Ooh, Shiny

My chemicals that I've been waiting for at work finally got to me on Tuesday, a mere 18 days after I ordered them thanks to the idiots in the university central purchasing office. The last three days have been lots of running around trying to get things going, which is going to end almost as soon as it begins as we start the move to the shiny new building on Monday. It was fun today to isolate a brand new compound, the third step of eight on the road to the molecules my boss wants me to make. Even though it's still a relatively unremarkable thing, it's still never been made before. It's still fun to make and discover things.

Today was essentially the last day we could work in the lab, and there's been lots of disposing of unwanted samples and junk. Despite the fact I've walked past the building site that became the new building twice a day for four years, I only got to see inside on Monday afternoon when six of us had to go and move the new lab freezer off the pallet it was delivered on. It makes a nice change to have to go upstairs into a workspace with windows. 

The building is only half-finished inside (which puzzles me since the building has been topped out for almost two years now), and there are lots of issues that we'll have to work through. Currently there's no office, and nowhere to eat our lunch. Until today there weren't even locks on the doors. There's a picture of the new lab above left. I think we're all a bit nervous about being the first one to drop something or make a really brightly coloured mess. It's nice and large, has a nice high ceiling and a view of most of the northwest of the city, and the mountains beyond. Windows! Here's a view out of the window. When I first moved into Beige Towers, I didn't think it possible to live any closer to work. Now, of course, it's about half as far. As someone remarked to me on Monday, "you could zip-line home". 

Just how long I get to work in this shiny new lab remains to be seen; on Tuesday afternoon I was invited to a job interview for a research position at a company that services the oil and gas drilling industry two weeks today. It looks - from a brief bit of resarch on the internet - to be very, very different work, but I think that's a good thing. I'm happiest when I'm learning about things, and I think that while there's always new chemistry to learn in the job I've done for the last 13 years, there hasn't been anything new in the way of techniques or processes learnt for a very long time. A change is as good as a rest, or something. And better paid as well.

We Can Rebuild Him

Today is nine months since the cast came off the bionic ankle. The ankle itself seems fine, and stands up to playing football again, although there's intermittent soreness down my shin some days.

The physio said that this may happen because everything that's happened may alter the gait of how I walk, and I should concentrate on my gait while walking. Self-diagnosis on the internet is a dangerous thing, but there's lots of information out there about shin soreness due to the overwork of the muscles that move the foot after serious injuries such as this. Being back at work and back on my feet all day tires it a bit, but it should hopefully condition my leg to being used to being up and about all day in the long run. If I walk pretty slowly, there's no discomfort at all. Which is ironic after all those years of people complaining I walk too fast. Oddly, the best it feels is the couple of days after I play football on a Wednesday. Maybe that's because I stretch properly before games, and I don't do my long list of stretching exercises anymore. But look at those before and after shots. It looks like a normal ankle again (albeit slightly more pointy).

But my pre-Christmas efforts to get my medical records and the printouts of my x-rays of the added bits seem to have been largely wasted. In all three airports (Calgary, Heathrow and Manchester) I went through on my whirlwind trip home, those two plates and thirteen screws didn't once set off the metal detector. Consider me a bit surprised (and very slightly disappointed) on that front.

 

The Basement

So here I am, eight days into being back at work. And in some ways, it's like the last ten months never happened. In the same lab, with the same people, working for the same boss. In the same office, at the same desk, on the same project. About the only different thing is the fact that I have a different workspace (pictured). 

Fortunately, the group is moving to a shiny new building in the next couple of weeks, which means that after more than four years, the working on an open bench will soon be a thing of the past. We'll actually have a view as well, since we'll be on the fifth floor. But it's been very frustrating today; the chemicals I ordered last week still haven't arrived, and I have pretty much exhausted my various 'to do' lists. There was a fair amount of sitting about this afternoon, but at least unlike the last ten months' sitting about, at least I'm being paid for it again. Every cloud and all that.

Done: Redux

It's nice to see they keep up with things.