Can't believe I'll be going to a dork convention

Okay, a second ago I thought it would only be about Japanese Manga comics (and similar embarassing stuff). Turns out it's the London MCM Expo, which is also about media and movies. Darn, I wanted to try out my new Sailormoon costume.

And before you know it, the day is gone

I believe today (yesterday) was my most lethargic Saturday ever! Now that my girlfriend is on a four-month secondment at distant shores, I suddenly have plenty of time at my hands. Today (yesterday) proves that this isn't necessarily a good thing: I'm falling back into my lazy youth habits - I started playing computer games again. Oh sheesh, after finishing Oblivion last week, I've spent the whole day downloading and installing modifications via my friendly neighbour's internet connection [1].

My whole plans for swimming and having a movie night went down the procrastination drain. At least I managed to cook dinner, though I have to admit the fridge is craving for food.

Well, this is my low, it can only get better tomorrow (today?).

[1] Yepp you guessed it, a hijacked unsecured WLAN. Who can hold that against me? I haven't had internet at home since the big move on the 5th of September.

The wrong way to start a week

Every other Monday our group has to partake in joint meetings in our institute. This generally means 9am talks, which used to drag along until 11am. Less sleep, less productive work hours and tons of in depth neurodevelopment, hard to comprehend in the early hours of the day.

Today was «slightly» different. Upon arrival at 8.45, the sirens of the fire-alarm greeted me and I saw hospital staff wheeling patients out of the wing. Strangely, no evacuation attempts for anybody else at that time. Very much to my displeasure all cafes were locked up, so I made my way outside to the evacuation point. The fire-brigade finally joined the party and things got more structured - shouting police men, hysterical fire marshals, the whole parade was out there.

It turned out that there was a serious explosion in one of the patient wards, two floors below our lab. Apparently and luckily, no-one got injured. Due to unknown structural damage, the whole wing is now off limits until an investigation can or cannot attest its safety. The latter case would be quite devastating for all the labs. I don't imagine the move of all the material to a replacement venue to be an interesting past-time [1].

Many people still have their personal belongings on the floor. They are now being issued petty cash, so they can at least make their way home. My current main concern is that the power circuits aren't cut, otherwise loads of precious samples in the freezers, fridges and cold rooms might go down the scientific drain.

Everyone has heard those stories about whole departments not recovering from fire, I just hope we won't be affected. The institute issued an emergency number, I got to call tomorrow morning to check whether the wing will be accessible again. Keep your fingers crossed.

[1] I just moved house and it was a huge pain in the neck - literally, because I did it manually.

Barefaced technician

After buying a simple USB print server from LinkSys for one of our USB printers:

The Linksys printer server is also a switch and we do not allow switches on the network except professional switches such as the ones managed by ISU. If you want to plug anything into the network or want to buy anything computer related then you need to speak to us first and we will tell you a suitable product that we will allow. I'm sure you wouldn't be too impressed if we bought your lab equipment for you.

Damn cheeky monkeys, they seem to forget why they have a job. That last statement should be printed as a book and whacked across their heads, several times. Besides, 30 quid for the LinkSys device or a ludicrous £170 for the HP print server our lovely technicians suggest?

So you want an informative title as well?!?

Isn't it enough that I grace everyone with my blogging presence once more? Frankly, I'm bored, currently sitting in front of my new work PC with my new 24 inch Dell screen (yes I'm boasting, so what), waiting for my girlfriend to pick me up for dinner. Almost every sane person has left our floor, thus it's only me and the feaverishly completing research students. Nevertheless, it very quiet here at night and for once it's possible to concentrate in the office. Besides, at night no-one cares about time-slot at machines. Although, the other day the damn cryostat started its defrosting programme in the middle of sectioning.

Well, I just remember that I should check on my genotyping. Cheerio.

*cough* dusty here

Almost half a year. Sheesh, I'm really getting caught up in my PhD and I'm damn enjoying it [1]. My actual project carries the fancy title «Towards retinal stem cell therapy - transplantation of photoreceptor precursor cells». In other terms this means in-vitro differentiation of adult stem cells into photoreceptor precursors and their transplantation into adult retina.

The foundations for my project were laid out in 2006, when my group published revolutionary findings [2]. Long story short, post-mitotic photoreceptor precursors from a defined ontogenetical state can link up with the existing neuronal circuits of the donor and improve vision in mouse models of retinal disease.

Okay, gotta go swimming now.

[1] Which is only partially thanks to being paid three-months in advance.
[2] MacLaren, et al. 2006, Nature 444, 203-207

Christmas, a summary

Eventually, I found a peaceful moment to bring my recollections of the festive period to paper, ehh, electrons.

I don't understand why many people turn into completely different persons during the advent time, with loads of (often futile) attempts to charm others into the same christmassy mood. Frankly, Christmas had lost most of its magic ever since I found out that present weren’t brought by the Christ-child and – more importantly – that family gatherings usually end up with dispute and drama [1]. Besides that, Christmas shopping is probably the most absurd invention of modern society. You receive stuff you don't need and buy stuff which you’re not appreciated for since a magic, invisible somewhat incarnation of Christ has brought them. Oh we poor fellows, that we have to indoctrinate our children with such BS [2].

But I’d better start at the beginning. This year was slightly different as my girlfriend joined the Mike-clan. However, as we are both working full-time [3] we could only go for the hardcore «everyone wants to fly to bloody Austria» period from the 21st to the 27th of December. Not surprisingly, all direct flights were exorbitantly expensive and my contingency plan was to evade via Munich, where my brother makes a living.

The outbound flight from London was quite enjoyable, as for the first time in years I actually used the high-class of the low-class airlines, AirBerlin. Where the seats are only marginally too short and tight and one is – surprisingly – served food. However, last minute shopping was awaiting me and during the day I was feeling gradually more sick, which culminated in my ultimatum that I’d puke into the next shop, shouldn’t we make our way home. My stomach eventually freed itself of all containing burden during the night - twice.

The only real reason why I still every year look forward to going home over Christmas is the food - loads of delicious food. This year’s «appetiser» was wild boar, which my Dad had shot a couple of days before and turned into an incredible ragout, so tender that I didn’t have to chew, but merely mashed it with my tongue. Apparently, the critter weighted – without its innards – more than 90kg. The «main course» on Christmas Eve consisted of bread, butter, smoked salmon as starters and a whole slowly stewed back of a cow as the big deal. As «dessert» we had the ceremonial fondue on the 25th.

While we comfortably went to Austria from Munich by my brother’s car, the train turned out to be the transport of choice on the way back. So seventy-something Euros poorer and five hours later the Munich airport came into sight [4] and with a total journey time of 12 hours home sweet home had us again. How have I missed my freezing flat with the single glassed windows.

[1] Of course not different this year.
[2] Many parents even go a step further and morph into pediatric sadists: «There! The Christ-child. Didn’t you see it?», «Where?», «Aww, I’m sorry sweetie you just missed it by a second. Maybe next time you’re lucky.»
[3] My request for holiday was answered with a hand-wave symbolising «Why are you asking anyway, just go as you please». It's good to be a scientist!
[4] «Sie steigen in den Hauptbahnhof ein ...»: