Math Major Monday

The other day I was doing some prep work for my current project and was making up the tubes I need to make dilutions for spread plating. If you click that link note that it is one of my first videos and so I was still working on the whole learning to talk coherently and do lab work at the same time, lol. Oh and I plan to bring Guess that Gizmo back I just have been busy and it was not getting the response I wanted so I kind of put it on the back burner figuring I might pick up a few more readers and revive it.

Back on track. I was doing this prep work and one of the first thing one should do while doing prep work is to figure out how much of something you need. I have become a white board addict for this kind of task, don't waste paper and it is quick and easy to correct errors. The lab has a big one but lately it has been filled up with the chicken scratches of the lab jerk (he makes my crappy handwriting look good!). For that I am not really faulting him since I am as well, I tend to be less of a hog about it. It just so happened though that I had gone shopping at Cubs, which used to be the place I bought most of my groceries but the opening of the Super Walmart has changed my life forever, one stop shopping is a beautiful thing! Since I was in the area though I decided to snoop around Cubs and found a dollar bin, I am a sucker for those, LOVE the ones at Target! They had these little white boards, pretty crappy but only a dollar, I decided to get it for the lab and imagined using it to harass people. Well between lab jerk hogging the white board and me liking to have reminders to help me not miss something on a long day I've basically only used it for legitimate reasons. This day I used it to write out the calculations for figuring how much peptone water (water with stuff in it so it is gentle on the bacteria) I needed to make. Here is the picture of it with the calculations all written out:

I promise you that 3000ml (3 liters), is the correct answer. There are 72 tubes per rack. If I have any engineers I think some of them would get it and the rest are likely convulsing on the floor. I wrote it out and afterwards decided it looked funny, makes perfect sense to me but to an outsider it probably looks like a math FAIL. Anyone want to take a stab how someone with a bachelor of science degree and a calculator managed to make 1300+1440=3000? And no, it is not an example of my having lost my sanity, though the lab jerk has been pushing it to its limit lately. I keep reminding myself that the prison probably wouldn't let me have much internet access and that Doc actually checks the police blotter to see if any of his patients did something stupid (he told me after I expressed my semi-joking wish to hit lab jerk with a rolled up newspaper). I was instructed not to get my name in the paper, being the super compliant patient that I am I did actually get my name in the paper that week, just not the blotter, lol!

My boss saw it before I did and now won't stop harassing me to get going on writing up the current experiment, get the stuff that does not involve the data and data analysis written up now, so not my style though, especially after a long day in the lab! Good thing she does not know about the bloggity! Though this is seriously very very different writing wise and I am using this to try and help me sharpen up my writing skillz a bit since it has been awhile since I took a course that required that much writing and I am incredibly intimidated by this technical/scientific writing thing. I have never really done it before, my one attempt I felt sucked really bad, so it is kinda scary, but I will figure it out and she will help by ripping it to shreds until I get it right! Hopefully it won't be too bad, we shall see. Between that, and lab work, and twitter/facebook I have not had as much time for blogging, both as a writer and a reader and am behind on both, miss you all and I will eventually catch up with reading and am trying to make sure I post once in awhile so you all don't think I died or something.

One last thing before I crash, on twitter a few of us were chatting and Flat WeaselMomma came up and McMommy decided she wants to host FWM (that would be so cool) and then she started contemplating making a Flat McMommy and sending her up to hang out with the Weasels. Then the idea snowballed and she wants to come visit me and hang out in the lab too! I totally played it cool and was all saying it could be arranged but I was totally doing the excited tween girl contemplating meeting a Jonus brother or something tweens are into these days!!!!! I'd consider Flat Microblogologist but it would cause Baby Sibling to make fun of me since I am already flat, she got almost ALL the boob allowance for our family and did not leave much for Middle Sister and I, Middle Sister is the one that actually wants it too! Anyone have any ideas for what I should do if and when Flat McMommy comes to visit? For sure she'll join me in the lab but I have to show her more than just that. Something fun to think about =)

Twit or Not?

OK so many of you fellow bloggers have that twitter thingy and I vaguely know what it is. For those of you less savvy than even I am from what I can tell twitter is like facebook's status updates on steroids. You basically write relatively short one liners and can reply to other people's "tweets". Facebook has recently made it so you can comment on other people's status updates so perhaps they are practically the same at this point. I see them on many of the blogs I read and several bloggers talk about their twitterings and such. I was delurked by the lovely Mrs. Watlz via her twitter, that was quite amusing!

Now I figure you see where this is going, I am contemplating getting this twitter thing. Sometimes I come up with what I feel are hilarious thoughts but they are only one liner type things and so not really enough to support being a blog post but that does not make them unworthy of being shared. Sometimes this is probably a good thing though since sometimes when I am sleep deprived and feeling sickly the stuff I come up with is decidedly not funny, unfortunately I am in this state a lot lately (I have an appointment with Doc next week so no worries). That part aside I have been neglecting facebook for the most part and have been trying to go on it more to keep up with some of my people and at first I really enjoyed the new status comments thing but then I started getting swamped with the back and forthing of it. I am used to skype, which is almost instant not the facebook thing that has a lag time and at least for me seems to dump the comment backs on me all at once. And of course if I were playing on twitter I would have less blog reading and writing time most likely. But on the other hand all the cool bloggers are doing it and if McMommy jumped off a bridge I just might follow suit.

And so dear readers I would like to know what you think about twitter. I get confused reading other peoples' twitter things since it only tells you what they write and if they are replying to someone else it will say that name but not give the original comment. Is it less confusing if you are one of the Twitterers? Can't I just con you all into going on skype instead? Of course that could cause the blogosphere to crash, all of us would be too busy cracking ourselves up on skype to blog, unless we posted the conversations on our blogs taking turns or something... Who all thinks I should go for this twitter thing? If there are enough people pimping it I'll probably try it, no promises that I will and if I do that I will keep it. Thanks!

On a different note, do I have any Jewish readers? If so please let me know if "stealing" the dreidel song would potentially offend you. I made a song about how to label chemicals in the lab for the lab jerk who can't seem to get it through his thick skull that there are laws/rules that apply to him too, it is definitely not vulgar like my last song. I didn't really have any qualms about the last one since it is "my" song, but I definitely do not want to offend someone of another faith, especially one I respect and admire and that has way better songs than mine! Seriously I can listen to the dreidel song all day but you start playing most Christmas songs and I am sick of them very quickly. Thanks for letting us steal your religion to make ours ;). Oh and thanks for producing the best doctor ever!