The Forgotten

Doug Glanville wrote an annoying article about how hard it is being a 38-year-old millionaire and here's what people (including I) had to say about it.

I'm not sure I get this Canon XSi ad

I think it's about a little white boy ... who turns into a girl ... then back into a boy ... then he turns black ... then he makes it into the NFL!

Yay! Let's go out and buy thousand dollar cameras.

Once I'd written down the question, the answer was obvious

I was about to post the following to AskMefi:

Someone talk me down from the ivory tower's ledge [more inside]

I got my PhD in Computer Science in 2007, with a focus on computational biology. I have a wife and 2 young kids. During and prior to grad school, I worked/consulted for biotech companies always strictly as a means of paying the bills. My goal has been a faculty position. I applied in 2007 and got no interviews. Now, 2 years into a so-far-unremarkable 3-year postdoc, I've had an epiphony. I'm actually really good at industrial computational biology: making things work. I'm actually not that good at academic computational biology: publishing papers/getting grants. I'm also sick and tired of being poor. A friend of mine has eMailed me about a job at his company that seems like it would be pretty sweet. Whether or not this particular job works out, I'm thinking of broadening my search, effectively leaving academia behind forever. I'd like someone to explain why I shouldn't "sell out" and what will make me regret going into industry.

When I read the question, I knew exactly what my answer would be:

what took you so long? It soulds like you're headed for a failure in 2010 similar to the one in 2007. You're not getting any younger and your kids are growing up poor. You're not quitting academia. It's rejected you and you're finally realizing that fact. Take the price signal and GO!

Vacation to Earth

Someday, most people will live in extra-terrestrial biodomes, space stations and ships. It will be considered a great luxury to get back to and spend even a few days on Earth, where you can walk around *outside*; see the sky; jump into a pond; etc. It's the only place we're perfectly adapted to.

Hello World

Until today, I hadn't ridden my bike in years (and hadn't been a big rider even back then). On an impulse, I filled the tires and rode in to work today. It's about 15 miles through Lexington, Arlington, Cambridge and Boston and it took about an hour. I don't even have a helmet. It turned out to be quite pleasant. We'll see how well I get home tonight and sore I am tomorrow.

It would be very nice if this could become a regular thing. I tried public transportation for a while. It was a long multi-phase trip (bus/subway/bus). Eventually it got to be too much. When I was stuck on the stalled T underground for 45 minutes and was, therefore, a half hour late to pick up my two small children from daycare and unable to call (because I was underground), I decided to start driving to work. The problem is that the drive is now taking at least 45 minutes, usually more. It can be as long as two hours when the weather is bad or when Boston's many many many construction delays clog my main, alternate, and alternate-alternate routes. This seems to be happening more and more often and I can't leave work 2 hours earlier everyday just in case. Did I mention that when you're late to school (they're in school now) they charge a dollar a minute per kid? 10 minutes late = $20. This is completely reasonable. If they didn't, parents would be late every day. The teachers have lives too. However, it's also not affordable. We're already paying $33k per year. It's not a fancy place. That's just how much it costs to have 2 kids in preschool. We've spent well over $100k to this point.

We don't eat out much and I drive a 15-year-old car that I bought on eBay. I'll be very happy when they start kindergarten. Public kindergarten will be like a 33 grand raise. What to do with all of that money ... how about paying off all of the debt we've gotten into trying to survive in Boston with 2 kids on a postdoc + medical resident salary? It's a generous postdoc, but it's turning out to be insufficient. I think Boston's a fantastic place to be either rich or childless, but if you're neither of those, there's no good reason to be here. We're both signed up for 3-year employment contracts and when they end (in a year and a half) I'll be more than ready to move either back to Madison (where we came here from) or some other place in the middle of the country.

So, why do we live in Lexington? We used to live in a two-family in Arlington. Unfortunately, (as almost everyone I know in the area who has small children has found out) families sharing a space with anyone but other families tends to result in serious and ongoing noise/lifestyle conflicts that almost never end well. It certainly wasn't going to end well in our case. A full description of what happened would require at least one full post in itself. See this NYTimes article for a good description of the general phenomenon.

We didn't want to move out unless we could close off the possibility of landing in the same (apparently all-to-common) situation, but you can't control who moves in around you. So we searched Craigslist for an affordable, non-fraudulent, cat-allowing, de-leaded (our kids don't eat paint, but it's the law around here), single family house to rent. What we found was a tiny house in Lexington. It's actually not much more money than we were paying in Arlington and it's got a gigantic yard.

So now, though Lexington has more history and character than typical post-WW2 Brady-Bunch land, we're in the suburbs and, of course, transportation is an issue. I haven't mentioned gas prices because I'm actually pro-high-gas-prices for the obvious reasons. I just have to figure out a way to fulfill my responsibilities to my family and my job within the confines of what we can afford in terms of housing and transportation. So, maybe riding my bike will work out. I don't think driving once in a while will be a problem, especially if I fold in a grocery-shopping trip on the way home. I can probably also work from home a day or two a week (assuming I'm productive).

Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about this morning. Speaking of being productive, I better get to it. Happy First-Blog-Post-Ever Day (in case anyone reads this).