biodork

So you had a good vacation, then (or don't you remember)? ;) Don't think I'll be doing MM again anytime soon... It killed me the first/last time I had it.

You can't tell from the smaller pic, but the label says "why have just one?" haha.

LOL - a friend of mine just found this gem at a grocery store in Utah: http://www.wasatchbeers.com/polygporter.html

Congrats, man, that's awesome! Hope you like the new town/car/job. As for me, it's been a taxing week and I'm beat, but tomorrow I can sleep in and I've already gotten to go snowboarding more in the last two weeks than all last winter, so I'll take it! Happy weekend, all.

Teehee... I think it's time for SDS to update his signature. ;) Dangit, I can't figure out how to do bold, etc. from the iPad!

Nothing fancy, but finally opened the bottle of Dewars I picked up a while back. Very easy to drink and less burn than some of the others I've tried. Seems like a good, fairly inexpensive one to sip on game nights.

Good on you!! My brother tried a few times to quit and now he just does the electronic cigarettes. Stick with it, even though it's tough now... Your lungs (and kids) will thank you!

Thanks! I don't get to Philly often, but I'll definitely keep those in mind!

The appliance issues continue, now with human incompetence thrown in for good measure. After getting a new/used refrigerator last Tues. morning and realizing it was supposed to come with an icemaker, this is the timeline: Tues. 1/10 - service guy said to call him when I got home to bring it over, but when I did he'd forgotten and said he'd come by the next morning. Wed. 1/11 - guy comes over and installs an icemaker Thurs. 1/12 - guy calls in the morning to ask if I have ice (I don't). He says to call when I get home and he'll be over. I call when I get home but again he's forgotten about me and offers to come Sat. morning. Sat. 1/14 - guy comes over and installs a different icemaker Mon. 1/16 - guy calls in the morning to ask if I have ice (I don't) and says he'll be by the next morning. Tues. 1/17 - guy comes over in the morning, inexplicably without another icemaker. He checks the other one and sees that it isn't working, and checks the water line to make sure it is working. Says he'll bring a different one the next morning. Thankfully I didn't leave for work right away because he hadn't properly re-attached the water line and I ended up with a puddle on my kitchen floor. Wed. 1/18 - I call the guy in the a.m. after he doesn't show, and he'd forgotten about me. Apologizes and tells me to call him when I get home that evening. I do and it goes to voicemail. Thurs. 1/19 (today) - guy shows up in the morning and installs yet another icemaker. Got home from work a little while ago, and STILL no ice. Guess I'll be buying some ice cube trays. >:(

Thanks - I tried to pick a variety. The bf started with Orval since they were out of the Saison Dupont, and loved the Westmalle Tripel so much he did a second of those rather than try a third brew.

I can't remember, lol, although not for the obvious reason. :-P I'm really not a beer drinker, so I got a sampler flight of 4 drafts to taste-test without committing to a full glass. They don't have the drafts listed and I think some drafts weren't available in bottles because I don't see a description that matches for two, but I think it was: St Bernadus Wit (unfiltered, very light and refreshing) a brown ale of some sort that was compared to Chimay (ok, but not my favorite) an IPA with orange and coriander spice (interesting flavor but grew tired of it about halfway through the glass) Lambic Framboise (always a safe bet for a non beer drinker)

For those of you in central PA (and there are a few!), there's a great little Belgian restaurant in Carlisle with a ridiculous selection of beers and excellent food: http://www.cafebruges.com/ Had dinner there Sat. night and the bf, who is a huge fan of Belgian brews, was a happy man.

Lol sorry, weave... I'm still new enough to tasting that I'd probably just be copying the distiller's notes, haha. I will say that you'd probably be unimpressed with the Glenlivet Nadurra 1991 I mentioned in the Santa thread. As unfamiliar as I am with scotch, I remember tasting and thinking, that's it? Not bad by any means, but for the price point and age I expected a more complex flavor. And yeah, where IS Braedon? And LastPommerFan for that matter... Both seem to have disappeared. :(

lol wait, if you're excited for snowboarding weather, why are you also excited to be leaving for Florida?? As for me: 1) It's FINALLY stopped raining here (although it's crazy windy) and the weather this weekend looks good for snowboarding! 2) The benefits department fixed my insurance issues yesterday afternoon (whew!). 3) Looking forward to trying a new Belgian restaurant tomorrow evening for the bf's birthday.

I don't recall the specific model #, but it was a GE Hotpoint 21 cu ft top freezer. My mom had all GE appliances in her last house (the expensive ones, stainless steel) and had problems with hers as well. I always thought GE was a good brand, but I don't think I'll be buying from them in the future. According to the service techs who were here on Tuesday, Maytag is really the way to go. Poor kid (and poor van)! :(

Crappy appliances that aren't made to last. Specifically: 1) On Christmas Day (I know, a little late), I came home to find the meal I'd started in the slow cooker the night before hadn't finished cooking and was quite cold, despite the fact that it was programmed to cook for 12 hours on low and then hold on a warm setting for up to 14 hours (I was only gone for about 18 hours). Had to throw everything out and come up with a replacement meal of leftovers before my dad and stepmom came over. 2) On Monday night my refrigerator/freezer was on the fritz, with everything in the freezer being partially thawed and the fridge being a bit warmer than usual. I scheduled a service call with the manufacturer, but the earliest they could come out would be tomorrow (Friday) morning. When I woke up Tuesday morning, the freezer was completely thawed and not running, and the fridge was close to room temp. I had to throw away about $40 worth of dairy products I'd just purchased the week prior, and I went ahead and found a local appliance tech who would come out that morning. The problem? A bad system, something to do with the frost/defrost cycle where the unit never completes its cycle and every so often gets blocked and kicks off. Too expensive to bother fixing at $300-500, so I had to get a replacement ASAP. The worst part? This is the second time this has happened to the fridge/freezer (it's only about 4 years old, and last time it resolved itself in a day or so), and the first time it would have been covered by warranty if the POS service tech from GE had bothered to look hard enough and not just tell me the door wasn't sealing properly and I needed to keep more food in my freezer. :wallbash: Oh yeah, and another one (non appliance related): my employer apparently just "didn't download" a few employees when they renewed our insurance for the year, so right now it's saying I'm not covered and I can't pick up a prescription refill. Thank goodness I didn't wait until I ACTUALLY need the refill, but still... this is some bullsh!t. And the Sabres are downright unwatchable. That is all.

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: