yay! more boxes!
They're on their way! Four boxes, containing volumes 1-29 of the proceedings of the Symposia of the Combustion Institute, are coming my way. Cool....
As I mentioned before, the Institute [http://www.combustioninstitute.org] is giving them away for the cost of shipping, which in my case is $213.67. (I find it sadly ironic that the cost is almost exactly the same as my last paycheck from pizza hell.) That's a lot better than their price used to be: their special price for the whole set for members was $2680 -- $4230 for earth people. [see http://www.combustioninstitute.org/documents/ProciPricing.pdf]
Why I'm interested in such esoterica.... Combustion chemistry is my research specialty, with a focus on pollutant formation in combustion.
I'm reminded of the movie Delirious, in which John Candy plays a screenwriter for a soap opera. The movie starts off with the screenwriter at home watching his show while waiting for the cable guy, who enters and says "I can't believe you watch this crap", to which John Candy replies, "I write this crap." I do have articles in volumes 25 and 28, which bought me tickets to Irvine and Edinburgh, respectively, to present them. Hopefully those days will return soon, when I return to writing such obscure and abstruse crap again, the kind that grad students will curse for years to come when they read it.
Yes, I say it is my research area. These days, I often need to remind myself that my career is not just in my past. I'm still working under the premise that I will return to working in my field. Otherwise, my world would suck a bit more deeply. I'm not saying that my life has no meaning apart from my favorite molecules and equations, just that I know that there's a reason I went to grad school. I thank Goddess that I was able to do some work, however modest, this winter. I'm still waiting to hear when they'll hire me for good.
I'd like to get to the point where I can actually start reading technical stuff again. Nowadays I'm still too easily diverted from smart critter stuff by either the tedious survival-type stuff that I wish I had servants to take care of (I swear I must have been an aristocrat in a previous life) or by various financial crises, or emotional ones, or by my various escapes. Seeking connection with friends online (such as by writing here on LJ and hoping that somebody actually reads it) seems to be a real need for me these days.
It'll be handy to have those books on hand. The symposia proceedings for a long time have been the single most difficult place to get published in the combustion community, so they'll be great reference works for me. The only libraries within 100 miles of me which have it (or any other combustion journals) are at Cal, Stanford, UC-Davis, and Sacramento State... of the libraries to which I have access, I mean. There are two great libraries here in Livermore, at the two Department of Energy labs (Lawrence Livermore and Sandia) to which I used to have access because I worked at Sandia. I currently don't have access to either place.
In any case, I have 160 pounds of reading material coming my way. I knew it (figuratively) was some heavy shit, but really....
My ever-practical gf asked me where I was going to put it all. This is of particular concern since I have about 20 other boxes of books, papers, etc. -- of 20 years' worth of alleged scholarship -- which are making their way from her garage back to my living room. I'm not sure where it'll all go, actually.
I guess the world's an imperfect place, even in the science biz. I just got an invoice for the shipment, which says that volumes 5 (from 1954) and 10 (1964) are not available, and therefore not being sent to me. *lol* Of course, now I wonder what's in them. I don't think I ever looked at them when I was active as a researcher, but there's still that thing about what I can't have being more interesting....
But it's still great that I'll have more smart critter reading material here.
Here's hoping that good news is on its way to you....
As I mentioned before, the Institute [http://www.combustioninstitute.org] is giving them away for the cost of shipping, which in my case is $213.67. (I find it sadly ironic that the cost is almost exactly the same as my last paycheck from pizza hell.) That's a lot better than their price used to be: their special price for the whole set for members was $2680 -- $4230 for earth people. [see http://www.combustioninstitute.org/documents/ProciPricing.pdf]
Why I'm interested in such esoterica.... Combustion chemistry is my research specialty, with a focus on pollutant formation in combustion.
I'm reminded of the movie Delirious, in which John Candy plays a screenwriter for a soap opera. The movie starts off with the screenwriter at home watching his show while waiting for the cable guy, who enters and says "I can't believe you watch this crap", to which John Candy replies, "I write this crap." I do have articles in volumes 25 and 28, which bought me tickets to Irvine and Edinburgh, respectively, to present them. Hopefully those days will return soon, when I return to writing such obscure and abstruse crap again, the kind that grad students will curse for years to come when they read it.
Yes, I say it is my research area. These days, I often need to remind myself that my career is not just in my past. I'm still working under the premise that I will return to working in my field. Otherwise, my world would suck a bit more deeply. I'm not saying that my life has no meaning apart from my favorite molecules and equations, just that I know that there's a reason I went to grad school. I thank Goddess that I was able to do some work, however modest, this winter. I'm still waiting to hear when they'll hire me for good.
I'd like to get to the point where I can actually start reading technical stuff again. Nowadays I'm still too easily diverted from smart critter stuff by either the tedious survival-type stuff that I wish I had servants to take care of (I swear I must have been an aristocrat in a previous life) or by various financial crises, or emotional ones, or by my various escapes. Seeking connection with friends online (such as by writing here on LJ and hoping that somebody actually reads it) seems to be a real need for me these days.
It'll be handy to have those books on hand. The symposia proceedings for a long time have been the single most difficult place to get published in the combustion community, so they'll be great reference works for me. The only libraries within 100 miles of me which have it (or any other combustion journals) are at Cal, Stanford, UC-Davis, and Sacramento State... of the libraries to which I have access, I mean. There are two great libraries here in Livermore, at the two Department of Energy labs (Lawrence Livermore and Sandia) to which I used to have access because I worked at Sandia. I currently don't have access to either place.
In any case, I have 160 pounds of reading material coming my way. I knew it (figuratively) was some heavy shit, but really....
My ever-practical gf asked me where I was going to put it all. This is of particular concern since I have about 20 other boxes of books, papers, etc. -- of 20 years' worth of alleged scholarship -- which are making their way from her garage back to my living room. I'm not sure where it'll all go, actually.
I guess the world's an imperfect place, even in the science biz. I just got an invoice for the shipment, which says that volumes 5 (from 1954) and 10 (1964) are not available, and therefore not being sent to me. *lol* Of course, now I wonder what's in them. I don't think I ever looked at them when I was active as a researcher, but there's still that thing about what I can't have being more interesting....
But it's still great that I'll have more smart critter reading material here.
Here's hoping that good news is on its way to you....