Am I ever going to get out of here?

In science one little mistake can cost you a lot of work.

Case study. Wednesday I sac. 6 mice and take their lymph nodes and spleens. I mush it all up to get the cells out. I kill all the red blood cells, leaving the white blood cells. I then count the cells Not all of them, just enough to let me guess about how many I have. I had about 400 million of the little buggers. Next I stick Antibodies to all the cell I don't want. Stick another antibody to that antibody and then little magnets to that. In Short, I stick little tiny magnets to all the cells I don't want. I then stick the tube in a big magnet, wait a bit, and pour out the cells with no magnets on them. In theory I should a tube full of just the right kind of cells (80-90% CD4+ T cells). Now these cells have had it rough for the past few hour, so I let them rest overnight.

End Day one
After a sound nights sleep, I take the cells stimulate them for 15-45 min. Then I put them on Ice and lyse them (I kill them with soap to get all the innards out) spin out all the junk. Then I measure how much protein is in each of my 10 samples

Takes about half a day but we had lab meeting too
End Day 2

Next day I very carefully measure out each sample so they all have the right amount of protein in them. boil the samples for five min. put them into a gel and seperate the proteins by size. (takes 1.5 hours). I take the gel put on a special nitrocellulose membrane, and transfer the proteins on to the membrane. . . well that was the plan. I put the lid on backwards so the electric current was going the wrong way. Instead of the protein moving onto the membrane from the gel it went the other way, lost and never to be seen again. . .

End Day III
Needless to say I was a little mad.

Baby boomers

You hear a lot about generations these days. I think the media likes it as a PC way of categorizing people. Baby boomers, gen X, Y, next, blah blah. Generally it sounds like "kids these days".

Generally I don't like such labels, but I have a bone to pick with one of these groups. Yes I'm talking to you baby boomers. Okay I doubt anyone but my friends and sisters will read this.

As a whole the Baby boomer generation really chaps my hide. This was the group that decided to toss the values of the previous generations. So I get handed a world of drugs, sleaze and collapsed families. Sure some good music came out of it, but that's hardly justification. Let's jump back to when my grandparent grew up. Lower crime, little or no drug use, and lower divorce rate. With the exception of the civil rights movement and technological advances, did the world really move as far forward as they like to boast?

Maybe I'm just bitter? Since, after all these years the baby boomers couldn't even save their own retirement and Social security. And handing my generation their 12 trillion + and growing credit card bill. While creating a college system that puts us 20-30,000$ in debt before we can try to make a living.

Am I being unreasonable?

Enticement

There's a lot of talk going on about the legalization of marijuana. One of the argument is that the laws don't reduce use. By criminalizing it you create and dangerous black market and the lure of a forbiden fruit. I've heard the same dribble about prostitution, porn, and long list of other vices. The arguments are all the same "you can't make it go away and try to do so just makes it worse," So why not embrace it and get some tax revenue out of it.

Our drug problems have nothing to due with their legality. This country has drug problems because it's a nation of pot heads. The problems are social not legal. We can't seem to stop murder, maybe we should legalize it with a heavy tax. How about Child pornography. No one seems to be saying we should legalize heroine or Meth. Why shouldn't people have the choice to destroy their lives with the drugs on their choice?

Because that isn't the country we want to be.

There will be drugs in this county so long as people want to use them. If we stop the cocaine people will make meth. The rule of supply and demand suggests the only way to solve these problems is the remove the demand. Just because society is starting to accept things like recreational marijuana use, doesn't make it a good idea. Our society has problems, and giving up and embracing them will not help us, but realizing the source of the problem and staying with our moral anchor will.

Dinner

Some of the best thing I've ever cooked are the random "frying pan surprises"

I could thing what to eat so I just threw something together and this is what I can up with

Chicken, garlic, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, cooking sherry
cooked

added kidney beans, sliced almonds, ricotta cheese, tomato and over some macaroni noodles


mmmmmmm

Signs you've been going to school to long

You start calling faculty members by their first names
It takes you more than 10 sec to explain to the average person what you're studying
After telling people what you're doing everyone tries to console you by saying "you must be smart" or "you'll probably make lots of money."
You're not going bald but your skull is enlarging and you hair can't keep up.
When you type a paper with a longer works cited page than the actual paper.
People at the Library know you by name
They start to lure you to class (and seminars) with the promise of free food
You like the summer time, weekends, and Christmas break because you don't have to fight for parking with all the undergrads.
They give you keys. (mostly so you can work longer hours and on week ends)
You use the terms school and work interchangeably
You have you're own computer and desk
They feel so bad, they start paying you
You've been practicing your juggling and you know the average starting pay of a circus performer

So why isn't Grad school all fun and games?

For those who may wonder why I haven't posted in a while, let me explain. Since November I've been working on my "qualifying exam" which has been the scourge of my existence. It's less than ten pages long, but keep in mind this is a scientific research proposal. My first page cites 20+ papers, and the paper as a whole right now has 36 sources. I don't know if anyone has ever read a scientific journal, but I've read 50 or so really, really dry boring papers and had to learn more in less time than I ever have in my life. It takes me about an hour to type a paragraph, I spend a lot of time sitting in front of the computer thinking and looking up little tiny details in my 6 in tall stack of double sided printed journal articles. Hopefully this will all be over in 10 days, assuming I pass and they don't make me do any more revisions. Or I guess I could just fail get thrown out of grad school and do . . . well something, but my mind won't let me explore that possibility.

My favorite Christmas present

I'll forgo a laundry list of my yearly haul, but I can't resist extolling my favorite gift. So quick background, I like to cook on occasion. I really don't know what I'm doing but hey often times it's quite good. In my amateur culinary endeavors, I have developed a deep loathing of cheap dull knives. This Christmas my wife gave me a Zwilling J.A. Henckels "Professional S" Chef's knife. When she bought it the sales person asked if she was going to culinary school. It's not just sharp, it's absurdly sharp, and will easily stay that way longer than any other knife I own. It makes me want to cook just for the excuse of cutting cutting up a big pile of vetables.
Sadly, it has become apparent that not everyone understands my excitement over a peice of bifurcating iceharded stainless steel. That's fine; if they're happy with their Ronco specials, that's their business , but in my house we apreciate fine cutlery.