Now, what is this about?

Since I gingerly touched a computer for the first time as a kid, I’ve always thought it’d be fun if those things were a little smarter. Eventually, after few not so relevant detours, this type of thinking became my profession. A dream come true, I still believe.

But everything comes with a price. Since quite a while ago, too much research management has been ruining most of my attempts to actually do the research (unfortunately, even such a generally exciting endeavour like science can and does get tedious sometimes). Meditation at finance meetings and breathing exercises during teleconferences with industrial partners do help a bit, but such activities can only go so far before annoying my poor colleagues too much.

Therefore, I had to think about other ways of bringing my mojo back. Perhaps some sort of art, to balance the rigours of science and boredom of management? After a careful consideration, writing seemed to be the only artistic activity I could imagine pursuing without ending up as a total failure. The choice was quite easy after all, as there were not that many viable options to start with (an example that says it all – by the age of 3, my son was already a better painter, dancer, singer, musician or actor than I could ever hope to become).

So now I am on a quest. I want to try and see if I can write something else than research papers, deliverables, grant proposals or patent applications. I’d like to conjure stories that would entrance actual people instead of program committees and review boards. Surely looks like a challenge that could keep me distracted from a total burnout for a while.

I intend to use this blog as my public workspace and resonance board. The idea is to share bits of my memories, quirky observations and other building blocks of what is slowly becoming a stream of short stories. Some of the stories will appear here as an “open source” work in progress. You’re very welcome to get involved. Other stuff may even be released as an actual book. I’ll keep you posted.

Just be warned – what I can come up with will probably revolve around the only things I presume to know relatively well – the ocean and all sorts of (non-human) intelligence. Weird as it sounds, I hope it could be interesting. It surely is fun to write the stuff. Maybe you’ll enjoy reading it as well.