Yesterday’s appointments below, for public bemusement. I didn’t have time to set down today’s. More accurately, I did have time in the five-plus hours it took me to get home from Paris tonight, aggravation galore, but by that time I really didn’t feel like it. Enough to have read and corrected my Ph.D. student’s thesis abstract at 10PM on a plane I could perhaps have been on hours earlier.

July 7th:

8 a.m. Arrive in lab, install Ubuntu-compatible network card driver, download updates, download the software I originally wanted to install. Get a coffee.

8:20 a.m. Look through my e-mails. One of the messages says that a new release of that very software had appeared yesterday. Not the one I installed. Damage control for some collaborative projects, including the one for which our dry ice shipment to Italy thawed.

9:00 a.m. Experiment planning with Alexis, who showed up late thanks to his grandmother, cutting into the time I was supposed to be with:

10 a.m. Céline round 1 – rehearsal for oral presentation at the Society for Developmental Biology, major talk overhaul instead.

11 a.m. Large group meeting (oops – forgot to actually paste in the entry! you can read previous day’s seminar notes and smaller group meeting and maybe tomorrow I’ll get around to it.)

12 noon. Miracle – the meeting didn’t run over! Céline round 2, until:

12:30 p.m. Lunch meeting with Tania, Sophie and Soumaya.

2:15 p.m. Chromatin immunoprecipitation consultant for Judith.

3 p.m. Christelle thesis discussion – structure, approach, abstract.

Bathroom break? Possibly, but I don’t think I left the room.

6:30 p.m. Céline round 3.

7:25 p.m. Leave for dinner meeting with Berni, future collaborator from Switzerland, that was supposed to be at 7:30. Meet Céline’s Ph.D. advisor on way out and unwittingly gave her an enormous guilt trip. Made up for it today by fobbing off a visitor from a patients’ association on her (advisor).

7:45 p.m. Meet with Berni and his family, find a bistrot near their hotel and talk very little science in the end. Good will all round. Leave around 10:30.

12 midnight. Finally in bed in my empty apartment near Paris, having just missed both earlier connections to get there.

For you French speakers, I am giving away on Freecycle Toulouse :

Objets:

tricycle
chaise haute
transat
siège auto circa 1999 – vérifier si c’est toujours aux normes
rehausseurs auto x2, un avec dosseret
caisse de jouets maternelle
Plateau d’activités bébé 9 mois (assis)
Jouets pour bébé 1 an

Matériel informatique: 2x claviers à fil, Iomega Zip 100, modem Hayes Accura 288 v.Fc-fax v.34 (circa 2002), CD-ROM externe Newcom 8x, imprimante Canon à jet d’encre n&b.
Magnétoscope qui ne fonctionne pas, mais en temps normal lit cassettes PAL+SECAM+NTSC.
Lecteur de DVD Toshiba SD261E peut-être pas en état de marche, sans zones (lire DVDs des Amériques et d’Asie).
Meuble hi-fi/télé noir sur roulettes, porte en verre fumé une charnière à remplacer

Matelas 95×190 avec sommier à ressorts, souple mais encore agréable
Sommier à ressorts lit double, demi-corbeille

Vêtements en cartons à prendre pour :

Femme taille 38
Femme taille 38 vêtements de sport
Bébé fille 3-6 mois
Bébé fille 6-12 mois
Bébé 9 mois garçon/fille
12-18 mois fille (quelques affaires garçon)
12-24 mois fille (quelques affaires garçon)
18-24 mois garçon
2 ans fille
3 ans fille
3 ans garçon
4 ans fille
4-5 ans garçon
4-6 ans garçon
5-6 ans fille
6 ans fille
8 ans garçon
8-10 ans fille

What a life! Tomorrow morning’s agenda includes a convocation to identify the author of my hit-and-run incident last February, and a trip to the dentist, among other odds and ends, and preparing for a drop-in from my in-laws in the evening. If I can change my cell culture medium, I will count it a productive day.