Alex Speed

I had a sudden craving for the Roxy's grilled cheese truck. Those of you in Boston might know what I mean. It's funny, when I was a PhD student and post-doc, life seemed stressful, but I look back on the simplicity of those times (albeit with a lot more security) with fondness. Time flies.

Good night to everyone, except for the owner of the car alarm that keeps on going off.

Yeah, one is a slightly larger target for lightning than the other.

Screenshot from an article pointing out that the college cohort will contract in a couple of years, because of the baby bust tied to the 2008 recession..... wasn't 2008 only 7 years ago? ;)

I read that, and did a double-take. Now I feel old.....

flat-mates SAT on me in the dark at 3:00 in the morning! Hilarity ensued. (2/2)

Random memory from 19 years ago. I was flying out of Heathrow too early to commute from where my family lives. So I stayed with a friend from high school, who was living in London. They didn't tell their flatmates they had somebody staying (and sleeping on their couch), so some very drunk (1/n)

Let's just say I am wide awake and not going to sleep again after that.

Garbled powerpoint presentation showing "hypothesis for divergent reactivity in RCM", with several vertical black lines, and structures going off screen.

Had a dream I was in a stadium-sized seminar venue, going to give a 10-minute talk. Was at back of room when my talk was announced, could not find my laptop, and when I plugged my USB into the podium, it gave a garbled MAC to PC mess of the sort you have not seen since the early 2000s.

Seen on the apple website. Other than tricarbon octahydride, I'm glad they did not post chemical nonsense!

Weird thing, I live in a noisy area, and sleep with ear plugs in. If you've never met me, you might not realize I am a large guy. Yet I have tiny ear canals. It was life-changing for comfort and effectiveness to realize I could buy ear plugs for small ear canals. (Most free earplugs are not small).

Drought :(

Me: yes, hopefully autofill will fill in the e-mail address of the person I e-mail almost every day, when I type the first few letters.

Mail: "You're sure you don't want to send an e-mail to this person you e-mailed once, 7 years ago?"

NYT spelling bee rejecting the word amination.

No love for this commonly misspelled word. Chemists despair:

Merry go round with horses and benches, with wooden roller coaster in background. Benches are yellow with blue stars.

This must have been the summer it opened. Little me and my mum. I remember being terrified of the horses on the merry go round.

We lost the lens cap for our camera in the flume. I always found myself wondering if it was still in there on subsequent visits.

It was a charming place to go as a child, a little over an hour drive from where I grew up. I could dig up photos. But it's absolutely emblematic of our province to embark on big things without seemingly thinking them through, just because "people elsewhere do that, so should we".

YouTube video by Heitor Mello Eat your bugs, Picard

Funny, I was dining with some friends recently, and we started eating before everyone arrived. I said "we don't stand on ceremony here", and everyone at the table knew exactly what I was referring to:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HVi...

Suddenly a lot of experts around on Chronic Venous Insufficiency. I've had that for years, even had surgery for it!

Can somebody better-versed in punctuation than me explain why it's Hess's law, and not Hess' law?

Pink sunset low in sky over a forested lake.

Tent lit up at night surrounded by tall hemlock trees (a 3 minute exposure, I am not in the habit of taking a searchlight camping with me).

Selfie, illuminated by firelight.

Camping gear on a picnic table at Keji, with a coffee cup in the foreground.

Enjoyed my first trip to Frozen Ocean lake in a couple of years. Despite the damp weather, Kejimkujik National Park is always a first-class destination.

Yes, sorry that's a tough feeling. I think I moved 7 times in 9 years, and I often have "moving dreams" which I find unsettling.

One irritation I suppose itinerant folk will recognize is I had a bunch of stuff as an undergrad, including a vacuum cleaner, which I then gave away when I moved to the USA, then slowly bought stuff again, which I mostly gave away when I moved back to Canada. My 3rd vacuum is a Bissel. I like it.

Do you refrigerate tinned anchovies even when unopened? Along with lobster, they are the canned food I always find in the fridge in the grocery store. You probably threw out something that might have been considered a delicacy in some Nordic parts of the world. I like fish, but even I have limits. 😂

I bought some kippers, and noticed the best before date is in 2030. Time flies.

Yes, that's now the tallest building in Halifax, dethroning Fenwick tower after a 52 year reign! I could see it being built from a corner of Dal's campus, but it's definitely an eye-catcher if you're not expecting it, especially if they're still lighting it up at night.

I had not been down to the waterfront for a long time, and that was my reaction a couple of days ago....

NYT spelling bee rejecting the word LUTETIUM.

It accepts some elements, but not others:

Thanks, congrats to you too! It's been fun seeing all the July 1st promotions.

Get to cross out the "Associate" in front of my title today, now just "Professor". Thanks to all my students past and present for making this milestone possible!

Picture of the back end of a deer, busy eating somebody's shrubs in their yard.

Saw a strange dog in somebody's yard on my walk: