Quickie

Wow, I've been getting a lot of hits the past couple of days from Andy's site. Thanks for visiting! I just wanted to pop in and say hello. All hell has broken loose over here in the lab, and on top of that, I have to get the page proofs in the mail today for my publication. Hopefully things will calm down after the weekend. I'm hoping to get a video update up by tomorrow so look for that shortly. Enjoy the weekend! I will be busy prepping my yeast for a big library sort on Monday--it's exciting and stressful at the same time.

March Madness!

Our lab has officially been taken over by March Madness. We all filled out our brackets and threw $5 into the pool. It's crazy how into it we all are, constantly checking scores and updating the tallies. Productivity has plummeted but at least we're bonding. I am kinda screwed b/c I picked Oklahoma to go pretty far (b/c they're close to Texas :) and didn't even match up the last couple of brackets correctly, but I did pick a few early upsets (including Texas A&M beating Syracuse).

Actually, the original lab members (myself included) have been bonding a lot lately...or maybe it's more like commiserating. We are like grumpy old men sitting around talking about the good old days (like before the lab got so crowded). Earlier this week we went out to Amigo's (a dank local bar) and out to one of our favorite Thai restaurants.

This weekend is recruiting weekend where all the prospective grad students visit so there will be a lot going on with that. I think a lot of people are interested in working for Christina, but as mentioned above, our lab has already grown a little too quickly in my opinion. I will just be giving lab tours on Sunday morning since I would be here anyway.

I'm just in the lab now doing some plasmid preps before going to the gym. Not a lot of experimental work going on this weekend but a LOT of research (reading papers, protocols, etc) that needs to be done, which to me, is much worse. I may even pick up a whole new project soon, kind of a collaborative effort. We need to do more of that b/c it can be very difficult to do all the work required to publish a sole author paper.

On a lighter note, training is much better this week. My right elbow is almost back to what I consider normal and I only held back slightly this week. I think it was just very inflamed but no permanent damage was done. Well, I better get going. Lots to do today!

Well, I went to the chiropractor for an adjustment last weekend (my first time) and he confirmed that I have tendonitis in my right elbow. I pretty much knew this but it was particularly inflamed last week. All I can do is ice it and take ibuprofen which really helps--I'm just concerned about the long-term prognosis. If I keep training like always do, I will no doubt have a more serious injury. I also have to be careful not to let my left side bear more of the load and/or do more unilateral movements to keep from becoming even more imbalanced. The past few days were pretty sobering because it has NEVER been that bad before; it was painful just doing day-to-day activities like brushing my hair and pipetting. My body has been good to me so far and maybe it's time I listened to it a little more.

Everything else is looking up. I worked a lot this weekend but went to the horse track for a few hours on sunday. I came out a little ahead even though I only picked one winner--most of my horses were good but usually came in 2nd. I'm going to have to study before I go again even though I'll still just pick based on the name or sometimes the jockey. Actually, my friend may not take me again b/c he did much worse with me there--too distracting!

Labwork is going pretty smoothly too. I mastered a few new protocols so I can now determine the relative mRNA levels in my yeast. I'm also trying to purify some of my enzymes and repeat my flow cytometry experiments this week. Should be fun! I may get to take a field trip to Berkeley soon to do some metabolite analysis. Christina's old lab (under Jay Keasling) is better equipped for the types of assays we need so I may take some samples up there and then determine what would be beneficial and feasible for us to set up in house. That's also very exciting! Well, back to work for me; I'm in for a long night.

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Where do I start? This week has been a total disaster. Yesterday in particular was not a good day for research. I've been having trouble assaying the intermediates in my pathway for a while now and it's becoming very frustrating. We had one standard custom synthesized and the lab is having stability issues, which doesn't bode well for in vivo production, conversion, and analysis. I'm also still concerned that some of my constructs are mutated and not expressing protein so I may have a lot of recloning to do.

I've been trying to learn a few new protocols but seem to keep destroying my samples--both protein and RNA. I also did a lot of prep work to go to the flow cytometry facility yesterday but my cells were not grown up enough to get meaningful data. Oh, and my DNA background on my qRT-PCR was too high so I have to re-DNAse and repeat. I think I will just spend the rest of the afternoon reading papers and making stock solutions for the undergraduate lab. I will be a teaching assistant (TA) for that class starting in a couple of weeks; I think at least now they have a few more students enrolled.

Usually when everything goes to hell in the lab, at least my training is good. But the past few days I've been plagued by a bad elbow. It's been a problem for over a year now. It's my right elbow and I don't know if it's the cause or an effect of my left-side dominance (even though I'm right-handed). I can usually train around it, but a couple of days ago, I was incline pressing 90lb dumbbells and after a few reps, I wobbled slightly on my right side and had to drop the weights. I felt it tweak my elbow a little but was able to not only redo that set, but finish a heavy chest workout. This morning, however, I could barely lift any weight on my back exercises without aggravating it. I did what I could but was in tears, more from mental anguish than anything physical. The good news is that everything is still held together so hopefully it is just inflamed. I will try to take it easy and see how it feels. For me, it's harder to use lighter weights or, God forbid, not train at all than it is to train heavy everyday.

All of this is bad news, but hey, at least it's Friday. I still have a smile on my face and am not letting anything get me down too much. Things have to get better eventually, right?! This weekend I'm hoping to take some time off and maybe even win some money at the horse races (my friend's been asking me to go for weeks now and he always wins).

My paper on the GAL network of S. cerevisiae is published online through www.jbc.org if anyone is interested:
http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/M512317200v1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=hawkins&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&flag=PIP&resourcetype=HWCIT

Arnold wrap-up

I had a blast last weekend at the Arnold Classic! Now I'm busy trying to get back into the swing of things in the lab. There is so much work to catch up on after only being gone for 3 days! I got there on Friday morning on the red-eye and was lucky enough to get to check into my hotel and get a few hours sleep before going over to the convention center for the women's prejudging. The women looked great and I'm such a fan of Iris Kyle; I'm glad she got the win that she deserved. Yaxeni was not as conditioned as she usually is, while Jitka was much improved from the Olympia.

I also went to the men's prejudging on Saturday. I really like Branch Warren but I knew Dexter Jackson would win. All of the men were in shape so it was a tough show to judge. The usual favorites came out on top (I still don't understand why Gustavo places so high?).

The expo was fun although I didn't come back with many free samples. I couldn't even get a shaker bottle--unbelievable! For once, I actually enjoyed walking around all 3 days. On Sunday, I watched some of the gymnastics and did the Met-Rx strength challenge (which I didn't even come close to winning).

I shared a room with Holly Geersen and we had a good time hanging out. My friend Roman flew out there with me too but left early on Saturday. The afterparty was fun even though I was mad at first because we couldn't get into the VIP area--then I found out that no one else could either. We ended up staying until about 2:30 when they were about to close and then caught a cab back to the hotel.

I came back on Sunday night and there must have been at least a dozen pros on my flight. I figured they were doing photo shoots in LA and then going to the San Francisco pro show next weekend. As it turns out, several of the MuscleTech athletes have been shooting at my gym the past couple of days. It's hard for me to drag myself away when David Henry and Darrem Charles are walking around half-naked; I must have had the longest leg workout ever this morning.

So that pretty much sums it up. I didn't take many pics but will post a few in the free gallery shortly.

Arnold

I'm just getting ready to leave for the Arnold Classic in a few hours. I'm taking the red-eye to Columbus tonight and will be there till Sunday night. I'm sure I'll be exhausted tomorrow at the Expo since I never can sleep on these flights, but at least I'll be there in time for women's prejudging. Hope to see some of y'all there!

Kristy