A Peerless Typo

Posted on August 26, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I was searching through some archived documents at work yesterday, and came across a gem of a typo from the “project organisation and communication plan” section of an old grant application.
Apparently, the applicants are anticipating frequent pier-to-pier communication to facilitate the coordination of research efforts at different sites.
They specifically mentioned Skype and iChat as suitable pier-to-pier communication systems, but I had an immediate mental image of a PI trying to submit a paper to Nature by facing Cromer Pier with a pair of semaphore flags.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

One year ago today…

Posted on August 25, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?
I can hardly believe a year has passed so quickly!

As Mr E Man said on Friday night, as we had dinner on a patio next to the wedding venue, “it’s been a wonderful year, and may there be five or six more”.

The reading before our vows was adapted from “On Marriage”, taken from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I came across a copy of this book in the house of Mr E Man’s BFF (and best man), a few months before our wedding. Upon reading the Marriage chapter, I immediately announced that I had found the perfect passage to kick off the ceremony. Turns out that BFF had been given the book a few months before his own wedding, at which Mr E Man was the best man, and had used the same passage in the ceremony!

We removed the passage alluding to God – and not for the reasons you might think! In BC you can either be married in a civil or a religious ceremony. If you choose the former, as we did, the marriage commissioner is not allowed to include any religious words in the ceremony at all.

Here’s what we used:

You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together
when the white wings of death scatter your days.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other’s shadow.

Happy anniversary, babe. You’re not too shabby, really. The kitty cats and I had a meeting after you left this morning, and we’ve decided to keep you.

Posted in personal, photos | 24 Comments

Random bullets of Calgary

Posted on August 24, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

You know your flight is ridiculously early when:
The airport Starbucks isn’t open yet
You have to wait for the security line-up to open
The sight of the in-flight tea and cookies makes you feel nauseous

You know you’re in Calgary when:
Someone shows up in a stetson
Your meeting is supposed to be about cancer, but keeps veering off into discussions about beef cattle and oil

You know the bigwig PIs have accepted you when:
They sign you into the swanky Air Canada members’ lounge so you can have a free drink before your return flight

You achieve this by:
Letting them play with your iPhone

By the numbers:
Men in the meeting: 16
Women: 2
Female PIs: 0
Non-Caucasians: 1
People wearing a suit, other than me: 0
iPhones: 2
Blackberries: 3
Comments about the iPhones: oh, hundreds.

Posted in career, silliness | 6 Comments

First work trip

Posted on August 22, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’m going to Calgary tomorrow.

Well, technically, Calgary airport.

Here’s my schedule: up at 3.30 am, leave for the airport at 4.30, flight leaves at 6.

Flight arrives at 8.19 am Calgary time, meeting starts in an airport hotel at 9.

Meeting ends at 3 pm, flight leaves at 4.15.

Home (or, at least, home airport) by 4.30 pm Vancouver time.

Yee ha.

(At least I now know why I’m going. The reason wasn’t entirely clear until late yesterday. My suit is all dry cleaned and ready, and so – I think – am I).

Posted in career, personal, rants | 5 Comments

Now let’s get one thing straight

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I am not a muppet hater.

Yep, Mad Hatter has unleashed her minions on me.

I think the muppets are Teh Awesome. I grew up watching the show, and then watched the new version when I was a student. I went to see Muppet Treasure Island at the cinema when I was 19, for fuck sake.

I just think it is lame to listen to Kermit the Frog on your iPod. Especially when you’ve never even seen the show! Mad Hatter obviously agrees, or why would she put Kermy at the top of her list of, and I quote, “shitty crap music [that] is on my iPod”?

And as for the fact that muppets is UK slang for idiots? Not my fault, dude. Just reporting a fact. If you’d ever heard Newcastle United fans singing “sixty thousand muppets” to the Manchester United fans in their own stadium, you would know this.

Honestly. Yanks.

Anyway. To prove my love for the muppets, here’s a classic clip with John Cleese.

ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, MINIONS??!!

On the original thread I also mentioned Peter Jackson’s finest hour, Meet the Feebles. Here’s a taster. Rent this movie today, it is AWESOME.

Would anyone like to volunteer to be one of my minions? Might come in handy…

Posted in blog wars, silliness, videos | 12 Comments

Tribal Knowledge

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

In my industry position I heard a lot about the dangers of “Tribal Knowledge”. This is a situation in which everyone in a group (or tribe) knows how to do a certain task, but it is not actually written down anywhere. Then, when one person is on mat leave, another is on vacation and the other has the flu, no-one from outside the tribe has any idea what to do. Hence all the standard operating protocols that outline, step by step, how to do everything from obtaining a security pass for a new employee, to launching a new product.

I ran into a really bad case of tribal knowledge last week. It started when I couldn’t log into a funding body’s website. My supervisor’s account was set up by his former secretary, who had not listed the user name and password in the usual place. I called the site’s help desk, and had a very helpful gentleman walk me through the process of obtaining the user name and resetting the password. We got as far as the verification question, which was

– wait for it –

the former secretary’s middle name.

Which no-one in the office knew.

It wasn’t in the banking details our accountant pulled up on her computer, and the only person with access to the full hard-copy HR file was away. A telephone call to this person directed me back to the accountant, to pick up a key that would give me access to another key, that would let me into the HR filing cabinet.

Which did not contain the right file.

We eventually found the file on Monday morning.

It did not contain the middle name.

We eventually managed to track the former secretary down and call her at home.

I really, really don’t want to go back to having an SOP for every. single. little. thing. But academia could learn a thing or two from industry about the dangers of tribal knowledge.

Incidentally, once I got into the funding body’s website, I wished I hadn’t. Every agency has different CV formats; I’m used to that. I’m not used to having to list information such as the reasoning behind the order of the authors and why the authors decided to publish this paper in the Journal of Blah rather than the Journal of Whatever, for every single paper my boss has published in the last six years. I have a hard enough time getting his raw publication list to fit into the strict page limits, even without all the additional information. Bah humbug.

Posted in career, grant wrangling, rants | 6 Comments

More fun with dialogue boxes

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Continuing this week’s theme…
Dear Microsoft,
Please can you insert code into Outlook that scans all outgoing messages for phrases such as “here is” and “is attached”, and triggers the following dialogue box when I press Send?
“There is text in this message that indicates the need for an attachment. However you have not attached any files to this email, you dumbass. Attach your very important file before sending this email to your bigwig colleagues?”
Yes, the inevitable follow up email annoys them / No, my incompetence amuses them
Thank you kindly.

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Aw, you guys!

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Part of the reason I find blogging is so addictive is that the feedback is so fast. If only all my other written ramblings could come back with comments so quickly…

So it is really, really lovely to have any of my blog buddies give me a blog award. I am feeling the love this week though with multiple awards:

Stepwise Girl gave me this one:

while ScienceGirl and Dr. A / Dr. J gave me this one:

Thank you, all of you! You’re all awesome.

I read a LOT of blogs, and my “friends and favourites” folder in Google Reader is huge. I see that many of them have already been given one or other of these awards, so in an attempt to share the love as widely as possible, I’ll do my best not to duplicate!

I pass both these awards on to:

Ruchi aka Arduous, who is an inspiration. Can’t wait to read your London posts, Ruchi!

Crystal, who I hope won’t mind if I call her adorable!

Infinite Science, who is a real-life friend as well as a blog buddy and writes the kind of posts that I shy away from as requiring far too much thought.

Uphilldowndale, who takes wonderful photographs and is a great story teller. I haven’t quite figured out exactly where she’s based, but it’s not a million miles away from “home” (York).

Okham, whose infamous washing machine post is worthy of several awards all of its own. Oh, and sometimes there’s physics.

Isis the Scientist, who is a new addition to my favourites folder. I am in awe. Seriously.

Digital Cuttlefish, who has made a very welcome return to blogging this week after a couple of months away.

Awardees, here are the official “instructions”:

1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

p.s. I almost listed a Nature Network blog or two, but feared the consequences after unsuccessful attempts (by me and others) to introduce the concepts of carnivals and blog rolls… it’s like a different country over there or something, not necessarily bad, just… different.

Posted in blog buddies, blog roll, meme | 6 Comments

Everyone needs furniture, right?

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’ve just been told that I’m “part of the furniture” here. This familiar phrase followed a very familiar conversation along the lines of “you’ve been here less than a YEAR??!! No way! It feels much longer than THAT!!”

I seem to have this same conversation everywhere I go. My PhD lab, my postdoc lab, my industry position, and now here.

I think this is a good thing. People have always assured me that it is, right after they’ve said that it feels like I’ve been here forever. In my current job I think (hope?!) it means that I’m involved in lots of different projects, interacting with lots of different people, and my colleagues have got used to me being around to provide bits and pieces of grants, manuscripts, and all kinds of other things.

Of course it could just be because I’m a major chatterbox (just ask Propter Doc!). I’m a people person, and I like to come in on a Monday morning and chat to people about their weekend. This isn’t really a social office, but I’ve done a reasonably good job at getting to know people, asking about their families and outside interests and all that.

My upcoming one-year evaluation is going to say one of two things:

1) I’m like a comfy sofa – absolutely vital to the running of the whole household, or
2) I’m like that hideous lamp we got from Auntie Mabel – annoying and distracting, but useful in the darkness of grant deadlines winter.

Posted in career, personal, silliness | 11 Comments

A Word Wish

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Would it be too much to ask for Microsoft to incorporate the following dialogue box into the next version of Word?

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 29 Comments