Reducing the Eurocracy for Research Funding in Europe

Well, at least we can try. Here is a petition to sign whose goal is to do that. Assuming that you believe in reducing the amount of red tape to try to get research funding in Europe, please sign this petition.

Today's adventures in Eurocracy

Today was spent marking problem sets --- which is just as much "fun" as it was when I was TAing back in the day --- and trying to get the ball rolling to get my National Insurance Number (the UK equivalent to a Social Security number). It's supposed to be abbreviated NINO, but I keep abbreviating it as NIN (first by accident and now on purpose) even though I don't actually like Nine Inch Nails. I now feel like getting this abbreviation wrong is expected of me, so I'm just going to keep doing it.

Anyway, there was some confusion with this because the financial staff in the Mathematical Institute told me I will get instructions with my first pay check. (They are busy with a major time sink with massive quantities of forms involving how much government funding the Mathematical Institute will get, so they are scrambling and because there were so many new people in the department --- which is linked to the particular thing they're doing (for those of you from back home reading this) --- they decided that we should take care of that ourselves. And for many people there probably isn't an issue, but I don't think they truly appreciate just how clueless I am about how this stuff works. I basically feel quite lost when it comes to this sort of thing.

Anyway, I got a message from Somerville today indicating they hadn't gotten some information with me yet and some of the language seemed to me to imply that none of my employers (I am dually employed by Somerville College and Oxford University, as far as where my $ [pounds, actually] comes from) can pay me without an NIN. So then I have these seemingly contradictory pieces of information about the (hopefully!) comprehensible version of the instructions to get an NIN coming with my first paycheck and the comments that made me think that perhaps I cannot get paid without getting the NIN first. (That would be bad for multiple reasons---among them the fact that I would need to borrow more money from my colleagues. I already borrowed some cash so that I wouldn't have to pay annoying fees to transfer money from my U.S. accounts. I find it embarrassing to have to borrow nontrivial sums of money from people like that, and I would really like to repay my debt and actually have money in my U.K. back account so that I no longer have to do that.)

So the gist I got today (and I needed to spend a good amount of time looking at forms, sending e-mails, making phone calls, filling out forms, photocopying every page of my passport, and mailing forms) was that I can turn in the forms with my NIN blank; I will be given a temporary NIN by my employers so that I can get paid; and then now that the ball is rolling, once I have the NIN we can replace the temporary one with the permanent one. I still hope that all the accounting stuff works out correctly (the dual employment thing will confuse matters, and the fact that I still have some U.S. income will confuse matters even more... sigh...) and the plan of attack is basically to look closely at my paychecks when they arrive and take appropriate action as needed if the tax withholdings aren't working out correctly.

Tomorrow is a big teaching day. I will be giving three tutorials, one lecture, and a seminar. And if I have a spare moment, I'll try to find some time to breathe a bit as well.

Thoughts on temporary `Nay Parking` signs

I be walkin' along San Pasqual an' noticed th' temporary `Nay Parking` signs that ben thar fer a while, an' me recently-acquired knowledge on th' topic compelled me t' eyeball them in more detail an' notice a wee things (which included some PS12in' t' find loopholes).

First, at least one or two o' th' signs be set t' expire on "Septembree 31" rather than Septembree 30th. While this t'ain't a loophole, th' mistake amused me. (I be more amused when I thought that all o' them had th' error, but that turned ou' t' be mistaken.)

Second, some o' th' signs only go until 4pm on a gi'en tide rather than 5pm. Th' swabbies who put th' signs thar really ortin' t' ben more careful about that, but that`s a pretty minor loophole.

Third, one o' th' signs be attached t' a tree, which I found ou' be actually illegal on Mondee while talkin' t' th' appropriate civic folks. (That had been what I be plannin' t' do. After returnin' homeport an' noticin' that thar weren`t poles on which t' post th' signs, Lemmin' an' I sailed' o'er t' OSH t' buy some stakes. We tried t' find a local "Magic Box," but we be unable t' do so an' I thus had t' settle fer some ghetto stakes.) Accordin' t' th' swabbies at Pasadena parkin' enforcement, th' `Nay Parking` signs be nay enforceable when they be put on a tree. (I doubt that`s how 't would work in practice, but technically....)

Fourth, I also found ou' on Mondee that each temporary `Nay Parking` sign in Pasadena be good fer nay more than twenty feet o' space. I saw today on San Pasqual that thar be a gap that be much more than twenty feet long. Strictly speakin', a couple o' cars could fit in th' part in which 'tis technically legal t' park (tho, again, I doubt that`s how things would work in practice).

After countin' inaccuracies, 't dawned on me that I nerehad t' present any verification o' needin' t' reserve th' spots in order t' get things t' happen. This made me imagine a scenario (mind ye, nay a specific algorithm fer doin' this) in which a relatively wee squadron o' swabbies could cause major portions o' a city t' be severely disrupted by ary th' same time removin' a large number o' parkin' spaces from normal use. (I assume --- an' hope! --- that in practice th' city would naice a large spike in requests fer temporary `Nay Parking` signs an' prevent this sort o' skullduggery.)

I then moved on t' more important considerations. Namely, be thar some way t' exploit these rules fer an interestin' prank? Th' only things that came t' mind be either simply th' convenience o' usin' th' parkin' spot (in which case 't wouldna be a central part o' th' prank itself) or stuff that wouldna be funny at all but would rather be really nasty an' obnoxious t' th' city`s residents an' business (obviously nay a cool thin' t' do). Does ere be havin' any ideas o' how this could be used fer a prank without bein' obnoxious? I couldna think o' one, tho I moved on t' other topics after a wee while.

Oh, an' in case any o' ye doubt th' veracity o' me OCD afflication, let this blog post put them t' rest.

(Thanks t' this url.)

Brief Notes

George Carlin has a section in his routines called "Things that piss me off!" and Bill Maher has a section called "New Rules" of a similar vein at the end of each episode of his current show.

Well, here's a new rule: When the checkout line in the market is an express lane that requires you to have "15 items or less", then you should have no more than 15 items. In particular, this means that having more than 30 items is right out! Similarly, the people who work at the market should enforce this! If you want to not have such a line, that's perfectly fine. But if you're going to have this kind of line, there's no bloody point unless you actually enforce the damned requirement. (It's worth mentioning as well that it is a regular occurrence to see somebody with too many items in these lines.)

In terms of bureaucracy, I am still waiting to get my contacts that were supposed to arrive at my apartment a week before Wednesday. Apparently, they were mailed out on Tuesday, which is the last day I called about them. The doctor's office has a shipping number, so if they don't arrive today, I am to call them and ask them to call the post office with the tracking number to see what's up. There were previous things associated with buying my contacts through them now that my doctor is part of an office with another person. The way I used to order contacts is that I would make one phone call and the contacts and bill would both arrive on the same day. In this case, I am at 5 phone calls and counting (and my credit card was charged over 2 weeks ago and about 3 calls ago).

On a similar note, I didn't have my Blue Cross information with me when I got some shots a little while ago, so I paid directly and then filed a claim with Blue Cross (that I have through Caltech) to get the appropriate subset of that reimbursed. I followed the instructions (and provided exactly the information shown in the sample filled-out form that was included!) only to find out that the sample they include is utter tripe and that there is more information I should get from the doctor. After a couple of rounds of that before I found out what they really wanted, I got the information from the doctor and filed the claim again. On Saturday, I got an incomprehensible statement that didn't indicate that I had overpaid what I was required to pay. I called them today to find out that they had sent the money to the doctor directly and that the doctor is supposed to, in turn, send me a check to reimburse the overpayment. I then called the doctor's office and the person I talked to said she didn't think it worked that way, so she would talk to her boss (the doctor) and then get back to me. I hate insurance companies. Remind me never to forget to bring my insurance information with me when I go to a doctor's office (and, I guess, to have it with me as a standard deal in case there's an emergency). The number of hoops one has to go through is just ridiculous. And I still am not actually done. Sigh...

Enough ranting for the day. I may have more later. Let's hope the moving company stuff goes smoothly. Can you tell that I'm optimistic?

Visa Visa and Traffic Jam

I went to get my VISA today and to get some more immunization shots. (Shots that induce a day's fever provide a great supplement to the jet lag I already have. Oh, I feel wonderful right now...)

The VISA business was thankfully without incident, so I'm all set to get into the UK when I move in two months. I still need to get things settled as far as arranging the shipping of my stuff --- I was going to try referencing George Carlin's "A place for my stuff" by discussing somebody else's shit, but it's just not coming to me at the moment --- but at least some more hurdles are now out of the way. (The last set of shots are ones I need to get 5 months from now, so I don't need any more of those for a while either.)

To push the 80s music reference in the title just a little further, let me mention that I started the day by going to the Hollywood & Highland metro station, so I was lost in tan lotion. (There was a brief traffic jam on the way back home --- my mother gave me a ride home to my apartment --- but the main reason I'm mentioning that in the title is because of the 80s music thing. Not that anybody will get the allusion, but it's not like that's stopped me before. I suppose Lemming and Gazebo have a chance to get this without googling.)

I need to rest. Bye.