Seems like I haven't written anything here since September 2020! And I don't really know whether anyone reads these things. But I thought I'd give a short update about myself, and things going on at the moment.
First and foremost, health: I had the misfortune of a herniated disc in my spine, which was pressing on the nerves in my lower back, causing a number of neurological issues and pain in my left leg. I had problems with my back the year before, but the disc only appeared to be bulging a little bit on MRI images, with some physical therapy and spinal injections helping me get rid of the back pains. Or maybe it was just time healing all wounds, I'm not sure.
Unfortunately, last March, I had to do some heavy lifting, and even though I tried to use only my legs for that, it was apparently too much for my back. The disc ruptured quite catastrophically, visible even to my untrained eyes on the MRI scan, definitely requiring surgery. Thankfully, the doctor I was referred to, Prof. Viola Bullmann of the St. Franziskus-Hospital in Cologne, is regarded by many as a renowned expert in the field of spinal surgery. I had to postpone the procedure by a week due to an important event at work (that I will come to below), so it was carried out on the 18th of March. Three large chunks of tissue material had to be removed, but once the actual disc became visible, it showed no sign of perforation or damage any more, so didn't have to be touched. I'm happy to report that the phantom pains in my leg were gone immediately, I no longer limped, and could walk normally again. The nerves were so badly compressed that some reflexes in that leg stopped working, so it was a great relief for things to return to normal. I was discharged after a 3 day hospital stay, and could immediately drive my car again, which was important for my irrational feeling of being independent. I'm not allowed to do any heavy lifting (duh) or sports for the time being, and am on sick leave until late April. However, I did start going back to work every now and then to check on things and to run some measurements, with the doctor's permission of course. And that brings us to the next big thing:
The important event I mentioned regarding my work was an evaluation by the DFG, the German Research Foundation. Since completing my PhD in late 2018, my position was funded via a CRC, a Collaborative Research Centre, which I helped my group to become part of by participating in the initial evaluation back in that year. Such a CRC can be extended two times at max, and one funding period lasts for four years, so ours was due for review last March. Despite my phantom pains, I just had to attend, as we had been preparing for this day for the past few months. Thankfully, due to Covid, it was entirely online, so I could do it from my desk, without having to travel anywhere. And it went quite well, I was able to reply to all questions that the referees had, and a backup slide I added just the day before proved invaluable for some unexpected queries regarding potential future experiments. All in all, we got top marks for all of the projects involved, so hopes are high that our CRC will be selected for another funding period. Without it, my contract would end at the start of July, and that wouldn't be very nice.
However, being in academia means that you constantly have to formally beg for your continued employment. And if you keep up this hopping from project to project, you might end up being 50 and suddenly unemployed, with low chances of finding another job. Since this is something I definitely don't want to end up experiencing, but also don't fancy working as a number cruncher in some bank, it was always a bit unclear what my future path might be. I'd love to continue doing what I do now, but permanent positions at a university are rare as hen's teeth, unless you want to become a professor. And professors have to hold lectures, travel a lot, are constantly stressed, while also having to do HR without ever being trained for that (which might be the reason why many profs are bad bosses). And worst of all, you can't become a professor at the university where you are now, so you might receive an offer for professorship at some faraway university, and then have to pack up your life and move there. Which I obviously don't want to do.
But worst of all, a professor doesn't work in an actual lab (in fact, most students valiantly try to keep professors away from all lab equipment, lest they break something), and working with machines is what I enjoy the most. You would not believe the obsession with which I work on what appear to be meaningless endeavours behind the scenes, just to have some backup solution ready in case things go south.
As (mis)fortunte would have it, our technician, or rather, the magician who keeps all of the ancient machines in miraculous working order, is retiring towards the end of May. And since I've been in this group for probably a decade by now, already the caretaker of quite a few machines, it seemed obvious to use this opportunity to get a permanent position. It's not finalized or even decided yet, but work is being done to achieve that goal, and I'm hopeful that things will work out. It would be the first permanent position I'd have, and with me being in my mid-30s, that aptly shows the bane of working in academia.
As you no doubt noticed, my photographic output appears to be pretty much nonexistant these days, which isn't strictly true. I take photos every day, but they're not that interesting, and taken with my smartphone. It's not that I don't care about trains any more, but the modern stuff commonly seen these days is just uninteresting, and I often can't really be bothered to go places just to take photos. The pandemic also made sure that I refrained from traveling, and I didn't set foot on aircraft or trains for over two years now, which took away many chance encounters with interesting photographic targets.
I did start collecting old laptops and similar computer-related items from the late 90s and early 2000s, but I often have the feeling that I'm the only person who cares about them. Though I have to admit, the site algorithm really pushed my Windows 95 photo when I posted it, so who knows, maybe there are others out there who are interested in this stuff.
I did finally upgrade my smartphone (since my bf got himself a new one, letting me have his old one), so I now have a Galaxy Note 10, which at least has three lenses, allowing some choice of focal length, rather than being stuck at completely wide angles all the time. Let's see whether this will increase my photographic output in the long run. And being a stupid idiot who always falls for nostalgia, I will of course keep submitting older photos from when my photographic output was so high that I still have mountains of unpublished pictures.
If you're a German, or a railfan with some knowledge of larger catastrophes, you probably know all about the tragic accident of Eschede in 1998, still representing the worst high-speed rail disaster, and also the worst rail-related disaster of the Federal Republic of Germany. I don't think I need to explain what you can also look up on Wikipedia, but past me did basically just that in this journal entry from 2009.
This accident is now close to 24 years in the past, but there was a short blip of information that only railfans may have taken note of: The one surviving passenger car of this train, 802 808-6, the very car that "caused" the entire accident by the fracture of one of its wheels, has been quietly scrapped in Nürnberg. And it was none other than the well-known scrap dealer Bender from my hometown of Leverkusen who was called in to dismember this remnant of history. After the accident, and once all court dealings were completed in 2005, this car was given to a THW (Federal Agency for Technical Relief) school as training object, stored on their premises for a few years. In 2007, DB gave the THW a different car to train on, and 802 808-6 was taken back, kept in Nürnberg as a spare parts donor, in some far corner out of sight, until last month, when Bender's mobile crew came in and reduced it to scrap metal.
Personally, I'd have put that thing in a museum to serve as warning to all engineers who design safety-critical items, but I don't think any museum would have any interest in it. I was also surprised that the surviving car of the Kaprun 2 disaster that I babbled about before also ended up being scrapped, rather than in some form of preservation. Though I don't know whether survivors or family members of those who died in such catastrophes would approve or disapprove of such things being preserved in some way. Maybe they do want them gone, I'm not sure.
Apart from the one passenger car that now no longer exists, the two power heads of the train are still in service, with the front one not having sustained any damage during the accident, while the rear one was used as spare parts donor for years, but ended up being rebuilt when two other power cars were lost due to fire and derailment damage.
Well, that's all from my side! I don't really know why I write such overly long things, but I guess I just enjoy writing, even if my writing isn't that good. And speaking of that, I did some more writing on the topic of British boarding schools that I might upload in the near future. A very niche topic, but the way the Brits treat children is a great way to understand all the ailments of their society, much like the way Russia mistreats its soldiers representing a surefire way to create an inferior army.
I often use dA as a repository, in terms of using the search function to look up certain photos if I need one of a specific locomotive or train. But recently, I discovered that I can't find the majority of my own works via the search field, despite always tagging them with all the appropriate keywords. I was a little shocked to discover that my older works now don't have any tags at all!
More specifically, tags seem to have disappeared between August and September 2014. Deviations from before that time don't have any tags any more, while deviations submitted after that point in time still have all their tags intact.
Is this happening to others as well, or is this just a problem with my gallery? o.o