Pie Count 2008

1. Pecan -- February, for a Valentine's gift, went well with a nice bourbon.

2. Strawberry-Rhubarb -- June, for a BBQ, went well with Micheladas and red meat.

3. Cherry -- July, for the 4th of July, out of local cherries from Our Nation's Capital, went well with freedom.

4. Blueberry -- August, with wild Northern Wisconsin blueberries, went well with milk and plate-licking.

5. Pumpkin -- November, for Thanksgiving, went well with whiskey and gluttony.

The Anonymous Reader

This is what happens: you submit an article to a journal -- The Journal of Iberian Delights, say -- you wait between 3 months and 2 years, and either hear nothing, or receive an acceptance of your article but don't pop the cava just yet because it's pending revisions. If your article gets a qualified acceptance, you also get at least two "reader reports," in which anonymous so-called experts rip your writing to shreds. They second-guess your academic preparation; they assume, given your pathetic grasp of style, that your second language is English; they list 50 books that any idiot with a public library (much less a Ph.D.) should have read by now; they tell you you've made up words; they don't like any of your metaphors; they cut down the entire premise of your argument; in short: they eat you alive.

I am now one of those "anonymous readers" for an article more or less relevant to my field and...um... it's actually not so easy to be a cheerful, encouraging, impressed editor when what you're reading doesn't make any sense. And not making sense for 30 pages is quite an achievement. I'm not going to give any more details to protect the innocent, but sufficed to say, I'm feeling a little better about all those sharks who have bitten chunks out of my academic future in the past... now that I'm one of them.

Faculty Meeting Breakdown

Xmas letters: Yea or Nay?

I'm considering whether or not to include a Christmas letter in this year's annual mailing of holiday greeting cards. The Christmas letter, considered a staple of the Midwestern Xmas card ^*, has fallen out of favor with some members of my generation, who consider it woefully unhip, especially if it is written in the voice of the family dog or baby. Around the SJB family homestead, it is my Dad who writes the annual Xmas letter, and, if a recent conversation with a cousin is to be believed, he has come to dominate the form. Should I even compete? What do you think?

Are Christmas letters cool or way uncool?
	Cool.
	Only cool if they're making fun of the genre.
	Uncool if written in the voice of a baby or a dog.
	Way uncool.
	Meh, I can take 'em or leave 'em.
pollcode.com free polls

^* Accompanied by a family photo, often following one of two forms: 1) just the kids and a pet, so it's not self-evident who sent you the card; or 2) ridiculously huge families with more kids than Justices of the Supreme Court. (In one of my favorite examples, all 10 of the boys were dressed as football players and the lone girl was dressed as a cheerleader. And when I say "my favorite" I mean "the most gut-churningly awful")

23 Orchard Street

Apparently, my parents lived at 32 Orchard St. when I was born, so it seems serendipitous to be moving into my first house at 23 Orchard St 32 years later. Here are some photos of moving and the house, mostly starring Addison, who won't stop following me around.