Picture a Day - Day 140

The Internet is down!

Repeat, the Internet is down. This is not a drill. Please get to your emergency stations and prepare yourself. The Internet is down.

At least it did go down for a good chunk of yesterday. And it was awful. Hair tearing awful, mind numbingly awful, um eyebrow arching awful. A giant bowl of cheerios with no milk awful.

There I was, calmly surfing the internet and in no way tempting fate by doing 30 things at once on my little browser. I just finished my post and was looking to see what else was new out there on this magical ride, then the unexpected happened.

"ERROR 404: You are not connected to the internet." All across the entire university howls of rage and frustration rang as someone must have accidentally sprayed their morning break's donut jelly all over the server.

You never really realize just how much you rely on something til it's gone. Now I could no longer go looking for new papers on M.haem, no blasting genomic sequence, and certainly no perusing the fisher site for new pipettes. So while I was waiting for my little bacteria to grow up just what could I do with myself for the rest of the day?

I know! I'll organize and catch up on my lab notebook:Please don't steal any of my lovely graphs and data that you can't really read. Especially all the experiments that didn't work right. Trust me, it really isn't worth it.

The lab notebook is the albatross around any scientists neck. You shot the damn thing so you have to wear it but there's no good reason to like it. (Okay so all I got out of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner is never ever talk to strange old men on the way to a wedding, as they're probably just making stuff up on the spot to screw with you).

In theory you're supposed to record every little thing you've ever done in lab. Only if you did write down everything you did in lab you'd never get anything done. There's a good amount of time when all I do is maybe mix up some lab staples and nothing even vaguely experimental, so then it becomes a debate. If you're fresh into research and just ecstatic to have your own notebook you'll write down every time you refill tip boxes or get more nanopure water.

Spend a few years in lab and you filter yourself based upon just how badly you think you or someone else reading this will need the information down the future. The alterations made to a program, important. Writing out the important 30 times when you can just refer to it on page 10, not quite so important.

Also for job security every lab notebook must be read as though an orangutan got a hold of a pen and had a grand ol' time of it. They can't fire you if no one else can read it.

Anyway, the point of all this: There is no need to panic when the Internet is down! Just get into your special "No Internet" suits and take a little nap. We'll wake you once it is up and you can get back to work.

P.S. Does anyone know how to get into contact with Megan from My Maui Wedding? I got her painting back in the mail even though I mailed it over a month ago. I tried e-mailing her 4 days ago and haven't heard anything. I'm not sure what's up.