fruit

My tangerine tree blossomed and there might even be a couple tiny little tangerines growing. It puts a big smile on my face.

I also got a one-year job at Southern Utah University. I will admit this university was not on my radar a year ago, or even 4 months ago. But I could not be happier. I have yet to hear a bad thing about Cedar City or the university. I am really excited that I get to teach consumer behavior.

fruitless, for now

When Deb and I bought our first home together, I ran out and bought a tangerine tree for our yard. That was five years ago, and it is yet to yield any fruit. It is in the sunniest part of our yard, and it has grown quickly. It seems to be thriving, but it bears no fruit. Two years ago there was one blossom. I got excited and tried to take a picture of it, but I hit the blossom with the camera and the blossom detached.

Whoops.

You might think that Florida is a great place to grow tangerines, but the truth is that Florida is too humid for citrus. (That is why Florida orange growers struggle with a number of diseases that California growers do not). My tangerine tree attracts white flies, who like the leaves. The white flies excrete a sugary substance on the leaves, and a black fungus grows on their excretion. The black fungus chokes the leaves and prevents photosynthesis. So for the past two years, I have cleaned the leaves individually, by hand and with a rag.

Cleaning fungus growing on insect crap isn't as fun as it sounds.

Anyway, during this year's leaf-cleaning, I thought about that tree as a metaphor for my job search. Lots of patience and effort, but nothing to show. At some point, I will land a great job and that tree will produce delicious tangerines. Maybe this is the year for both.

over her

I won't say that I ever liked Sarah Palin, but I thought that the attacks against her were unfair. I didn't think she was as bad as Joe Biden, who is a blunder machine. And some of the nastiness against her is due to the fact that she is an unrefined woman from rural America, which is the kind of person I tend to like. So I had some sympathy for her.

Not anymore. In fact, I can't stand her. In a lot of ways she's like Rush Limbaugh or Al Sharpton; people who value fame and recognition over solving problems. I think she'd rather get a lot of press than actually do some good. And her resignation as Governor was a joke.

She was unpolished and uninformed when she was a VP candidate. She had an excuse-- her only experience was as Governor of Alaska. What's her excuse now? She's had plenty of time to read books, reflect, and come up with thoughtful answers to America's problems. She hasn't done that because she'd rather snipe at Obama in front of a large television audience.


She is an embarrassment.

stop the slaughter!

What happened to the word mispronounce? Whenever anyone is afraid of mispronouncing someone's name, they say that they don't want to "slaughter" the name. Why "slaughter"? I guess it's supposed to be funny, or clever. It is neither.

some thoughts on dirt

I recently picked the last tomato from my garden for the season. This was a better year than last year for tomatoes. One reason is that this is the first year I used composted soil. I turned old leaves, grass clippings, and other unwanted things into dark, rich soil. Which then became beautiful fruits and vegetables in my garden.

Growing up, my father always had an active composting program. One year he asked me to cut down and mulch a large, nasty bush called a firethorn. It had extremely sharp thorns that were about 1 1/2 inches long. Even with protection over my arms and legs, I had minor cuts all over. But I eventually got the whole thing cut up, and I fed it through a shredder into the compost. With much satisfaction.

I checked on the compost and the mulched firethorn a few months later. The thorns were all still there, but they were getting softer. I checked back about a year later, and the firethorn was still identifiable, but the thorns weren't sharp at all. About 2 1/2 years after the initial composting, that awful bush was rich, organic soil. It was really satisfying.

That sold me on composting, both as a gardening practice and as a metaphor for life: Awful experiences can become tremendously beneficial, with effort, pain, and a lot of time.

two fewer things to complain about

A couple of months ago I asked a colleague/friend about the undergraduate students he advises. His response has stayed with me. He said "I fancy myself busy, and I find that I don't give them adequate time and attention".

This is one of the most productive people I have ever met. Yet he was unwilling to say that he IS busy, only that he "fancies himself busy." In addition to being extraordinarily productive, he is also deeply humble. To say that he IS busy would be to suggest that he is important, and that's not a sentiment he is comfortable with. Lately when I think about how busy I am, I remember his humble response. And I chill out a bit. Busyness is often not an unfortunate condition of life, but self-flattery.

He continued about his students: "I have found that if I make my expectations clear, they will rise to the occasion. Most of the time when they don't meet my expectations, it is because I have not made my expectations clear."

He's right about this too. I love to blame things on my research assistants, but the truth is that if I make expectations clear, they really do step up and do what they are asked. Often what I think of as their failings are really mine.

One brief conversation with this man and I find that I'm not really comfortable complaining about how busy I am or the mistakes my research assistants make.

statistics

An understanding of statistics is an absolutely essential part of science. Not only that, but being familiar with rigorous statistical testing actually makes people better thinkers. Research has shown that people familiar with stats are less prone to certain kinds of judgment errors.

Having said that, statistics is the most poorly taught subject of any I’m familiar with. Chiefly to blame is the fact that the worst writers on the planet write statistics books. If the lecture is too boring (and it will be) or hard to understand (and it might be), good luck getting it from the book. I think the reason the books suck is that stats teachers don’t write for an audience of students wanting to learn statistics. They write for fellow PhD statisticians. Which is why each technique is P A I N S T A K I N G L Y buttressed by theory, proofs, and derivations.

It seems like the writers of most stats books would rather be seen as extremely rigorous than extremely helpful.