365: CAUTION: Winter Has Arrived!!!

This is what "icy" looks like in Northern California. We had our first "hard frost" last night. Ange and I pulled up to campus and nearly laughed ourselves silly. The whole lawn is filled with caution tape. It looks like they forgot to turn off the sprinklers and the sprinkler water turned to a bit of frost. The ridiculousness of this is almost too much.

365: Beautiful Day

Today was another sunny and beautiful day in California. Even better was that I has two very good & productive meetings. I finally got all of the info I needed to turn in my third round of info needed for approval of my Africa trip this summer! Keep your fingers crossed peeps! I have students that are desperate to make the trip!

365: Perspective

It is mid-60s and sunny today. I probably wouldn't appreciate it as much if we hadn't just arrived from rainy, cold Indiana. Good way to start the new year!

365: Wow

We are leaving Indy tonight. Apparently NYE is not a popular night to fly! I don't think I've ever seen a departure board this empty here. Hopefully the flights home go off without a hitch! Goodbye all my lovelies! We'll miss you and see you next year!

365: Freshly Manicured

And no that's not an innuendo. Unless by innuendo you mean "IT SNOWED IN INDIANA TODAY AND ALL WE GOT WAS OUR CAMPUS LAWN MOWED AND TRIMMED?" Then yeah, maybe.

365: Blizzard

Five days of conference was more than enough for me. I couldn't wait to get home. Apparently Denver had a bit of a blizzard Wednesday morning. Luckily this is all I had to see of it. Our flight was delayed about 45 minutes but that was a small price to pay to get home to sunny CA!

365: Ughhhh

There is one downside to our lovely California life. We are not close to a major airport. Chico has an airport but you can only fly to San Francisco and the tickets are much more than what you'd pay if you flew direct from one of the other major airports. Also flying West to East limits your departure times to about 3 a day: leave early get there in the evening, leave around noon get there late, or red eye. Since I'm flying to DC and staying at a hotel, ass crack was the only real choice. So I got up at 2 AM to get to Sacramento for my 6:30 AM flight. Ick.

365: Skateboard Parking Only

Well that's not something you see everyday. And by "you" I mean the 98% of my friends that live outside of California. Cause we this shit all day everyday. I have students who regularly bring their skateboards to class. Oh California!

365: Homeless Chickens

Off Highway 99 in Yuba City there is a pack of homeless chickens that live in the grassy area beside the road. We always wonder what they are doing there. Who ever heard of urban homeless chickens?

365: This Rural

This is how far out we live from our far north town in very Northern California. So far that we have a mobile RV for a vet office. Luckily we "go to town" to see our vet. We don't have to go to the parking lot behind the trash bins at the country market.

365: Friday Afternoon on Campus

 

Some kids having an impromptu jam session in the plaza whilst two boys rock out with a hacky sack. Typical California day. 

Mountain Lion House

We finally made it! We got settled into our little canyon home this past week. It was a little rough getting out here, but totally worth it. We love our new place! 

Well except for the mountain lions (and bears a little bit too). And really, it's only me who's scared about the wildlife. Ange and the dogs are being all bad ass about it. I'm pretty chill during the day, but once the sun starts to drop I turn into a big chicken. 

I can't help it. I can be told all sorts of reassuring things, but I can't get over my fear of mountain lions attacking me or Ange or the dogs. I'm working on it, I really am! Hopefully with time it will get better. 

In the meantime I've devised a system that helps me to feel safer. Ange thinks it is ridiculous, but she isn't the one who is scared so poop on her. 

How to feel empowered and safe from mountain lion and bear attacks, also known as "The System"

1. Windows and doors must be opened to mountain lion proof sizes. Approximately 12 inches. We leave the windows and doors open in the evening. There are screens in them. When we go to sleep we leave only windows open. They can't be open wide enough that a mountain lion could tear through the screen and come in. And duh, I know they aren't stopped by screens, hence the 12 inch window. They aren't going to tear through a screen, slide the window up and then come attack us. They don't have compound thoughts. If they can't bust through they get confused and leave.

2. All perimeter lights must be turned on at dusk.

3. All doors must be locked at night while sleeping. (This also keeps away bears).

4. When proceeding to bed, there must be a path of lights from wherever I am until I get into the bedroom. E.g. if I need to go to the back of the house, then I turn on lights from the bedroom to the destination, and then as I come back I turn each one off as I go.

5. No trash outdoors. Especially composting. Attracts wildlife.

6. When taking the dogs outside anytime from dusk to dawn you must make a lot of noise. Talking loudly usually suffices, though I like to throw in some mountain lion humor to take the edge off, e.g. "Oh mountain lions! Get the hell out of here, dogs are coming out to pee!" 

We try our best to take the dogs out right before the sun goes down for a nice long potty & play break. That way, we only have to let them out for a quick potty break right before bed, therefore reducing the amount of time spent in prime mountain lion hunting time. 

Careful! Mountain lion is watching you!

How I Looked for a Job

As I mentioned previously, I often make decisions in random spastic ways, and this pattern has usually served me well and I alluded to the fact that my new job search was somewhat similar to the way I had chosen my undergraduate university.

All is ready to be revealed because I got a job offer and I accepted! Yay, yay, yay!

So one would think that with higher and higher levels of education you would you have more choices in the world available to you. That's kind of true in some ways, but not so much in others.

You see, there's only so many places that a person with a PhD can work. And the job openings for those people don't open up often. So when you go out to look for a job your choices are somewhat limited. You go where there are job offers and that often means you have to do a nationwide search. And that's what most PhD students do.

That's mostly what I did...but with some limits. I know that the economy is bad right now and just getting A job anywhere I can should be my goal. But in the words of one wise person, homie don't play that. I really cannot be expected to move just anywhere. Besides the fact that I am generally picky about my surroundings, I have actual real-life concerns like is my family going to be discriminated against or worse, hate crimed? Why in the world would I choose to move somewhere more backwards and conservative than Indiana? And while we're at it, why do I want to live anywhere uglier than Indiana and farther away from civilization?

So I needed a plan. And here it is:

Oh how I love MS Paint

Anywhere in the "Not Even" zone would be immediately passed over for consideration. Generally speaking, these are very conservative states where my family would be in danger and/or highly undesirable places to live anyway for a multitude of reasons (ratio of city to farmland, distance from the beach, plethora of Southern twang, etc.). Now I'm sure some cities in the zone are "just lovely," but frankly no amount of convincing on the part of a native is going to convince me I would want to live anywhere in the zone. So I didn't apply anywhere where jobs were listed in this area.

I heard from a lot of people that this was a fool-hardy decision; I shouldn't limit myself so much. Well guess what? I applied for 52 jobs outside of that zone. FIFTY TWO. That's a lot. I was sure I'd get SOMETHING.

And guess what?

I did. Suck it naysayers.

And not only did I get A job in the desirable zone, I got one of my top choices in my very top zone of ideal living.

I accepted a job at California State University-Chico on Monday. My heart is singing on the highest mountain-tops. Starting this fall I will be a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Chico State. I've never been so happy in my entire life. Once again, random strategies for world domination have worked in my favor. Go me!