Nobody ever thinks about tenure growing up. It's the kind of adult possibility that doesn't register on kids, and rarely registers on college students. If you end up in a social circle of people in which post-graduate education is common, eventually the reality of tenure becomes all too real for you.

Greetings from Huntsville, your latest source of American workplace shootings.

Pass the chicken.

There's nothing quite like waking up one morning to learn that your adopted hometown is the news event of the day. "Four men dead in workplace shooting; police say that the gunman is holed up in some..." ... unnamed apartment building that's apparently over on my side of town.