Michael Owen

I can't believe Michael Owen has signed for Man Utd!

Cooler today, only 25°C in the lab which is workable in. Still, this is the 5th day in a row that I have worn shorts, that's surely unprecedented in Aberdeen. Lovely weather at the weekend, great for sitting inside and watching Star Wars films. We did have a BBQ and sit out in the Kemnay sunshine for 2 hours. 

Quite a busy day today, which is nice, trying in vain to see the boss, but he's always busy. Not a very interesting post.

Terribly Vexed

So having got sequencing results back today, it seems as though I've not been working with the reagents I thought I was. Apparently sup45-18 is actually sup45-28 and vice versa! Both strains, and plasmids! Basically, I'm gonna have to repeat a bunch of experiments. Bugger.

On a happier note the lab is cooler today, only 26.5°C rather than the 29.5°C of yesterday.

Looking forward to the weekend. A friend who has recently bought a 42" LCD tv is having a Star Wars watching day. That is Episodes 4, 5, and 6, proper Star Wars. So I must go home and bake a cheesecake tonight, as we are providing dessert for the BBQ. Mmmm, probably just cursed the weather, still, what's a BBQ in Scotland without rain!

Scorchio

To quote from a certain sketch show. Google weather says that it is 29°C in Cults. It feels hotter in the lab. The 30°C incubators are beeping because they can't maintain their temperature. This is a day to skive off early and sit in the park (the boss is away anyway). Must drink more water or I'll feel rubbish later on.

Keine lust!

Haven't blogged for ages. Busy at work, but I can't be bothered today.

Started new project. Haven't finished last one! But we have submitted a review article, which was nice. What wasn't nice was testing the online submission procedure on Friday at 18:00 with a test.doc file with the word "test" in it, only to find out that once "submit" it pressed, no matter how much the site says you will be able to review the manuscript before submission, you can't!

So we submitted the test.doc to RNA journal, edited by a guy who won the joint Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1989! Oops! Ah well, the proper manuscript got submitted eventually.

Ooo. My timer will go off in a minute, I'll actually have to do some work!

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!