Another one down

So if you've been following my few and random twitter posts you're up to speed on most of what is going on with me; albeit in absolutely tiny context-less amounts. So this will be a bit of a recap, or for those with better things to do than wait for me to tweet, the whole story of what I have been up to.

One of the things that I have been doing a bit more of lately is bicycling; mostly to work but some on the weekends, when I get out and ride with my team and a few other clubs on a mixed ride. It's been interesting to see the ride transform over the past months; from something that was kind of mellow with a few fast points, to something that's a lot faster most of the time, with the same fast points, that are just faster. The fun part to all of this is that my fitness is surprisingly good; I always seem to be one of the first up the major climb on the route and I'm always right there for the sprint after the long flat drag a bit later. It makes me really miss the days of racing, hopefully one of these days I'll get a handle on the work enough to have time to race again. Oh, if you were wondering, the SRAM Red gruppo is absolutely fabulous! I'm so glad I made the investment.

On the work side of things I can't complain too much about how things have gone. I just finished off my first big NIH grant. If I get it I'll be pulling in $275,000 for the lab, and another $136,000 for the research foundation. Of course I will see none of the at goes to the "foundation", nor will they really do much other than file some paperwork for me and hold the purse-strings on the $275K that is mine. Yet somehow this entitles them to about a 50% cut of what I ask for. I think I might actually just be institutionalized "protection" money; it has a whole mobster feel to it. But at least the grant is done, now I just have to wait 8 months to find out if I get anything.

I finally seem to have my undergrads working in the lab again. Though one of them is an absolute mess. I really should not have agreed to take this student on over the summer; I had my doubts and they aren't being alleviated by the student's performance. I only hope that the effort that I put in to train this one pays off, so far I'm not sure the student can even hold onto a concept for more than a few minutes. I just really hope the student doesn't break anything expensive, I'm out of start up funds and can't afford to replace things.

Anyway that's about it for now, tonight I get to take a break from working for a change. But soon enough I will have to be back at it, there is another grant cycle coming up next month and I need to get some papers out. But at least tonight I can take the time off and not feel too guilty about it.