11 March 2004
Why!?!?
Have you ever had one of those days where you have a plan and then the plan gets shot to hell?
This morning before I left:
1.* The Kitten knocked over my glass of water (he jumped on the table, a place that he knows that he is not allowed).
2.* The Kitten then knocked over a vase of flowers (also on the table).
3. I hit my finger and it started to bleed all over the place again – it took about 15 minutes to stop bleeding. (The Kitten was not involved).
4.* The Kitten removed my afternoon snack (some lunch meat and cheese) from my book bag and ate it (how and when did he figure out how to open sandwich baggies?). I did not have any more, so I am going to hope that I have some popcorn left in my desk.
(*Can you tell that the Kitten was really bad this morning! What is up with him?)
But thankfully, I got into work thanks to Phil who just makes me smile and laugh; it is so nice working for someone (and with a whole group of people) who makes worth wile to come to work – it is so lovely! I got sweet/sad e-mail from Abs (she’s a bit homesick right now) and a cute one from someone else. I e-mailed Abs back and told her that I would call her tonight and chat. It is no fun being homesick. Who would have thought that we would be 26 and still get home sick? I was going to answer the cute e-mail, but considering that I just wanted a few minutes to think about what I was going to e-mail, I thought that I would set up a DNA sequencing gel first as getting everything ready takes about 20 minutes and then it has to sit for 2 to 3 hours before it is ready. So, I got started at about 9:45 am ran into SO MANY problems had to take a break at 11:00 am for a meeting. After the meeting I went right back to trying pouring the gel and at 2:30 pm I gave up. Others tried to pour it too, but the DNA sequencing gods are against us here in the lab today. I am going to try again in the morning and if it works (lets all keep our fingers crossed) which then means that I’ll come in on Saturday to clean up the machine as you cannot leave the gel in the machine over the weekend as it will dry out and be impossible to get off the glass plates that we use and that cost $600.00 each!!!
Okay, I am not nuts here! You may be asking why this whole procedure is so hard, the long and the short of it is that you need to pour a 2mm thick gel – but it is 12-inches by 18-inches…and you cannot have ANY air bubbles in it at all or your DNA will not be read correctly. Here is an example (from the net) of what a DNA sequencing gel looks like when it has been run and then analyzed by the computer.
From the picture above, I then get something that looks like this:
And that is where I figure out if there is something different, added or missing from a gene.
But at least I finally got to write my reply e-mail and eat my lunch…all at about 3:00 pm…I just hope that my gel pours in the morning, or I don’t know what I’ll do!
Oh! I got a google hit today under the topic of shortest women . Hmmm…(eye brow is arching)
This morning before I left:
1.* The Kitten knocked over my glass of water (he jumped on the table, a place that he knows that he is not allowed).
2.* The Kitten then knocked over a vase of flowers (also on the table).
3. I hit my finger and it started to bleed all over the place again – it took about 15 minutes to stop bleeding. (The Kitten was not involved).
4.* The Kitten removed my afternoon snack (some lunch meat and cheese) from my book bag and ate it (how and when did he figure out how to open sandwich baggies?). I did not have any more, so I am going to hope that I have some popcorn left in my desk.
(*Can you tell that the Kitten was really bad this morning! What is up with him?)
But thankfully, I got into work thanks to Phil who just makes me smile and laugh; it is so nice working for someone (and with a whole group of people) who makes worth wile to come to work – it is so lovely! I got sweet/sad e-mail from Abs (she’s a bit homesick right now) and a cute one from someone else. I e-mailed Abs back and told her that I would call her tonight and chat. It is no fun being homesick. Who would have thought that we would be 26 and still get home sick? I was going to answer the cute e-mail, but considering that I just wanted a few minutes to think about what I was going to e-mail, I thought that I would set up a DNA sequencing gel first as getting everything ready takes about 20 minutes and then it has to sit for 2 to 3 hours before it is ready. So, I got started at about 9:45 am ran into SO MANY problems had to take a break at 11:00 am for a meeting. After the meeting I went right back to trying pouring the gel and at 2:30 pm I gave up. Others tried to pour it too, but the DNA sequencing gods are against us here in the lab today. I am going to try again in the morning and if it works (lets all keep our fingers crossed) which then means that I’ll come in on Saturday to clean up the machine as you cannot leave the gel in the machine over the weekend as it will dry out and be impossible to get off the glass plates that we use and that cost $600.00 each!!!
Okay, I am not nuts here! You may be asking why this whole procedure is so hard, the long and the short of it is that you need to pour a 2mm thick gel – but it is 12-inches by 18-inches…and you cannot have ANY air bubbles in it at all or your DNA will not be read correctly. Here is an example (from the net) of what a DNA sequencing gel looks like when it has been run and then analyzed by the computer.
From the picture above, I then get something that looks like this:
And that is where I figure out if there is something different, added or missing from a gene.
But at least I finally got to write my reply e-mail and eat my lunch…all at about 3:00 pm…I just hope that my gel pours in the morning, or I don’t know what I’ll do!
Oh! I got a google hit today under the topic of shortest women . Hmmm…(eye brow is arching)
