Diary of a Mad Scientist

Well I’m deeply excited about what’s next. In some ways, i’m right back where I left off back in August when I got too sick to function, but oh well, nothing I can do about it now. it’s a few lost months, and hopefully I won’t lose any more to this dreadful disease. I still don’t know for sure what I had (because I haven’t been able to afford testing), but it responds to babesia/malaria therapy, and presumably babesiosis infection or something else transmitted by a tick bite at the beginning of the summer.

I have to spend a few weeks in California, unfortunately-I’m not quite ready to really travel for that long, and I’ve gotten really thrashed by traveling for the last few jobs that I’ve done and classes that I have taught. But, it’s down to the wire on several things I have been putting off for seven months as a result of this illness, mainly the fact that I have to go back to California and finish moving. I’ve been paying rent on the studio/shop space for a year, not too much money back when I was working, but certainly a bad idea the moment. At some point, I’m going to have to load all that crap onto trailer and drive it cross country, but for the moment, I just go there for three weeks and get it out of the shop. I tried to put off that trip as long as I could.

On the other hand, I’m really, really excited about seeing friends while on the trip, and I’m even more excited about this being the beginning of a new phase. Again, I was supposed to start that new phase months ago - especially a dream job I got in August that I’m now just picking up again- but let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like being dysfunctional for months to make you really appreciate health, energy, and being able to do things.

I’m doing a research proposal dance with several consulting clients at the moment, and should be delving back into high-FFA oil research/esterification research this winter. On the trip to California, I am also picking up my GC, and shipping it back here. I can’t wait. I’ve been a little bit stuck here for lack of a good space to do wintertime R&D in- there’s nothing for rent around here that I can afford, and my shop space here is an unheated tractor shed. I’m having some funny ideas about picking up an old camper trailer-middle of winter, in the middle of a recession, should be a really good time to find a small camper for $500-and turning it into a small lab space and office. We’ll see what happens.