Getting back in gear and tightening the focus

After nearly three weeks of being idle as a result of the government shutdown, I find myself drawing a narrower focus on the activities in which I am engaged. This is a consequence of lost time and of the struggle to get fully re-engaged. The train of thought that is so vital to novel and creative research was severely wounded.

A significant portion of the time in which to accomplish the milestones and achievements for fiscal year 2014, which coincidentally began on 1 Oct, the day the insanity began, is lost. This means that I will be less likely to accept invitations to review manuscripts and more likely to keep many projects on the back burner.

We have a few very important ongoing projects that are at critical stages of either assembling the data into impactful manuscripts or for evaluation of our current and soon to end 5-year research plan. This is where my focus will be for the coming several weeks. This is where the push will be exerted. So many of those little things that add flavor and completeness to the research we do will simply have to wait, hopefully to be squeezed in later.