General Epistle: The Latest

I'm back in Pasadena and am doing well.

Last
week, I had an interview for a position in the Dept. of
Aeronautics &
Astronautics at Stanford Univ. Yes, it's getting to be that time when I leave the academic nest as it were and look for a job. I've decided I want to stay in academia. Academia is a very big place. (It's certainly not like being in Absentia.) As far as I know, Academia spans several continents and hundreds of cultures, but has no formal political center. I'm told the official language is English. (Esperanto, a neutral, international language, just isn't making a splash.) Some civil rights are respected, and I don't yet know what the Established Religion is. I will -- baring cataclysm - be
graduating in the near future, and therefore get to write applications and do interviews to become a more permanent citizen of Academia. It's actually quite fun. By the way, I'll find out more from Stanford in late May if they are still considering me -- there are seven candidates for the tenure-track professor position.

At the seminar I gave last week, I ran into Melahn, a friend who transferred from Caltech to Stanford. (By the way, "Dr. Shane Ross" will be giving a Physics & Astronomy seminar at Cal State LA next Thursday, May 1 -- the special May Day edition!)
We worked together on a space design project last year where the goal was to design a money-making, self-sustaining space colony. Then we pitched the idea to a couple representatives of a rich entrepreneur interested in space commercial development.

Well, we went to the Nuthouse in Palo Alto and had a grand time. This week, there may even be a party down here, in Pasadena, to celebrate, among other things, the existence of the Beastie Boys.

I also met briefly with Colin. We discussed business, politics, sex, and cartography over a few beers and Philly cheesesteaks. We hung out at Brian's apartment near Lake Merritt in Oakland and took tests -- I learned that I'm only 16% gay, but Colin thinks I was cheating, deliberately picking ungay answers. (He scored somewhere in the high 20s if I remember.) We took the "Are you gay?" test again, this time taking the female version, and deliberately tryied to score as high a gay score as possible, but only scored a little over 50% gay. What are lesbians thinking? We don't know the half of it!

Easter was spent with a gaggle of relatives in Oakhurst. The inaugural event was the Saturday "Easter Egg Hunt," as they say in this country. It took place in the "backyard" of my cousin Cory's place. Her daughter, Hannah, is 7, and son, Conner, is 5. Plus my cousin Willie has a daughter, Jaecie, who's 4. (All ages approximate and subject to change.) I found some eggs, but didn't tell anybody.

And now I'm wrestling with issues like strength, battles of pure prestige, Pharisees, engagement, duty, honor, and country.

But here's a thought that a recent blog by Slade made me think of...

How many terms for "steal" can you think of? Slade thought of hork. Some terms I've used are snake, gank, jake, abscond, hoik, nyoink, gaft, scoff, bogart, pilfer, swipe, filch, thieve, purloin, and heim.

(Snow is an important element of Eskimo culture. They have over thirty words for snow...)

Okay, get back to work, ya rapscallions!