Not a good year for me. I'm taking some specific steps to try to make 2010 better.

To everyone here, Merry Christmas and best wishes for a Happy New Year.

In the final follow-up emails involved with fixing my Internet service, I asked for, and was provided with, specific references to usage caps and usage monitoring.

I have to say, with the addition of email and twitter support channels, their customer service has improved by leaps and bounds in the past three years I've been a customer.

I saw 2012 last week. If you like explosions, crashes (car/plane/boat/motorcycle/helicopter/whatever), earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, destruction, screaming, people bursting into flames/being crushed/falling off high cliffs/drowned, as well as massive coincidences and turgid pontification on what it means to be human, you'll like this movie.

If you like plotting above second grade or believable characters, don't bother.

Reviewer #1: The author didn't even provide any sense of how this might be taking place. Mechanism?

My response:

A possible mechanism for the reduction in sensitivity to irradiation may be related to the shift in bacterial physiology associated with the biofilm phenotype (Costerton, 2004). It has long been known that actively dividing cells in log phase are more sensitive to DNA damage during irradiation, while quiescent cells, as in lag phase, are less susceptible (WHO, 1994). In this context, cells within a maturing biofilm may progressively exhibit phenotypic traits which would impact the antimicrobial efficacy of irradiation, such as increased efficiency of DNA repair mechanisms. Alternatively, the dense EPS-like material surrounding the bacterial cells may act as a quenching agent, neutralizing the hydroxyl radicals produced during irradiation before they can damage the bacterial cell membranes. Increasing density of the EPS-like material may provide increasing levels of protection to cells suspended therein. However, while these putative mechanisms provide a basis for future research, it must be acknowledged that the data from the present study does not provide the biochemical analysis necessary to validate them.

Take that, sonny boy.

I happened across Pixdaus while following someone's friendfeed, and I subscribed to its RSS feed.

It's a fast, fast RSS feed, and it's difficult to keep up with. However, I've been trying...A lot of what I've been seeing in it has been giving me genuine inspiration for settings, encounters, props and even campaigns for D&D. That, along with a blog post I recently read where the DM's roleplaying the giggling of some minor monstors got her players greatly and emotionally engaged in the combat. Roleplaying monster sounds? Why didn't I think of that? That could give me something about the combat side of things that I could enjoy.

It's sparked my interest in DMing again, and I'm slowly assembling a campaign in my mind. The next step is finding players and a suitable environment; GrandLAN, for its rich perpetual presence of players, was normally too noisy or cramped for comfortable play. I'm tempted to do hold it in my basement, where I can use my TV and sound system for still imagery and auditory props, but then I've got to worry about who can make it and when.

I still think that a "regularly scheduled" game is a bad approach. You can either count on a schedule, or you can count on the presence of players. Not both. Also, having variable time between games offers more opportunity to prepare and ensure an enjoyable session. I don't have a need to kill time; Like anybody else, I have precious little of that already. I have a desire to enjoy the game.

Aside from my boss, no one has said anything to me about the possibility of taking over the administrative position in charge of this group. I know he met with his boss on Monday to discuss the matter of succession and continuity. As he didn't call me up to give me any "good news", I conclude that he wasn't told who it was going to be, but that he is still holding out some hope that it will be me.

Since no one else asked me to come down to one of the big corner offices for a nice little chat, I'm going to conclude that I'm not going to be tapped for this. There's a unit-wide meeting today at 2:00 to discuss succession. If my boss knew for certain that it wasn't going to be me, if he'd been given a name, I think he would tip me off beforehand, rather than spring it on me at this meeting.

Honestly, I would regard this with more relief than my boss might expect, were it not for the problems related to who might get it instead. Shadow Wrought asked about the shelf-life (or half-life) of any of the decision makers. They are all fairly new in their positions, so I would have to regard them as functionally permanent. I can only hope that whoever they get for the interim will be a reasonable person. Unfortunately, my fear is that they are going to have this guy do it. My boss approved his participation in a months-long leadership development course, in hopes that he would learn how not to be a condescending prick.

I didn't, and don't, have high hopes for the efficacy of the process.

However, having been freshly dipped in a tank of standard-issue leadership, he might appear to be a good choice. Or would appear so to anyone who doesn't know him.

*sigh* I re-read this and it all sounds like I'm saying, "Everyone here is a venal, incompetent jerk except me!", which is, of course, the surest sign that the real problem child is the narrator, i.e. me.

I truly don't believe that, but if I were the psychopath, I wouldn't be able to tell, would I?

UPDATE: Actually not much of an update. At meeting, boss thanked everyone, said how great it has been here, how much he'll miss all of us and how excited he is at the new job that awaits. He said that he'd given his input as to his replacement, but that this was beyond his authority to decide. It's the dog that didn't bark, IMHO.

My boss got word that he got the job he applied for. It's the next rung up the ladder, and it's in San Francisco.

He thinks I would be a good person to move up and replace him here, in an Acting capacity. His position is the nominally same position I had last year, only with the reasonably normal group I work with now, instead of the lunatic bunch of villainous bastards I was trying to contain back then.

My boss thinks I would be great in the job. So does my wife, my mother-in-law, some of my peers and some of the people I supervise.

My boss' boss does not share his opinion. She has a decidedly negative view of me, for reasons that are not at all clear to my boss, since I've had very little direct interaction with her. I know why. I told him why. It's because she is good buddies with the lying sociopaths in that looney bin; from Day One, she welcomed the poison they dripped in her ear as the soundest and soberest of council. Whatever they've been saying about me, it's sure to be unhinged and vicious, because that's just how they roll over there.

Her boss, OTOH, apparently continues to think rather highly of my abilities.

What do I think of this development? Good question. Do I want this job? My immediate reaction is SHIT, NO!

However, is that a reasonable position to adhere to?

I am willing to concede that my experience of being drowned in the shitpile was atypical of the kind of thing that this position usually has to deal with.

I'm further willing to recognize that, prior to having been so badly burned, I was recognized for my ability to lead and inspire people. I still am, despite having been depressively licking my wounds in my office for a year.

The question is, do I still have any interest in administrative positions in this organization? As I have come to understand, the position has lots of responsibility, but not as much authority or power as I had previously believed.

How much job satisfaction would I have in this job? To what extent would it prevent me from getting satisfaction in other areas of my life?

If I'm offered the position on an acting basis, I've more or less decided that I'll accept it. I want to have some experience being at the head of a normal group. Based on that, I can make a more informed decision about applying (or not) for the permanent job.

If I'm not offered the acting position, then I'll know that the politics were too much against me, and it's just as well I'm not a part of it.

For lunch today, I went to an authentic local place with some colleagues from a research center here in Beijing. It would appear that the hotel and conference food has been somewhat adapted to Western tastes. In a real Chinese hot pot lunch, the three of us had:

Beef stomach
Bone marrow
Blood tofu (thick-cut slices from a block of coagulated duck's blood)
White tofu
Frozen tofu
Clear tofu
Tubers
Lamb
Beef
Spinach, lettuce, cabbage
Potato starch noodles
Vegetable dumplings (fried)

All of the above (except the dumplings) were boiled for varying lengths of time in either !!SPICY!! pepper water or in mushroom soy
water, then dipped in a mushroom-peanut sauce.

The beef stomach was quite unpleasant, and there was way too much of it on the serving platter. All of the rest, even the coagulated duck's blood, was quite tasty.

To drink, I decided to turn down the corn juice and went with watermelon juice and a beer.

My host mentioned the fermented chicken feet as something I might like to try. Maybe next trip.

It's almost noon here in Beijing, almost midnight in my pituitary gland. In 10 minutes I go for lunch with one of the scientists here, so I can be introduced to some of her colleagues and students.

I've had precious little sleep since Sunday, 3-4 hours a night tops. I get to bed around 11 after dinners and evening meetings, then wake up irretrievably at 3 or 3:30. I'm dog tired. Having to be "on" the whole time is quite wearying, too. Extroverts love this stuff; introverts are drained by it.

Some alone time is what I'd like to have. Maybe a nice long walk over to that shopping district I saw from the cab.

A side note: the Great Firewall is no joke. Blogs, news sites, video feeds, anything with images - blocked almost entirely on my hotel internal hookup. My Blackberry Global still gets it all, though, but that's because I have a U.S. account with Verizon.

PowerPoint for Beijing - just finished, locked and loaded.
Tickets for Beijing - pretty much confirmed, I hope.
Hotel in Beijing - almost entirely certain the reservations are OK.
Meeting requested by U.S. Embassy in Beijing - scheduled, name added to the security checklist.
Map of Beijing, emergency phrase book - Barnes and Nobled.

PowerPoint for Washington D.C. - not even started yet.

I fly back home late on Oct 17, sleep and celebrate my son's 11th birthday on the 18th, then drive down to D.C. to give a talk at a meeting on the 19th. I'm not going to have time to do the presentation after I get back, so I need to do it before.

And to do that, I need to switch mental gears.

And to do THAT... I need another cup of coffee.

Man, I'm tired.

Wow.

Capt. Splendid always cavils at my attempts to bring fresh leadership and even-handed tolerance to the present controversy. ... said the Anonymous Coward.

Nice use of "cavils", though.

... when I really should be working.

It's funny - I'm going to Beijing next Sunday, traveling alone halfway around the world to spend a week in a country I've never visited before, where I don't speak the language or know any of the customs. I'm not quite entirely certain that my airline tickets are all in place, I haven't even started working on my keynote address yet, haven't put together the talk I've got to give down in D.C. the Monday after I get back, am desperately behind on a hundred different projects at work and at home.

And what am I thinking about?

Which jacket to take.

As my lovely wife pointed out to me, today is a red letter day. Today is the one year anniversary of my last day in the pit.

I tried to support the good, reassure the wavering, hold accountable the marginal and contain the cancerous. I got my nose broken for my efforts, and I paid a high price in self-confidence and emotional stability, but I stood up to the bullies while I was there. When my boss' boss' boss tried to strong arm me into staying longer, I saw that it was to no purpose, so I stood up to him, too.

I blame myself for having had too high an opinion of myself as I took on the job. Even though my boss' boss' boss arranged things so that I couldn't say no to the assignment, I could have done things differently had I brought more humility and empathy to the task. Things still would have gone into the crapper, but I might not have been so shattered by it all.

I blame my boss' boss' boss for misunderstanding the situation in the first place, for designing and implementing his response to it so ham-handedly, for misleading me about what I would find when I got into the job, and for overstating how much support I could expect as I tried to make changes. He should have known that such a viper's nest of vicious old assassins was no place for a rookie, however bright eyed and eloquent.

Most of all, I blame the people in that unit. They are clannish, insular, inbred and twisted monsters, and I pray for the strength to forgive them and to pity them as much as I hate them. They would rather suffer, kill and die in a cesspool of their own making, would rather fight over the right to be king of their private shitpile than allow themselves to be led out of the darkness by someone not their own.

So, I lift my glass of pleasantly toxic amber liquid. Here's to having survived the experience, and to the progress I've made in moving from survival to recovery. I have a way to go, but I'm working on it.

Prost.

Here I am feeling like a half-baked schlub, looking back over my own personal annus horribilus, when I get a phone call from a business acquaintance. He's started a new company that's going to commercialize what I've been researching, and did I have a few minutes to talk?

"You can't go anywhere in the literature in this field without your name popping up. Do you mind if I put you on speakerphone?" We chatted, I answered a few questions, provided a little info. Then he asked, "So, what's your availability for consulting work? This conversation has been incredibly helpful."

I still feel wretched about my annual performance review, but it would be a committedly disconsolate man whose spirits were not lifted by such a conversation.

Being clinically depressed for 8 or 9 months is never good for your annual performance review.

As I always do, I went back over the year's appointments to remind myself what I accomplished. Again and again, I came across entries for phone calls, meetings, teleconferences, etc. for dealing with all of the lingering bullshit from my time in administrative hell. I'd thought my capacity for anger had been burned out, but I got mad all over again.

Write a deposition for this baseless EEO complaint, explain what I didn't do for that grievance, respond to this bullshit charge, provide documents to refute that set of false accusations....

None of which mean anything as an accomplishment for the year.

Every one of these blew at least a day or more, not only for the time they took, but since they upset me so much that I couldn't focus on anything. Between the Thursday when the lawyer calls to set up a time for an interview and the subsequent Tuesday when the interview took place, I was a basket case. Useless.

When I wasn't able to suppress the red haze of rage, I didn't go anywhere or do anything, for fear of doing or saying something that would do lasting damage to my career. When I could swallow the bile, I forced myself to pretend to be polite when necessary. I did precious little in the way of new experiments, made practically zero in the way of new discoveries. Which is what I'm paid for.

What I did for most of the year was hide in my office and write.

I wrote book chapters, technical review articles, abstracts, press releases, job applications, award nominations, edited articles for a bunch of journals, finished a textbook, prepared plenty of presentations (then put on my game face with the charming smile and gave them), etc., etc.

When I'm writing, no one tries to talk to me.

Writing is quiet and calm and soothing. Writing is a cool stream of words flowing from my hands, drawing the heat from and smoothing the edges of the razor sharp, sizzling hot rocks stabbing up from below the streambed.

Writing is something I know I can do.

Writing is solitary.

Writing means I only have to rely on me.

Unfortunately, "I wrote a lot of things while I was licking my wounds" doesn't really cut it as an excuse.

Not a good year.