Can I go to sleep yet?

Don't be at all surprised if this post is completely unintelligible. I've been up all night working in the lab again and I'm 29 hours into a 30 hour experiment. I feel like many parts of me are made of rubber. Like neurons, for instance. And they're about to snap back at any moment. But I must remain alert for another hour and a half before I can walk home (in the bracing cold, which I'm sure will wake me right up and then I won't be able to sleep -- argh), so I decided to write a little something.

I finished my second Seraphina shawl, which is a good thing because it gets cold in my apartment! It's the only thing about living in a tall building with lots and lots of windows that I don't like. I have afghans to wrap up in, but they're just so bulky. This will be much nicer when I'm curling up with a knitting project or thesis reference. I love this colorway so much -- I wish I could find more of it. I took dozens of pictures of it in all kinds of light (that were available) and I just can't get a good representation. It's such a rich chocolate brown and bright, cheery sky blue (Carolina blue!) but the picture is a little dull. And you can't really see the poofiness of the boucle yarn, either. It's very, very yummy.

Seraphina's Shawl by Doni
Joann Sensations Rainbow Boucle in blue/brown
Size US I hook

So now I have only one project that I'm seriously working on, but I'm getting ready to start another. Both are for Gator, so I'm not showing anything until he gets them. I may have to start something else too, just so I have something to blog about!

Although I wouldn't be surprised if I need to rant sometimes about my new TA assaignment...

_____

Warning! Boring! (it's what I do)

I spent all of Friday night in the lab. Yep, I'm just that kind o' party girl. As part of my "35-hour-experiment-from-hell" (well, it's actually much long than that, but the truly hellish part is only about 35 hours), I had a little slumber party with a bunch of ciliates. Oh, the fun! And, anyway, I got it into my head that some sick, bored person out there might like to see what kind of things make up long, drawn-out science-y things on the cutting edge of cell and molecular biology! (Actually, this is on the cutting edge like Kansas is on the ocean. But I digress.)

In short, feel free to skip this post.

It all starts on Friday morning, 5:00 am. I mix cells so they will mate and shake them around for a half an hour so they'll all mate pretty much at the same time (yes, that's really how we do that). Then I monitor the cells for several hours. Most of the late morning and early afternoon is spent making control slides and continuing to monitor the mating. I get to go home at 5:00 pm for a bit of a nap. Then the real fun begins.

Picture it: Friday night, 9:00 pm. I open the incubator and am confronted with the solutions of mating cells I prepared eeeaaarrrllly that morning:


I add growth medium to one of the flasks:


Then I start taking samples from both flasks:


And put them in little tubes.


I put the tubes in the centrifuge and spin them so all the cells go down into the bottom:


Then I suck off all the fluid leaving a little ball of cells at the bottom of the tube.


Then I wash the cells with 3 different washes of methanol (mix up the cells in methanol, let them sit, spin the cells down and suck off the methanol, repeat, repeat):


And then I finally drop some concentrated cells onto slides which I will stain, photograph and digitally analyze later.


Repeat every two hours for eleventy million hours. (Oh, okay. Fourteen.) Then repeat every twelve hours for a week. Because this is how many slides I'm making:



I don't know right now. A lot.

And now I have to go make some more. Ta!!

_____

Fruitful trip and lucky socks

Well, hello again! It seems I just keep going on trips and leaving you hanging. Oh, what's that you say? You didn't notice? Figures.

I spent last week in Toronto at York University doing experiments. Here's the quick and dirty -- Since February, I've been trying to repeat an immunocytochemistry experiment that a lab at York has been doing for a year. I've attempted this experiment dozens of times with no discernible result. If you think that didn't frustrate the H-E-double hockey sticks outta me... So, Doc packed me up and sent me to the source where I spent five days doing two matings, collections, round after round of immunofluorescence and a Western blot. The result? A result! Yes, the experiment worked just as it should have. Wonderful! What's not so wonderful? I have no idea why. There was nothing in their protocol that was appreciably different from the way I've been doing it down here. Argh. So now I'm going through the experiment with a fine toothed comb and repeating here again, hopeful that some Canadian magic rubbed off on me and it will work here. Wish me luck. If it turns out to just be the air up there I'm totally screwed.

While there I did get to ride the Rocket into the city and stroll around for a bit. I'd not been to Toronto before and everyone always says it's so nice. And it is nice, but I spent much of my time walking around thinking that it's just not quite as nice as Milwaukee. I swear I should be put on a payroll somewhere for constantly squealing my love for Beer Town. My incredible bias aside, I snapped some pics of my quite enjoyable little jaunts.


I admit I was totally on the lookout for a close encounter with Geddy, Neil, or Alex but, alas, it was not to be. I'll get to see them in Milwaukee on Sept. 5 -- w00t! Instead, I encountered ginormous fallopian tube-shaped public art.


Down along the harborfront are many apartments, condos, and office buildings. But nestled among them is a little treat -- Captain John's Seafood Boat. I was completely tempted to sample some of their fine wares but, surprisingly, frugality prevailed.



I gazed longingly at their menu and am relieved to be able to say yes, Anne, they have chicken fingers. You could survive here. ;)


Chinatown was bustling and full of really foreign (and not entirely pleasant) smells. I know, I'm sure I'm a spoiled American brat, but if the Hy-Vee ever smelled like those markets, I wouldn't go inside. It was still fun, though.


And I did find a really great Chinese bakery where they make delicious meat-filled buns that I would totally eat every day if I could. They were awesome.

I have no explanation for the gigantic metal pipe fashioned into a "tree" which has become home to enormous woodpeckers. This thing is several stories high in front of the convention center.


Only in Canada. They really know how to make a billboard you notice. This one was at Union Station.


So, did anyone else in my corner of the blogosphere watch and lurve a 90's television show called Forever Knight? Besides Rush, that show is what I most associate with Toronto. The show opened every week with a cityscape featuring, of course, the CN Tower. So I was happy to get a somewhat dramatic, dusky photo of the tower. Watch out for vampires!


Before it got too dusky, I went down to the harbor and watched the boats for a bit. What did I do while I watched? I worked on Second Sock, of course! Sock and I enjoyed the view very much.



Between labwork and sight seeing, I didn't have much time to work on Second Sock, but my flights were another story. So, without further ado, I present to you in all their finished glory...

MY FIRST SOCKS!!!!!!!


Yay! They're all done and they're wonderful!!! I absolutely adore them. I wore them to the Brewer's game on Sunday and it turns out that they're lucky socks, to boot! Fab! I'm just tickled every color in the box.

I've already started my next pair of socks, but they're a gift so I can't post pics until they're done and received. Gator requested a pair for his birthday -- which is August 1, so I don't know if I'll make it -- which surprised me a little because of the extra care involved with handmade socks. I'm happy he wants some though. I love making things for him. :)

I had a great trip, but I'm glad to be home now. There are no more trips on the horizon, so the blogging can resume uninterrupted.

Y'all can rest easy.

_____

And she's off!

I'm leaving today for Toronto for heavy duty science action! Hold down the blogosphere while I'm gone and don't do anything I wouldn't do. I'll see you all next week!

Ta!

_____

Science-y goodness

Did you know that Mr. Clean kills the most bacteria? Cokes rots your teeth the fastest? You don't run faster if you listen to "fast" music? That the five-second rule is bullshizz? That I'm too old to hear the silent ringtone?

These were the things I learned while I was a judge at a science fair last night. Of course, most of these experiments used far from stringent standards of evidence, so don't run out and buy some Mr. Clean right this minute or anything. But what fun to see 5th through 8th graders so excited about finding a way to answer a question!!

They were adorable, every one. I can't wait until next year.

Oh, wanna find out how old your ears are?? (scroll down on that page) Mine are quite a bit older than me. I'm going to view this as a good thing as it means there are apparently more annoying things I can't hear. Alright!

This is the sky in Beer Town this morning. Nothing too exciting. But I'll take the 48 degrees F that's forecast for today!! Woot!!


I'm off to the lab -- enjoy your day!!

_____