FWIS3

Swift wrote:My childhood team was the NY Mets and I still have a soft spot in my heart for them. Luckily they rarely play the Indians (I've lived here since 1987, so I feel no hesitation about being an Indians fan). Once in a great while someone will ask me "Who will you root for when the Indians play the Mets in the World Series". I usually just look at them like they just asked me how I'm dealing with the unicorn invasion (which I consider has an equal probability).

Hilarious, but I think that may be where Pumpkinpi's OP comes from. Some people are sports fans for years, many sad losing years. I've been a Bills' fan since I was old enough to say the word "Bills." Then they made 4 super bowls in a row and I was looking at all these people now rooting for them thinking, "who the f*$& are these people?" Same with the Mets. I remember my Dad taking me to Shea. Later surprised that some "Met's fans" didn't know that Tom Seaver pitched for them. What? I can just imagine what happens when the Cubs go to the World Series. People will come out of the wood work. And the guy at the bottling plant on the West side of Chicago, that comes home every night with a 6er and a bag of chips to watch the Cubbies for 20 years will be looking at me and saying, who the F(*% are you?"

Really missing my husband. I can't be with him while he's renovating the boat, because I have to drive my mom to her treatments every day. It's not the worst problem a person can have, but I feel like bitching about it, so here I am. Can't wait to see him on Friday.

SciFi Chick wrote:Really missing my husband. I can't be with him while he's renovating the boat, because I have to drive my mom to her treatments every day. It's not the worst problem a person can have, but I feel like bitching about it, so here I am. Can't wait to see him on Friday.

Feel free to bitch. It's your right.

SciFi Chick wrote:Really missing my husband. I can't be with him while he's renovating the boat, because I have to drive my mom to her treatments every day. It's not the worst problem a person can have, but I feel like bitching about it, so here I am. Can't wait to see him on Friday.

Tell him we say hi! Miss having him around.

Yeah, tell that Aussie/Croatian Ape, that SOMEONE (not me) around here misses him

Sigma_Orionis wrote:Yeah, tell that Aussie/Croatian Ape, that SOMEONE (not me) around here misses him

oh right. not you. would you like to buy a bridge in ny?

Does it have a nice view of Manhattan?

Minor rant: I am obviously really happy that the one postdoc wants to help me, but holy fuck we are never doing a paper again. The man is just such a perfectionist, and so nitpicky, that he was literally saying about one line in the paper "I think this should be 'across' instead of 'through' because of XYZ reasons, do you agree?" Repeat for two hours, because this is someone who also doesn't seem to have a sense of time.

Then of course I don't give a fuck, I'd rather take my chances with the reviewer and go from there, but he can't have that. But of course I also can't not care, because it's my paper and he's technically making it better. Ugh.

Rommie wrote:Minor rant: I am obviously really happy that the one postdoc wants to help me, but holy fuck we are never doing a paper again. The man is just such a perfectionist, and so nitpicky, that he was literally saying about one line in the paper "I think this should be 'across' instead of 'through' because of XYZ reasons, do you agree?" Repeat for two hours, because this is someone who also doesn't seem to have a sense of time.

Then of course I don't give a fuck, I'd rather take my chances with the reviewer and go from there, but he can't have that. But of course I also can't not care, because it's my paper and he's technically making it better. Ugh.

Been there, been frustrated by that. Reviews who help improve your paper (or in my case, calculations) are welcome. But endlessly parsing and imposing their own preferences is most definitely not.

geonuc wrote:

Rommie wrote:Minor rant: I am obviously really happy that the one postdoc wants to help me, but holy fuck we are never doing a paper again. The man is just such a perfectionist, and so nitpicky, that he was literally saying about one line in the paper "I think this should be 'across' instead of 'through' because of XYZ reasons, do you agree?" Repeat for two hours, because this is someone who also doesn't seem to have a sense of time.

Then of course I don't give a fuck, I'd rather take my chances with the reviewer and go from there, but he can't have that. But of course I also can't not care, because it's my paper and he's technically making it better. Ugh.

Been there, been frustrated by that. Reviews who help improve your paper (or in my case, calculations) are welcome. But endlessly parsing and imposing their own preferences is most definitely not.

I had one VP at a company I worked for, where I would write some little memo about some project or experiment I did - this was just an internal communication to document stuff for future generations, who would put the copy I gave him back in my mailbox (this was in the days of paper distributions) with "corrections" on it. And the corrections weren't about technical points, they were stuff like "across" versus "through". And most of the time, his grammatical "corrections" were actually wrong.

But the funny thing was, what did he think I was going to do, make the "corrections" and redistribute the memo; a memo that none of these people actually read? All I ever did with his corrections was toss them in trash.

Swift wrote:...
But the funny thing was, what did he think I was going to do, make the "corrections" and redistribute the memo; a memo that none of these people actually read? ...

what a question, swift. of course he thought that you'd correct and redistribute your memo.

Rommie wrote: ... "do you agree?" Repeat for two hours, because this is someone who also doesn't seem to have a sense of time.

close encounters of the idiotic kind.

of course you agree. also take notes for your book that blows the lid off astronomy graduate programs and try very hard to have him send you his suggestions in writing rather than having meetings in person.

be sure to take a deep breath before reacting when the next round has him changing a suggestion or 2 back to your original.

Sigma_Orionis wrote:Does it have a nice view of Manhattan?

of course.

Rommie wrote:Minor rant: I am obviously really happy that the one postdoc wants to help me, but holy fuck we are never doing a paper again. The man is just such a perfectionist, and so nitpicky, that he was literally saying about one line in the paper "I think this should be 'across' instead of 'through' because of XYZ reasons, do you agree?" Repeat for two hours, because this is someone who also doesn't seem to have a sense of time.

Then of course I don't give a fuck, I'd rather take my chances with the reviewer and go from there, but he can't have that. But of course I also can't not care, because it's my paper and he's technically making it better. Ugh.

See, this kind of thing is FANTASTIC when writing a fiction script, book or play. You want to be particularly picky about dialog and making sure characters sound like themselves. But in an academic paper? Who gives a fuck? If it communicates the point you want to communicate, you're done.

You have my utmost sympathy.

P.S. - Proofreading and clarifying are talents that I'm actually really good at. Everyone I've ever done it for has been grateful, rather than annoyed. I didn't realize it was a big deal until just now.

SciFi Chick wrote:

Rommie wrote:Minor rant: I am obviously really happy that the one postdoc wants to help me, but holy fuck we are never doing a paper again. The man is just such a perfectionist, and so nitpicky, that he was literally saying about one line in the paper "I think this should be 'across' instead of 'through' because of XYZ reasons, do you agree?" Repeat for two hours, because this is someone who also doesn't seem to have a sense of time.

Then of course I don't give a fuck, I'd rather take my chances with the reviewer and go from there, but he can't have that. But of course I also can't not care, because it's my paper and he's technically making it better. Ugh.

See, this kind of thing is FANTASTIC when writing a fiction script, book or play. You want to be particularly picky about dialog and making sure characters sound like themselves. But in an academic paper? Who gives a fuck? If it communicates the point you want to communicate, you're done.

You have my utmost sympathy.

Yes, and this is where we disagree. He genuinely believes that these corrections are needed, because if they're not in there then the referee will hold up the entire paper, etc. I can't say I'm an expert, but I will say that when he wants a level of detail that doesn't exist in a paper we're referencing, for example (like, the one describing the original algorithm we are implementing), I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest we may be getting too detailed. And yes, also have a hard time believing anyone is seriously going to be reading this thing in such insane detail.

cm, the funny thing is he's actually supposed to be sending all comments via email at this fraught stage of proceedings, and knows that. He just doesn't, and I don't want to alienate him.

Very light. I've had issues with cars the last year or so. My beloved commuter ('02 Honda CR-V) took a big dump last summer. Had warning that it was coming, didn't want to believe it. Yes, it had 255K but it should have gotten 300K. Had to press the '94 GMC truck into commuter service. It's in great shape, but most of the parts were still from '94. And they started failing in the face of daily 60-80 mile/day service. Thousands of dollars last year. Thought we finally got ahead of it. My biggest problems recently were wipers that only wanted to work when they felt like it, and back up lights that did the same. Of course both worked when I took them to the shop for diagnosis. I only need the back up lights when I'm backing down my long dark driveway. When they don't work, I tap the brake pedal and the brake lights will help me see back down the drive. Went to do that last night and the brake lights didn't seem to work; none of them. But all other lights were functioning. It was very late, little time for diagnosis and certainly not time to fix. Took apart the CHMSL (center brake light) since it was easier than removing tail/turn/brake light fixtures. My CHMSL has both white cargo lamps and red brake lamps. The cargos were working fine, the brakes were not. Swapped bulbs and the results were the same. So I'm assuming all my bulbs are fine, especially since the turn signals work and they use the same combination bulb element as the brake lights. I'm guessing it's the switch attached to the brake pedal. Took a peek at it and it doesn't look like much fun to remove/replace. Gonna try to educate myself on Youtube today as well as locate the parts. If it would have been earlier in the week, I might have just scheduled an appt with my shop. But I probably won't be able to do that until Tuesday or so and I don't want to go that long without brake lights.

I miss the day when I had two cars, so I could have one down and work on it while using the other. In other news, Mrs. T's car is probably going to do something expensive here soon. It puked tranny fluid once and was making a strange noise. Mechanics couldn't see anything wrong. The bleeding was one time only, but the noise is getting more prominent. Hopefully (I guess) it will be loud and bad enough, that the mechanics will be able to diagnose it when I take it in soon. It's a CVT (continuously variable transmission) which I never would have gotten had I had a say in the purchase. But I'm sure the one stuck with it.

Sometimes I have fun taking care of cars. Other times, not so much. One possible bright side, rather that getting strapped by car payments for a while, I may be buying my sister's '06 Civic outright with the cash I was able to get when we unloaded the CR-V. She's looking to upgrade soon. Real soon, I hope.

Having a backup car is great. Our 98 Pathfinder, which normally is pressed into service only for road trips, sits out front waiting for the call. I always have to charge up the battery first, though.

geonuc wrote:Having a backup car is great. Our 98 Pathfinder, which normally is pressed into service only for road trips, sits out front waiting for the call. I always have to charge up the battery first, though.

You are doing poor PMCS. You should start it and take it for a drive at least once a week. It's actually much harder on vehicles to sit for prolonged periods of time without being ran. I don't think it is as much of an issue as it used to be in the decades when I learned about this stuff. But, it is still a good idea in order to keep seals from drying out, your battery from being ruined, and etc.

SciFiFisher wrote:

geonuc wrote:Having a backup car is great. Our 98 Pathfinder, which normally is pressed into service only for road trips, sits out front waiting for the call. I always have to charge up the battery first, though.

You are doing poor PMCS. You should start it and take it for a drive at least once a week. It's actually much harder on vehicles to sit for prolonged periods of time without being ran. I don't think it is as much of an issue as it used to be in the decades when I learned about this stuff. But, it is still a good idea in order to keep seals from drying out, your battery from being ruined, and etc.

I try to exercise it every two weeks. The battery is on it's last legs and will be replaced before the next road trip.

Yeah, that's good practice. I use These on many of my batteries that sit for long periods of time. It keeps them at full charge without overcharging or cooking them. I've got both 6 and 12 volt models in service. I keep my mower on one virtually all the time even though I use it weekly because it's a diesel motor and is fairly hard on batteries. The one I keep on my generator is priceless. Started after 2 months sitting when it was -5F and we had an outage.

I would keep the Pathfinder battery on a trickle charger like that but it sits on the street and I don't want to wrestle the battery in and out every time I use it. I just keep a battery charger handy - the engine will actually turn over almost immediately once I connect it even when the battery is dead (but not too dead). Once I replace the battery, it shouldn't be an issue.

But I do have a spare battery out of the Toyota. Maybe I should buy one of those for it?

Having no second car sucks. I feel for you Thumper.

geonuc wrote:

SciFiFisher wrote:

geonuc wrote:Having a backup car is great. Our 98 Pathfinder, which normally is pressed into service only for road trips, sits out front waiting for the call. I always have to charge up the battery first, though.

You are doing poor PMCS. You should start it and take it for a drive at least once a week. It's actually much harder on vehicles to sit for prolonged periods of time without being ran. I don't think it is as much of an issue as it used to be in the decades when I learned about this stuff. But, it is still a good idea in order to keep seals from drying out, your battery from being ruined, and etc.

I try to exercise it every two weeks. The battery is on it's last legs and will be replaced before the next road trip.

I re-read my post. I was trying to sound snarky and good humored. In retrospect it looks like I was being too critical. My former Staff Sergeant was showing. I hope you don't think I was treating you like a private on extra duty. However, if you chose to "hear it" as snarky and good humored carry on. If not, please accept my apology for sounding as if I was treating you like a private.

SciFiFisher wrote:

geonuc wrote:

SciFiFisher wrote:

geonuc wrote:Having a backup car is great. Our 98 Pathfinder, which normally is pressed into service only for road trips, sits out front waiting for the call. I always have to charge up the battery first, though.

You are doing poor PMCS. You should start it and take it for a drive at least once a week. It's actually much harder on vehicles to sit for prolonged periods of time without being ran. I don't think it is as much of an issue as it used to be in the decades when I learned about this stuff. But, it is still a good idea in order to keep seals from drying out, your battery from being ruined, and etc.

I try to exercise it every two weeks. The battery is on it's last legs and will be replaced before the next road trip.

I re-read my post. I was trying to sound snarky and good humored. In retrospect it looks like I was being too critical. My former Staff Sergeant was showing. I hope you don't think I was treating you like a private on extra duty. However, if you chose to "hear it" as snarky and good humored carry on. If not, please accept my apology for sounding as if I was treating you like a private.

I admit I tried to find the snark and humor and failed, so I was going to post my resume with respect to auto mechanics, batteries and mechanical seals. I refrained because I realized you probably didn't mean it the way it came out.

We're cool, Sarge.