biodork

That's awesome, man... congrats a hundred times over. :worthy: As for me, I'm stoked that the weather in central PA is finally cooperating and I was able to get out snowboarding on Wed. night. Snow was soft, weather was perfect, and I haven't forgotten everything I learned the last two years, which is F'N Fantastic. Only downside is now I wanna get back out ASAP, lol. Also looking forward to a nice dinner with the bf and his parents tomorrow evening. And (hopefully) the Sabres first winning streak since November. :thumbsup:

Lol well that part wasn't planned... My co-worker made brownies and my boss brought in champagne, so we just said what the hell and had them together.

Last day at the old job today. Sad I won't be working with my buddy anymore, but excited to try something new. It's been a nice day; went out to lunch with a group of friends, and had champagne and brownies with my boss and co-worker this afternoon. :thumbsup:

That sure beats Cellino and Barnes.

:lol: Sorry, I did take that one off track for a bit. Okay, back to complaining: I wanna go home! Better? ;)

DMT1? Sounds like cool stuff. One of the other projects in the lab is looking at uptake of divalent heavy metals (Hg, Cd, and Pb) in the kidney in relation to metallothioneins and renal cell cancer. Cool project, but unfortunately that one is all epidemiology at this point (the boss is trying to get funding for a molecular study). And thanks on the job!

I did all (most) of it! Part of why I'm leaving here... only about half my job is stuff I actually enjoy. I understand stats and epidemiology after working with it for 6+ years, but I've never been impressed by the type of work where the only answer you get is: "Look, A is related to B!" "But what does it mean?" "The p-value is highly statistically significant!" "But what does it mean??" <shrugs> :P

Unfortunately, sometimes. :( My boss is an epidemiologist so this is her approach, but I'm a molecular biologist so my job is to test for functional differences in the SNPs. For example, she looks at how common a variant is in a population and whether it correlates with any other measures from that group (like levels of serum vitamin D metabolites), where I test whether a specific variant changes DNA:protein binding and gene expression. Ah, crap, I fell into that one. Could've fooled me! :lol:

Thanks! It'll actually be my second first author manuscript. :) The lab I'm in currently is studying how genetic variants influence the metabolism of vitamin D, with the hope of eventually extending that to kidney cancer risk / treatment. The new lab will be focused on studying the inflammatory response, both in patients with allergies and with inflammatory bowel disease. Should be interesting! :lol:

Well, that could work in your favor; maybe you'll be upgraded from "kinda" to "actually" dating!

Unfortunately this is how I always look! :lol:

Hats off to you, CSB -- you literally saved Christmas for that little girl, and that was awesome. I remember a number of years back my parents did something similar for my cousin... they never had much money anyhow, and his step-dad was an alcoholic A-hole who went out and drank away the money he was supposed to use for presents. So, my parents bought a bunch of inexpensive toys and things for my cousin and let him think it was all from Santa. I can't understand people like those parents, but again, good on you. :worthy: My complaints: 1) Headaches yesterday and today. I love my dog, but his constant interruption of my sleep (and insufficient sleep in general, combined with long work hours) are really starting to wear on me. 2) Only 7 more working days at my current job, and I have way more work to do than I can realistically complete in that timeframe. Sometimes I wish I didn't give a sh!t, but I want to make sure everything is in order for my replacement, and honestly it's to my benefit as well because I'm cramming to finish experiments for a paper on which I'll be first author. 3) My boss, who has been in England since mid-August, came back today and wants to have what is almost guaranteed to be a two hour meeting tomorrow, starting at 2pm. Ugh.

That was Ron White: "She could be an 80 year old biker chick, like 'you wanna see my titties?'" "Yeah, I do." (flinches) "Okay, you can roll 'em back up now!"

I'm gonna go ahead and brag and say that I don't make 99% cookies. Last year I made Trios, Florentines, and Mixed-Nut Shortbread, and this year I made spiced pecans, candied chocolate-dipped orange peels, and lemon meringues. Next week it's more pecans and sugar cookies with orange butter frosting. Yeah... I kick a$$. ;)

1. Actually, I think it's pretty fantastic. :) 2. All my complaints are minor after hearing cdx's news. 4. This is a complaint?! My only cookie-related complaint is having to continually clean the baking utensils, but eating them is A-ok. 5. Agreed! How are the ski resorts supposed to open when it keeps raining? :angry:

That's awesome news about your brother... here's to many more cancer-free days for him. :beer:

I do believe this t-shirt is for you. :cry: That's awful!

Forget the shower; it's the pork nachos that make that F'N fantastic! :D

Yikes, man... be safe and keep us posted.

I'll definitely make an exception for that; it may be a 4-door, but the WRX is a rally-style car so a spoiler is acceptable. My issue is with people driving Accords and Camrys with spoilers (in addition to the young fools that put those stupid wings that are bigger than the trunk on their cars).

I'll make an exception because it was from the factory with the assumption that you had no other choice. If you had specifically requested said spoiler on your sedan, then I would make fun of you. :thumbsup:

:lol:

Like in the silly commercials that would try and convince us a car is a perfectly reasonable Christmas present? That reminds me of a longstanding car-related complaint: spoilers on 4-door sedans. Stop it. You are not a drag racer or in Tokyo Drift. Especially if you have a car seat in the back.

That could very well be true. Stoli is pretty good for the price point (about $20/bottle), and there are plenty of very good options up from there. Absolut comes to mind as an example of this... excellent marketing, horrible product. Stuff might as well be lighter fluid as far as I'm concerned.

1) Get better vodka (preferably Stoli or Grey Goose and up)... Smirnoff is not that good. 2) Try it with fresh lime juice and a little bit of sugar rather than with Roses... the stuff is basically lime flavored simple syrup. This should help: http://www.crumblycookie.net/2010/04/09/vodka-gimlet/