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Tuesday, February 01, 2005


Yeah, I'm still around. Yesterday was...well...it was a monday. Bleah.

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Though I know most of you, especially the guys, will be sorely disapointed to hear this, but I will NOT be discussing my yogurt usage any more, other to say that I am pleased with the results. If you want all the fun details, just email me.

As for what got me into the world of yogurt cures in the first place, my annoying painful red leg bump is slowly but surely getting better. Still there, still painful when poked (*poke* ow), but not as much anymore. And it's getting...softer, which has to mean the infection is breaking up. But I STILL have 4 more days of the antibiotics yet. Bleah.

Last night we "reconvened the procedure" (dooce fans will know what I mean). Hooray! But I'm not sure I was fully ready, because I HURT afterwards! May have to wait until I'm done with the antibiotics.

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It is drizzly outside today, in SPITE of what pretty boy Flip Spiceland said. Bastard.

Remember when the windsheild wipers on cars only had two settings? Slow and fast? Yeah, I want those days back. Now I have 20 different options for wiper speed, and it drives me crazy, because I OBSESSIVELY try to find the perfect setting for the current rain velocity. Oh, raining harder, up on click. Oh, traffic, down two clicks. Oops, deluge, all the way up. Suddenly stops, all the way down.

Why? Because I'm nuts. And because I NEED a clean windsheild, AND I hate having wipers on too fast a setting for the amount of water, because then they make that squeaky noise. I also change my blades probably more than neccessary, because growing up, my father would wait until the wipers barely even touched the window anymore before changing them, and it DROVE MY MOTHER NUTS! and I would have to listen to her PLEAD with my father to get them changed. Why she just didn't pick up new blades at autozone and have them install them for her, I will never know. But THAT'S what I do. And I'll replace the whole wiper, not just the blade.

Kevin, however, almost never uses his wipers. Drives me crazy. He's got water pouring down his window, but he wont' use his wipers, because he "can still see!" And if there's dead bugs and dirt all over the windsheild, if he can still make out objects in the road, HE WON'T CLEAN THE WINDSHEILD!!! Why oh why does he torture me like that???

And he says I need help. Pft!

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warning, lab ranting which will make no sense to most of you ahead
Gah...I feel like this day has been about 8 days long. Learned how to do real time PCR today.
ask me why. go ahead.

I TELL you why! Because I'm trying to confirm single integration of my plasmid into my strain. The standard protocol for doing this is a southern. BUT you can also do it by PCR, by using primers that will amplify the marker in the plasmid. If there's a single integration, you won't get product, but if there's multiple, you'll get product. Now, obviously I need a control in the tube, because if I get no product, it could be what I want, or it could be that the PCR didn't work.

Well, damn if I couldn't get the controls to work to SAVE MY LIFE!

So after a week of trying, I decided to give in and do the southern. Digested my samples last week, and on monday precipitated, poured a gel, loaded the samples, and ran the gel. I knew I had to run it for a good long time, as the bands I was looking for were pretty big. So I let it go for about 45 minutes and just decided to see how it was going. Looked at the gel. Hmm...interesting. No loading dye to be seen on the gel. No way could my samples have moved that fast, even at 100v. I check the power supply. Yep, 100V...then my eyes moved down a little.

OH. FUCK. ME.

Now, I didnt' plug the lid into the power supply, it was still connected from the last user. So I just snapped the lid on and set the voltage. What I didn't realize, is that the last person who used the box must have loaded their gel in the wrong direction, so they...they...

*uncontrollable sobbing*

SWITCHED THE CORDS IN THE POWER SUPPLY!

Mean negative to positive and vise versa. So the gel would run FOR THEM in the correct direction. And since THEY DIDN'T SWITCH THEM BACK...

*more sobbing*

my samples ran off the back of the gel.

SONOFABITCH!

The culprit immediately admitted to it, and while I was livid, she was almost in tears. So I really couldn't stay mad for long. And today she brought me cookies. So all is well.

Now I'm attempting to do real time PCR to see if I have multiple integrations. And at least that's an interesting new lab skill.

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Yeah, I realize I got nothing much funny or insightful today. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

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