Hi. Remember me?

Yeah, so it's obviously been a while since I posted anything on this blog. This time I'd have to say I had a good excuse, I was writing up a research proposal for job applications. See if you want to be a faculty member at a university and do research you need to show them that you know what to do. Go figure they won't just take your word for it. So for the last several weeks, since about the beginning of September actually, I've been buried in books and papers, trying to build up a research proposal that would actually seem good. I guess we'll find out in a few months how that worked out.

The greatest joy to all this is that since I got back from visiting Deirdre in Pittsburgh I really haven't had a day that I didn't go into the office/lab to work. Well there was that Saturday that I went for a cyclocross ride with a team member. We got so lost in the river bottom trails that we had to call her mom to come pick us up and drive us back. How sad, that was the first time I had to do that (other then for a broken chain) in all the years I biked...let's not talk about it again, I feel much shame.

So to return to my blogging ways, I feel it's high time I complain about something. This afternoon as I took the bus home I was treated to the most horrendous sounds imaginable. No it wasn't a child crying, ok so I may have exaggerated a little, this certain comes a close second. It was a gaggle (as there could be no better term) of ~18 year old girls. Now, I understand that the bus can be loud. It's pretty much a given, particularly if you are near the engine at the back. But if your friend is sitting across the aisle from you and I'm sitting 10-15 feet closer to the engine, my ears should not be bleeding due to the tone and volume of your voice. And to the girl sitting next to me, do your friends a favour and save yourself some money, you don't need the cell phone, you're loud enough that they can hear you from here!

You know, maybe I should study this phenomena. After all there has been research done into what sounds will drive away teens. Maybe I could market a device for teens that would emit a sound that drives away adults? Hey, it may not be worth much but I might at least get an Ig Nobel. Though maybe that award should go to the guy who thought of using that sound as the ring tone for teens cellphones...if only we could teach them to talk at that frequency...