Late Night, Tomorrow's Plans

It's gonna be a late night here in the lab. I grew some bacteria in the wrong type of media, and then some of the vial caps came off in the shaker/incubator, making the cultures unsterile. So, my dad is coming down to keep me company and conduct me safely to my car at 11 or 12 or whenever I am done.

I could have come in tomorrow to redo the technique, but I wanted tomorrow to get ready for my trip. I could have had one of my fellow researchers do it tomorrow, but I wasn't ready to swallow that much pride, or perhaps to shirk that much duty. I hope the lateness of the hour does not engender further mistakes this evening - the next couple steps in the procedure are easy enough, but knowing me...

I picked up a goodly stack of books at the library today - Persuasion by Jane Austen, The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien (it is time I made a personal decision about his writings instead of just hearing about them), The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters by C.S.Lewis, Canyon Winter by Walt Morey, and Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. The later has often drawn my attention because (this will sound silly) I like the word "mutual." I know virtually nothing about the book, but Dickens has never completely let me down - we'll see.

Tomorrow I'm off to hill-billy western Pennsylvania. The excitement is mounting.