Bounded in a Nutshell

My computer at work won't turn on today. It's done this is the past, but now it looks like it means it. So I've got my laptop in the office, which isn't quite as useful because it has less screen space and more distractions on it.

The sign at one of the family restaurants in town said:

BLACK ANGUS
JUMBO SHRIMP
EVERY SUNDAY

and my first thought was something like "Those damned purveyors of GMOs, will they stop at nothing?!"

That is all.

I would love it if there were a weather site that didn't treat Canadian and American weather systems as entirely disjoint. Weather Underground has a lot of good things going for it, but it's a little too hung up on political divisions to be really useful to me.

Come on, Google! Get with this particular program!

At my university, it seems that winning a research medal doesn't get you a Special Merit Award (read: "bonus"); securing a large grant, however ill-fated, does. Given that I did both, yay me!

Also, I just scribbled out my likely tax situation for this year. (On the back of an envelope, yet.) Now that the people in payroll are finally treating me like I live in the county where I do, and withdrawing accordingly, it's good news all around for once.

In other news, the term started today. I'm still unreasoningly nervous about the without-a-net aspect of my one course (that I'm teaching without an assigned textbook), but I'm sure that will pass.

I'm thinking I need to do more with this space. We'll see if anything comes of that.

Since my last post, the following things have happened:

• On December 15th, I drove to Kitchener through winter's greatest hits (though I stayed ahead of the actual snowstorm until arriving at my destination for that night.
• December 15th-20th: wandered around K/W and Toronto, meeting up with folks when I could and leaving mocking messages on their answering machines when I couldn't.
• December 20th: drove to Ottawa. Uneventful drive.
• December 22nd: hit by a car. A little bit. After a few hours of "ignore it and it'll go away", sought medical attention in an emergency room. Nothing broken; icing and Advil prescribed.
• December 24th-26th: various family-related Christmas activities.
• December 27th: hit a "session" of Irish music at Daniel O'Connell's in Ottawa. Fun, despite/because of my not actually knowing any tunes & thus having to pick them out of the air before they switch to a new one.
• December 28th: drove to Toronto.
• December 28th-January 3rd: more hanging around southern Ontario, more seeing people, etc. Parties and hilarity.
• January 4th: drove back home. Uneventful.

…and that's actually a pretty typical winter break for me. Minus the hit-by-a-car part, I suppose. Right now I'm packing my stuff to go to Vancouver for a few days, but that's turning into its own complicated little story that I'll tell another time.