I'm Just Sayin'

Updates on what's happening in my life. Thoughts about current events, politics, books, and anything else that I find interesting. Intended for those who know and love me.

Name:
Location: Albany, New York

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Vacation Guilt

Tomorrow we leave for our vacation to Alaska. We're really excited about the trip. Eddie and I have been trying to get to Alaska for the past several years and it's finally happening. We also just realized that we haven't been on a week-long vacation together since our honeymoon, so we're really due for this get-away. The only downside to vactioning is leaving the pets behind. We dropped the dogs off at a kennel out in the country about 30 miles from Albany. They seem to like it there and since they're together we don't feel too guilty about leaving them. The cat, however, is another story. She's very stressed by the missing dogs and the sudden appearance of suitcases. She thinks that if she camps out on my suitcase then she'll either have to go and we'll have to stay. I feel bad that we're making her so unhappy.

(By the way, we bought a digital camera yesterday, but as you can see we haven't figured out all the settings yet.)

Friday, August 25, 2006

Proselytizing Coincidence?

I've been reading the book Mormon America because I knew virtually nothing about Mormonism and I was embarrassed by my ignorance. This particular book is well written and presents a very balanced view of the religion. I borrowed it from the Albany Public Library about 2 weeks ago.

Yesterday around 6 p.m. the doorbell rang and two neatly dressed young men asked if I wanted to learn more about the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Coincidence? On the one hand, it's not unusual to have Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses ring your doorbell. On the other hand, we haven't seen any such proselytizing since we moved to Albany. In the back of my mind I can't help but wonder if someone working at the public library is keeping tabs on certain books being checked out. It sounds so conspiratorial to say that ... and yet it really wouldn't be that difficult to do.

Visual Presentation

I want to write a little more about Tufte's workshop on the presentation of information since it was so great. Edward Tufte is a retired professor of statistics from Yale who has made a second career writing about the visual presentation of information. He has his own publishing company and has written several great books on the subject. He also travels the country giving these day-long lectures.

The main thrust of the workshop is how to best present evidence, whether it's words, numbers, graphs, or pictures. He is concerned with the intellectual side of presenting complicated information, like statistics, in an efficient and effective way; but he's also concerned with the cognitive side of how people process information and the artistic side of the visual presentation. His breadth of knowledge was really impressive. As if being a statistics professor wasn't intellectual enough, he also draws heavily on history, art and art history, graphic arts and printing production, cognitive psychology, and computing and information science. He was a consultant for NASA and showed how the poor presentation of information contributed to the Columbia disaster. He is also a sculptor who has quiet a large collection of landscape art pieces.

Tufte is also an interesting personality. As Corey alluded in the comment below, he "holds court" for his workshop attendees, which he calls "office hours" but they are really just long lines for his autograph. He also has this crew of minions who make coffee for him and regulate his contact with the public. I thought they were a bit strange. Anyhow, I passed on the autograph, but I did buy two posters (Napoleon's march and the cognitive style of PowerPoint). I believe I mocked Corey for buying the Napoleon poster, so now I must admit that I'm a Tufte geek too.

The only drawback about his ideas is that some of them are difficult to implement within academic publishing outlets. First of all, some of great ideas he has (like sparklines) require a software investment that is outside of the budget of your average assistant professor. Secondly, our work is limited by our publishing outlets that do not publish color or high resolution products. His personal solution to this problem was to create his own publishing company, but that's not really an option for most of us. Despite these limitations, I'd say that 80% of what he teaches can be reasonably implemented in academia and other industries as well.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

The Quiet Car

I am not a big fan of Amtrak because they are ridiculously slow, chronically late, and poorly scheduled. Typically in my ranking of modes of public transportation they are only a small step above Greyhound, and I hate Greyhound because I'm still scarred from all of my college trips home on the bus and my near-death experience at a Greyhound station in Detroit, even though that was more than a decade ago. That said, Amtrak has just gained a little more respectability in my book because of my trip yesterday. I took the train from Albany to New York City for a seminar on the presentation of information, which by the way was great. It was a 2.5-hour-long trip and each way Amtrak was less than 5 minutes late. That is truly a record! But what really impressed me was that on the 6 a.m. trip to NYC, Amtrak designated the last car in the train as a "quiet car." No talking, no phones, no loud anything. Heaven! Well, as least as close to heaven as Amtrak will ever get.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Tech Upgrade

This summer Eddie and I have been investing in upgrading the technology in our lives. We started by getting a DVR, then we upgraded to a new laptop, added a webcam to keep in touch with family in Michigan, finally got an ipod, and this week we're getting our first digital camera just in time for our vacation to Alaska next week. Eddie also upgraded his cell to a camera phone and I've started blogging. Lots of little things to bring us into the 21st century. We decided against a PlayStation (because I really do want to get tenure), but otherwise I think we're set for a little while. Now that we have our new toys, it's hard to imagine how we "survived" so long without them.

Friday, August 18, 2006

No Grizzly Adams

Grizzly Adams was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid in the late 70s, so when I heard about the documentary Grizzly Man I was all set for an Adams-like hero. Not quite ...

Grizzly Man is about a guy who spent 13 summers living among the bears in Alaska only to be eaten by one. (This is not a spoiler since the whole movie is about his death.) This guy, Treadwell, is a far cry from Adams -- mostly because he's crazy. And by that I mean crazy as a loon, crack-attack crazy, and crazy mo-fo. He's a really bizarre fellow who has a unique sense of purpose in the film. It's actually a fascinating documentary because of the combination of his strange personality, a more sobering perspective on Treadwell offered by German director and narrator Werner Herzog, and the stunning footage of Alaska and the wildlife shot by Treadwell.

Treadwell talks a lot about the dangers of living among the bears, often in a boastful, self-important way. But you get the feeling that he never really believed that he was in danger so the build-up to his death is still creepy even though you know it's coming. For me the really sad part was that his girlfriend died in the attack as well. It sounded like she was on the verge of leaving him, but her timing just wasn't right.

Montreal

Between being sad about the post below and being stressed about a journal article deadline, I didn't have the time or motivation to provide an update on Montreal. However, the city is worth blogging about. Montreal is just as fabulous as people said it would be. I only got to see Old Montreal and I loved it. The architecture and vibe of that part of town are very European. There's also a great night life and good restaurants. Drink prices were a bit stiff, but after three nights we finally found a place with reasonably priced Long Islands that were actually quite good.

I only got to check out one of the basilicas (Notre Dame) and it was quite impressive; although I have to admit that I'm wasn't excited about the idea of showing laser light shows at the basilica. I didn't actually attend a show, but the idea of it just seemed wrong. Isn't the architecture beautiful enough without the lasers? Does everything need a tech upgrade? I know I sound very old-fashioned but I can't imagine such a thing happening in a basilica in Europe.

The ASA meetings were pretty good this year. I went to a few interesting sessions, met some important people, and avoided many of the pretentious sociologists who tend to drive me crazy. The meetings got off to a rocky start when I was insulted within the first 20 minutes of my arrival. It is probably unwise of me to put an exact quote in the blog, but the gist of the insult was a "compliment" that I had finally achieved a socially acceptable place within sociology now that I was a professor. While middle fingers were popping up left and right inside my head, I managed to politely extricate myself from that conversation and I avoided any more insults the rest of the trip. Luckily I was able to hang out with friends from Michigan in the evenings, which made the trip completely worthwhile.

The drive from Albany to Montreal was amazing -- straight through the Adirondacks. I just love being in the mountains and I hope that someday we'll be able to afford a cabin there. (Of course, Eddie thinks we should just move north and I could commute to Albany for work. Not happening.) The drive was 3.5 hours of peace and quiet and I used it to take stock of my summer and make plans for fall semester. On the way home I stopped at Schroon Lake, bought a sandwich at a mom-and-pop general store and had a picnic. This was the part of the trip that I needed the most.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

A Tragic Loss

I returned from my trip to Montreal to a flurry of emails about the sudden death of our university's president. Kermit Hall (who jovially embraced the pop culture references to his first name) was only 61 years old and on vacation with his wife when he suddenly died from a heart-related incident. Though he was only the president for just over a year, he was a vivacious leader with a charismatic personality who really made an impact on campus in such a short time. In the year I've been at Albany, I had met him 4 or 5 times and had "real" conversations with him, not just the typical meet-and-greet handshakes. That kind of hands-on involvement in the university community was typical of Hall.

I've been quite sad since hearing the news. My heart truly goes out to his wife, a generous and kind woman who was instrumental in her husband's academic career. I had the opportunity earlier in the summer to spend some time with both of them on a "Roads Scholar" tour to Long Island -- a trip designed to introduce new faculty and university administrators to a part of the state where a lot of are students are from. They were both intelligent, friendly, and engaging as individuals and as a couple. I can't even imagine what a tragic loss this is for her.

It's also an incredible loss for our university. Hall had a great vision for UAlbany and led with passion, personality, and pragmatism. He was also a renowned scholar and active teacher. Lately I have been struck by the void in leadership that we face today, particularly in politics, and Hall was a comforting reminder that good leaders do exist.

The suddenness with which this tragedy happened is also a sobering reminder of the frailty of life.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

City of Saints

Tomorrow I am off to Montreal, my first visit to the "city of saints." I'm struggling to muster excitement for the sociology meetings, but I am very curious to explore Montreal. I've decided to focus on Old Montreal, especially the basilicas. Perhaps some divine inspiration is what I need to deal with the pretentious posturing that I'm likely to encounter among the sociologists.

Luckily I'm driving to Montreal, which is less than 4 hours away from Albany. With the latest liquid terrorist threat I'm very relieved not to be flying. My relief doesn't necessarily stem from a fear of terrorism, though incidents like today's certainly give me pause, but more from not having to deal with the beefed-up airport security and panicked fliers.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Misery Loves Company

This article from Inside Higher Ed made me feel better about how I spent my first summer as a professor.

Kite Runner

I just finished my second book about Afghanistan, this time fiction. I love a novel like this one that just flows effortlessly. Where you don't feel like you're reading, but the plot just unfolds in front of you. It's a great story about complex family relationships, personal redemption, social distinctions, political turmoil, and new beginnings.

The motivation for reading this book was to learn more about Afghanistan. It was interesting to read this one right after Stewart's Places in Between because you could see the overlapping themes about life in Afghanistan presented in two different ways. The religious and ethnic divisions and tenuous political allegiances are key to understanding modern Afghanistan. You can't escape the destruction, sadness, and the sheer human cruelty ... and yet there is also something resilient about the Afghans.

Unfortunately, after reading these books I don't feel too optimistic about the future of that country, especially given the recent Taliban resurgency and continuing economic depression. Americans have a responsibility to rebuild what we helped destroy, yet our attention spans are short and our self-interest is great, so I think history will judge us harshly on this matter.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Drink of Choice

A great description of my favorite drink:

"Something that is extremely seductive, but fickle. A fair-weather friend who seems benign but packs a wallop like a donkey kick. And that is the Long Island Iced Tea."

Believe it or not, this came from the Gilmore Girls. This is a show that I avoided for years because I thought it would be sappy. I think it was Leanne who convinced me to give it a shot. I have to admit that while it can be a bit saccharine at times, the dialogue is also extremely smart and witty.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Unrealistic Expectations

Since I stayed home yesterday because I was sick (yet again ...), I didn't register the first day of August. Today, however, as I dragged myself to the office, I immediately set off alarm bells in my head when I looked at my calendar and realized it was now August 2. AUGUST -- the end of summer is practically here! But it can't be ... I have soooo much more to do before fall semester.

To set the record straight for my non-academic friends, professors do not spend the summers "off" with lavish vacations and great novels. Most professors, especially the untenured assistant professors like myself, use the time to do research and publish papers with the hope of someday getting tenure. So I started the summer with an incredible list of all of the things that I was going to do with three whole months "off."

Everything seemed possible at the beginning of June, but I just revisited the list realizing that I'd be lucky to get half of the things done. HALF! For an overachiever like myself, this is quite depressing. I spent this morning mulling over the list trying to figure out what went wrong. Despite the ongoing health issues this summer, I thought I was pretty productive. I was at the office regularly, even came in on a few Saturdays, worked many evenings from home ... and yet only HALF the list is the best that I can hope to achieve this summer.

I am consoling myself with the idea that my expectations were too high to begin with. Being new at this job, I overestimated how quickly I could get things done -- especially amorphous things like thinking up great ideas and writing. Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself, but I need some kind of rationale to keep myself from becoming too depressed to continue working on the list. With that said, a half-finished journal article is awaiting my attention ...