The road goes on forever and the party never ends

Over facebook chat at 1:30 this morning, Chris James called me a reductionist...because I am almost a scientist. I was happy to remember that this is part of my whole problem...that I am not a reductionist. My degree is as integrated as it can be, and I cannot focus on one area without getting too interested in its peripheral areas...and then their peripheral areas. To borrow a metaphor, it is like a cow that chews grass, and moves, and chews grass, and moves...until he finds himself on the other side of a hole in the fence, near the road, and he doesn't know how to get back...and he gets so lost he just starts stealing chicken sandwiches from cars.
Anyway, the whole point of that is that I had an ad hoc committee meeting yesterday to discuss my results and conclusions. The good news is they are very exciting (the conclusions), the other, err, good news is that they want me to adapt my 120 page thesis to a 6-10 page journal article. Alas, I am not done. The ivory tower has many flights of stairs and a long long lobby...like the scene in the Matrix when Neo and Trinity shoot up that lobby. Yes, C.J. and I facebook chat. Don't hate.