Mourn the passing of summer

Sadly, here in the U.S., the passing of Labor Day means the end of the summer vacation season and the return to school for the kids. That means it's time to buckle down, stop farting around, and get back to serious work, particularly for us academics. (Unfortunately, in a college town such as where I work, it also means the reappearance of some serious traffic problems and the huge buses that shuttle students between campuses, much to the frustration of all motorists.) However, pasty white middle-aged guy that I am, I can take take satisfaction that sunscreen and not being all that big on beach activities or lying around to bake in the sun means that, even at the end of summer vacation season, I don' t look like this:


After all, you could get melanoma that way, and then have to pay a visit to my partner and sometime research collaborator, who happens to specialize in melanoma surgery. He could then cut out big chunks of your skin and inject you with dye to locate the lymph nodes to which the melanoma might have gone. Personally, even if melanoma or even less deadly skin cancers were not a risk, I never could understand the appeal of sun worship to the point of brown, leathery skin. Nothing prematurely ages your skin faster than the sun, with the possible exception of smoking. Fortunately, geek-boy that I am, between work, reading, blogging, etc., I can be pretty confident that I won't suffer any sun-related skin malignancies.

So what does the end of the summer season mean for ye olde blog here? Well, grant writing season is upon us for the next few weeks. I'll probably still manage to blog almost every day, but the epic, verbose posts may become less frequent, particularly the ones that require me to do a bit of research. For example, I had a rather cool post in mind for today about a certain snake oil purveyor, done in the style many, but not all, of you like. Unfortunately, because I was so busy yesterday working on the specific aim for a grant that I will be co-investigator on and also foolishly succumbed to the temptation to do a little quick blogging about the hurricane even though I'm not primarily a political or news-oriented blogger, I didn't have time to produce anything more concrete than this. Fortunately, the leather-skinned lady was here, ready to fill in and provide me with blogging material. Also, if there's any topic you, my readers, would like me to write about, leave a comment after this post. I can't guarantee that I'll necessarily do it, but you never know.

Don't worry, though. More of what you like (I hope) is on the way. I even still have a couple of stories from vacation that I just have to tell, which should make me look fondly (or at least with a bemused detachment) at summer 2005. Then, of course, there are always plenty of quacks and pseudoscientists to provide fodder for Orac's brand of Respectful (or not-so respectful) Insolence.