Feed the monsters

I'm sitting and writing "Personal visions for career development" which is a compulsory part of a certain job application. I can't help but to think of the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin feeds garbage to the monsters under his bed to keep them quiet. In the Calvin and Hobbes book where Bill Watterson comments on some of the strips he says that this one is about his feeling that he is sending his editors crap just to keep the deadline. One gets a similar when trying to write some mumbo jumbo reagarding "personal visions".

I should state that I'm of course not trying to compare myself with the genius Watterson. Wonder what he is up to these days. Biking around in the woods probably...

Sucks to be me

Second and last skiing day of the season took place at Sunshine yesterday. Off at 6:30, cholesterol breakfast at Denny's (eggs, bacon, sausages and pancakes), a drive through London fog to Banff where the fog cleared and revealed a bright sun. People are tired of skiing a weekday this late in the season which means that there are no line-ups for the lifts. The snow got quite wet at the end of the day but that was compensated with a few cold beers in the sun. Sunshine is smaller than Lake Louise and has the disadvantage that one has to take a gondola up to reach the lifts. On the other hand it is half an hour closer to Calgary and this time it offered a much better wheather than Lake Louise did the last time. Traditional swim in hot springs and steak at Bumper's in Banff on the way home.

Back to the angstgrotte...

Followup

Today there was a departmental seminar with some guy from Ottawa who got his PhD like three years ago and already had his own group that were producing Science papers. The talk (Catalytic Carbon-Carbon Bond Formation without Activating Groups: A New Biaryl Synthesis) only rendered two marks on the bingo sheet; the two giveaways "You've no idea what's going on" and "Master's student bobs head fighting sleep". In other words a pretty good talk. It is not unusual that I have no clue what the speaker is going on about, especially if it is not physical chemistry. If it's chemistry chemistry I'm totally lost. Unfortunately I think most other people are lost too. Can it really be so hard to get people to speak at a lower level at a departmental seminar? Is it really that important to show off?

Will be tested on next seminar

Regarding the second frame on the fourth row it can be noted that I rarely ask questions at departmental seminars. The third frame on the fifth row is a giveaway though...

Spicing snaps

Since you can not get snaps or aquavit in Alberta I had to make my own for Easter. I tried two different kinds, both turned out fairly drinkable. The first one was about 350 ml vodka, the peel of one small lemon and a little less than one tablespoon of dill seeds. The spices where removed after 1.5 days. The snaps had a pretty strong taste of lemon so next time I will use less lemon and more dill. The second snaps was a bit more experimental but the goal was to get something similar to O.P. Andersson. Fresh fennel, aniseed, dill seeds, coriander seeds and some fresh coriander lay in ca 1 dl of vodka for 2 days. I also added some clove which I found in a cupboard. After one day I had to remove the clove since it dominated the taste too much. The outcome was pretty good, fennel and aniseed dominated with an aftertaste of clove. For next time, which probably will be midsummer, I'll skip the clove and add caraway.

It's April damn it

Alright, I know we can get snow any month here in Calgary but now I'm tired of snow and -5 ^oC. Bring on the spring!

Swedish football

The Swedish football league "Allsvenskan" is about to start. Another 6 months of anxeity, worrying, despair and maybe a tiny little bit of joy.

Here we go!