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July 28, 2005
You Ready?
I've decided it's time to start uploading my photos to yahoo or something. These photos have been on my camera for far too long. Time display them. I have a ton from St. Patty's. The only question left is: Are you ready?!?!
So provided I don't get called into A&F tonight (and I hope I don't) it's gonna be a massive upload night.
And then maybe some drinks? We'll see. It's high time I clean off my desk so I can put my glass desktop on. And there's more to clean in the kitchen as well.
My deal with the kitchen:
Okay, I realize that everyone can't clean their pots and pans immediately after they cook. Sometimes they want to eat or go to bed or something and it's not a bad thing just to let them soak. I made some soup Tuesday night and I still haven't been home long enough to clean it. It's even a hassel to take clean dishes out of the washer. I don't approve of putting pots and pans into the washing machine -- it's a waste of space. Plates, bowls, cups, and silverwar are okay. It's horribly inefficient to put anything else in that space. The bottom line: let pots and pans soak in one side of the sink. Put acceptable items into the dishwasher when you're done. If it's full of clean ones set them to the side and take the clean ones out. If you're in a rush, just keep them on the side.
Unfortunately my roommates aren't exactly efficiency experts, and things don't always go as planned. There are always crumbs everywhere. Old dishes in the living room. Sticky spots on the counter. Old papers on the floor. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but sticking to better guidelines would help the kitchen look better.
Posted by piep0058 at 03:49 PM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2005
Late Night
Since I was in one of my worst moods EVER! to actually get any work done over the weekend, I'm catching up by spending my free nights here at campus. Today everyone was using everything when I wanted to use it that I couldn't get anything done during the day. Someone's using the autoclave, someone's using the high performance liquid chromatography column, someone's using the centrifuge that I need. Blah blah blah.
But hopefully I'll get a lot of protein to use for my project. Speaking of projects... yeah I really hope I do a good job on mine. I have to present next Friday and I still have yet to produce anything that seems worthy to me. I have learned a lot so far, but I won't get any result until next week. I am really going until the last minute with this.
And it's starting to scare me. I need more time away from A&F.
Maybe I should just pretend I'm single and straight to some girls and go out on a date [wink to MT]. However, my roommates decided that if the four guys in our house were the Fantastic Four, I'd be the Human Torch (FLAME ON!) So I don't know how successful I'd be with convincing the girls I'm actually available to them.
Posted by piep0058 at 09:12 PM | Comments (29)
July 20, 2005
John Roberts?
Well it's apparently official, Bush has nominated this guy to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Too bad it wasn't a New England conservative like David Souter. Then I'd probably have more hope that he'd 'defect' to be a centrist. The only thing he has going for him is that he's from Harvard, then was on the court of appeals in the District of Columbia, which isn't the most conservative area in the nation.
Has John Roberts done anything that raises my eyebrows? Honestly he doesn't seem that bad. It would have been nice to have had another woman on the court, but at least he isn't a white protestant southerner. That would have been appalling to me.
Although, according to sources, he had wanted to reverse Roe v. Wade back in 1990. I think I can trust him when he says he would not seek to reverse that precedent when he was appointed to the court of appeals two years ago.
Of course, I think it's quite necessary to grill him on some tough issues, just because he hasn't given us much with his short record. He doesn't seem to have a record on anything at all. I'm sure every detail of his philosophy will be outlined in the coming weeks.
Posted by piep0058 at 10:30 AM | Comments (5)
July 19, 2005
Back to Europe
I was watching the Bourne Identity last night and, for some reason, it made me want to go to Paris. Maybe it was the screen shot of this (l'Arc de la Defense). And then I decided to check out more pictures of it, such as this one. Thanks Google Images! You've sold me on a trip to Europe. Paris would be fun...unfortunately I don't speak French.
It seems that European cities use more street images for postcards while American cities use huge buildings for theirs. St. Louis has the Arch, Chicago has the Hancock/Amoco/Sears Tower (pick one). Minneapolis? The IDS/Wells Fargo/225 S. Sixth. Could one recognize one American city street from another, if one just saw the streets? Perhaps. Minneapolis does have all those skyways. Still, I've never seen a postcard with Nicollet Mall on it. (I'm sure one exists, it's just not common to send).
Why is nothing like this ever built in Minneapolis? Yes, I know, the streets are a bit small for the equivalent of 16 lanes of traffic. I say just take out the block from Lyndale to Aldrich and make a huge street that goes all the way from downtown to, I don't know, somewhere like 50th. Make the street extra wide so that there's plenty of sidewalk space, and even better bike lanes. Of course, they couldn't possibly be any safer as they are now
Is my sense of eminent domain somewhat communistic? Probably. I don't care! It would look cool. We could even put in a big archway at Franklin/Lyndale and have a huge traffic circle! Cuz that would help congestion... Yeah, I know, probably not. That is a rather busy intersection.
I guess my only point that I'm trying to make is that streets in Europe have much bigger sidewalks, are much more aesthetically pleasing, and have nice arches/obelisks that can be seen for miles. I just want to see that here.
...
And of course the only way to do that would be to knock out the Aldrich block or the Garfield block. Actually, in all honesty, they could take any street that is long and straight and do this. Lyndale (or really anywhere in Uptown) just happens to have a high population density it seems. And Hennepin is crooked, so it's out.
Posted by piep0058 at 01:28 PM | Comments (1)
July 14, 2005
Urban Development & Politics
I'm sure a lot of you have seen the new projects going up in downtown Minneapolis. Here's just a a few that I know of:
The Carlyle
Skyscape
720 Lofts
Grant Park
Cobalt
Reflections (It counts cuz it's next to a light rail station).
All these together (minus Reflections) might add about another 10,000 people to downtown's population.
Besides being pretty to look at, the new housing being built might change people's attitudes toward urban development. More people living downtown might prompt more people to support urban development (i.e. a new stadium, better schools, more efficient transportation).
I really hope Tim Pawlenty doesn't get reelected. His lack of leadership with all this government shut down is kinda starting to bother me. It seems a lot of people are losing out here. And urban development is suffering as well. Less money for healt care. Lack of funding for any stadium plans. Less money for higher education.
My parents don't really seem to mind. They view their money as being taken away from them with taxes. A lot of other people see it this way as well, I'm sure. They want to support themselves on their own. Those democrats are just 'tax and spend liberals' who are out to no good.
I heard someone on the radio say, (with reference to child molesters), that New York and Boston liberals were some of the worst people in the world. What does that mean? He was relating this judge who let this repeat offender out on bail, in which case the offender skipped town. He's probably going to get a lot of calls on that one...
I don't understand what is so hard to understand about supporting public funding for health care, new stadiums, more efficient transportation. The governor has been a jerk about compromise.
People living in an urban setting, in general it seems, and especially in Minnesota, support more investment into their neighborhoods. Hence, more people living in an urban setting would be able to vote the governor out.
At least I can say I voted for Tim Penny.
Posted by piep0058 at 01:19 PM | Comments (10)
Proposed Sequences
Now, if any of you ever felt like you were left out in the dark about my project this summer...this will be a good summary.
My mission, should I choose to accept it (and I have), is to identify the problems with the Hu11E6 antibody (which binds to the pertussis toxin, making incapable of causing damage), and propose a better amino acid sequence to correct the poor binding affinity.
Here's the M11E6 (just the framework, the CDRs are Xed out), which binds rather well.
DIVMTQSTSSLSASLGDRVTISCXXXXXXXXXXXWFQQKPDGTVKLLIYXXXXXXXGVPSRFSGSGSGTDYSLTISSLDQEDIATYFCXXXXXXXXXFGGGTKLEIKRTGGGGSGGGGSGGGGSGGGGSEVKVVESGGGLVQPGGSLRLSCTTSXXXXXXXXXXWVRQPPGKALEWLGXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKGRFTISRDNSQSILYLQMNTLRVEDSATYYCARXXXXXXXXXXXXWGQGTTLTVSS
And here's the current version of the Hu11E6, which doesn't bind worth crap (again, the CDRs are Xed out).
DIQMTQSPSSLSASVGDRVTITCXXXXXXXXXXXWYQQKPGKAPKLLIYXXXXXXXGVPSRFSGSGSGTDYTLTISSLQPEDFATYYCXXXXXXXXXFGQGTKVEIKRTGGGGSGGGGSGGGGSGGGGSEVQLVESGGGLVQPGGSLRLSCAASXXXXXXXXXXWVRQAPGKGLEWVSXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKGRFTISRDNSKNTLYLQMNSLRAEDTAVYYCARXXXXXXXXXXXXWGQGTLVTVSS
The CDRs are exactly the same in both antibodies. So, any change in binding affinity must come from the changes in the framwork when the antibody was humanized. It doesn't seem likely that a single amino acid change could really affect anything, especially if that change is from, say, a phenylalanine (F) to a
tyrosine (Y).
What would make more sense, as far as explaining why the Hu11E6 lost so much affinity, would be to identify key amino acid changes where the polarity or size of the acid changes significantly. Thank god for this chart.
Significant is such a funny word. What counts as being significant. A change from glycine (G) to glutamine (Q) is what I'm counting on. Another possible problem with the 11E6 is the insertion of prolines (P). Especially in the middle of the framework. And especially in a long string of changes.
Of course, if anyone had any bright ideas that might help me deduce the exact nature of the problem, I would appreciate that. Until someone tells me the answers, though, I'll just have to try things myself. And I think I know what I'm doing. And it will be a good learning experience.
Posted by piep0058 at 09:42 AM | Comments (2)
July 13, 2005
Works Makes Me Cranky
So I've been working a lot lately. Too bad I live the lavish lifestyle that I do. Anyhow, I've been working honestly too many hours at the Fitch lately. Even though I don't really want to work there, I still need just the little bit of extra cash. For what? What am I spending my money on?
Let me make a list (estimated amounts are per month):
1. Tuition [necessary] ~$600
2. Rent/Utilities [necessary] ~$400
3. Food [necessary] ~$200
[Allow me to break this down -- I spend about 20 bucks a week at the supermarket and then probably another 20 on restaurant food per week]
4. Alcohol [totally necessary] ~$50
These are my major expenses. So I need to bring in around $1,500 a month to pay for everything. In three months this summer I will make about $7,000 (summer expenses are already taken out). For this next school year I'll be making about $700 a month. That means I'll need an extra $500-700 dollars a month. So that means I'm workin' at A&F. Sad.
Thank god for taking student loans. Now if only the interest rates weren't so high.
Posted by piep0058 at 01:26 PM | Comments (8)
July 03, 2005
4th of July! Holla!
Oh man I'm sweatin' right now. No joke. Time to turn on the AC.
And time to go out. Nothin' says patriotism like having some drinks. That's what we fought the war for, right, it was fought for...booze?
Anyhow. Time for drinking. Cheers!
Posted by piep0058 at 09:41 PM | Comments (5)
July 01, 2005
New Look
I determined I had something to say again, and so I'm back on the blogging track again. For a while I wasn't very opinionated, but now my bitchy self is back. And gone are those crazy eyes that were staring people in the face. That was more or less just an experiment to see what I could do with the blogging interface. All this HTML crap is kinda hard to get a handle on sometimes.
Anyhow, real progress is being done at my internship at the U of M. And when I get things done, I feel good. I'm actually learning things!
This is actually a surprise. Ever since I've been to college I've started having a life finally. And unfortunately, having a life means devoting less time to understanding schoolwork. So, naturally, I've been feeling kinda dumb lately when it comes to classes. So any time that I actually remember things from lecture and apply them, it's a really good feeling. Like memorizing the structures, hydrophobicity, etc. of all 20 amino acids. And then applying all that knowledge. And knowing what hydrophobicity means (greek people, figure it out) and how it relates to my problem. Now that's entertainment.
By the way, today is awesome! The weather is totally sweet. Too fucking bad that I have to work at Abercrombie & Fitch tonight. I swear, it's not cool to work six days in a row there. That being said, time to leave work and head to the beach! I'm not stayin' inside today, no way!
Posted by piep0058 at 12:25 PM | Comments (4)