In general, I avoid Twitter and Facebook. But Twitter is still useful for live sports. And Facebook is useful for checking on people after natural disasters.

Then: 9.29.24

Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

Hurricane Helene hit us in Columbia, South Carolina this week. Early Friday morning, we lost power with 60+ mph wind gusts. Trees down everywhere. In Columbia, we weren’t prepared for a storm of this magnitude. We got power back 12 hours later, but many people in the area are still without power.

As bad as it was here, it was much, much worse two hours north in Asheville. Western North Carolina is devastated. Asheville is in many ways a second home and it’s heartbreaking to see the devastation and flooding.

Feels

  • Grateful that our family is fine, our house is undamaged, and we have power.
  • Heartbroken for communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
  • Thankful for the linemen who are working to restore power. (There were five trucks in the front of our neighborhood earlier.)

Health

Expected Helene to be bad, but we don’t normally get hit this hard in Columbia. Lots of trees down and power outages across South Carolina.

For several reasons, I decided to work from home today. I know that many (most?) people love it, but I really, really don’t enjoy working from home.

The NY Times on the White Sox' historically bad season:

Baseball is a cruel game. Other sports cap your suffering at a reasonable number. In the N.F.L., the most games you could ever lose in a season is 17. In the N.B.A., you could theoretically lose 82. (The record is 73.) But baseball’s season is relentless: 162 games long… If you lose your grip, as the White Sox did immediately… you can fall through an eternal void of losing. And every day, in the middle of that falling, reporters will stick microphones in your face to ask you how it feels to be plunging through the eternal void.

Academics: A CV and resume are completely different things.

On their websites: “Click here to view my CV/Resume.”

Got a revise and resubmit with minor revisions on a journal article today. Excited to get this one out in the world. I wrote the paper for a Ph.D. class a couple of years ago, presented it at a conference and then improved the paper. Happy with how it’s turned out.

Then: 9.22.24

Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

This week was a little more relaxed than the last few. I took Friday off and spent some time working on projects. The weeknights were busy, and our middle child had driving lessons on Saturday and Sunday. Next week looks to be reasonable.

Humorously, I wrote, but forgot to upload, my Now page from last week. I’m trying to use this as a weekly journal. It’s more for me than anyone else, but if you missed my weekly update, I’m sorry.

Feels

  • I remain impressed with the Harris/Walz campaign. They’ve just got to keep it going until November. (And honestly, beyond Election Day when the MAGA types refuse to accept the results of the election.)
  • I’m writing this from my back deck where I’m cooking out tonight. My wife is doing classwork out here with me. We’re a couple of...
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Today was my 10th race watching F1. I started with the Canadian Grand Prix. Since then, we’ve had 7 winners from 4 different teams. I think I picked the right time to start watching. What a fun sport. I’m hooked.