Ok. The worst of an appallingly busy year is over. Time to start re-instating the things we really believe in. (Not to mention getting the most out of our compensation from the University!). We are fortunate to have bus passes as part of our paychecks. This serves the University well, when we actually decide to use them to get to work---fewer parking spaces means less ongoing expense.
In general, J and I do pretty well. Even in this year of excess meetings, late nights, unpredictable schedules, and learning our new environment, we only drove the horse truck to work once. Other times, we worked it out so we went in together, and one of us took the bus home.
But starting next week, J is on sabbatical for 15 months. Which gives us a lot of freedom for testing things out. So the plan is to take the bus to work from here on out. We had already cut our driving from ~100 miles per week to ~75 miles, by moving out here (while we go to work more days the ponies used to be farther. This is probably an underestimate of our prior driving...). So now, we'll cut down even further, perhaps even to 15 miles per week!
The bus stop is about a mile from our house, and we have a transfer downtown. Depending on whether we make the really tight connection, or leave a little earlier, the trip takes 40-50 minutes. Just the perfect amount of time to read the paper, catch up on blogs, or relax with an audiobook!
Since January, I've been keeping track of 'one-star' and 'two-star' days. These are days when either I or both of us don't get in the car at all! I'm looking forward to seeing those numbers really climb!
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Lazy Sunday...
Our projects for the day...
1) make beef jerky for our backpacking trip. This turned out to make a discouragingly small amount of jerky. Or maybe it's just really, really dense!
2) J dragged the arena, twice. We've had so much rain that we haven't been able to drag for a while. But the miracle is that it's wonderful to ride in, even in early spring, even after unprecedented rainfall!
3) J finished the willow branch fence around the raised beds, and I finally moved all the flagstone from the rock pile, and made a path out of them, where the grass gets entirely too much traffic:
4) I moved the rest of the rock pile, and put them around the greenhouse, so they will be handy the next time I'm filling containers, and I. The meantime, they'll look nice.
5) I taught a lesson, and J and I both rode our horses.
6) I took down the old hose rack (which didn't work), and made room for the new hose holder, and organized the trash area in the barn, so we will take it out more often.
7) along the way, the broken water trough got emptied out, and I was able to test the fit of the new design of the solar heated water trough holder---it fits perfectly! And now we can use that broken trough elsewhere.
7) Wash the dogs.
8) we are now relaxing with Radiolab on KUER, getting our dopamine fix!
Just a typical day here on the ol' homestead!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
1) make beef jerky for our backpacking trip. This turned out to make a discouragingly small amount of jerky. Or maybe it's just really, really dense!
2) J dragged the arena, twice. We've had so much rain that we haven't been able to drag for a while. But the miracle is that it's wonderful to ride in, even in early spring, even after unprecedented rainfall!
3) J finished the willow branch fence around the raised beds, and I finally moved all the flagstone from the rock pile, and made a path out of them, where the grass gets entirely too much traffic:
4) I moved the rest of the rock pile, and put them around the greenhouse, so they will be handy the next time I'm filling containers, and I. The meantime, they'll look nice.
5) I taught a lesson, and J and I both rode our horses.
6) I took down the old hose rack (which didn't work), and made room for the new hose holder, and organized the trash area in the barn, so we will take it out more often.
7) along the way, the broken water trough got emptied out, and I was able to test the fit of the new design of the solar heated water trough holder---it fits perfectly! And now we can use that broken trough elsewhere.
7) Wash the dogs.
8) we are now relaxing with Radiolab on KUER, getting our dopamine fix!
Just a typical day here on the ol' homestead!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Home
Saturday, April 9, 2011
And down comes the cowboy!
Today, we took down the cowboy. See, we had a big, brick cowboy over the mantle, with unfortunate Dorf-like proportions. Since it's been raining since... Forever... It seemed like a good project. It took much less time than expected---only an hour---because, as it turns out, the 400 pound brick cowboy was just glued to the drywall! Squirrelly!!!!!
Also today, two new discoveries. Why, oh why, have I never sprinkled Garam masala on popcorn before?!
And, British flapjacks. Fundamentally rice krispie treats, made with oats:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar. (or 1/2 cup white+1 T molasses, if you happen to have used up all your brown sugar!)
1/4 cup honey
2.5 cups oats
Mix the first three in a saucepan on medium-low heat until a smooth sauce.
Take off heat, stir in oats.
Pour into a greased 9-inch metal cake pan.
Bake at 350 for 25 min or til browned.
Wowza! That's a good oats recipe!
Also today, two new discoveries. Why, oh why, have I never sprinkled Garam masala on popcorn before?!
And, British flapjacks. Fundamentally rice krispie treats, made with oats:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar. (or 1/2 cup white+1 T molasses, if you happen to have used up all your brown sugar!)
1/4 cup honey
2.5 cups oats
Mix the first three in a saucepan on medium-low heat until a smooth sauce.
Take off heat, stir in oats.
Pour into a greased 9-inch metal cake pan.
Bake at 350 for 25 min or til browned.
Wowza! That's a good oats recipe!
Friday, April 8, 2011
Oats, etc.
About twice a year, we make the trek to Honeyville grain's retail store in Brigham City. It's a tiny little store in the front part of a warehouse-style strip mall. And it's a little...unusual. Although it seems nearly normal to us now.
When you walk into the store, the first thing you notice is that the carts are not normal shopping carts. They are more like something you would find at your local home improvement warehouse. The second thing you notice is that everything comes in big---really big--- packages! 50 pounds is the standard bag size for most things. Some things, like pasta, can be bought 15 or 25 pounds at a time, but all the grains and flours come in somewhat overwhelming quantities. They also have freeze-dried foodstuffs, like asparagus (wonderful!) or mushrooms (eh.) or berries (how did I ever get along without these!). And all in vast quantities designed for... You guessed it... Mormon food storage.
So this is interesting to me, because there are two ways of thinking about food storage. One is to think that you are going to buy a year's worth of food, packaged to remain shelf stable for 25 years, and then go ahead and buy food like the rest of the population. The second way of thinking about it is that you have a year's worth of inventory, and you are going to store the things you use all the time, and then use them until they are gone. All the time, you are rotating stock, keeping the shelves full. While we are neither Mormon, nor in possession of a year's supply of food, what we have figured out is that we can take advantage of the whole infrastructure, to lower our food costs, improve our diets, and help support the local economy.
So typical purchases at Honeyville include:
50 pounds of all purpose white flour.
50 pounds of hard red wheat
50 pounds of soft white wheat
25 pounds of sugar
10-15 pounds of dried pasta
2-3 very large cans of dried berries
2-3 very large cans of dried vegetables
10 pounds of popping corn
5-10 pounds of dried beans
5 pounds of sea salt
And 50 pound of oats...
Which brings me to oats. I keep John in granola, at a fraction of the cost of box cereal, keep myself in baked or boiled oatmeal, keep us both in oatmeal cookies, and generally work my way through 50 pounds of oats, 6 cups at a time. This year, because I was so busy, I didn't keep up, and find myself with about half a bag left, and it's just about time for our periodic visit. So of course, I started looking around for things to do with oats. And as I was thinking about it, I realized there's an added bonus to thinking about this. Not only are oats a whole grain, and not only are they packed with vitamins like niacin, which we should probably all eat more of, but they also have several other wonderful advantages, if you are pondering resilience.
First, they grow practically anywhere, dry, wet, hot, cold, whatever. They are the most indestructible of common grains. Second, they contain a natural preservative, so they can just be rolled and stored, unlike wheat, which goes rancid if you try that. THAT means they are the easiest grain to harvest and store in small quantities. Third, they have collateral benefits (unlike corn), in that oat straw makes great bedding for animals, such as...let me think...chickens and horses! Fourth, people, horses, chickens, and dogs can all eat oats straight off the stalk, making them good for all the creatures on a small farm.
Taking the obvious next step, I went looking for other things to make from oats (because if there was any grain that we had any hope of figuring out how to grow, it would be oats!). And I find very little. Which is interesting. Because oats might not have much gluten, (so won't make good bread), but neither does rice! And it's easy to find great rice recipes. I did find a recipe for an oat pilaf, that turned out to be delicious. So now I am both on the hunt for oat recipes, and also shifting into major experimentation mode. It's time to start treating cooking like it's research. What to do with a low-gluten starchy whole grains? well, we'll find out! But I've got some ideas I'm working on... If it makes pilaf, it will make ris-oat-o. Get it? Risotto, ris-oat-o? Ha! I should do stand-up!
When you walk into the store, the first thing you notice is that the carts are not normal shopping carts. They are more like something you would find at your local home improvement warehouse. The second thing you notice is that everything comes in big---really big--- packages! 50 pounds is the standard bag size for most things. Some things, like pasta, can be bought 15 or 25 pounds at a time, but all the grains and flours come in somewhat overwhelming quantities. They also have freeze-dried foodstuffs, like asparagus (wonderful!) or mushrooms (eh.) or berries (how did I ever get along without these!). And all in vast quantities designed for... You guessed it... Mormon food storage.
So this is interesting to me, because there are two ways of thinking about food storage. One is to think that you are going to buy a year's worth of food, packaged to remain shelf stable for 25 years, and then go ahead and buy food like the rest of the population. The second way of thinking about it is that you have a year's worth of inventory, and you are going to store the things you use all the time, and then use them until they are gone. All the time, you are rotating stock, keeping the shelves full. While we are neither Mormon, nor in possession of a year's supply of food, what we have figured out is that we can take advantage of the whole infrastructure, to lower our food costs, improve our diets, and help support the local economy.
So typical purchases at Honeyville include:
50 pounds of all purpose white flour.
50 pounds of hard red wheat
50 pounds of soft white wheat
25 pounds of sugar
10-15 pounds of dried pasta
2-3 very large cans of dried berries
2-3 very large cans of dried vegetables
10 pounds of popping corn
5-10 pounds of dried beans
5 pounds of sea salt
And 50 pound of oats...
Which brings me to oats. I keep John in granola, at a fraction of the cost of box cereal, keep myself in baked or boiled oatmeal, keep us both in oatmeal cookies, and generally work my way through 50 pounds of oats, 6 cups at a time. This year, because I was so busy, I didn't keep up, and find myself with about half a bag left, and it's just about time for our periodic visit. So of course, I started looking around for things to do with oats. And as I was thinking about it, I realized there's an added bonus to thinking about this. Not only are oats a whole grain, and not only are they packed with vitamins like niacin, which we should probably all eat more of, but they also have several other wonderful advantages, if you are pondering resilience.
First, they grow practically anywhere, dry, wet, hot, cold, whatever. They are the most indestructible of common grains. Second, they contain a natural preservative, so they can just be rolled and stored, unlike wheat, which goes rancid if you try that. THAT means they are the easiest grain to harvest and store in small quantities. Third, they have collateral benefits (unlike corn), in that oat straw makes great bedding for animals, such as...let me think...chickens and horses! Fourth, people, horses, chickens, and dogs can all eat oats straight off the stalk, making them good for all the creatures on a small farm.
Taking the obvious next step, I went looking for other things to make from oats (because if there was any grain that we had any hope of figuring out how to grow, it would be oats!). And I find very little. Which is interesting. Because oats might not have much gluten, (so won't make good bread), but neither does rice! And it's easy to find great rice recipes. I did find a recipe for an oat pilaf, that turned out to be delicious. So now I am both on the hunt for oat recipes, and also shifting into major experimentation mode. It's time to start treating cooking like it's research. What to do with a low-gluten starchy whole grains? well, we'll find out! But I've got some ideas I'm working on... If it makes pilaf, it will make ris-oat-o. Get it? Risotto, ris-oat-o? Ha! I should do stand-up!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
You know you're done when...
Lunch talk for the Kiwanis Club today. Because the computer hookup wasn't working, and it was a small group, I just sat down to talk with them instead. They had asked me to come and update them on what we've been doing in the planetarium, and we had a wide-ranging conversation about dark matter, black holes, making color photos from a series of grayscale ones, Technicolor film, and so on. I generally think that my job, at these events, is to be sparkly---unicorns and double rainbows, all the way. So I sparkled about HST, and I told jokes about dark matter, and I was witty about black holes.
But then they asked me about climate change.
They should not have done that.
Because they are wrong.
Their whole belief system is founded around an incorrect understanding of basic physics, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of time.
And for the first time ever, I didn't hedge. And I wasn't polite. And I didn't pull my punches. And of course, no one was convinced. Because data doesn't matter. And 28,000 separate lines of investigation that agree don't matter. Shifting coffee plantations, migration patterns, ice cover, times of bloom, mass extinctions, wildfires, glacial retreats, just don't matter. What matters is that they don't WANT it to be true. Too bad. Nature doesn't care what you want. I failed to sparkle. And there were no unicorns, and definitely not any rainbows.
So I know I'm burnt out. Because I couldn't even let the Kiwanis Club wrap themselves in soothing lies that make them feel better. And for the last two weeks, we've been doing climate change in my environmental physics class, and even I can't find any rainbows.
But I'm sure if I take a vacation, I'll find a unicorn around here somewhere.
But then they asked me about climate change.
They should not have done that.
Because they are wrong.
Their whole belief system is founded around an incorrect understanding of basic physics, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of time.
And for the first time ever, I didn't hedge. And I wasn't polite. And I didn't pull my punches. And of course, no one was convinced. Because data doesn't matter. And 28,000 separate lines of investigation that agree don't matter. Shifting coffee plantations, migration patterns, ice cover, times of bloom, mass extinctions, wildfires, glacial retreats, just don't matter. What matters is that they don't WANT it to be true. Too bad. Nature doesn't care what you want. I failed to sparkle. And there were no unicorns, and definitely not any rainbows.
So I know I'm burnt out. Because I couldn't even let the Kiwanis Club wrap themselves in soothing lies that make them feel better. And for the last two weeks, we've been doing climate change in my environmental physics class, and even I can't find any rainbows.
But I'm sure if I take a vacation, I'll find a unicorn around here somewhere.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
On the way back...
So much to tell you! So many pictures to post! But I'm still so tired!
To use a complicated physics analogy about electrons in an atom, I usually wander around in my 3rd or 4th excited state, with plenty of energy for everyone. For several days after Science Olympiad, I was wandering around in my ground state, barely able to keep myself together. This week, I'm bouncing between ground and first excited states---I can see how someday I might actually WANT to do something at work, but it's not happening yet! Unfortunately, these are the couple of weeks focusing in on the physics of climate change in my Environmental Physics class. This means I'm spending all my time reading about mass extinctions and melting glaciers and wondering what I'm doing that's of any value at all.
But! We have ten new chicks on the farm, and are averaging 6 eggs a day from the old flock. We are hatching (hah!) a new plan for 'chicken boarding'. Since we can't sell our eggs, we are thinking that we should board chickens for people at a flat monthly fee, and then they can have the eggs from one chicken (about 15 per month), since they are boarding one chicken with us! Is that not awesome? Don't you want to do it too? How much would you pay for us to keep your chicken for you?
In other random news, J has been crafting the most marvelous willow stick fence around the raised beds---pictures coming soon...
We have finished the tack room, to our neighbor's specifications---there's a little fridge in there! I've beaten the sewing machine into submission, and crafted a holder for my knitting needles. I've also knitted 2 hats, 1 pair of mittens, and a pair of slippers. I hope to impose on my friend K soon, and go to her house to do some felting.
The old house is sold! Our old mortgage is paid off, and we even had a little extra to roll over into the new mortgage. A friend advised us to incorporate the farm, and that helped us out a LOT with our taxes, so that got rolled over too. We are now working on a plan to pay off the current mortgage in five years. It will be a push, but imagine having it paid off completely, by the time we are 45! We are excited to make as many early payments as possible, and fold all our extra money in as soon as we can----git 'er done is our new motto! We are anxious and uneasy, and this is our last remaining debt. It would be nice to see a '1' turn into a '0'.
This past year, we did so well on feeding ourselves, from our own efforts, that it's not even funny. We are coming to the end of some things in the cupboard, but the higher food prices have just... Passed us by. We haven't really noticed, and are getting ready to start planting seed starts. Soon, spring will actually be here, and we can get things in the ground. Meanwhile, we are looking for new oat recipes, and eating a lot of pickles... ;)
Much else has happened, and I'll gradually get caught up here. So much is going on that my boss at work was speechless in my annual review---and that's just work! For now, I'll just make a quick list of goals for the year:
1) pay 1/5 of the mortgage as extra payments on the house this year.
2) source all of our own food locally, except oils and spices.
3) start chicken boarding.
4) teach T her flying changes.
5) drive our household energy usage down by 50%, so we can plan for solar panels.
To use a complicated physics analogy about electrons in an atom, I usually wander around in my 3rd or 4th excited state, with plenty of energy for everyone. For several days after Science Olympiad, I was wandering around in my ground state, barely able to keep myself together. This week, I'm bouncing between ground and first excited states---I can see how someday I might actually WANT to do something at work, but it's not happening yet! Unfortunately, these are the couple of weeks focusing in on the physics of climate change in my Environmental Physics class. This means I'm spending all my time reading about mass extinctions and melting glaciers and wondering what I'm doing that's of any value at all.
But! We have ten new chicks on the farm, and are averaging 6 eggs a day from the old flock. We are hatching (hah!) a new plan for 'chicken boarding'. Since we can't sell our eggs, we are thinking that we should board chickens for people at a flat monthly fee, and then they can have the eggs from one chicken (about 15 per month), since they are boarding one chicken with us! Is that not awesome? Don't you want to do it too? How much would you pay for us to keep your chicken for you?
In other random news, J has been crafting the most marvelous willow stick fence around the raised beds---pictures coming soon...
We have finished the tack room, to our neighbor's specifications---there's a little fridge in there! I've beaten the sewing machine into submission, and crafted a holder for my knitting needles. I've also knitted 2 hats, 1 pair of mittens, and a pair of slippers. I hope to impose on my friend K soon, and go to her house to do some felting.
The old house is sold! Our old mortgage is paid off, and we even had a little extra to roll over into the new mortgage. A friend advised us to incorporate the farm, and that helped us out a LOT with our taxes, so that got rolled over too. We are now working on a plan to pay off the current mortgage in five years. It will be a push, but imagine having it paid off completely, by the time we are 45! We are excited to make as many early payments as possible, and fold all our extra money in as soon as we can----git 'er done is our new motto! We are anxious and uneasy, and this is our last remaining debt. It would be nice to see a '1' turn into a '0'.
This past year, we did so well on feeding ourselves, from our own efforts, that it's not even funny. We are coming to the end of some things in the cupboard, but the higher food prices have just... Passed us by. We haven't really noticed, and are getting ready to start planting seed starts. Soon, spring will actually be here, and we can get things in the ground. Meanwhile, we are looking for new oat recipes, and eating a lot of pickles... ;)
Much else has happened, and I'll gradually get caught up here. So much is going on that my boss at work was speechless in my annual review---and that's just work! For now, I'll just make a quick list of goals for the year:
1) pay 1/5 of the mortgage as extra payments on the house this year.
2) source all of our own food locally, except oils and spices.
3) start chicken boarding.
4) teach T her flying changes.
5) drive our household energy usage down by 50%, so we can plan for solar panels.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Out with the old...
The turning of the year is usually used for looking forward to whatever we'll all get up to fixing about ourselves, our environment, our society, or whatever. But I find myself this year with a half-stunned feeling. Like when all the smoke alarms go off first thing in the morning and you spend the rest of the day wandering around saying, 'WHAT? NO. I'M NOT YELLING. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I'M YELLING? COULD YOU SPEAK UP PLEASE?'. And then I started thinking back to this time last year, and I realized that is a perfectly sensible reaction.
Roughly 365 short days ago, we were living in the old house, at the top of the hill, next to the University, with 2 dogs, 6 chickens, and 2 horses that lived elsewhere and were someone else's responsibility for 22 hours of the day, 4 days per week, and 24 hours on the other three days.
My job consisted of 'physics professor' and 'planetarium director'. It filled all available work time, and then some.
I had just lost a book contract, because the other authors couldn't come to an agreement with each other about royalties. I breathed a sigh of relief to not be working with them. I was contemplating finishing the second draft of my novel.
We had just started thinking of a five-year plan, to find a place where we could move the horses home. This was inspired by a number of separate lines coming together, of which the most important was probably the owner of our boarding stable telling us he had five years left in him.
It was starting to seem likely that there would be layoffs in the college, and my work responsibilities would change. But the legislature had not met yet, so it was all still uncertain.
Today, we sit on our own little mini-farm, a boarding stable in our own right, with responsibility for not only our own two horses, but two boarders, and all the facilities. When the gate falls off the hinges, that's us. We renovated a barn, installed more than 1200 feet of fence, had an arena built, and learned to care for it. And we are learning how to deal with the eccentricities of a new house, built by someone our fantastic neighbor refers to as 'Squirrely'. I've also started giving lessons again, and find that I dearly love it. It's so much fun to have students who genuinely care AND do their homework!
We killed a cow.
We have two dogs and ten chickens, with more birds on the way in the spring.
I have written a first draft, and more than half of a second, on an Introductory Astronomy text. What was originally to be a straight-forward update developed into a project so different that the name has changed. 'Understanding Our Universe' is now more than halfway through second draft, dealing with reviewer comments, which are nearly as unforgiving and autistic as referee remarks. I'm simultaneously dealing with copy-edits on earlier chapters (third drafts, in a sense), as well as a few new items which are more or less in first draft. It's very confusing, and somehow, I still have to figure out how to explain to the art studio why the woman pushing the refrigerator should NOT be wearing high heels and a skirt.
My work responsibilities have changed. I am now all of the following people, some only interim, (which is almost harder, because I feel constrained in the changes I can enact)
Physics professor
Director, Ott Planetarium
Director, museum of Natural Science
Director, Center for Science and Mathematics Education
Director, Science Olympiad of Utah
Assistant Director, Ritchey Science and Engineering Fair of Utah
I am in charge of a staff of two full-time employees, hordes of hourly students and volunteers, and a constantly changing rota of smaller projects.
So many things have changed that I think my resolution for the new year should be to be a little more forgiving of myself, if the trough boxes aren't built yet, and I keep getting in trouble with accounting for various heinous offenses like putting the wrong six-digit code (which was told to me by the scholarship office...TWICE!) on my PARs. Maybe I have a lot going on right now, and it will all seem easier once I've actually successfully hosted 1400 sixth through twelfth graders all on the same day, without having them set fire to campus.
My mom always says it takes a year to get used to a new home. That's also true for jobs, I think. And vocations. And farms. Especially when a perfect storm of opportunities and challenges show up all at once---every one of them worthy of your best efforts.
Roughly 365 short days ago, we were living in the old house, at the top of the hill, next to the University, with 2 dogs, 6 chickens, and 2 horses that lived elsewhere and were someone else's responsibility for 22 hours of the day, 4 days per week, and 24 hours on the other three days.
My job consisted of 'physics professor' and 'planetarium director'. It filled all available work time, and then some.
I had just lost a book contract, because the other authors couldn't come to an agreement with each other about royalties. I breathed a sigh of relief to not be working with them. I was contemplating finishing the second draft of my novel.
We had just started thinking of a five-year plan, to find a place where we could move the horses home. This was inspired by a number of separate lines coming together, of which the most important was probably the owner of our boarding stable telling us he had five years left in him.
It was starting to seem likely that there would be layoffs in the college, and my work responsibilities would change. But the legislature had not met yet, so it was all still uncertain.
Today, we sit on our own little mini-farm, a boarding stable in our own right, with responsibility for not only our own two horses, but two boarders, and all the facilities. When the gate falls off the hinges, that's us. We renovated a barn, installed more than 1200 feet of fence, had an arena built, and learned to care for it. And we are learning how to deal with the eccentricities of a new house, built by someone our fantastic neighbor refers to as 'Squirrely'. I've also started giving lessons again, and find that I dearly love it. It's so much fun to have students who genuinely care AND do their homework!
We killed a cow.
We have two dogs and ten chickens, with more birds on the way in the spring.
I have written a first draft, and more than half of a second, on an Introductory Astronomy text. What was originally to be a straight-forward update developed into a project so different that the name has changed. 'Understanding Our Universe' is now more than halfway through second draft, dealing with reviewer comments, which are nearly as unforgiving and autistic as referee remarks. I'm simultaneously dealing with copy-edits on earlier chapters (third drafts, in a sense), as well as a few new items which are more or less in first draft. It's very confusing, and somehow, I still have to figure out how to explain to the art studio why the woman pushing the refrigerator should NOT be wearing high heels and a skirt.
My work responsibilities have changed. I am now all of the following people, some only interim, (which is almost harder, because I feel constrained in the changes I can enact)
Physics professor
Director, Ott Planetarium
Director, museum of Natural Science
Director, Center for Science and Mathematics Education
Director, Science Olympiad of Utah
Assistant Director, Ritchey Science and Engineering Fair of Utah
I am in charge of a staff of two full-time employees, hordes of hourly students and volunteers, and a constantly changing rota of smaller projects.
So many things have changed that I think my resolution for the new year should be to be a little more forgiving of myself, if the trough boxes aren't built yet, and I keep getting in trouble with accounting for various heinous offenses like putting the wrong six-digit code (which was told to me by the scholarship office...TWICE!) on my PARs. Maybe I have a lot going on right now, and it will all seem easier once I've actually successfully hosted 1400 sixth through twelfth graders all on the same day, without having them set fire to campus.
My mom always says it takes a year to get used to a new home. That's also true for jobs, I think. And vocations. And farms. Especially when a perfect storm of opportunities and challenges show up all at once---every one of them worthy of your best efforts.
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