Me either. Go ahead. Act surprised.

Lots of ~ma to smonster's friend and family.

My objection to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is that they do way more than the family needs, leaving them with double or triple the property taxes and utilities. There have also been a lot of reports of shoddy building, particularly in the invisible things that drive up utility costs, such as air sealing and insulation. It's very dramatic, but building a house in such a short time is really not a good idea. At least three owners have faced foreclosure.

I'd heard about the property tax and utility thing, but not about the reports of shoddy building. Doesn't really surprise me, though -- I've worked on Habitat for Humanity, and even with a decent amount of time to do stuff and plenty of supervision, there were a lot of things that we screwed up just because it was the first time any of us were building a house.

It's kind of like that show "Pimp My Ride". A lot of people ended up selling the cars because they couldn't afford the insurance (and in some cases getting dinged for illegal shit that they did, like removing an airbag to put a TV in the steering wheel)

My advisor was actually mostly helpful today. He finally got back to me to tell me that a guy he knows who is really well-known in the field agreed to write a letter of recommendation for me, talking about how my work is relevant and fits into stuff that other people are working on and things like that.

Awesome!

Great!

I would follow up with the guy he knows immediately. You don't want your advisor to be your contact for that. You can just be friendly "Advisor told me that you had agreed to write a letter of recommendation. Just wanted to thank you and make sure that had my contact info in case you need anything". That way, if your advisor drops the ball, you have already made contact and it isn't weird 6 weeks down the road.

I have a student dilemma. I have a student who's a great kid, wants me to write a recommendation for her. Unfortunately, I really can't speak to any of her office or academic qualities. yes, I know her GPA, and she's really nice, but that's it. I've been gentle with her about it, but she seems desperate. ugh.

That's great, Hil!

My objection to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is that they do way more than the family needs, leaving them with double or triple the property taxes and utilities. There have also been a lot of reports of shoddy building, particularly in the invisible things that drive up utility costs, such as air sealing and insulation. It's very dramatic, but building a house in such a short time is really not a good idea. At least three owners have faced foreclosure. Also, they seem to do a squicky amount of "this is what it's like to be in a wheelchair," but I'm not really in a position to comment, since I've never gotten through a whole episode without getting angry and turning it off.

I've heard a lot of that stuff. Also there was that screwy episode where this family of like five or six kids had lost their parents and were taken in by family friends and they built this big enormous house and then the fostering parents decided "you know, not so much" and kicked all the kids out. House was in the adults name, of course.

I can't remember what became of it, but there was a lawsuit going on at some point.

I would follow up with the guy he knows immediately. You don't want your advisor to be your contact for that. You can just be friendly "Advisor told me that you had agreed to write a letter of recommendation. Just wanted to thank you and make sure that had my contact info in case you need anything". That way, if your advisor drops the ball, you have already made contact and it isn't weird 6 weeks down the road.

I'm trying to. I asked my advisor for this guy's email address, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. If he doesn't within a day or so, I'll just email the guy at the address listed on his webpage.

Well, happy birthday, Jilli! I hope it is a fabulous one -- sounds like it will be.

YAY, Nora, on passing your comps.

I just made spinach/bacon/mushroom quiche for dinner. It was really good.