iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The last couple of weeks were absurdly busy. The Bay Delta Science Conference was amazing, but it also wiped me out. A few days in the mountains has been a great reset.

A photo of a mountain range. Blue sky with puffy clouds above. Pine trees below.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I really need to finish my presentation for the Bay Delta Science Conference, but Penzey has other ideas.

A photo of a small dog wearing an aloha shirt curled up next to a person’s legs on a couch. There’s a laptop open in the background.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

With all due respect, have you talked to any of us former FWS employees about why we left? The lack of hiring to replace us is a problem, but I think turnover will be high if the reasons we left aren’t addressed. I would guess other agencies have similar issues.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Why are there so many mosquitoes in my office? Not just in the building- they’re flying around in my little shoebox in the middle of the building first thing in the morning.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I read it. Yeah it’s a fake dating, professor-student plot. I don’t remember most of it, but I do remember that it was hard to get past the ick factor.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I got my covid and flu vaccines yesterday. Obligatory bandaid selfie- this time in the spooky decorations aisle. (Extra weird pose because I’m wearing a work shirt and I’m trying to cover up the agency shield.)

A photo of a woman with her sleeve pushed up to show off two bandaids on her upper arm. She is posing in the Halloween decoration aisle.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My presentation might not be done yet, but I’m ready for the Bay Delta Science Conference! Look what arrived in the mail today!

A photo of two packages of stickers. One package has longfin smelt on it and the other has delta smelt on it.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Ha. The process of doing science for an agency does sound boring when it’s that vague. I’m actually pretty excited about what I wrote, I just don’t want to share specifics until some colleagues review it. But it’s progress!

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Happy Friday! I finished a first draft of a data analysis and write up for a technical appendix yesterday. In celebration, here’s a picture of Penzey being adorable.

A photo of a small tan dog lying on a dark floor. His front feet are neatly out in front of him, but his back feet are sticking out to the side in not quite a sploot.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Things I used R for today: 🐟 Simulating effects of different fish survival patterns 📉 Making graphs 🧮 Calculating the difference in premiums for insurance because it’s open enrollment

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I did two clean double pirouettes while my tap teacher was watching. iykyk

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Happy caturday! Atcha found one of the baskets that I used to pick basil this morning.

A kitchen counter piled high with fresh basil

A tabby cat sitting in a rope basket, leaning hard to the left

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Oh no! I hope it’s over quickly! I was just wondering whether I should get my flu and covid shots before the Bay Delta Science Conference.

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Reposted by Vanessa Tobias

Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I’m part of the 36%. Technically I was a statistician at USFWS, but I am also a fish biologist and ecologist. I left for a lot of reasons, both good and bad. I still have mixed feelings about it 7 months later. I love the job I’m doing now at the CA Dept of Fish and Wildlife, though.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I was expecting that sentence to end with “smoke” instead of “limousines.” 😂

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Someone I really respect told me that they have a post-it note on their computer with a one-sentence summary of a big issue we’re trying to solve that I said during a meeting a few months ago. 🥰

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

At my dance studio we do time steps for celebrations in tap classes. Usually it’s while we sing someone happy birthday. Tonight we did our whole time step warm up routine to a Dolly Parton song in her honor.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

So much of learning a new modeling technique is figuring out what words to search for. Somehow, even though I work with fish, monarch butterfly population models always seem to have good examples of what I need. Thanks, monarch scientists, for giving me the vocabulary I need! 🧪👩‍🔬🦋🐟

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

It sounds like you have a fun data project brewing!

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

No, I don’t really have any project updates to share because I was on vacation since the last time we met. Can I interest you in a picture of some kangaroos instead? (My team will have updates to share, but probably not pictures of kangaroos.)

An adult kangaroo with a joey in her pouch in a eucalyptus forest.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Maybe under appreciated benefit for government scientists: you can’t bring work devices out of the country so when you travel internationally nobody can bug you on vacation. I’m back at my work computer after a week and a half of zero contact. Only 70 emails and no urgent teams messages. Not bad.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

I love when I’m in a fun sciency meeting about fish ecology and I can hear that the meeting in the next conference room is also fun.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Yeah I don’t think what the house tried was going to work. I forget all the details, but something about the cost of listing not being high enough to use that path. And it was well past the deadline anyway. I was worried they would ignore the rules for a minute, so I’m glad it didn’t go anywhere.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Yes they can revisit sturgeon and since the decision was already made that listing was warranted, they can’t decide to not list them. Repealing the longfin decision was discussed, but my understanding is that it didn’t meet the criteria for the procedure they wanted to use to repeal the rule.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Maybe we overdid it going to that moth night (j/k) because my hamstrings were also cramping up in my jazz class tonight (not kidding). Also drinking some kind of electrolyte water to calm them down.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This has been a long week, but it’s important to celebrate wins so… my longfin smelt growth paper is ready to go! Huge credit to the first author who wrote the code & put up with my suggestion to add a fecundity angle to the discussion. *for internal review, but I would submit it to a journal as is.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

What are you going to do to stop him?

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Thanks to everyone who submitted a comment to OPM this week! It doesn’t feel like much, but it means a lot that you took the time to speak up.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Why isn’t my graph changing when I adjust the code? I’m looking at the wrong png in my graph output folder. 🤦‍♀️ #rstats

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I’m almost done revamping the last garden bed. The neighbor’s tree roots found their way into every raised bed. I started digging this one out to install a barrier and drainage like a month ago. Then my tooth saga derailed me. This one was an absurd amount of work especially in this heat.

A photo of a grid of paving bricks with gravel between them.

A phot of an empty raised garden bed on top of a sheet of weed fabric. There is a big pile of soil next to it.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Some folks say they want to help but they don’t know how to write a public comment. Structure doesn’t matter. Content does. Experts, write in your field’s style. Cite literature. General public, say why you disagree with the proposal. Just don’t curse or threaten- that gets comments tossed out.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

This is all to say every comment matters. Some are just handled differently.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

I have been on the gov side of public comments. If all you can do is say you don’t support the rule, it will be tallied & reported. A comment with explanation and citations usually has to be responded to individually. Giving info that wasn’t considered in the original rule makes the biggest splash.

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Reposted by Vanessa Tobias

Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

For folks asking why bother commenting because the OMB won't care: comments help build cases for the courts by explicitly laying out harms. That's why it's really important to have your comments be as specific as possible. Also, contact your senators and reps! They actually do care about this.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Yay my abstract was accepted for a talk! Oh crap my abstract was accepted and now I have a hard deadline to finish that data analysis!

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I’m super proud of myself for figuring out how to use a teams channel’s sharepoint as a bare git repo. If anyone else has been stuck in this, creating a shortcut in my OneDrive was the key for me. After that it works like a regular folder and you can make it a remote.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I’m rooting for Morocco’s white jerseys because I like the pattern on them. (Their red ones are kinda boring, though.)

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I got similar feedback from one of my committee members. He wasn’t happy when I thanked him.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Maybe check out the packages that are meant for making memes in R?

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

I tell myself that if I do my work I can have a little fun data analysis as a treat. 🙂

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

I realized that my best chance of finding something again is to put it in the first place I think it could/should go. If I overthink it, I’ll never find it again.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Or convert the dates to Julian days (yday in lubridate). You probably still need a year though so that doesn’t really solve anything.

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Assign each day the same arbitrary year?

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

But also what did IT do last week that made me have to reinstall all of my R packages? (Not asking for real. Just venting. This is an unknowable thing with gov IT departments.)

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

TFW you’re planning out some data gathering and rearranging and you think, “this seems familiar. I think I did something like this for another project.” And you actually find the code and it’s pretty much exactly what you needed. Thanks, former me!

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Typo: “and” should be “can”

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Congress, and we make this happen by creating a One Big Beautiful Bog Act? (Sorry that was the cringiest #wetlands joke.)

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Vanessa Tobias @marshprincess.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

I had a tooth removed today. It had a crown that failed twice so it was time. I’m super grateful for 1) antibiotics and 2) a dentist who didn’t make a big deal about my anxiety, but just did everything he could to make me comfortable.

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