Although this blog is mostly about tramping and cycling and other outdoor fun, I do also work. Since the interns left Ian and me have been blundering our way through samples in the lab, trying to get them ready for further analyses in the US. Just a handful of the problems we ran into:
- We needed special filters that were, as usual, not available in NZ but had to be shipped in from EU/US/Asia/Australia/Mars. This is a recurring phenomenon in NZ and makes lab-work so much more of a waste of time really. I don’t think I ever ordered something that was already in NZ, and even if it was it got stuck in Auckland because of earthquakes/oil spills/other environmental dramas.
- We followed some Swedish hotshot’s lab-recipe when the filters finally arrived, only to realize that he must be a total liar because the method didn’t work at all.
- I had to rebuild the lab again to accommodate my ultra-clean sample preparation
- The samples I send ahead to the US were already detained at NZ customs because THEY lost the declaration form.
So you see I really needed those breaks to forget about all the lab misery.
Through all this I tried to schedule my lab-visit to the US. If you’ve ever been in a lab, you know that nothing ever goes as planned, so to plan labwork in itself is tricky. All the more so if you don’t know if your samples will ever be ready for the actual analyses, or when the lab is also scheduling renovations. However, we have the policy at work that if you book international travel, it has to be at least 3 weeks in advance (which I think is in fact extremely late still). 2 weeks ago I thought that I might be able to get all the samples prepared and shipped to the US before mid-May, and so I started booking the flights. In the end, a tight 3 weeks before take-off, I got a “round the world ticket”!
My schedule:
11 May fly to San Francisco to visit my friend Rensie
14 May fly to Ann Arbor – 7 weeks labwork
30 June fly to Bari-Italy for a conference
6 August fly back to Chch from Amsterdam.
The time between the conference and leaving Amsterdam is still a mystery. I was tempted to take a ferry to Dubrovnik, Croatia from Bari (just because it is possible and I’ve heard it is great). I am however also tempted to join my father and possibly brother in Southern France for some relaxation. I will visit Freiburg and spend a good deal of time in Amsterdam. It is yet unsure whether Thomas can make it to Europe.
I am very excited about all the upcoming travels. All the more so because this time I put my foot down and refused to fly with Qantas or their incapable offspring airlines. Last year something went wrong on every single flight I took with them.
But first, back to the lab…
