Baton Rouge Week 36

Baton Rouge Week 36 March 1
Hi there.
I have learned that it is hard to write letters on the go. I finally mailed the short one I wrote in the airport. Vacations are great, but you almost need as much time off to recover. We went to a movie on Wednesday and rested up. I actually took my bike off of the wall hook in the shed twice this week. Dana is running again and I hate running so I broke out the bike. She is up to 30 minutes again. I rode seven miles twice, which is about thirty minutes (gotta keep up with my lovely wife). I am staying just in the neighborhood. The main roads here are horrible. I am building up my strength and energy for a ride along the levee trail. That alone will tell you how great the weather is in Baton Rouge.
We had a paper returned with a revise and resubmit that we worked hard on this week. Revise and resubmit means the editors liked conditionally and are giving us another chance to make it worth publishing. We sent a copy to my mentor for a read through and he has already sent it back with some comments. We hope to get it back out by the end of the week. This is one of the hard parts about the work. You can rewrite and rewrite and someone can always find something else for you to do with it.
It sounds like the Reflections of Christ event was successful. The missionaries are busy doing follow up visits. We went with one of our neighbors and they have been by to visit with her. She was an art instructor at a small college in the area for a long time. She was really impressed with the quality of the art photography.
Abbey is doing great in the Boston area. We had a great time with her and enjoyed getting to know the family she works for. I also saw some things in Boston that I have never seen before. One of those was the Bunker Hill Monument. Did you know the colonists actually lost the battle? If I had known that I had forgotten it. What the battle did prove to the British was that the colonials would stand up and fight. Several of the leaders made heroic statements and rallied the original armies. It really is an amazing feat that the colonials were able to stand up to the British. When you look at how the British reacted, it is almost like they could not believe this little rag tag group could cause so much trouble for Mother England. I wonder if the US needs to consider how we treat people who seem to want “freedom” (or whatever it is they want to call it) on their own terms.
Lant also took us on a brief tour of Harvard. Some of the places are hard to get into and he was able to take us behind the scenes so to speak. It really is an interesting place. Apparently, Harvard has lost quite a bit of money. They are still rich, but they have slowed down some of their building and growth. He also gave me some insight into the work of an academic.
We also walked most of the Freedom Trail and ate lunch in Quincy Market. I really like Boston, but I will do my best to visit during better weather.
I heard some job talks (where job candidates talk about their research) over the last couple weeks. Most of them were very good. It makes you reflect on the job talks I did last year. These are the kind of experiences that make you reflect on the quality of work you do.
Well, that’s about it for now. We have several busy projects throughout the week and we will keep you posted.
Take care of each other.
Love Dad and Dana.