McAllen, I

The night before departing, it became apparent that I needed to do laundry when only 1 pair of clean underwear remained. I was not convinced my traveling companions would be impressed by a request to stop at a Wal-Mart along to way to pick up some drawers.

I suspected that something would go awry with the washing machine.

I was not disappointed: the darn thing would crap out half-way through the wash cycle. Thankfully, Rich Woodward came to the rescue, letting me do a load at his place. He also cooked dinner and provided beer. He's my hero.

As I was packing in the morning, I decided that I did not have a sufficient number of casual shirts for the journey. This necessitated a quick diversion to Wal-Mart at 6am. I thought a TAMU polo would be a nice addition for trips like this. And they certainly had a wide selection...all sized for wide people. I settled for generic orange.

The ride down was as close to heaven as a man can get. First stop was a Czech butcher shop for kolaches, a sausage stuffed pastry.

By 930, we were stopping in Shulenberg for chocolate merengue pie, fresh out of the oven.

How does this possibly get better? Oh, I'll tell you how: BEER.

We stopped in Shiner for a brief look at the Spoetzl Brewery, home of Shiner Bock. Tours weren't running until 11, so I just enjoy a tasting...or 3.

Mathis was the location for BBQ lunch and we finally landed in McAllen at 4.

Our hotel has a neat amenity: a complementary happy hour. More precisely, all you can drink for 2 hours at a cost of zero. Several bourbon and cokes later, we went to dinner and definitely had the best Mexican food I've ever had.

Today was the work day...more about that later.

Productivity

Richard, I'd like you to meet productivity. Productivity, meet Richard.

I thought I would start this week off with a change...waking up before 10.

Truth be told, I usually wake up before 1o. Heck, I usually wake up before 6. Last week, I just succumbed to every mopey impulse to roll over and go back to sleep.

But not today. No sir. I forced myself out of bed before 7 and that, my septuagenarian friends, was the secret to productivity.

I breezed through my Solow powerpoints before lunch. I deposited money into my checking account. I went out for lunch in 100 degree heat. And by 5, I was done revising my job market paper to be sent off for publication. Once that thing is off my desk, I will be a much happier person...at least until the rejection letter comes.

What? California doesn't have a budget yet, you say? No problem, I'll have it done by 7.

What? Israel and Palestine don't have a peace agreement? No problem, that's what the 7-8 hour is for.

What? Our President can't add past 18 because he runs out of fingers and toes and always forgets the little ones? No problem, I have plenty of time to make up flashcards.

Oh wait, you need to drill concrete under my office. And you are going to make how much noise? Gotcha.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Shitty Sports Day

These things happen, but today was the shittiest of sports days.

First, Matt Kenseth started 10th at the Brickyard. Unfortunately, Goodyear does not make a tire than can handle the track, so NASCAR had to jump in with cautions every 10 to 12 laps to make sure tires wouldn't explode. They weren't fast enough and Kenseth annihilated the back right of his car when his right rear tire went off like a bomb.

It's his own fault, though: he felt it going two laps earlier, but held off pitting until the scheduled caution. Oopsie! This gets filed under: "when you have the craps, don't try to fart."

While the Brickyard was ruined, the Cubs were down 5-0 to Florida and the Crew were up 4-1 on the Astros at home. So the day wasn't a total loss. Yet.

A 7 run 5th inning put an end to Milwaukee's chances and the god-damned fucking Cubs (hereafter GDF Cubs) came back to win 9-6. And there goes the tie for first.

The next 4 days will either be a wonderful ride to the division lead or a swift kick to my privates as the GDF Cubs are up to Miller for a 4 game series. In Sabathia we trust.

That was something

Yesterday afternoon was spent at Ed Rister's house eating BBQ from a place called Snow's in Lexington, supposedly the best in Texas.

Along with spelling his name wrong in an earlier post, I also totally mussed the background for the BBQ. One of his research assistants is finishing his Masters at TAMU and entering the Ph.D. program at Oklahoma State. The whole event was a big send-off/good-natured roast with all the faculty that advised him. Imagine that happening at Wisconsin. That's what I thought.

Big bonus: Ed's wife made up a plate to take home and is waiting in the fridge as I type.

Yesterday, was also the first day in BCS that I wasn't in the office. It was well-deserved, but not without guilt. I still wrote up a lecture at home.

Planning this intro class is becoming difficult. It is supposed to cover both micro and macro and trade with applications to agricultural economics. Besides the obvious difficulty of not knowing anything about agricultural economics, I dislike cramming macro and micro together.

Micro has obvious theoretical foundations that you simplify, but macro can get downright wrong really quickly. So, what's the point of teaching things which have to be untaught later? Worse, what if people walk away never unlearning.

Of course, I should be happy they learn anything, right or wrong.

But, I don't really teach for what the students learn. I actually enjoy being up there; they just happen to be the audience. And I prefer a good script.

The challenge is really being coherent: how do I tie everything I do back to just a production function, a budget constraint and an indifference curve. Obviously, most of undergraduate macro gets tossed by this criterion. Thus far, they have seen a Robinson Crusoe economy and the two period savings problem. I am just about to do the Solow model. I think everything else will have to be trade--money and inflation be damned.

Give me something. Anything.

I knew this was going to happen sooner rather than later.

It took 23 days, which is better than I had anticipated.

I'm going stir crazy.

Part of it is lack of sleep, or rather, good sleep. I am incredibly thankful to Douglass Shaw for letting me rent his place while I was searching for a permanent residence, but I desperately need to get to closing and move into my condo. I need a real bed. I am currently sleeping on a single mattress that shifts over the course of the night as I twist and turn looking for some position that approximates comfortable.

After watching the Cards-Brewers game Monday night, I tried to get into bed and fell out because the damn thing is so narrow. I ended up just sleeping on the floor.

OK, fine. This probably had more to do with the beer consumption than the size of the mattress, but I am fairly certain I would have maintained my balance on a Queen.

I wake up exhausted and go through the day exhausted. I exhibit zero productivity, but fake it at the office until 5 or 6. I grudgingly make dinner and pass out around 8. Of course, I don't make it through till morning and I'm up again at 12. You obviously know what happens from here, waking up and falling asleep in 15 minute intervals until morning rolls back around. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But lack of sleep is only part of it. There is nothing to do but wake up and go to the office. That is getting depressing. I am actually looking forward to teaching just to do something different. And that my friends, is clearly the crazy talking.

I need to find something to do. Some activity, ideally involving other people. I feel like I've put myself in a holding pattern until I move into my own place since I have a trip to McAllen, then Madison and then New York coming up: 16 if the next 33 days aren't in BCS (Bryan-College Station). But I need to act. Sooner rather than later.

You're shitting me, right?

Really though, this weather is just ridiculous.

Fri
Jul 25

Mostly Cloudy

96°
72°

Sat
Jul 26

Partly Cloudy

98°
72°

Sun
Jul 27

Partly Cloudy

98°
73°

Mon
Jul 28

Mostly Sunny

98°
73°

Tue
Jul 29

Partly Cloudy

98°
73°

Wed
Jul 30

Partly Cloudy

98°
73°

Too fast for me

Offices in the Blocker Building where I work are set up as suites. They are all variations on a theme, but here is a description of mine:

When you enter off the hallway, there is an office for a student worker or a secretary and then three adjoining offices. The front office is shared by three graduate students and then two back offices are for professors.

I sense that these were originally classrooms, with offices later squeezed in because the side walls do not extend out to the windows. Instead, the windows fully extend across the west wall. As a result, where the walls meet the windows, my office is only separated from Wade Griffin's office by a thin sheet of aluminum. This obviously means sound carries through. So, when he is in the office, I generally don't have music playing.

If music isn't playing, there really isn't much need to close the doors. This fact has led to a couple of graduate students coming in to chat. Wednesday of last week, I was talking with a grad student about his interest in health economics and some of his research ideas. He seemed mostly concerned about efficiency issues so I directed him to the Rand Health Insurance Experiment and the papers written by Newhouse, Manning, Keeler, et al.

And while I'm explaining the basic results to the graduate student, Ed Reister knocks on the door, introduces himself and asks if we've met before.

In fact, he was one of the professors at dinner when I interviewed here.

The market is a whirlwind for both sides, so I wouldn't begrudge anybody who didn't remember me. I begin to explain that we had met at that dinner. Before I can finish, he throws out a few staccato Yes's and then invites me to dinner at his place Friday night. As my social planner is fairly barren, I agree. Just as quickly as he entered, he's is out of my office, his voice trailing off about send an email with directions.

Ed Reister, the most unlikely whirling Dervish I've met.

Two days later, after getting lost several times, I find his house south of town. He has invited three other younger faculty members and a graduate student that he advises. Dinner is really relaxing. They indulge my talk of Madison and rejoin with stories of their graduate school days in East Lansing. One of the other faculty members did his graduate work at Ohio State, so it is quite a nice Big Ten showing.

Again, lots of talk about things to do in College Station and across Texas. And just as suddenly as I was invited to dinner, Ed is asking if I've ever been to McAllen.

McAllen is about 5 miles north of the Mexican border and about 40 miles from South Padre Island. It is also one of the premier birding locations in the world. I keep trying to figure out when and how I will make it down there.

And just like that, he invited me to head down to McAllen with him at the end of the month. He even had his secretary set up my hotel reservation. Pretty neat, huh?

Well, I planned on sending a nice thank you email on following Monday to Ed and his wife. Before I got the chance, he had already sent one to me. It was an invite to a BBQ that they are holding for recent graduate who is taking a position at Oklahoma State. Apparently it is being catered by the best BBQ join in Texas (Sorry Melissa, not the Salt Lick).

The point is, the hospitality of my colleagues is simply too fast for me to keep up.

Potluck

Back in Wisconsin, the news that I was moving to Texas was greeted in either of two ways: excitement or revulsion.

To some, Texas is another country. Cowboys and bar-be-que and wide open spaces. For many a shivering Northerner, it also promises lots of heat.

To others, Texas is another country. Rednecks and pick-up trucks and people that vote for George Bush. For many a skiing Northerner, it also promises lots of sweating.

But, I was excited to move.

I would consider Madison my first real home. It was the first place I chose to live. At several points, when life or graduate school or both looked bleak, it was the place I chose to stay.

It was also a place where I finally grew up, an immeasurably fun, but often painful process. It was a place of lessons learned.

And as my last year at UW progressed, I increasingly came to feel that as the place of lessons learned, it was impossible for Madison to be the place of lessons practiced. Regardless of where I eventually landed, it would exciting to start over, hopefully with a lot more wisdom.

That's not to say all landing spots are equal. Chicago. Minneapolis. Boulder. New Orleans. Portland. Heck, even Austin.

Objectively, this place sucks. It is suburban sprawl personified. There are no real neighborhoods. There are defined areas that vary by housing type and the wealth of residents, but you'd never apply the terms: artsy, yuppie, blue-collar, alternative, gritty, gay, etc. Instead you have: rich or poor; old or new; black or white; and because this is a college town, student or non-student. It is essentially Long Island without any of the quaint downtowns like Huntington, Northport or Port Jefferson. For Sconnies, I live in a very large version of Middleton.

What has been pleasantly surprising, however, is how friendly my colleagues are. Knowing I was new to town, Rich Woodward invited me to his house last night for the monthly Brazos Progressives potluck to meet some people outside the department. After the sun went down, it was bearable to sit outside and trade stories of previous places lived and things to do in Aggieland. It's a start, you know.

Someone even brought a six pack of Leine's.

Introducing

I live in Texas now.

I just went to contract on a condo, so it's official and there's no going back--at least no going back without forfeiting a load of cash.

I can't say that I've seen much of Texas, and just looking at a map, there's plenty to see.

I live, temporarily, in Bryan. I purchase everything I need at the Wal-mart.

I work, for the foreseeable future, in College Station.

And that's about all I know: Wal-mart and my office building.

This is my life:

I used to live in Madison. I had many friends and we did many fun things. I could not have used Microsoft Paint to diagram my life in Madison.

Thus far, moving to Texas has been a step down.

With all this added time before the semester starts, I have decided to have a blog.

I originally planned to use this time playing more video games, but I injured my thumb in a freak Wii accident.

I could take up an outside activity, but sweating- your-ass-off-for-no-good-reason has yet to make the roster of Olympic events.

Also, I am afraid to get caught looking at porn on my office computer.

This leaves blogging, at least until I get an internet connection at home.

That's right folks. I live in Texas. Really.