when I started this blog five years ago, I was a pet sitter and the name animal-crackers made sense. now I'm a stay-at-home-dad and freelance writer, but rather than confuse everyone by getting a different blog, it's just easier to keep posting things here.

It all works out in the end, I suppose.

I started the project for the businessman -- a treatise on higher education reforms -- and finished an executive summary a day ahead of schedule. Now condensing 55 pages to two isn't as easy as it might sound. Some arguments were axed, others whittled.

The thrust of the paper was that teaching at universities suffers at the expense of research. Professors spend too much time publishing and not enough educating. It's a simple matter of economics: professors are rewarded for the former and not the latter.

However, the paper also spent many pages blasting the quality of research. It argued that the vast majority of academic research has no utilitarian value -- so it has no value whatsoever. Also, the paper implied academia is dominated by liberal elitists bent on sapping America of its Christian values.

Since neither of these arguments proved central to the thesis, I axed them -- thus satiating my liberal elistist bent to sap America of its Christian values. Seriously, they had nothing to do with the recommendations.

It's like saying "It's dark. Turn on the lights and fold the laundry."

My executive summary didn't fly. The businessman emailed me to say "thanks, but no thanks." I'll be paid for my work to date.

It sucks to be rejected -- even by someone whose approval I did not want. But it's a relief to know I don't have to be part of something that gives me indigestion.

It all works out in the end, I suppose.