Lamont Weekly Report, December 25, 2009

I was one of the lucky ones that made it back from San Francisco on schedule - many folks did not, because of the snow.  Every time it snows in winter the national air traffic control system seems to be surprised. I think this may provide some insight into the (much more profound) problem we seem to have in convincing folks that climate change is real...

More good news this week - Brad Linsley's proposal for new mass specs for the New Core Lab is funded by the NSF MRI program. This will bring more than $1M of new technology to help make our future research proposals more competitive.  It is also important because CU is permitted annually to submit only 3 proposals to NSF under this program - this year two of those three were Lamont proposals. And both have been funded - the other was Robin Bell's ~$6M OPP effort that I told you about a couple of weeks ago. (That's the good news - the bad news is that I will have to spend the rest of the
Holidays digging in my back garden looking for lost treasure to fund the 30 per cent match that both these proposals require!!).

So... Christmas morning is over... I have fulfilled all familial responsibilities involving long transatlantic phone calls to barely remembered relatives, and have received far more than my fair share of good presents (the high point being the complete DVD set of the insane John Cleese BBC Comedy Show - Fawlty Towers - deranged British humor at its greatest - not to mention my annual allowance of one bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry - which I fear may be influencing the sobriety of this weeks usually very sober report).

Have a great holiday everyone - I'll be in the office next week intermittently - but I hope most folks will be able to escape for a few days. Before we know it the first decade of the 21st century will be nearing an end.

Best Wishes to everyone,

Mike