Lame Saucery at the Annual Film Fest

My kids made a "docudrama" about tomatoes for the annual film festival. It was mostly un-factual. For instance, did you know that the biggest tomato ever was 65 feet long? and that they are the Fruits of New Jersey? Or that the varieties of tomatoes include the Higher-loom? It was super cute and they did everything themselves from start to finish.

This afternoon VK, who helped them make the video with her super awesome editing skillz, and I drove over to the film fest and eagerly awaited their jubilant arrival.

And they didn't come, and they didn't come, and they didn't come.

I called one of the moms, because I had a suspicion that they were all together at her house celebrating one of the girls' first communions. "Hi, how are you?" I said. She took a deep breath and waited a moment before saying "Ohhhhh, right.... well, umm... I have company over and the other girls are here, but they're waiting for their parents" Ok, thanks for letting me know. I call a few more parents and get the same answer. Which is fine, I know that life gets in the way and sometimes they can't make it to activities. But are their fingers broken? Can they not call me? Because trust me, the highlight of my weekend wasn't sitting through 4 minute videos of kids messing around with video cameras.

VK and I decided to stay because well, the film was set to be shown and why not hang out and see what the other kids had come up with. The videos were alright, one group of kids did a really nice video about the possibility of ghostly-hauntings in Coconut grove. I don't think the kids themselves made that video, but it was pretty fun to watch.

At the end awards were given out. I walked up to accept my girls' award and felt kinda dumb. I asked if I should give an acceptance speech and the little girl with the microphone pulled it away from me and said "No!" I took it and thanked the academy anyway. Nice kid, nice.


**photos by Veronique Koch

Fun and Merriment

Two totally unrelated images, for your entertainment.



I'm all ready for my talk, we're at T-2 hours now, I think I'll go clean my fish tanks. Dlc says he likes my plain black title slide better, but I think that this one will set the mood nicely:

And 2nd: the set list from THE BEST SHOW EVER. courtesy of Aimee (who I met in line at the concert and now we're facebook friends/BFF, because we shared Bignets at Cafe Du Monde.) My new favorite Ani Song is "If Yr Not" because she says "If you're not getting happier as you get older than you're f*ing up" Ha Ha! Indeed.

Science Poetry

Well, Meredith did it first and best but here's my attempt at Science Poetry:

How does mRNA expression relate to protein function?

What we want to know,
is how does the process flow?
From mRNA to protein
How can we easily gleen
The value of one and the function of the other?

Does protein compared with gene expression
produce a significant regression?
And is mRNA a master
Variation, producing proteins that are faster?

Or what if they are not related?
This question is being hotly debated
I will describe for you a chapter
Where I look into some of the factors.

KT came over for dinner/talk practice tonight. She said she liked my talk. Now I'm not so nervous. Watch out MBF I'm gonna knock your socks off!

Isn't Grad School FUN!!!!

Let me attempt to sell you on Grad School by describing my Tuesday:

First off, I finally roll in around 9:30 which is later than I wanted to be there, but if I'm home when Laura comes back from her bike ride I am compelled to wait for her to shower and eat second breakfast before I drive in. To do otherwise would be mean. Usually I'm out the door but because I was still recovering from my marathon driving weekend I was still in my pajamas at 8:45 or whenever she got in. Oops. By the time I got to work DLC had already killed 3 fish and hadn't saved me any livers. Humph. That's okay, I'm reworking my protocols anyway. After nearly a year at the same grind you'd think that I'd have this enzyme assay thing all wrapped up by now, but no. Grad School time is 1,000 times slower than real world time. Or maybe it's just me.

So I made some new reagents. Because if I know one thing about molecular biology it's this: When stuff isn't working, your stuff is probably contaminated/yucky/sabotaging your experiments. So, I made new buffer, new poisons (just in case THOSE go bad) and new water (we make that too). Then, I pulled a Complex IV assay kit out of the freezer and prepped that for a go at testing whether the mitochondria we're preparing are really even intact. Turns out they are and running an enzyme assay that worked was a real morale booster even if it wasn't for the enzyme I love to hate: Complex I. I was buoyed by my success and decided to have a go at Complex I quantification. I used some of the tricks suggested by the Complex IV assay kit. I mixed the master mix at room temperature, I initiated my reaction with NADH and I used the same protein concentration that I used for the Complex IV assay. It was a disaster. The absorbency data were all over the place, it looked more like a jack-o-lantern's mouth than a nice even, linear, slope.

At this point, when I've spent all day of spinning and pipetting and thawing and homogenizing and freezing and standing on my head while spitting nickels I throw up my hands and say IT DIDN'T WORK! And I vow to try again, might work next time. Like, maybe, tomorrow 'cause damnit if I'm not DONE for today. Yesterday was different, I had the sweet taste of technical replicates with no variation and huge differences between my experimental and control slopes. I had it goin' ON! I could do it! So, I tried again with 10X protein concentration and would you know it? IT WORKED! For the first time EVER my slopes looked like what I expected them to.

Ahhh, I breathed a big sigh of relief and rushed off to a meeting. I was driving back to the lab to get some more assays under my belt when Laura called. "Have you seen your email lately?"

"Uhh, no I've been out of the office" She knew this...

"You're giving your student seminar on Friday" She had heard through the grapevine already.

I can never catch a break. Instead of celebrating my assay success and repeating and repeating and repeating while dancing and rubbing some good juju on my spectrophotometer to keep the good times rolling, I'll be chained to my desk trying to recreate some crummy talk I started working on in November. What am I supposed to say? Why is this important, I forgot a little......

Happy May Y'all!

Hey! I made it back from NOLA. That means New Orleans, Louisiana for anyone who Doesn't Know. Now that I have visited the city properly (a muffaletta and a 10 minute stop doesn't count) I can join the club of people who use moderately obscure acronyms for cities. (so far I've got SOBE and NOLA. Gotta collect them all!)

The Ani concert, as usual, was amazing. I will spare you the grueling details but here's a quick recap:

1. Gloria actually talked to Ani. LJ and I were buying beer at the grocery store. My mom was right about how drinking ruins your life.
2. Ani walked between the security barrier and the stage before the show, so I kinda got my own up close encounter.
3. She played 4 new songs! I'm waiting on a set list and I'll let y'all know what they're called. She also played a killer "who's side are you on" remix of an old labor song that she did for Pete Seeger's 90th birthday.
4. Long drive!


Pictures coming soon! Stay tuned!