Bad planning....

Shit.  The two key things I need to run the short experiments this week will not get here in time (even though I ordered them early last week).  One will show up late today and one late tomorrow.  I realized while walking to the bus stop this morning that I am out of both of the key things needed-basically screwing up the routine/schedule I had formulated in my brain before I finally fell asleep last night.  I hate when the things I plan to do don't get done.   Damn. damn. damn.

While during a "normal" work-week, this would pose little problems since I would have multiple, multi-day experiments starting/running.  Alas, the shortened work-week though has put a huge monkey-wrench in the plans.  (and while this may make me a horrible scientist-I am not working on Thanksgiving--Mr. Dr. Zeek and I have plans to visit family and goddammit I want to watch me some football-St. Kern will be pissed....) 

With only a month before I have to have my poster printed for the conference in Jan, I am freaking out a tad.  I suppose I should go over those damn papers again and start doing some of the figures/general things for the poster.  Damn.  Damn. damn. 

WTF....

I just ran across a paper that contradicts a whole slew of things/experiments I have seen/done with this project.  I *know* my data is right (excluding that little snafu before). 

Wait, let me explain.  We do NOT see what they are seeing.  We see the exact polar opposite.  As in a yes/no.  There is no gray area in this one.  I would be worried if someone else in "our" lab(s) haven't had seen the same thing, so at least we are self-consistent.  But WTF? 

And this is not something you can hand-wave away with "it's from a different source" crap.  And it doesn't make sense.  So now I wonder if I can "trust" the rest of the stuff in the paper which really sucks because, well, it's a cool paper and I thought would be useful for the discussion.  I guess not. 

Damn.  What a way to end the week....

PS-blog post theme for next week- just because it is published (or in this case written in a patent) doesn't mean it works....or how I spent the past two months beating my head against the wall....

Paper push

So right now there is a huge push to get three manuscripts out the door by the end of the year (two of which I am first author on so no pawning it off on anyone else).  On top of getting more than "preliminary" data for an upcoming conference in January.

Therefore, Dr. Zeek needs some new music for her iPod.  Any suggestions*?  I have been obsessively listening to Mumford and Sons lately, although now I am getting a tad bored with the album (and I have a tendency to do that--listen over and over to an album till my brain turns to mush).  I need things that I can rock out to in and out of the lab and have no problems listening to Metallica (old-school---not the new crap off of "St. Anger") while I am writing a paper**.

As an indicator of what I like- my iPod has almost everything that I can find from Social Distortion, Eve 6, Led Zeppelin***, Buckcherry and a hodgepodge of Motley Crue, Guns N Roses and the whatnot. 

So, any new bands you cannot stop listening to?  Send them my way.  It is going to be a long winter.



*and if anyone suggests Lady Gaga,  I do believe that I will suggest they be drawn and quartered (I understand-Buckcherry in comparison is not the greatest).  Not my cup of tea. 

**For some reason, this absolutely stunned my collaborator.  He, on the other hand needs complete silence or some mamsy-pansy classical or Kenny G going on to write.  Please, listening to that while pounding through data analysis would compel me to stab my ear drums out with a dull pencil. 

***I do believe that "Led Zeppelin II" is one of my favorite albums- I even thoroughly enjoy "coda"