"Close only counts in..."

Well, I have some bad news to report.

The grant proposal I submitted to the NSF on 11/1 for research on Bose-Einstein condensates was declined today. It is simultaneously extremely frustrating and a harbinger of good things to come. The reason is that I was thisclose to being funded. My proposal ranked 11/28 out of all the applied math proposals and was tagged with a 'fund if possible.' Unfortunately for me, there wasn't enough money to get down to proposal number 11, so I'll have to submit another BEC proposal next time the deadline comes around on the guitar (which is the first Tuesday in November for NSF applied math grants). I may well have been over the top except one of my referees was disappointed that I didn't have more math stuff for math's sake (you know, instead of the application that is my focus). This APPLIED math versus applied MATH is an old issue, and sadly the capital M's tend to control most of mathematics. (This has also reared its ugly head in my attempt to get a tenure-track job on several occasions...)

The thing that frustrates me the most is that if my job applications in the fall indicated that I had already successfully obtained a grant, that would have distinguished me quite sharply from practically everybody else in the applicant pool. It would have helped a lot, so coming close but not quite getting it really stings. (I could feel that acorn in my grasp. My preciousssssssss....) The hope, naturally, comes in the fact that I came very close this year -- much closer than the last two years -- so I almost there. I am spiraling in towards funding for my BEC research, so the chances of it happening next year or the year after are better than ever.

The current frustration is similar to my job interview at UC Davis in the 04/05 hiring season. Several of the faculty had me as their top choice, but it still didn't work out. (By the way, the Maryland one isn't yet officially out for this year, but it's almost May, so I have to operate on the assumption that it's dead. The reason it isn't entirely dead yet is that the Musical Chairs in physics departments are still going. It's still conceivable that I will find myself in a chair, even though it's not very likely at this point.)

And the Dodgers' manager is making dumb-ass moves! (We lost in the 14th inning today, and our best reliever was never in the game... It's crap like this that led the Red Sox to fire him a few years ago. Remember the whole escapade with how he used Pedro in the playoffs?)