Emerging from somewhere

In my dreams lately, I live at work. With each dream that passes, more and more items from my home end up at my work place, mostly in my office. Last night, in addition to the majority of my bedroom furniture, I found one of my cats prowling the halls of the floor where my lab is located. I couldn't figure out how it got there. It's a very large cat and would not fit in any of my bags. When I woke up, it actually took me a second to figure out whether I was sleeping in my bed in my office or in my bed in my house.

It’s not that I am working insanely long hours, but I am so busy when I am at work that I can hardly find the time to eat. This level of busy typically translates into thinking about work when I am at home. Sure, the TV is on and I am looking in that general direction, but I am not really watching it. I am thinking about work. Constantly.

This week I am learning to use the Biacore system. I need to run about 16 proteins through that motherfucker and it already appears that much troubleshooting is on the horizon. Blah. Not surprising. At least I am not purifying proteins. I was just about ready to blow my head off as I purified the final 7 last week. Man did that suck.

Well, I am off to the trenches as my Biacore guru just made it in to work. I am hoping this entry marks the beginning of, at least, semi-regular blog posts. At a minimum, I want to get back to reading. It’s strange, but I feel like I am missing out on something.

Lab stance

Despite the presence of ample stools and the constant nagging by my old boss that I need to sit down, I still choose to stand-up at the bench. I know I'll pay for it in the future with lovely spider veins, but I just can't seem to keep my butt in a chair.

I've tried to force myself to sit down in the past, but I find it inconvenient. Just when I get situated, I need to get up and get a solution from the other end of my bench, or get a reagent or enzyme from the fridge or freezer. By the time I get back to my bench I forget to sit back down and end up standing again. Whenever I do get the opportunity to stay in one place for a prolonged period of time, for example when I'm setting up a trillion reactions or maybe colony PCRs, I find myself only remembering that sitting was an option as I'm finishing my task.

What seems odd to me is that, at least in my experience, standing all day is not the norm. The vast majority of my lab mates sit at the bench. I don't know if they are better organized and don't need to get up several times a day, or if they are just more tolerant of getting up and down.

The reason I bring this up is because my knees are starting to feel sore in the evening. Part of this is due to the fact that I am running longer distances. If I want to keep running, which I do, I think I need to compensate by utilizing my stool.

So far, it's not going to well. A co-worker apologized to me today for taking my stool and keeping it for over a week. I did not even know it was even gone.

My Love/Hate Relationship with my Bunsen Burner

I don't know many microbiologists that haven't used a Bunsen burner. We use them several times a day to sterilize loops, spreaders, pipettes, and other types of tools in the flame it produces. Sure, there are other methods for on the spot serilization, but many people still use the good old Bunsen burner.
Bunsen burners also provide good, lab-style entertainment. Who doesn't like to burn the occasional nitrocellulose membrane? I'm not a pyro or anything, but setting fire to things that turn cool colors is fun!
I prefer my flame adjusted so I get a nice "strong" flame with a well-defined blue cone in the center. I should also mention that my Bunsen burner kicks extra ass because it produces a very large flame. In fact, you can hear my burner from pretty far away. (Mine looks like the one pictured left.)

BUT. There is a dark side to my relationship with my Bunsen burner.

Whenever I leave the lab last, I am haunted by thoughts like: "Did I turn off my flame? Surely I did. Didn't I? What if it's on? What if I burn the lab down? or the building?" Once this starts there is no way of convincing myself that I did in fact, turn off my flame. So, I get in the car, drive to lab, and check the burner. It is always off. ALWAYS!

After going through this song and dance at 2:00am on a Wednesday morning, I decided it was time for action. I needed to incorporate some type of activity before I left the lab that would remind me that the Bunsen burner was off, since the act of turning it off left no impression what-so-ever.
These days, I wave my hand over the top of my Bunsen burner (where the flame shoots out) just before I exit. I can remember doing this activity, so I know the flame is off.
The hand-waving (no pun intended) is working well right now, but what if it eventually becomes so routine that I forget doing it? I'll suppose that I will end up creating some something new and eventually I will end up with some long, bizarre, lab-leaving ritual. Not to mention, I will leave the lab last everyday because I wouldn't want anyone to see that. Another possibility is that I will develop some new obsession. Like...did I turn on the shaker? I hope not.
For now, wondering about the state of my Bunsen burner flame is the only strange thing I obsess about. Furthermore, I have a lab mate that thinks it's real funny to tell me that I left my flame on the previous day.