eeeek!

So we've had an offer accepted on a house! It seems as though the mortgage application is going OK, that is our FA (Financial Advisor not Football Association!) hasn't told us of any brick walls hit yet. This all seems very grown up. Walking around the area when we went to view the house it struck us how very suburban it all was. Can we really live there? Will we really not be awoken at 03:00 in the morning by pissed people shouting/wanting there keys back because they have to go to work in the morning? No more suspicious exchanges of money under our living room window? I've almost got used to Chavs shouting at the top of their voices down the street! Mmmm maybe not.

I think marriage and buying a house are meant to be two huge life events. Of course marriage was a massive life event, but it was easy. I love my wife very much, and I wanted nothing more than to marry her. Buying a house is a massive financial commitment though. I'm sure Abi will still love me if I don't have a job, or am very ill for a long time. However, there are more serious financial repercussions to these situations when you have mortgage repayments to make!

Anyway, I'm jabbering on (mmmm, interesting. google. It seems the spell check in Chrome likes the spelling of "jabbering" but not google! Go figure). Too much for the two people who read this blog. So I shall end with a quote I read on the Guardian website today: "Tesco: Never will you seen such a hive of scum and villainy!"

Rain

Man it rained yesterday! Serious flooding on a lot of roads, and some people from Elgin were being evacuated from their homes!

I was still able to make it to work though. Not that I've had much to do. Cells have grown really slow, they should be ready by about 17:00, at which point I'm going home, I'll do the Luciferase assay on Monday.

Weekend! I hope that we will get out cycling on one of the days if it doesn't rain all weekend. Abi is desperate to go out on her new bike, she's buying lots of accessories as well. I'm sure I could do with some new tyres, and I might like some body geometry handlebar grips.

Well since I can't do any lab work for the next fours hours I'll try and fight with GIMP again (GNU Image Manipulation Programme) to try and superimpose my GFP image with that of the yeast cells.

Phones

I guess in these days of mobile web phones, I should be able to Blog
from my phone.

10 Year Old

So apparently Blogger is 10 years old now, seems like that should be worth a blog.

Went out to Inverurie to see another house this evening. Quite a nice semi detached, but quite lacking in storage space. Can't decide if we need to slim down our inventory or try and find a house with lots of storage space!

The trains out were rubbish again. Got to Dyce and the doors were buggered, so we were stuck there for 15 min as they were fixed (with some reversing and bumping of the rear carriages into the front carriages!).

I'm sure I was going to write about other things, but I can't remember now. I'm sure I will remember when I have shut the computer down.

Goodnight.

Loch Tay 2009

We just had a great weekend down in Perthshire. Abi's Uncle/Auntie/cousins and associated husbands/children hire a cottage for a week in Lawers (about half way along Loch Tay), and we were invited out for a couple of days.
Booked into our B&B in Killin (very nice, super breakfasts) and headed up to the cottage for a lovely BBQ, no rain and very few midges!
On Friday Sandy (Uncle) Abi and I climbed Beinn Ghlas (see photo of obligatory summit shot). Weather wasn't great on the way up, drizzle, a bit more serious rain, and then walking in cloud for most of the rest of the time (hence the lovely view behind us in the photo). Naturally, when we got back down to the car park, the sky cleared and the sun came out.
But then the weather stayed great. The next day Abi and I hired bikes from the Outdoor Shop in Killin and cycled along the Sustrans National Cycle Network Route 7. Had a great time, particularly on the long slope down towards Lochearnhead. But not on the way back up, these were the most uncomfortable saddles I had ever ridden on! We were both still bruised in saddle-straddling places on Sunday! Sunburnt, sore but happy, we really should get out more. All in all a great long 4-day weekend (more of these please), always good to catch up with the other Mavor side of the family.
Back to work now, at least the boss is away for another week!

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!