Haircut

I have largely cut my own hair in the U.S. for the following reasons

• money saved especially since hair clippers are cheap (15-20 USD), 
• time saved 
• it's a useful life skill

I would describe my results as generally passable. However, the cost of a haircut in Singapore being greatly cheaper (8-12 USD) and the price of clippers being more expensive, I decided to give the barbershop a try. Here's the barbershop I visited yesterday which was recommended by my mother-in-law: Snow White hairdressing and beauty salon (tel: 62870976).

My haircut cost 12 USD and my hair was cut by Danning (Think Lord Denning but replace the the 'e' with 'a'). I have never had a better haircut than yesterday. Don't ask me why, it just looks better. If you are ever in Singapore, go get your hair cut by Danning at Snow White. Tea is included.

Next steps: Visit a couple times to gather data for waiting times etc. then decide if I should get my own clippers anyway.

New stuff which arrived this week

In the ongoing saga of equipment orders, here are the lastest arrivals in lab.

A couple of Matrix Pipet-Aids. Good stuff.

Two drums (20 kg) of sucrose. Here's a box of gloves for size comparison.

A couple of Heated Magnetic Stirrers. Stay tuned for more.

Oatella, snack of champions

Here is my kickass snacking protocol. Add oats, a dollop of nutella, hot water; mix together and BOOM... Awesome Snack Created Instantly! I have my oatella at 3-4 pm together with coffee as part of fika. Note, you can also add jam or fruits to taste.

I'll have some H20 too. Hilarious!

http://i.imgur.com/fReaw.jpg

Royal Enfield Bullet

D and I saw this outside a vegan burger place where we had lunch two fridays back. It's a Royal Enfield motorcycle. Royal Enfield is the oldest motorcycle brand still in production. Their motto is 'made like a gun, goes like a bullet'. What you see here is the Bullet, a motorcycle which apparently has the longest production run of all time. Specifically, this one is the Bullet 500, one of the motorcycles supplied to the British Army during the second world war. 

Manu Wine

A wine named after Manu. Who knew?

Lab toys

It is now a little more than 3 weeks out and this is what has arrived in my lab so far. Can't wait for more toys to arrive.

First, two of these mini-centrifuges.

Second, a pH meter with automatic temperature compensation.

Third, a biosafety cabinet for sterile tissue culture.

Fourth, a bunch of chemicals from Sigma.

Fifth, an incubator for the culture of mammalian cells.

Research Officer

In addition to a graduate student who will be joining the lab in August, I have now hired a research officer. I put an ad out two weeks ago and received over twenty applications. To each applicant, I sent a logic puzzle . I interviewed the three applicants who successfully solved the puzzle. The difficulty was in picking one, but I did, and he will be starting later in March.