Warwick

So, I was down in Warwick for a conference at the end of last week. I do confess, I didn't really know where Warwick was! Not far from Coventry, which in turn is not far from Birmingham it would seem.

Translation UK 2009 was the conference. Quite interesting really, the highlight (terrifying moment) was me giving a 12 min presentation. I think it went OK, I felt quite nervous, though since there was probably about 150 people there, I think that's fair enough. Especially given that some of them have been doing this kind of work for far longer than me.

Abi's birthday tomorrow, I hope she has a good day. She'll only be in work for a few hours, and is having lunch with a friend, so it can't be all bad. Then we're going out for dinner in the evening. Funny how I seem to get more excited by Abi's birthday and giving her presents now, rather than my birthday and getting presents! Am I getting old, is this one of the lesser known consequences of old age?

Mmm trying to install Age of Empires III on Abi's PC and it just came up with and error message! Followed by the obigatory error box with "OK" as the only option to click, when it quite clearly isn't OK.

Maybe I should go and concentrate on that now!!

Happy Wednesday

Today I am happy, because after two weeks of frustration, my yeasty cells seem to be growing fine, as they should, and I have finished one of my assays for this week, and it is only lunchtime! This means I may actually have some sort of results to present at this conference in Warwick next week.

It also means I will be able to leave work on time today, and perhaps go to the cinema with Abi, if there's anything worth seeing (saw Watchmen last week).

Mum, Dad, and sister came to visit over the weekend. It was Mum's birthday, so there was plenty of eating and drinking done, which is always nice. It's always great to see them, even if it is for such a short time. But then there's only so much you can do in Aberdeen if you stay for as long as a week! I shall see them again in a month when it is my sister's 30th birthday. I can't really believe she is going to be 30! Not that I can really believe that I'm over 30.

Last month of project

It's going to be a busy month. Lots of experiments to do, and we're hoping to get three publications out of this project. Which is quite impressive for an 18 month project. I can see that I will be in late quite a lot this month. If the yeasty cultures don't grow as fast as I expect, I really just need to stay at work until they do grow so that I can do these experiments.

Still, holiday at the end of it. We'll be going away to a cottage in Aberdour (just north of Edinburgh) for a week. It's not that fantastic a place, but the cottage looks nice, and we're going with at least 6 other friends, so that would make the holiday no matter where we were going. We'll just be able to chill out for a week and arse about, talk rubbish as usual.

After that we will go down the road to my parent's, as it will be my sister's 30th birthday. My goodness. 30!

Oh, and we'll be going to Norway some time in June, or is it July? Crap, it's not even in my calendar! I guess we should book some travel so I know when it is!