I've decided to leave academia, because it's just too obvious that there are fortunes to be made in the shipping business. I mean, seriously, people: check out what I've just discovered when I looked up the tracking number of something I ordered from Apple a few weeks back. Somewhere, somehow, this makes sense for some system that's trying ship me a package in New Orleans:

08/23/2010 00:00:00 MANIFESTED Millington, TN
08/25/2010 09:36:00 SHIPMENT PICKED UP MILLINGTON, TN
08/25/2010 09:38:00 INTRANSIT FOREST PARK, GA
08/26/2010 06:38:00 INTRANSIT FOREST PARK, GA
08/27/2010 23:26:00 SHIPMENT ACCEPTED MEMPHIS, TN
09/01/2010 16:26:00 HANDED TO POSTAL SERVICE FOR DELIVERY SAINT PAUL, MN
09/02/2010 13:00:00 PROCESSED THROUGH SORT FACILITY DES MOINES, IA
09/05/2010 09:47:00 PROCESSED THROUGH SORT FACILITY SPRINGFIELD, MA
09/07/2010 09:15:00 PROCESSED THROUGH SORT FACILITY JERSEY CITY, NJ

UPDATE:
09/09/2010 01:04:00 PROCESSED THROUGH SORT FACILITY MEMPHIS, TN (Nice! Passing again through the same place it passed through "on its way to me" 13 days earlier....)

So: two weeks plus so far in getting from Tennessee to New Orleans (via Georgia via a return to Tennessee via Minnesota via Iowa via Massachusetts via New Jersey). Getting all radical and going more direct (or at least limiting it to one centralized shipping and distribution center), I still might have walked it faster.