Countdown to a New Decade

Four hours to go until we reached 2010. The kid and the man are both sick, and I'll have to work the weekend. But, on the upside, I'll have some explosively awesome data to show at Monday's meeting. This is pretty much how my life is ... take care of what I can in the home between approximately 6pm and 8am and generate sweet data and make magical images between 8am and 6pm. Of course, these hours vary ... sometimes it's 8am to 10pm that the magic of data acquisition, figure development, grant writing, ideation, etc occurs. Thinking about all this goes on just about 24h a day. I dream this. I drive and do not see the road (my subconscious is clearly responsible for getting me from A to B safely) but instead picture how to improve technically or how to best write the goals of specific aims, I walk the hallways, head down, thinking just how  to interpret that data set. The relief I get from this usually comes from cooking or sitting in a playpen with the kid. I do get the occasional chase to race a cow or shoot alien space craft attempting to whisk my Mii away, and I do make time for the family. There's only one chance at this family, at watching the kid grow and to foster my relationship with the man. For grants, data and all that, there's always tomorrow. Sure, according to the German saying "Morgen, morgen, nur nicht Heute, sagen alle faule Leute" (tomorrow, tomorrow, just not today say all the lazy people), I should not delay this work. But I value my growing value and want it to be stronger than anything. This desire for a strong family needs to be balanced with work, naturally, so that I can provide for them by getting a kick ass faculty position in a few years. For now, I'll just be happy with what I've got and say Adieu to 2009 and Ciao to writing any more! Happy New Year!