My Crazy Fall

So I once again admit to being a bad blogger. Somehow every time I get up and start a project 365, life intervenes and this time it was big. I've had a pretty crazy fall and have logged probably around 50,000 air miles by this time. I went to Germany for the International Genetic Epidemiological Society meetings along with bratwurst, bier, and swiss chocolate, then to Montreal for the International Congress on Human Genetics and smoked meat, poutine and Molson. After Montreal I was looking forward to down time. I've had a pretty successful year professionally and could use the unwind. Four publications, two book chapters in press, and two funded grants, plus three presentations at meetings (see here for more info and links). In addition, I have two more publications written and being edited for submission plus some new ones in the early stages of fomation and procrastination.

It was in Montreal that I was contacted by a colleague about a job in Australia. So over the course of the week we talked about the pros/cons of moving career and family half way around the globe (he had done it a move to Texas and was now going back). The job seemed like a perfectly opportunity and very in tune with the work I'm doing right now involving next-generation sequencing data and statistical genetics, and complex disease. However, this depended on J and her opinion of the place and if she could live there.

So in November J and I took a trip all the way to Perth, Australia. Perth is pretty much on the other side of Australia and is either considered the 1st or 2nd most isolated city in the world (Honolulu is the other one). After visiting I can now tell why it is the 8th most liveable city in the world (according to the Economist), very nice, clean, modern city, with beaches, a river and hills over 5 feet tall (being from Montana and having lived in Kansas and Texas for over 10 years I miss tectonic uplift). There are downsides including it being expensive and far away from like everything. J was mostly sold on the availability of gluten-free food and I was sold on the awesomeness of the coffee (I'm addicted to long blacks now), plus the amount of work and different types of data that I would be able to analyze, plus the ability to begin pursuing my own research interests. So on 11/11/11 (it was easier to remember how to write the date that way and almost three years to the day after I started by postdoc)  I agreed to take the new position at the Centre for Genetic Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

So in late May/early June we will be moving the family across the Pacific to the shores of the Indian Ocean to start a whole new adventure. I'm sure I will try and keep this everyone up to data as to the plans, misadventures of the visas process, driving on the other side of the road etc.

Meanwhile back at the Ranch

C turned 5

J turned umpteen

and X turned 7

and from all of us down South Texas way - Happy Holidays