What bad day?

Good news. I got out of work earlier than I was thinking I'd would.

Bad news. It's because I had to throw seven hours of bench work in the autoclave bag.

Boss decided that it wasn't worth risking clogging the sexy expensive sorter. Especially since I know that my cell count is way off. He was trying to tell me it's the media killing crap.

"Uhh, no. This has been a problem since December. We've even used a new lot of FBS since then."

"We have a lot of data that you shouldn't be getting that crap."

"From five days?"

"Yes."

I tried hard not to sneeze "bulls**t". I'll go back, but there's no useful lymphoycte data that you get if you're trying to study MATURE lymphocytes at 5 days. I'm not looking for mature lymphocytes, so that's okay.

But he did give me permission to treat with NH4Cl

too tired to sob

I hate days like this. I feel so beat down tired that I am too tired to even cry about it.

I spent the first couple hours this morning tracking down actual costs on orders so that a grant gets spent out. Still estimating a $1,500 balance, so I have to spend more grant money. Nothing is going right on that front. Thought a company wasn't charging us $600 (which would put the balance at $2,100). Found out that they for some reason had to break it into two orders, and my missing $600 is taken care of. Then I found I can't transfer animal balances because of the end of fiscal year paperwork is delaying posting of the animal expenses.

Then my mini-big shipment came in. It was only $2,000 of supplies (I have $6,000 coming on Friday). And nobody else bothered to come in to help. So I had to put it all away. Finding room for all these "rainy day" supplies involves a lot of climbing on cabinets and putting things up to the ceiling (it'll piss off the fire marshall, but tough).

So when that's all done, I'm physically beat tired. Then I have to get a culture ready for a sort at 4:00 PM. That's not going right at all. The same clumps of dead cells are croping up. I'm sure it's just dead RBC's, but I have no way to separate them out because the clumps are bigger than the cells. So I'm getting worried that this crap is going to clog the expensive sorter. I go to the bosses to discuss the issue. First says "don't know, go ask the other one." The other one is on the phone with wife, and can't talk to me right now.

I'm ready to go collapse in a heap. I'm so tired, it's going to be difficult to get my feet moving across the campus to the sexy expensive sorter. Will conclude this crappy day when it's finally over and vodka's in my hand.

Voter ID joke

I was just listening to a story on NPR about how a lawyer is fighting the new voter ID rules in Georgia and Arizona. In AZ, Prop 200 required legal picture ID to be shown in order to vote. In theory, this prevents illegal immigrants from voting.

First of all, quite a few of these illegals have legal looking ID cards. There's been a few Motor Vehicle Department employees arrested for consipiring to make drivers licences for illegals. Not to mention the other ways drivers licenses are created.

Second of all, here's what happened the last time I voted a couple months ago:

I walked in with the bright yellow card with my name and address on it with the address of the voting place, date, and time on it. I also had my voter registeration card. I handed the bright yellow card it to the registeration person with last names M-Z.

"Please sign here."

I signed.

"Here's your ballot. You go vote over there."

Yup, never showed my ID. I know every time I have to pull it out because I hide it under my medical ID card (you know, just in case). It's a hassle, but the last time I had to show my ID was when I got carded in April for buying a bottle of wine. I had to tease the cashier because I was now over 30. I guess I should take it as a complement.