Not sure if this counts as "creative feedback" but I still havent gotten over a reviewer's objection to an NSF proposal of mine that said "the usefulness of teaching students how to use hands-on telescopes in this era of computer-controlled telescopes and online datasets is questionable." 🔭

CK Dexter Haven!

Happy Jaws Day to all who celebrate!

My founding fathers

Ok I'll never come close to Joey Chestnut, but I still had way too many hotdogs 🌭 tonight....

My goodness, many people seem to have strong outraged opinions about the <checks notes> Swift/Kelce wedding.

Ok, little Miss Minerva finally came out from hiding under the bed!

Well, Newcat #2 is here -- code name "Minerva" -- but she is so determinedly hiding under a bed that you all will have to wait a while for pictures....

Awesome 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Moe and Murdock are beginning to get acquainted. A lot of growling and hissing to start, but using the power of treats I think we'll get through it.

These Trump "Department of War" wannabes are truly the lamest of weekend warriors. Start fighting after the markets close on Friday, agree to a cease fire before markets open on Monday. Like f*cking clockwork. 🙄

ok, while new cat's shelter name "Chalupa" is pretty good, we are re-naming him "Murdock". Because we had another black cat, the best, named "Nelson". And it only seems fitting to give our new black cat the name "Murdock." Now I need to get me a "Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law" tshirt....

ok, after losing two cats over the past 8 months, it was time to restock our cat supply. So meet "Chalupa" (his shelter name) our new 3yr old big boy. We also adopted "Tetris", a 2yr old girl, but shes still at the shelter for a few more days until shes been spayed.

I am in photometry-parameter-testing hell, and see no quick escape. What happens when I change this parameter by this amount? What about changing that parameter by that amount? What about this parameter by this amount AND that parameter by that amount? Shoot me now.

Had a dream last night in which I was frantically looking through a copy of Kraus' "Radio Astronomy" textbook trying to find a picture of the Effelsberg radio telescope. I have no idea why.....

We said goodbye to Maude today. But here's one of my favorite pictures of her -- going at it toe-to-toe like Ali-Frazier back in the day. And with the also-lost-too-early Maggie watching on, we miss her too.

Welp, so, test results came back and... no good news. So tomorrow we say goodbye to her. 😢

The thing about large scale computational parameter tests is that they are like children. You launch them and watch for a while and they behave nicely. So you log off and go home, and then when you log back in later to check on them you find that everything went haywire while you weren't looking.

Send your best thoughts out to Miss Maude, our little spitfire queen bee. She suddenly finds herself barely able to walk. We just did a battery of tests today and are waiting to hear back on the results. I fear the worst, but she's always been a fighter so we're hoping for a treatable outcome.

Me, this week: Ok, I finally finished all the photometry runs on the dataset! Collaborator: Oh, did you see the photometry package was recenty upgraded? Me:

Just sayin'

I'm surprised he didnt say he signed it in "Ver-sales".

Spent far too much of the day today battling sed. 😵‍💫

I'm an old fart semi-accomplished science professor and the two people who were probably the most influential on my academic career were my (public) high school English Lit and English Comp teachers. Reading and writing are important. High school teachers are out there doing the best work.

Me when I keep hearing how excited I should be about the World Cup.

So I keep seeing right wing takes that if you strip food and energy out of this week's inflation report, the inflation numbers look quite tame. So I guess as long as I don't eat, drive, or cool my home this summer I should be good!

Somebody really should be outside blasting "Yakety Sax" on a nonstop loop during all of this.

Its one of those evenings when I've drafted and deleted multiple posts. You're welcome.

I'm clearly a dinosaur, I still write my LaTeX files using hard line breaks. This thing you young'ns do nowadays of having an entire paragraph of content written on a single autowrapped line of text just feels unnatural to me.....

Goodnight from our dumb ass cats.

thinking of movies I saw in the theater where going in I thought they'd be terrible but coming out I thought they were amazing. 1) Die Hard 2) Guardians of the Galaxy what others are on your list?

Just saw my wife giving the dog the leftover refried beans.

Good god, I'm no financial expert, but even I understand why the jobs report made the market crater today. Grampa Sleepy really has no clue about this stuff.

Aretha Franklin's cover of "Eleanor Rigby" beats the pants off the Beatles' original version, and this is a hill I will die on.

You keep lying when you oughta be truthin' And you keep losin' when you oughta not bet You keep samin' when you oughta be a-changin' Now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet.

The more I see the advice that junior scientists get online about how to do science and how to choose research advisors and research topics, the more I feel like maybe it's time for me to retire.

Please do not focus on the four Republican US House representatives that voted to end the Iran War today. Focus instead on the 208 Republicans that are happy to keep it going.

Evidently there is another Chris Mihos out in the internet world that is huckstering cryptocurrency. Rest assured that that Chris Mihos is not me.....

We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files, We'd like to help you learn to help yourself.....

The word "separate" is my Achilles heel. I can *never* spell it right, I *always* spell it "seperate" and then have to constantly correct it. The last thing I do with any document I write is do a global find and replace of "seperate" --> "separate". What word is *your* spelling Achilles heel?

Sent a paper draft off to collaborators today. Celebrating.

Re-watching Mad Men is an exercise in saying "Oh, right, I remember her. He has an affair with her" over and over again...

"Post a poster you used to have on your wall." Used to, and still do. This poster has been up in my dorm, my apartment, or in my office since 1986....

Was reminded tonight of the time when I was Astronomy Dept chair and i was in my office minding my own business TRYING to get some research done when suddenly out of the blue the provost walks into my office unannounced and says "hey, can we talk?"

The Rolling Stones' five year run of: Beggars Banquet (1968) Let It Bleed (1969) Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out (1970) Sticky Fingers (1971) Exile on Main Street (1972) Goats Head Soup (1973) Is just a mind-boggling-ly good string of work.

Was trying to get a paper draft out to collaborators today, but then found a bug in my analysis code. 😱😭 But fixing the bug actually made the results more consistent across the analysis. 🥳🎉 Even Steven! So no draft today, collaborators, but a better result will come to you on Monday, I promise!

Again, really becoming hard to tell the difference between Onion posts and reality.....