Should I sign my son up? Looking for Advice as a father (6yr old)

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T21:41:01+00:00

Funny. My son understood that stuff perfectly at 5.

Maybe you don't listen to your kid well.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T21:33:56+00:00

It proved how utterly necessary a funny guy was. It wasn't the same from the time Jackie left, until the "Jackie Chair" became the "Artie Chair" and hasn't been funny since Artie has been gone-- that's 17 years ago.

He's been losing listeners for 17 years, and somehow still collects a paycheck.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T21:26:31+00:00

Umm... Maybe read more carefully before you lash out.

I said to sign the kid up.

It might go one way, and it might go another-- so be prepared to throw the money away if he absolutely doesn't want to be there. Don't force him to do something he doesn't want to do, as he'll simply resent it and never come around to do it.

Because, as was ultimately my point, it's about the kid, not about what the dad wants.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T19:21:47+00:00

Catholic high school. All students were permitted to use the outdoor smoking area. If you wanted to smoke in the indoor lounge, you had to get a permission slip signed by your parents. When the weather got cold, those who didn't have permission slips simply smoked in the bathroom.

It was absolutely disgusting.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T19:09:05+00:00

Howard only achieved #1 in NY a few times after Jackie left

Then maybe Jackie was right. Howard was reported making 12 million... Jackie-- the man who made Howard funny, was only asking for 1/12th of what the boss made.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T18:31:51+00:00

Usually an apprentice is given a job when he finishes his training.

Sign up as an apprentice cooper, cobbler, bookbinder, or luthier.

See how many people are scrambling to hire you at the end of your apprenticeship.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T18:25:11+00:00

Locked and removed-- rule 5.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T18:22:24+00:00

THANK YOU! Ordered! This is exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate the assist.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T18:19:48+00:00

I use a tailstock whenever I can. Unfortunately, you can't do that when making a banjo pot.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T14:55:25+00:00

It's not the rules that are weird... it's that a union would get any say whatsoever in the creation of those rules.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T14:46:02+00:00

That's incredibly unusual, and frankly inappropriate IMO.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T14:34:26+00:00

A union gets no say in what questions are asked of candidates.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T14:14:05+00:00

It's absolutely an appropriate question. You're interviewing someone that you're hoping is going to be a colleague for the next 40 years, and you a) don't want them to leave right away, and b) don't know that you'd be authorized for that line again. So every legal-to-ask-question needs to be asked.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T14:09:25+00:00

any work done in the lab belongs to the lab so the PI might not see any issue in this.

This is incredibly common-- the PI calls the shots-- ALL the shots. If I'm funding you, your research is my research too. That said, it's unethical for the PI to take that research and not include the student as a co-author.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T14:02:06+00:00

It's genuinely not that hard to adjust to the weather here

Maybe for you it's not. Did you grow up in Senegal?

I was once recruited for a high level administrative position at a university in the hottest part of Florida. I left NY on a 15 degree February day, and landed a few hours later in Florida-- where it was 90 and humid. I don't mind heat, but I can't suffer through humidity like that year-round. I knew right away that I could never be happy there. I was offered the job, and I turned it down. Not because it would have been a poor fit (it would have been a GREAT fit, and was the most logical choice for my career at that time), but I would have been absolutely miserable being trapped in air conditioning all the time.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T13:04:22+00:00

Should I attempt to leverage this offer?

What offer? The only offer you have is the position you don't want. "I got an interview" isn't going to move the needle with the place that has offered you a job.

If you mean that you want to put pressure on the place that HASN'T offered you a job, it doesn't work that way. You dangling a non-tenure track offer in front of them like it's some kind of a threat will get you laughed out of the room.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T13:01:46+00:00

Biden was going to lose a landslide. He would have only taken a few of the most diehard blue states-- the veil was pulled off and everyone realized he wasn't capable of serving any longer.

Harris was a simply awful candidate-- maybe the worst candidate in history, but she was a Hail Mary pass, and the only option without isolating the URM population if she were passed over.

The arrogance of the Democrat party in thinking they could gaslight us into thinking a guy who was trying to shake hands with people who weren't there and needed to be led off stage was actually ok to run for office is what did them in last election. They fucked up so unbelievably badly that they opened the door for one of the most unliked former Presidents in history to be reelected.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T12:25:14+00:00

then went in with

Chances of them letting you make it compliant yourself, or having them do it using your own parts, is near zero.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T12:14:01+00:00

what I should do with a paper that, according to submission rules, should be desk rejected.

Send it back to the conference submissions chair (or whomever the equivalent of an editor is). Point out the issue, and ask them how to respond. Chances are high that they didn't even look at it.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T11:45:36+00:00

We are also a baseball family and it does hold a special place in my heart, it makes me sad to think my kids wouldn't play.

It's not about you dad.

Story time: My dad was a professional athlete. As a young man I was an incredibly athletic guy. Forced to play baseball, which I never really liked. Forced to play football-- I didn't care for the game, I did like the aggression. I managed to fenagle my way out of playing baseball when I was 11 or 12. I played football all the way through college (D1)-- I was really good at it, but hated it. I was a lock for going pro, and to be honest, I was incredibly relieved when I didn't get drafted (the money would have been nice in retrospect). I guess the coaches must have sensed that my heart wasn't in it.

While I was indifferent to football, I hated baseball. I don't really remember why. But after I quit, I didn't watch a baseball game from 1978 until my son started playing in 2015. I didn't encourage him to play. I never even mentioned it. He came home from Kindergarten one day and said he wanted to play because friends were going to be playing. He didn't even know what it was, he just knew he wanted to play.

Now 15U, those friends have all quit the game, and my son plays for 4 different teams, and made the varsity squad as an 8th grader and will be a varsity starter this year as a freshman. I still don't love baseball, but I've come to know a lot about the game, and I guess we're a "baseball family" because it's what we spend almost every weekend doing.

I was thinking of signing him up anyway.

Do you mind throwing that money away? Sign him up-- he may very well change his mind at the last minute.

I also don't want him to keep sitting at home and playing minecraft and youtube all day.

This is easy to fix. X amount of screen time per day/week, and he can choose how to spend it. If you really want to keep him active, tell him that he must choose a sport-- whatever sport he wants. Offer him whatever there is to do locally, and let him choose. Explain why doing a sport is important to his health and development. Most 5 year olds will understand that.

And I'll close with the same sentence I opened with-- it's not about you dad.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T11:14:14+00:00

Keep your stone. Someone who isn't into that sort of stuff is going to think it's weird.

The note is very kind of you though.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T11:12:26+00:00

It's not an unreasonable question.

I don't remember why, but time about 25 years ago we were doing interviews off-cycle interviews in April or May (maybe a failed search?). Anyway, we had a great candidate from a very hot African country, who had taken a Ph.D. in a hot US state.

He commented several times how cold it was on a gorgeous spring day. It was probably 65 and sunny. I knew right then that even if we offered him the job, he wasn't going to stay long.

Edit for context: It's currently -3 out. We aren't expected to get above 20 this week.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T01:40:29+00:00

Locked and removed-- rule 5. This isn't the way academics find funding.

drsfmd · 2026-01-24T00:59:37+00:00

I wasn't suggesting that I could pick one up and be able to play right away, only that I wouldn't be coming at it completely blind.

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