Hiatus

Well, I guess many of us saw it coming sooner or later. After some 380 posts and coming on to two years of blogging, i've decided that i'm going to have to put the site on temporary hiatus. Its not that i don't have the subject matter to talk about - indeed, plenty of things in recent weeks have been worthy of discussion here. It's more just the fact that i simply don't have the time or energy to order my thoughts long enough to compose a post. Work is pretty hectic, as usual, but i find with the gym and other commitments, that by the time I do have a few minutes to spare, my brain just wants to sit and read, or relax and generally just watch the world go by.

Rest assured, this is not the end. The show is definitely not over, but there will be a short intermission.

Keep watching the skies!!!

Death Wishes

At the moment, for me, it seems to be something of a common occurence for me to have near misses, or relatively near misses, when i'm driving around Charleston. Now, you may think that this is me admitting that i'm a bad driver - when, seriously, i'm actually very safe when you consider a lot of Charleston drivers (on second thoughts, best not consider cause you'll just shake you head and wonder how they managed to get a licence in the first place). Au contraire. It seems that no matter where and when i go, i seem to attract an inordinately large number of crazy people in the vicinity of me. It seems that a lot of people in Charleston either have too much faith in the drivers here, or have a serious death wish about them. - for this is mainly restricted to pedestrians and not other cars.

You may remember a while back, me talking in a post about how dangerous and vulnerable i felt as a pedestrian, given the amount of idiots on mobile phones here. Well, it seems that the Charleston pedestrian has evolved into something completely different. Thus, yesterday on my return from the supermarket, I was trundling along at 20mph (10mph below the speed limit) when a man came running out of a side street and straight across the road in front of me without so much as a glance. I had barely gotten over this surprise, when someone following him came out doing exactly the same thing. These two men then proceeded to run down the middle of a one-way street, going THE WRONG WAY! And this is just one example of many - the lady with the pushchair who decided to stop in the middle of the road so she could pull her cellphone out of her bag and answer it, the group of builders who were sauntering across a busy road in rush hour, never mind the large amount of traffic jam they were causing as well as the fact that drivers in the other lane were coming off the James Island connector at about 60mph. All in all, it seems, there are some seriously crazy pedestrians out there as well. I just count myself lucky that i haven't hit one!

More Apologies

As repeat visitors to this site will notice, i've been a wee bit behind on updating. This is, in some part, cause i haven't had as much to talk about lately (fancy that!) but is also because work is going into crazy mode at the moment. This is, largely, because i am taking a week at the end of the month to have a flying visit to England for a friend's wedding (I may have mentioned this already). Thus, i am trying to get as much done before i leave as i have my next lab meeting on May 10th - all of 10 days after i am due to return to Charleston. There's nothing like an impending two hour session in front of your colleagues to motivate you!!

Thus, with a lot of long days in the lab, the gym, keeping in touch with the folks back home, socialising and a couple of parties with friends and colleagues, it's no real stretch of the imagination to see that the rest of my time is in bed pretty much. Or eating. Sometimes both. Anyway, i sincerely apologise to you Constant Reader, and will endeavour to update a bit more regularly. Suffice to say, I am alive and well, and everything is going pretty smoothly, if not busily. Hopefully you'll hear from me soon!!

The Rite of Spring

With April well and truly upon us, i had braced myself for the inevitable upturn in weather here in Charleston - and the switch over from jeans and sweaters to shorts and t-shirts...

Literal Interpretations

Somewhat further to the post on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', last night I attended a gathering organised by the MUSC Gay-Straight alliance; it was the spring social and so a chance to mingle, and gossip, as well as enjoy some nice food and have a drink or two as well - essentially just what the doctor ordered after the trials and exhaustion of the run on Saturday morning. What was quite interesting is how in depth discussion got in general - with one topic of conversation frequently recurring being the whole issue of the Bible, religion and homosexuality. Now this is something that i have talked about quite a lot with friends and colleagues, and it's certainly something of interest. The main reason this came up from my point of view was that my friend Kellie had given me an email that was a reply written to a Dr. Laura Schlessinger - a radio personality over here who is rather obnoxious, very conservative and narrow-minded, and more often than not says things to be 'shocking' rather than for any moral reasoning behind them.

One of her central tenets these days is that any observant follower of religion could read the bible and see how homosexuality is not to be condoned in any way, shape or form. The writer of this email in reply to this gives the letter a gushing tone of thanks to Dr Laura for her clarification on such matters and then proceeds to ask her advice on other things mentioned in the bible. For example, one point says that the writer wants to sell his daughter into slavery as sanctioned in a particular book, asking Dr Laura's advice on what a fair price is these days. Ultimately, it's very funnny and highlights just how selective religion can be in picking and choosing what it's followers want to believe. Now, you may think from all this that i'm anti-religion. I'm not - i have a great respect for people who have a faith, as it's not something I have in that sense of the word (although i do have my own beliefs). I guuess my frustration is with the people who use religion as a means to an end, a tool for to justify their own actions or for their own purposes. Unfortunately, this day and age, I don't see it coming to an end anytime soon.