Thursday, July 21, 2005

Hitting a moving target

So my not-too-ambitious goal today was to finish making this plasmid I need. Yesterday I fired up the first waterbaths in the lab. Today I had to find the ethidium bromide, nevermind where to dispose of anything that had touched it. I had to put the UV box in the dark room on a cart, because the tables haven't been installed yet. And so on. Got to help sort mysterious random bits of old, broken equipment, most of which probably should have been thrown out years ago. Witnessed the excavation- and disposal of- an ancient PCR machine. Ahh, brings me back to my roots!

But I still think it's more fun sorting other people old lab junk than your own.

My advisor happened to walk in as I was plating my transformation and commented that we're technically not supposed to use flame in this building. And here I was so happy that the gas and vacuum lines are working! I'm guessing someone realized, too late, that the bunsen burners are positioned exactly under the wooden shelves over each bench! I'm not kidding. I previously worked in a building where all the bunsen burners were positioned exactly under the electrical sockets, so I'm not sure which is worse!

Meanwhile, we had our first casualty of the move: someone hurt their ankle rolling cabinets around. Everything has wheels right now- I got to watch the shaker do a little belly-dance when I turned it on. Kinda cute. I was just glad it didn't magically dance down the hallway!

We've been told to start wearing our university ID badges all the time, which makes me feel like an inmate. I can't remember the last time, if ever, that I had to wear a badge all day, every day. Jury duty?

Tomorrow we're supposed to have a Lab Warming Party, or something to that effect. I'm guessing I shouldn't plan on getting much of anything done, since there will be alcohol.

1 Comments:

At 10:36 PM, Blogger Megan said...

I'm a total idiot when it comes to science, but even I knew you should NEVER but bunsen burners underneath wood cabinets (or electrical wires)! That actually made me snort when I laughed!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home