We have a plethora of comments on our papers at the moment (and it's a good thing).

My big paper at the moment has come back with reasonably positive reviews. One referee is actually quite happy as is, the other referee isn't very happy with some parts of the paper and has not recommended it for publication. However, even that isn't such a bad thing. So why is it not a bad thing that the review had some negative comments? Well, to be honest, it's almost expected! The referees are expected to be tough on manuscripts (especially for journals like this) and it's rare to find even one referee with only minor revision requests, let alone both. However, what's good is that the referee, while skeptical of certain elements gave concrete questions and feedback. It's easier to evaluate and address concrete items than it is to deal with comments that are essentially rhetorical.

The referee gave several questions which we are capable of addressing, some that are already answered in the text (though perhaps not clearly enough), and a couple of misunderstandings (which again points to us needing to clarify our prose). The major objection I think we are more than capable of answering. I'll spend much of the next few days working on this, fixing certain problems, clarifying our text, and digesting the comments.

We've also gotten back comments on Dan's paper and we're almost ready to send it back too. It's a good time to be in our group with a few papers almost ready and a few more approaching initial submission.