Waltz of the Snowflakes

It is snowing.

This is rather novel, since it hasn't happened in a few weeks. It has been snowing long enough that the trees are refrosted and the ground is solid white, which adumbrates sliding and sludge for a few days. I am instead focusing on the fact that it is currently relaxing and quite pretty. I downloaded Tchaikovzsky's Waltz of the Snowflakes, a great title and very playful piece that reminds one of the simple wonder snow can inspire. It would have fit well in the Nutcracker Suite.

Two weeks ago, I saw a quite different style of music, a band called The Base at a local club recommended by my buddy Guenter Krausz from Guger Technologies. The band name was enough to make me think for a while about whether it was clever before deciding it was not. Great band though.

Otherwise, my waking hours have approached pure work. I was completely overloaded a week ago, when it was quite unexpectedly suggested by Brussels that I lead a new grant application. Brussels, the European equivalent of DC, does not make such suggestions often or casually. I gave a talk on 9 March titled "Developing Grant Proposals" and said you should start at least 3 months ahead of time. I got The Call about 2 weeks before the deadline, which is 1 April. I doubt any fooling is involved. I would not get The Call unless such a quick proposal could be feasible, and I'm just the sort of person who can do it, both for better and worse. The other 2 senior postdocs in the lab lack the requisite writing skill, general BCI knowledge, or megalomania; they also each have families with new babies. I like them and my labmates. It is one of the best BCI labs in the world, and I have not worked for any such institution in about 5 years, when I worked for the Wolpaw lab. So it's not so much that I have nothing to say, it's just that I am saying it all in to my new grant proposal, plus 3 others I am working on, and my book for Springer, and several projects I'd love to talk about but not as much as I'd love to not have them stolen.

The govenator was in town a couple weeks ago and was spotted eating hot dogs in the main plaza. Ooooh. I wonder if he goes around with bodyguards. Who would have the temerity to guard that guy? To essentially consider himself the bigger man?

There's an old saying: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. I swap "nice" with "witty" and return to work.