Random

If I could figure out how to get my work laptop to connect to my Wifi network, I would have been doing work on Saturday night. I started an HPLC run on an idea that I came across while seeing what the literature had to say about enantiospecific interactions on Friday afternoon. I made a few trial injections before I left the lab. There looks to be some kind of interferent right on top of a very important peak, but I decided to go ahead and run a few samples anyway. I can think of one of two ways to get some useful information from the run even with the interferent. My curiosity to see how the run looked is pretty quiet when I'm busy with the kids, but once I'm on my own, I get very anixous to see how things look.

While I have accepted that research is not the best direction for my career, leaving the lab will be a difficult process. I plan on staying close enough to the labs that I will still see and think about data, but I won't have this daily interaction with a few problems that lead to original ideas and experiments. The depth of understanding that I have will become more superficial as my responsibilities shift. I have thought that maybe a smaller company will allow me to stay closer to lab activities while taking a leadership role. When I interviewed at a small company it was clear that every level of the company was involved in research. At the same time, maybe it would be better to just go cold turkey and make a clean break. A management position that requires a technical background might be better.

So what did I do on Saturday night when I wasn't checking on my HPLC data? I drank beer (which I would have done with the data anyway), listened to a Muse concert on the Spin website (which I also would have done while looking at the data), and played Mario Kart Wii online. I stopped playing for a couple of months, but I started playing again a couple of weeks ago when I figured out how to to mute the controller. I have done really well in the two or three sessions that I've played. I don't know the results are more about me being good or the other people being bad. I kind of think negative things about the people who are too good at some of the tracks (shouldn't they be doing something better with their time?), and I can't help but think that other people have the same opinion of me. I plan on limiting my playing to the weekends. I don't want to become a loser who is too good at a dumb video game.