Late Adopter

Frankly speaking, I am not big on change. Oh yeah, the Obama business was pretty good, and I recognize that change is necessary for progress, blah blah blah, but man, it doesn't come easy for me. I was made excruciatingly aware of this by my stubborn refusal to log into CV's back end at our new home. Why? Because it was going to be <cringe>different</cringe>. I actually can't make any sense of this behavior on my part, because science is all about change. I have no problem changing topics and points of view in a scientific context. Want to know what I'll be working on in 5 years? It'll probably be found in the set of things on which I am currently not working, nor have ever worked on before. But technologically-driven changes in my day-to-day behavior? Scaaaaaary. One of my students mistakenly assumed that I was a bleeding edge of technology sort of person, based on my spiffy new MacBook Air. However, the only reason I have a new laptop is because after six and a half years, my old one was sufficiently dented that I couldn't close it anymore, and it made ominous noises when writing to disk. Oh, I could have afforded a new laptop at many points in the intervening years, but then I'd have to install software or learn to use Leopard, and that, my friends, is not change I can believe in. So, this post is my attempt to get past the queasiness and start defining this as the new normal. And hey! Did you see the new images of extrasolar planets?! Ok. That didn't hurt a bit.