Flooded lab and a trip to Denver

The last couple weeks have been interesting ones.  I submitted the first round of IRB documents on Thursday the 26th.  The deadline was actually the 27th, but I managed to get everything done and submitted a day early.  It is a VERY good thing that I did because the next day (Friday the 27th), we had a major flood in the lab.  The line of thunderstorms and torrential rain that came down was too much for our building's roof to handle, and our lab was one of several areas that flooded.  I was in the lab by myself when the flood started, and it is a very odd sight to see a waterfall pouring from the ceiling.  So that day was spent moving equipment out of the lab and trying to clean up as much water as possible.  Here is a picture of me and one of my professors in one of our storage rooms that got flooded the worst (yes, I am playing with a rubber duckie!).

It was probably a good thing that the flood happened when it did; i.e., during the summer when no research projects are ongoing.  Also, none of us were in the lab last week because we all went to the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, which was held in Denver this year.  I had never been to a national ACSM meeting, so I was pretty excited to go.  We all either presented a talk or a poster, which was fun, and I also tried to go to as many endocrinology, immunology, and cancer-related sessions as I could, as that is the focus of my dissertation.  I met some new people, which you never know, could one day turn into a job or collaboration opportunity.  It was also a good chance to hang out with people from my lab in a more relaxed environment as we shared meals or coffee together.  I learned several other things too, like the word "nutriceutical" and that I am really bad at texting (texting is a good way to contact someone if you're not sure if they're in a session and you don't want to risk their phone ringing).  And totally unrelated to science, but important when participating in air travel, I learned that it is a bad idea to drink lots of water during the flight and not visit the bathroom because once the captain turns on the seatbelt sign and starts the descent, you will find yourself in an extremely uncomfortable situation!