exploited our weakness covering short passes over the flat) and an unreal final drive with two minutes remaining the culminated in an aerial leap I assumed was no good until they showed on the replay exactly how good it was. And I really have to respect the Cardinals, NO ONE gave them any credit in the post season and they fought hard for every bit of recognition they have.

Weather in Lewisburg is bitterly cold but with only a small accumulation of snow. Not bad when you compare it to the areas of Kentucky that have been burried under ice. That's all for me - I'll try not to make anyone wait so long for the next update.

Geeky bragging.

I recently became reviewer #4741 on Amazon.com. That may not sound too impressive but I'm pretty happy about it since there are over 5,000,000 reviewers in the system. The truly cool thing is that they've started sending me free stuff to review - I get to choose from a list of available upcoming products and I've been able to review some quality books and other stuff. I only have 51 reviews so I'm really pleased that its gone so well. Here's the link for the truly curious:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A26JEW1XARYUNO/ref=pd_ys_homenav_rev?ie=UTF8&sort%5Fby=MostRecentReview

Just thought I'd brag a little.

Back from Michigan
Rebecca and Ken's wedding was great! They had a lot of fun and I haven't seen either of them so relaxed for quite a long time. The homily was so well done that I'd consider attending mass if that deacon were to transfer down here. A January wedding in Michigan was a bit of a gamble for them but it worked out nicely. Driving was fine (aside from the horrendous potholes through the greater Detroid area) and we got back later Sunday night.