Making a forest

I'm putting together this book. You may recall I've blogged about this enterprise in the past. It's nearing completion (and none too soon!). There are now four outstanding chapters. One of the authors hasn't answered a single email from me this year, so I've written him off. Two others promise their chapters are on the way. One of them told me today that I would have his by Wednesday (tomorrow). We'll see.

The fourth chapter? That would be mine. Hey, I'm the editor of the book, I can set my own rules, right? Just because everyone else was supposed to get their chapters done by mid-February doesn't mean I had to. As it was, almost none of them got their's to me on time.

So I've been busy writing my chapter. It's supposed to be a review of my research on unfolded protein states. Basically a summary of my current body of work, linking it all together and placing it into perspective with respect to everyone else's work. I'll be damned if it doesn't all make a lot of sense and hang together. My work that is. It's almost as if I had carefully plotted out the direction of my work over the past decade. I didn't. Research doesn't work that way. Research evolves. It goes where it goes, not where you try to make it go. I've been so busy planting trees (working on various research problems) that I hadn't noticed that I've managed to make a forest. It's pretty cool. At least I think so.

Once I've finished this chapter I think I'll add a stream to my forest. And maybe a lake.

Word of the post:

foofaraw \FOO-fuh-raw\
-noun

1. Excessive or flashy ornamentation or decoration.
2. A fuss over a matter of little importance.


Today's trivia question:

In our initial trivia frenzy we established the Beatles made five movies, each of which had an album associated with it. Which of those albums was the last to be released in England? Bonus points if you can tell me which year.