R&R

I'll be heading out to the lakehouse this weekend with RocketMom and the boys. My wife's family often gathers at her grandparents' lakehouse to celebrate national holidays, most prominently American Independence Day. Since no one lives there year round any more, it's pretty much free for us to stay on as we like. It's about two hours or so from us, and more like 20 minutes from most of the family. We'll spend the week there, down a dirt lane, alongside a small lake, surrounded by trees and frogs (and mosquitos).

The place has a lot of meaning for us. A couple years ago when we joined the family, from our remote residence in southern California, we made a decision that we'd be happier nearer family, with access to such a beautiful and peaceful refuge. Until then, we had an inkling that we'd be moving on, to start over with a house and a home, but we weren't really sure where.

During the past year since we moved here, we've been there a few times, relaxing, rejuvenating. Returning from there a year ago was when I first heard of my selection to receive a first stage contract to support my research. Yesterday, I got a call from one of the mid-level administrators at the agency that will be funding my second stage, apologizing for the delays, and indicating that they are doing everything they can to expedite my transitional funding, which she expects to be in place before the holiday.

This is such a different world that surrounds me from the one I knew just a year or two ago. But I'm not sure I've much changed, except in regaining my confidence. It's as if I've been dressed in black, first hidden by the darkness of night, then emerging from a background of red, and finally in full relief against the white. My raiment has remained unchanged, but my appearance has become transformed.

I'm looking forward to this week, and to what comes after.

What a change!

I got back from the lakehouse on Sunday evening. I spent a couple days fiddling with my budgets, and following up on possible office space (lease or buy?), as well as catching up on emails, and myriad miscellany.

It's at times overwhelming: A couple years ago, I was in Adjunct Servitude and spending half my income on a rented office space for a business that existed only within those four walls and my mind. I have often fretted over how lonely it is without the support of an academic institution or an employer, or even a team of coworkers.

It was nearly a year ago that things started to change. I was awarded a six-month contract (it lapsed about four months ago), worth about ten times what I made per semester as an adjunct! We had recently moved into our home, and I had setup shop in a home office, now cluttered with two large "L" desks on opposite corners, three computers (two desktops and a laptop), an overflowing filing cabinet, a couple printers, and a couple storage cabinets.

I've got an intern now. Last week, I received official notice that the second part of my initial contract had been funded, to provide transitional support while I go through the process of proposing and negotiating a two-year contract for continued research and development (worth 100 times what I made in a semester as an adjunct!).

I'm no longer quite alone (for now at least I have an intern). I expect to hire three post-docs in the fall or early 2010. What a change! And I'll be paying them more than two and a half times my annual salary as an adjunct (with health and retirement benefits, bonuses and raises, that make a former adjunct giddy)! It feels good to be on the verge of accomplishing that.

But there are so many details to attend to: the office space; the final proposal and contract negotiations; budgeting, payroll, and accounting; legal and patenting; ordering equipment and software and furniture and office supplies; Interviewing and hiring candidates; benefits administration.

And in the midst of it, my principal hard drive failed yesterday morning! Drive 0 not found. No bootfile. Aargh! I had made a backup of all my important business files (meaning the research and administrative materials) before heading to the lakehouse. I had a backup of the entire computer from October (yeah, I should do it weekly!). Mostly, I lost the last few months of pictures, and some household documents.

And... I lost the work I had done on budgetting and such from the first part of this week. Okay, a couple days to recover. It's frustrating, because I need to get that final proposal in soon! And the budget is significant, since it determines how many labor hours I have to spend on the project, and thus what I can reasonably promise in the plan of work.

But, these are minor annoyances. Truly, honestly, amazingly--I am thankful for where I am, for what I have. Today is a better day than yesterday, metaphorically and literally.

Almost in hand

My mom is visiting us for a week. We took her to the lakehouse for a couple days. I needed a break in any case from the waiting. We got home Wednesday afternoon. I went sailing (we came in third!). When I got back home in the evening, I was catching up on email and such.

There was a message in my inbox, from an unknown author. Subject: Proposal XXX-YYY-Z under topic... etc. I paused. Then I looked.

Dr. Dad,

Are you registered with the Central Contractor Registration service? If not, can you please register there.

Thanks,

Catherine Thomson
Contracts Specialist...

This morning, I took care of some of the necessary items (like opening a business checking account). I sent her a message describing the status of my progress toward registering, and included the inquiry: Does your involvement mean the proposal has been selected? Her response:

Yes the proposal has been selected. Once you are registered in the CCR, I can award you the contract, which should only take a few days.

I'd say, there's little ambiguity in that response. I'm... breathless. Five years has been a long time to wait. Now... this is just six months of funding (granted at about twice what I might have been making as a professor, including benefits, plus operating expenses and such). I'm thrilled. If all goes well (and there's little reason it shouldn't), the next six months, then another two years should be in the bag.

It's a foot in the door, a new door. One foot in/one foot out. I'm still here.

The Weight of Life

Heavy.

Tonight, I have an overwhelming sense of despair, a vague desire to just disappear, to suffer amnesia, to be someone else, satisfied with a simple life. But it's an inward feeling. The world has not shifted place since yesterday or this morning.

In fact, it's that simple stasis that I identify as my trigger. I wait ...

Perhaps it's all in my head. Not... not that waiting is not a condition of my present life. Just that focusing on that wait is something I alone can control. But I don't.

I wait to hear back from my agency project leader, regarding my second stage proposal (she's just back from three weeks on the road). That second stage contract is a BIG DEAL, the biggest deal of my life. It represents stability for a couple years, a good salary not only for me, but for three or four others. It represents the chance for me to take my ideas to the next stage, to practical applications. The chance to actually build a sustainable research-based business that I can be proud of. That's big.

It's not that I lack confidence that this will happen. It's just that I wait for it to happen. And, if it didn't I'd be okay. For me, the waiting is worst. It's like anticipating the collapse of a house of cards. Once it falls, you just pick them back up and start rebuilding. Picking up the pieces is fine... just waiting for them to fall drives me batty.

I wait to hear about whether I'll be interviewed for the research position across the seas. Apparently, their expectation of a hiring committee rendering a short list in a couple weeks was overly optimistic. Why do I even care about that post? (Because I want so much to feel that I have not been entirely banished from the world of academia, even if I'm not certain that is where I wish to be).

And I wait to hear the results of my other two recent proposals. I wait to receive job applications for the three positions I've recently advertised (well, sent around through my channels--I'll formally advertise them if need be).

I wait to hear back from the seller's agent on a few issues regarding the building I wish to purchase as office space for my company. Then, I suppose I'll wait for their response to my offer.

But... what am I really waiting for? Whose answers will change my life? Truth is, I have, right now, most of the things I have thought important in life: a wonderful wife, whom I am truly still in love with; three beautiful, delightful, charming, intelligent (and sometimes infuriating) boys, growing up in part under my tutelage; I'm a dad; I have a house, with a mortgage payment so laughably small in comparison to what we've paid in the past that I'd be hard-pressed to imagine it possible for us to lose; I've got savings in the bank, enough at least for us to consider remodeling our kitchen, and putting in a new paving-stone patio in the backyard.

Yeah, there is still some lingering bitterness and sorrow over leaving the Academy. I guess part of it is the unsettled nature of where I am. Being an entrepreneur isn't exactly a cake walk. It's quite often overwhelming, daunting. Much better feelings I admit than despair. I'll take the weight of life over the weight of dejection anytime; that doesn't make it any lighter.

Yes, this too shall pass. In the morning, a new day shall dawn. Friday I head to the lakehouse. Rocketmom and the boys are already there for the week. I'll spend the weekend there, and hopefully forget these worries for a couple days.