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sabineSo last week Boss had me submit an abstract to the regional ASM meeting that will be held here in November. He told me to do this about 24 hr before the final deadline. Lovely. I prevailed (and mooched off the editing skills of my friends) and decided that I really need to enter a Speed Science Writing Contest.
The problem with submitting an abstract is that I need to have a poster to present. I have to have the poster written about a week before I have to have it in my hands. Maria, our wonderful image processing goddess, has demanded that we give her at least a week for poster-making.
In order to write this poster, I need data. Specifically, I need the data that I claimed to have when I wrote the abstract. I set a realistic goal for myself and have been a good little pipette monkey this week in the hopes that I'll actually be as accomplished as I told Them I was.
This, however, is October: the Month in Which No Good May Come.
On Tuesday, I ran an experiment. My negative control worked, but the experiments all failed. It's a bit alarming because I was doing the experiment to try to figure out the proper controls for the data that I need. Yes, it's a bit complicated.
Anyway, on Tuesday I sat at the microscope and took my pictures. I cursed at what I was seeing, but everything was working just fine. I cleaned the oil off the stage and went along my merry way.
Wow, that sounds dirty.
So today I've been trying a longer incubation in the hope that I just need to give the drug a bit more time to work. I finish my work in the lab, clean out the hood, and carry my slides - still in their ice bucket - over to the 'scope room. I sit down, drip the oil on the objective, carefully secure my slide in the stage, turn on the laser, 'scope, and camera, and try to see what I can see.
Nothing. Shit.
I check to make sure everything's turned on, as that's been a problem in the past. Nope, I actually took my brain into the 'scope room with me. Damn.
I look more carefully at the 'scope around the binocular tube (I'm going to lapse into technical jargon for a while. I honestly don't know how to describe it without saying, "the thingy and the other doohickey" and so forth unless I get to use the terminology). There are two push-rods, one on either side of the binocular tube. I know that the left-hand one needs to be pushed in for the light path to be directed to the camera and pulled out to be able to see through the ocular lenses.
I pull the first rod out. Something happens. I get a bit of light across my field of view, but I can tell that it's not even close to what's on the stage. Shit.
The other rod, I'm not sure of its role. It's currently pushed in, so I figure that pulling it out would help. It's supposed to be able to move about 4 cm. It comes out about 4 mm. *clink* "What the..."
I push it back and rotate the knob a little, thinking that maybe it's just caught on something. 4 mm. *clink* "Oh, shit."
I get up and walk down the hall to get the Ultimate Postdoc. I say, "Um, UP? Do you have a couple of minutes? I'm having trouble with the microscope in 218." He gets up and walks down the hall with me. I can tell that he's thinking that I forgot to turn something on again.
UP sits down. I point out the rod that's not moving. He tries. *clink* "Hm..." He tries the same jiggling, rotating, coaxing that I did. *clink*clink*clink* He digs out the instruction manual and some screwdrivers.
I stand sort of uselessly, but there ain't no way that I'm missing the taking apart of a microscope to potentially MacGyver a solution! Have you lost your mind completely?! Sheesh...
After a bit of a technical delay, UP gets the entire binocular tube off of the rest of the 'scope (a Ziess S100, if you care). He sets it down on the desk. He then tries to unscrew the plate covering the back of the contraption. Doesn't work. At all. Super.
When he puts the assembly down we hear a faint metallic rattle. Shit. He gently rotates it again. *clinkrattle* "Oh, this is not good"
So UP takes off the binocular lens apparatus. After I get to search across the room for one of the screws, he's more careful about dropping pieces of hardware. I watch as he lifts off the lenses. The movable mirror that directs the light from the objective to either the camera or the observation is broken. Not just a little broken. No, about 40% of the surface is gone in a chip and the rest has cracks running through it.
Commence inventing swearwords.
We see that the push-rod that had been stuck has a small flat metal shield attached to it, which is seemingly rotated out of position. UP puts it back where it should belong. The rod pulls out. Yay! But it won't push back in. Shit. And the other rod won't push in and move the mirror. Shit.
UP curses softly and fiddles with it for a while. I hear another *clink*, this time louder. The enter push-rod comes out of the assembly. There are two little holes near the end where the plat had been attached. Apparently, both pins holding that chunk of metal in place have snapped. This just keeps getting better and better.
UP reassembles everything and has me throw my sample back on the stage to see if the 'scope's even remotely usable, due to the broken mirror. Nothing. It's broken. It's extremely broken. It's 31 flavors of broken.
More cursing.
UP gets the serial number and such to call the company to try to get this fixed. I put my samples back on ice and sigh. UP points at an older 'scope in the room and says, "Well, you can try that microscope if you want, but I can't get the camera on it to work." Gee, since the point of doing the experiment was to get pictures, yes, that'd be totally useful.
Grr.
I thank him and tell him that I'll probably be able to use the pretty 'scope over in another lab. I don't like going over there because it's inconvenient and I want to play with MY toys, damn it!
So I get back to my office. I sit down, login, and get to the microscopy homepage. Luckily, the 'scope I'm trained on is available all day tomorrow. The Almighty Darwin smiles upon me at last. I tell my tale to my officemates. They express the appropriate sympathy and horror for the situation, knowing that a broken 'scope in the lab is bad for everyone.
And now I'm going to go get ice cream. Because it's just one of those days. Because I'll be playing racquetball later and burning off the calories. Because someone down the hall just made a bag of popcorn and I'm feeling the compulsion to snack. Because I need to get the hell out of lab, if only for a little while. Because the book I've been reading (Incubus Dreams by Laurell K Hamilton) is really damn good. Because I can.
Ok, I'm done now. Still annoyed, still frustrated, but outwardly much calmer. We'll see how the rest of the day goes. Something tells me I should've just stayed in bed.
And how was your day?
The problem with submitting an abstract is that I need to have a poster to present. I have to have the poster written about a week before I have to have it in my hands. Maria, our wonderful image processing goddess, has demanded that we give her at least a week for poster-making.
In order to write this poster, I need data. Specifically, I need the data that I claimed to have when I wrote the abstract. I set a realistic goal for myself and have been a good little pipette monkey this week in the hopes that I'll actually be as accomplished as I told Them I was.
This, however, is October: the Month in Which No Good May Come.
On Tuesday, I ran an experiment. My negative control worked, but the experiments all failed. It's a bit alarming because I was doing the experiment to try to figure out the proper controls for the data that I need. Yes, it's a bit complicated.
Anyway, on Tuesday I sat at the microscope and took my pictures. I cursed at what I was seeing, but everything was working just fine. I cleaned the oil off the stage and went along my merry way.
Wow, that sounds dirty.
So today I've been trying a longer incubation in the hope that I just need to give the drug a bit more time to work. I finish my work in the lab, clean out the hood, and carry my slides - still in their ice bucket - over to the 'scope room. I sit down, drip the oil on the objective, carefully secure my slide in the stage, turn on the laser, 'scope, and camera, and try to see what I can see.
Nothing. Shit.
I check to make sure everything's turned on, as that's been a problem in the past. Nope, I actually took my brain into the 'scope room with me. Damn.
I look more carefully at the 'scope around the binocular tube (I'm going to lapse into technical jargon for a while. I honestly don't know how to describe it without saying, "the thingy and the other doohickey" and so forth unless I get to use the terminology). There are two push-rods, one on either side of the binocular tube. I know that the left-hand one needs to be pushed in for the light path to be directed to the camera and pulled out to be able to see through the ocular lenses.
I pull the first rod out. Something happens. I get a bit of light across my field of view, but I can tell that it's not even close to what's on the stage. Shit.
The other rod, I'm not sure of its role. It's currently pushed in, so I figure that pulling it out would help. It's supposed to be able to move about 4 cm. It comes out about 4 mm. *clink* "What the..."
I push it back and rotate the knob a little, thinking that maybe it's just caught on something. 4 mm. *clink* "Oh, shit."
I get up and walk down the hall to get the Ultimate Postdoc. I say, "Um, UP? Do you have a couple of minutes? I'm having trouble with the microscope in 218." He gets up and walks down the hall with me. I can tell that he's thinking that I forgot to turn something on again.
UP sits down. I point out the rod that's not moving. He tries. *clink* "Hm..." He tries the same jiggling, rotating, coaxing that I did. *clink*clink*clink* He digs out the instruction manual and some screwdrivers.
I stand sort of uselessly, but there ain't no way that I'm missing the taking apart of a microscope to potentially MacGyver a solution! Have you lost your mind completely?! Sheesh...
After a bit of a technical delay, UP gets the entire binocular tube off of the rest of the 'scope (a Ziess S100, if you care). He sets it down on the desk. He then tries to unscrew the plate covering the back of the contraption. Doesn't work. At all. Super.
When he puts the assembly down we hear a faint metallic rattle. Shit. He gently rotates it again. *clinkrattle* "Oh, this is not good"
So UP takes off the binocular lens apparatus. After I get to search across the room for one of the screws, he's more careful about dropping pieces of hardware. I watch as he lifts off the lenses. The movable mirror that directs the light from the objective to either the camera or the observation is broken. Not just a little broken. No, about 40% of the surface is gone in a chip and the rest has cracks running through it.
Commence inventing swearwords.
We see that the push-rod that had been stuck has a small flat metal shield attached to it, which is seemingly rotated out of position. UP puts it back where it should belong. The rod pulls out. Yay! But it won't push back in. Shit. And the other rod won't push in and move the mirror. Shit.
UP curses softly and fiddles with it for a while. I hear another *clink*, this time louder. The enter push-rod comes out of the assembly. There are two little holes near the end where the plat had been attached. Apparently, both pins holding that chunk of metal in place have snapped. This just keeps getting better and better.
UP reassembles everything and has me throw my sample back on the stage to see if the 'scope's even remotely usable, due to the broken mirror. Nothing. It's broken. It's extremely broken. It's 31 flavors of broken.
More cursing.
UP gets the serial number and such to call the company to try to get this fixed. I put my samples back on ice and sigh. UP points at an older 'scope in the room and says, "Well, you can try that microscope if you want, but I can't get the camera on it to work." Gee, since the point of doing the experiment was to get pictures, yes, that'd be totally useful.
Grr.
I thank him and tell him that I'll probably be able to use the pretty 'scope over in another lab. I don't like going over there because it's inconvenient and I want to play with MY toys, damn it!
So I get back to my office. I sit down, login, and get to the microscopy homepage. Luckily, the 'scope I'm trained on is available all day tomorrow. The Almighty Darwin smiles upon me at last. I tell my tale to my officemates. They express the appropriate sympathy and horror for the situation, knowing that a broken 'scope in the lab is bad for everyone.
And now I'm going to go get ice cream. Because it's just one of those days. Because I'll be playing racquetball later and burning off the calories. Because someone down the hall just made a bag of popcorn and I'm feeling the compulsion to snack. Because I need to get the hell out of lab, if only for a little while. Because the book I've been reading (Incubus Dreams by Laurell K Hamilton) is really damn good. Because I can.
Ok, I'm done now. Still annoyed, still frustrated, but outwardly much calmer. We'll see how the rest of the day goes. Something tells me I should've just stayed in bed.
And how was your day?
