I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

Okay, so where I have been for, geez, almost a year, you ask? Actually, I doubt that you do ask, as I doubt that anyone is actually reading this, but what the hell... it's about personal expression, right?

I have been busy, is where I've been. Busy getting my authentically doctoral rear-end the heck OUT of the professional morass of that medical school and OUT of the moral morass of that rather prestigious university (which shall remain nameless but man, do those folks need some classes in basic ethics) and OUT of that large government organization... well, almost on that last one, but I'm working on it.

Yep, folks, I finally got a bellyful and I stood up and I said "ENOUGH ALREADY!!! I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more! Hasta la vista, baby, and you can hold the chicken salad between your knees!" and a few other good movie lines I've picked up along the way.

Yessirree Bob, I have left the rather prestigious university for a rather less prestigious but still pretty damned respectable, tyvm, university. That may sound like a raw deal but it's not. After all, they came and asked me if I'd like to come play in their pool. They invited me to visit a couple of times and took me out to nice places to eat. They actually listened to what I had to say about science and academics and stuff like that, and they only asked questions that made me squirm once in a while. They offered me all kinds of nice things: tenure, a big raise, some funds to do what I need to do and best of all, colleagues who are real doctors. In other words (here we go again with the cinematic allusions), they made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

So, I packed my backs, offered my resignation to the rather prestigious medical school--and believe you me, that was fun--, hopped in the car, said "Open the pod doors, HAL!" (okay, so that one was a stretch) and blew Dodge. And here I am in a new office in a new university in a new town with a whole bunch of real doctors!!! And we talk to one another, and we listen to one another, and we treat one another with a modicum of respect even when we think the others are acting like a bunch of pointy-headed academics (which we ourselves never do, of course).

Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship...