grant grubbing, part II
Music: Ulrich Schnauss: A Strangely Isolated Place (2003)
It's time for a patented DJ Joshie Juice bitchfest: as all of us in the humanities at public universities are now fully aware, grant grubbing is now right up there with publications, teaching, and service. And as any colleague in the social sciences will tell you, writing a grant can be as labor intensive as writing an article for publication, and there is frequently a trade-off. The unfortunate thing about the trade-off, however, is that you may not get the grant. Of course, you may not get published either (although you can keep shopping a failed article around, not so much a grant proposal).
Ok, so, today was my day to apply for an NEH fellowship. I've been at this for four hours now, and am defeated. How so? Well, let's put it this way: grant-grubbing and Microsoft are closely associated. And who is surprised by this association anyway? After all, grant-grubbing is, more or less, a corporate imperative to begin with, and nothing says corporation like Microsoft! Let me explain further.
To apply for an NEH grant, you first have to register with an independent site (presumably run by a contractor), Grant.gov (.) To register with Grant.gov, you first have to register with a credential certification service, also on a separate site. So, once you register with the certification service (typing in personal stuff, addresses, and so on), you then go back to Grant.gov and plug in your user ID and password (which has six letters long, to have one special character, at least one numeral, and a capital letter). Grant.gov then asks you for the "funding opportunity number," which requires you to go back to the NEH and read and read and read until something like an FON pops up. Copy, paste this back into Grant.gov, whereupon you are provided a link to download an "XFD" file.
Now, after this hour-long process you are instructed to download the free "Pureedge Viewer Software." Your application for the NEH grant cannot be made without this software . . . which, you guessed it, is for Windows users only. A few hunts and pecks later, I find a link for "non-Windows users." Following that link, you are taken to a PDF that you download and read. This PDF says "We recognize the popularity of the Macintosh Operating system," and then it continues that Grants.gov "has embraced Apple's move toward compatibility" with their deals with Intel, and then it recommends that Mac users purchase Virtual PC and then Windows so that they can download the Puredge viewer. No thanks.
More hunting and pecking reveals two other options for Mac users. One is to use the "Citrix" remote emulator. Basically, Citrix is a Microsoft Internet Explorer program that allows you to work off of a government Windows server remotely, which already has the Pureedge viewer installed. So downloaded and installed Citrix, fired it up, and it asks me to locate the fellowship application file, which is the XFD file. I do this. "Error: file unavailable" it says. I delete the XFD file and download another one. "Error: file unavailable" it says.
I go back to the Grants.gov website looking for a troubleshooting guide. No troubleshooting guide. I notice there is another option for Mac users, a program by IBM that is sort of Windows emulator lite. I download this program, which is gzipped. Now, gzip is an old way to zip files---or at least for mac people. Stuff-it Expander cannot open the file, so I go to Tucows.com to find a gzip expander. I find one, download the expander, and try to start it up. My machine says that this program is written for OS 9 "Classic," the old operating system. My computer asks if I'd like to start up the old OS. Sure, I says, lets do that. My computer says that it cannot find the old OS.
I was considering reinstalling system 9, but here FOUR EFFING HOURS LATER I think I will call it a day. I am looking into getting a Windows loaner laptop so I can apply for this thing and have it over with. Sheesh.