The grant is finally done. "In Vivo Imaging of Hypoxic Cell Physiology" was sent off to the NIH today, in the form of a 3 inch thick stack of papers. That covers all the forms, resource descriptions, CVs of all collaborators, the research plan itself, and an appendix of related papers published by key personnel. If it gets funded, it'll give me $275k over the next two years to do some cool work on developing techniques for imaging cellular metabolism induced by exposure to low oxygen environments. Everyone tells me NIH grants are incredibly competitive, but i'm confident that i've put together a strong team and proposal. I'll find out in six months or so. In the meantime, i've got a lecture on 3D fluorescence tomography to prepare for Monday that i haven't even thought about yet. There goes my weekend. At least after that i'll be able to slow down a gear or so.

V noticed just before we went to LA a few weeks back that the Monterey Bay Aquarium had made an interesting new acquisition: a 4.5 foot, 60 pound, six month old great white shark. While we were unable to stop at the aquarium going to or from LA, we got sufficiently organized over the next week so that Naomi, Geoff, V, and i got an early breakfast last Saturday morning and drove down the coast to Monterey. Chompy, as we deemed her, swam nonchalantly around the million gallon Outer Bay tank, along with a number of other larger fish. She was certainly impressive, and we resolved to come back in a year or so to see how big she gets. Apparently this is the first time researchers have ever been able to get a great white to feed in captivity, so everyone is understandably excited. So much so that i thought the horde of people watching the tank might attack the next ignoramus who (knowingly or not) broke the "no flash photography" rule.

After touring the aquarium for a while, we left to have a Thai lunch down the street. While there, V and my housing adventure took an interesting turn. We got a call from our realtor Joe, who told us that the offer that was accepted for the house we'd bid on had fallen through, and that we'd been asked to resubmit our bid. We signed another set of papers that afternoon, which Joe presented to the seller for the second time on Monday. We thought it a good omen that we'd been asked to resubmit, indicating that there must be some interest in our offer. However, come Tuesday lunchtime we were told our bid had been turned down ... again. We learned that there were three bids initially, and only two in this second round. So i guess we now know what the sellers really thought of our offer. I'm waiting to get a call telling us the second bid had fallen through, so i can ponder over whether to a) tell them to f@$# off, or b) submit a new, significantly lower bid. So despite a few days of hope we're back to where we were a week and a half ago.

I've been in a video game renaissance since getting my Xbox "improved", and have joined a Netflix-esque game rental service called Gamefly. The first selection from my queue that i received was the hardcore racing game Burnout 3: Takedown, and what a great way to kick things off. Running your opponents into oncoming traffic or walls is fun enough, but when you combine it with a near-supersonic racer with excellent controls, it's addictive. My second rental was the futuristic first person shooter and adventure game Deus Ex: Invisible War, but i'm not so taken with that. I'm more excited to return it and get the new RPG X-Men Legends. I've also become embroiled in a new Mario Kart Double Dash campaign with Naomi and Geoff as well as old rivals Gary, Leah, and of course V. Naomi actually went out and bought a GameCube and Mario Kart for her and Geoff after a racing session with us last weekend. It suffices to say that no one has yet knocked me from my throne for any extended period of time. Whether that will be the case with FIFA and the SMFA, we'll have to see on October 16.

I got a new 250GB Lacie external hard drive at work yesterday, so today i'm basking in the mp3 goodness, content that i can continue expanding my online music collection unimpeded. Lately i've been obsessing over getting good cover scans for my mp3s. I've already got cover art for all of them, but i've been noticing that some of the images are of fairly low quality. Ted and his OCD.

I naturally had time before leaving for Monterey that Chelsea had soundly defeated Middlesbrough, if only by a score of 1-nil. Bwa ha ha. Despite our less than spectacular play in the English Premiership (although we are still as yet unbeaten and only 2 points behind leaders Arsenal), we've won our first two Champions League matches over Paris St. Germain by 3-nil and this week over current Cup holders FC Porto by 3-1. José Mourinho's new squad defeated his old soundly, with Damien Duff getting a start and Didier Drogba adding to his accelerating tally. As Matthew put it, one of these days Chelsea is going to bust 5 or 6 goals on someone in the Premiership and after that the team's confidence will skyrocket. At present we're outplaying our opposition but are having trouble converting our advantage in chances into a solid advantage on the scoresheet.

Our initial foray into the housing market came to an unsuccessful conclusion yesterday evening, and i must say i feel like getting out of the hunt for a while now. V and i bent over backwards to put a competitive offer in on a house two blocks over from the one we're renting now, and lo it was rejected apparently because the seller didn't like our financing setup. I'm not upset that our bid was turned down, that i can understand ... what bugs me is that our loan agent and realtor keep springing details on us at the last minute. You would think that if you've made it abundantly clear to everyone that you're doing 100% financing, some kind soul would point out that you'll need a 3% deposit to open escrow. V and i agree that it's time for us to take a step back, become a bit more knowledgeable on the intricacies of home purchasing, save up some money (which we're doing at a good clip seeing as i just got a raise and V is going back to her old employers Arthur Beren), and get away from agents and brokers who despite all the smiles and handshakes seem to keep leading us astray.

Otherwise, i've been distracting myself with my super Xbox and this grant. I stopped by Borders yesterday to buy Chronicles of the Roman Emperors, a synopsis of the Roman empire ... god bless the History Channel. V had a fun time at KROQ's Inland Invasion over the weekend, despite the fact that Morrissey canceled at the last minute (very last minute ... it wasn't announced until three hours into the festival) due to illness. Apparently the traffic and overcrowding were much alleviated this year relative to last, and Franz Ferdinand stole the show ... i however stuck to my guns and avoided the whole thing, opting instead to hang out with Sean playing FIFA 2004, drinking Guinness, and watching Cops, World's Wildest Police Videos, and Velvet Goldmine (which amazingly was even more of a crapfest the second time round, despite my fondness for the Venus in Furs version of "Baby's on Fire"). We're effectively in training as earlier that weekend i was witness to Matthew's much improved FIFA skills. I'm not giving up the SMFA title that easily.

Okay, patriotism is fine and all but if Bush and co. haven't pushed it over the line yet, this certainly does.

so stuck inside, no buzzer on the windows shot stemmed the tide, it's more than you can swallow ice coursing through the veins now, through the arteries cold from the neck down your fingers frozen, is that it for you? trapped under ice floes, swimming toward the exit up from the cold, so numb you barely felt it all you can do to stop it is to sink down and hope that you don't drown take a deep breath and dive right into it

After spending two days grinding out a poster for the SMI meeting, i passed out at 1am Wednesday night/Thursday morning, with the alarm set at 4:15am so i could make my 6am flight at SFO. When my eyes next opened, for some reason daylight was streaming in my bedroom ... not exactly what i expected pre-sunrise. A quick look at the clock ... 7:36am?!?! Aw s@$t, i missed my flight! A quick chat with an Expedia customer service rep told me i needed to contact United Airlines directly, so i got in their phone queue, meanwhile gawking at the $500+ it would cost me to buy a new ticket. Luckily, the United rep told me i could get on the 11am flight on standby. Having never flown standby, i was a bit unnerved by the fact that you have to wait until they're completely done boarding and ready to shut the gate doors before they call your name. But thankfully everything worked out, and by 7:30pm i was in St. Louis ... a bit later than my original 1:30pm arrival, but there nonetheless. After a twenty minute cab ride i arrived at the Adam's Mark, beautifully situated adjacent to the St. Louis Gateway Arch. I had a few drinks at the opening SMI reception with old friends from Boston, then headed up to my room and caught the second half of the opening game of the NFL season, the Indianapolis Colts visiting the defending champion New England Patriots.

Great game, and a fantastic way to ease into what i always eagerly anticipate, another season of football. I don't obsess over the game (not to the extent that i do over soccer and Chelsea), but i definitely enjoy whiling away Sundays watching the pigskin, and eating dinner on Mondays during the last game of the week. The Colts and Patriots didn't disappoint. Tom Brady is the real deal: not a flashy player but someone who gets the job done in crunch time. Peyton Manning is an excellent competitor too, but the last few games i've seen him in he's come up short and looks almost comically befuddled in the process. The Pats weren't show stoppers, and would've lost by two touchdowns if the Colts hadn't turned it over three times in the red zone (twice on the friggin goal line). Credit Belichick though, he got the W and is famous for making the adjustments to keep more W's coming. While waiting for my connection in Denver i dictated my picks for the week to Veronica, who entered them into Jeremy Popscene's online pool. Did fairly well this week (beat Gary and Jeremy at any rate), but was a good 20 points short of winning.

The SMI meeting was interesting, if not hugely exciting as in years past. There were several excellent talks, in particular one on applying somatic hypermutation (used in the generation of billions of different types of antibodies in our bodies) towards creating wavelength shifted fluorescent protein mutants, and another on using total internal reflection microscopy to study the kinetics of cellular exo- and endocytosis. However nothing mind boggling that was directly applicable to my work. I saw some posters and presentations related to the grant i'm preparing, which despite the initial reaction of "oh s@$t, they've scooped me!", encouraged me that the grant is novel, relevant, and fundable.

The SMI is very well funded and it generally shows at these meetings, with plenty of refreshments during and between sessions and extravagant nightly outings. This year we got a three hour dinner cruise on a riverboat on the Mississippi on Friday, and a gala reception at the Arch on Saturday evening. The dinner cruise was a fun opportunity to catch up with my CMIR chums from Boston. The boat left something to be desired ... it was a bit of a let down to notice that the paddlewheel wasn't turning, realizing that the boat was instead powered by a motor beneath it. Also, once you get a mile downriver from the Arch, there isn't a whole lot to see. Especially at night. Other than the big chemical refining plant we passed after a few miles, although i don't think that is the kind of scenery St. Louis wants to publicize.

The gala dinner was much more fun. After seeing the Arch for several days, Vasilis, Jan, Christophe, Jorge, myself, and co. had naturally discussed taking a trip up to the top, despite unanimous concerns that it had a generally unstable quality about it. We got our chance during the reception, with free trips available to all attendees. To get to the top you climb into a miniscule five-seat capsule, and hold your breath as it clanks its way up the structure to the top. There's a small viewing area at the apex, with tiny windows from which you can see the old courthouse, Busch Stadium, and the Mississippi (again, not so impressive after dark). I hung around for ten minutes, but Jorge, who came up on the tram after mine, took ten seconds and decided to leave, so we grabbed a capsule and headed down.

I spent much of Sunday with Stanford radiation biology colleague Martin Brown, heading off to the airport with him at 4pm to catch our 5:40 flight to Denver and then to SFO. V picked me up at the airport at 10pm, and after a late dinner we went home. I've struggled to get a decent night's sleep lately. I keep waking up in the night ... i'm not exactly an insomniac, i can fall asleep again fine, but i only get 3 hours or so of uninterrupted sleep at a time. Happened in St. Louis too, so it's nothing specific to my usual sleeping arrangements. Hrm. Anyhow, i'm back to cranking out this R21, interrupted temporarily this weekend by a jaunt down to LA so V can attend this year's Inland Invasion. Faithful readers will recall my account of last year's debacle, featuring three hours in the parking lot waiting to get out after the show, and two hours in line waiting for food. I am therefore opting to hang out with fellow abstainer Sean, playing Xbox and having a few beers. Much nicer.

Chelsea's Champions League campaign kicks off today in France against Paris St. Germain. Here's to surpassing our semifinal appearance last year ... go you Blues!

Don't usually post links, but this one is too good to miss.

Here at Rockwell Automation's world headquarters, research has been proceeding to develop a line of automation products that establishes new standards for quality, technological leadership, and operating excellence. With customer success as our primary focus, work has been proceeding on the crudely conceived idea of an instrument that would not only provide inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such an instrument, comprised of Dodge gears and bearings, Reliance Electric motors, Allen-Bradley controls, and all monitored by Rockwell software, is Rockwell Automation's retro-encabulator. Now basically the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it's produced by the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance. The original machine had a baseplate of prefamulated amulite surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two swerving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fam. The lineup consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzal vanes, so fitted to the ambiphasient lunar wang shaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-O deltoid type placed in panendermic semi-bolloid slots of the stater, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremi pipe to the differential girdle spring on the up end of the grammeters. Moreover whenever fluorescent score motion is required, it may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal deplanaration. The retro-encabulator has now reached a high level of development, and it's being successfully used in the operation of milper trenyans. It's available soon, wherever Rockwell Automation products are sold.

At long last the California summer has hit the bay area. Temperatures have been in the 90s over the last four days, peaking on Saturday around 101°. The forecast calls for a slow drop over this week, down to 79-80° on Friday. By that time i'll be off in St. Louis for the third annual meeting of the Society for Molecular Imaging. Temperatures there are in the 80s, though certainly with more humidity. However it's unlikely that i'll be spending a lot of time outside of air conditioned hotels and conference centers. There's a members dinner aboard a Mississippi riverboat scheduled for Saturday night ... so i guess i'd better bring some clothes that breathe. And my poker face.

Work is getting me down lately. So much that i want to draw parallels to being in D-block in Alcatraz, a topic on which i'll elaborate later. I've been feeling the crunch of trying to put together an NIH grant for the October 1 deadline, as well as a poster presentation for this week's SMI meeting for which i have scant data. The devil (angel?) on my shoulder tells me i shouldn't be worrying so much, that the constant prodding to get funding that my boss is giving is so i'll be ahead of the game and not because i'm straggling behind in the development of my career. Life as a postdoc was so much more fun ... just being a scientist instead of an accountant, a manager, a politician. I'm hoping things pick up when my research program is in full swing ... it's already happening as my radiochemist postdoc Lan is beginning to test a new PET probe we've developed, and my brand new molecular biology postdoc Ivana has almost finished constructing a hypoxia reporter gene. More science, less bullshit ... that's all i ask.

After a gruelling week poring over what to say to convince the NIH to give me $250,000, V and i drove down to SJ on Friday afternoon to pick up our wedding photo proof albums from the fantastic Dave Lepori. Great work, both the color and the b&w shots are beautiful. I'll scan and post a few when i find the energy. Although we were invited to a fancy dinner in the city with Naomi, Geoff, and their visitors from LA, i had developed a huge headache so we instead headed back to San Mateo and had pizza from Toto's in between naps and catching up on Tivo'ed episodes of The Family Guy. Saturday my mind was back in mostly working order, and good thing because we had our third house viewing trip with realty agent Joe Campagna starting at 11am. V and i are still wrestling with the single family home vs. townhouse debate, with the primary question being space versus cost. We got a loan preapproval last week, so we're just about ready to start making offers, but as Joe encouraged we need to sit down and lay out some solid guidelines for what we want, where we want it, and how much we want to pay for it. V and i then got a nice Mediterranean lunch at new favorite Kan Zeman on University in Palo Alto, and relaxed at home. I decided to rent NBA Street, Volume 2 from Blockbuster, for use with my super Xbox. Great game ... i'm now trying to make my dorky-looking baller Ted Graves into a "street legend". If only.

That evening we did meet up with Naomi, Geoff, and co. for dinner at Gordon Biersch on the Embarcadero, followed by drinks at old favorite Trad'r Sam's. There i made the acquaintance of Christian, husband of Naomi's friend Grace, who was in the midst of losing a drinking battle with Geoff. He descended into incoherence around midnight, alternately singing "Bone Machine" by the Pixies, apologizing for his ramblings, and asking why we were laughing at him. We took him back to Naomi and Geoff's apartment around 12:30am and put him to bed, while the rest of us engaged in a males vs. females game of Trivial Pursuit. No two ways about it, the XY team of myself, Gary, and Geoff got clowned by the double Xs (Veronica, Naomi, Diana, and Grace). Our fundamental miscalculation was that the women would be lacking in the sports department, but when Diana came up with Phillies trivia from the eighties, we realized our error.

Now, back to prison: a while back Naomi asked me what would be good activities for SF newbies. I replied that the Alcatraz tour was great, and typically tourists don't get to partake because you can't just show up and buy tickets ... advance purchase is a must. So Naomi got our act in gear, and we all were equipped with tickets for the 9/5 4:15pm boat to the Rock. V and i got a late start from SM, and at 4pm were just getting to Fisherman's Wharf after struggling to find the path of least resistance through the Embarcadero, SOMA, downtown, and North Beach. Looking for parking, pessimistic of our chances of making it to the boat, V miraculously spotted a free curb space two blocks from Pier 41. We ran over, meeting Naomi and Geoff in line at 4:10pm. All good. I'd been to Alcatraz twice, once with my family when i was a kid, and again maybe seven years ago with my ex-girlfriend and a visitor from London. As everyone else was a virgin to the Rock (hrm ... that sounds naughty), i got to play the unofficial tour guide. The tour has evolved over the years ... as a kid i remember a guide walking us everywhere, while seven years ago a guide walked you from the dock to the cellhouse, where an audio headset tour took over. Now you meander up the hill on your own, and take the cellhouse tour with your personal walkman. As always, you are free to wander around after the tour. I couldn't convince Veronica to take the customary "sitting on the cell toilet" photo, but did get this one of her incarcerated.

Getting back to the mainland at 6pm, we then drove the gang up to Sacto for a bbq dinner with Naomi's dad and Veronica's uncle George. Oddly, despite nightfall the outside temperature registered in my Jetta kept increasing as we headed north. Luckily George and Linda have a pool, which V immediately hopped in and subsequently convinced me to enter despite only having boxer shorts for swim trunks. We chatted until 12:30am, finally agreeing to leave as we feared falling asleep on the way home. On Monday, despite an invitation to a bbq in Redwood City and an urge to go to Stanford to work on my SMI poster, i needed a day to simply relax ... well, maybe "vegetate comatose in front of the TBS Seinfeld marathon and my Xbox" is a more accurate descriptor. I felt absolutely sluggish all day, and bounced between playing NBA Street, finishing the let-down novel Angels and Demons, napping, and just generally zoning. I wanted to get A&D out of the way so i can read something else on my flights to and from St. Louis. I wasn't incredibly impressed with The Da Vinci Code, and my assessment of Dan Brown's talents declined further with Angels and Demons. Roger Ebert has a theory entitled "The Law of Economy of Character Development" that suggests that the amount of attention a film (or in this case, a book) gives a character is proportional to their importance to the story. Ok, that's fairly obvious, but it makes picking out the surprise villain almost ridiculously easy. And it worked to perfection in A&D. Dan Brown wants to raise all kinds of ethical, moral, spiritual, and technological issues, but i didn't think anything was very thought provoking. If anything, the whole science vs. religion debate in A&D was depressingly anticlimactic. I seem to be in the minority though, as Brown is the pop literature flavor of the month.

After having a particularly heated argument with Veronica over the merits of What Not To Wear (my stance is that the hosts of this show are horrible awful people who place entirely too much importance and, more annoyingly, philanthropy on what they do), we got a late dinner and drifted off to sleepyland. I'm at work today getting ready for St. Louis. I close with the picture at right, feeling at the moment a bit like the prisoners held at Alcatraz ... so close to all the great and enjoyable aspects of life, but for whatever reason unable to partake. I realized recently that i haven't had a proper vacation in a long, long time. Oh, i've gone on many trips, but mostly either weekend jaunts or travels that were related to work. I need a workless week (or better, two) to get my head in order and figure out how to happily merge my career and my happiness.