Musical Gold Panning On A Holiday Monday...

LazyHazyDaysOfSummer
LongWeekendsVille


I spent a chunk of Saturday working on the real thing, analyzing populations of tumor infiltrating cells by flow cytometry. It's a workhorse tool of immunologists that lets you characterize immune cells based on various physical characteristics and molecular markers. Not my favourite way to go given that I've spent most of my career assessing phenotypes based on what cells actually do rather than using somewhat fungible, and sometimes capricious markers - still, it's powerful and we're working with folks who really know what they're doing on the project.

This afternoon was different though. All catch-up and paper-worky given that it is the season for reference letter writing, lecture prepping, and getting various and assorted registrational and CV-type bits done in advance of the grant writing season to come.

Anyway...

I spent a good chunk of the kinda/sorta administrative afternoon listening to one of my favourite musical podcasts. It's produced by a guy named Bill Frater and near the top of queue in show #388 from back in mid-July I stumbled across a tune from a group of kids from Los Angeles I hadn't noticed before called 'The Wild Reeds'.

All of which led me to their recent KEXP showcase, above, and an even more recent appearance at the Newport Folk Festival.

Then, rooting about in their feeds landed me here....which ultimately sent me off to listen to a whack of classic, pre-big fame Jackson Browne.

Music, as opposed to poli-pods, etc., helped me got a lot done this afternoon.

Phew.


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And do not cry for me Argentina because I really like my job...The real thing is best, of course, but the other stuff isn't so bad either...The upshot - on average I get to spend at least half of my time on the real thing all of which is stuff that we as a research group have chosen to chase...Can't complain about that.
Oh, and in case you were wondering....Ever since I was a kid I've had this thing that one of my best friends dubbed 'two-track'...It allows me to pay pretty close attention and be absorbed by two different tasks at once...Got me out of many a jam in school when a teacher thought I was goofing off...I was, of course, (goofing off I mean) but was often also simultaneously paying attention...Has been known to drive my kids crazy though.


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