As I suspected, my first round of cloning of my second library prep was complete garbage. Unfortunately, I didn't suspect this until 2 PM on Thursday, and didn't confirm it till 12:30 AM Friday. So at about 2 PM, my second round of cloning on my second library prep had produced enough white, (barely) pickable colonies so that I could proceed, full firecracker, to sequence my 4 barcoded libraries (AAA, CGT, GTC, TCG) of HLH samples. Needless to say, my plate of 64 went on the sequencer at about 6:30 AM the day of my flight, and Graham had graciously agreed to validate (or invalidate) my sequencing results, and to mix those barcodes that did pass validation accordingly to go on the deep sequencer.
In a complete stupor, I stopped at McDonald's on the way home, thinking that I should probably eat something, and that as Nancy would probably be waking up when I got home, she may be hungry as well. As I had yet to finish doing the rest of the laundry needed for my trip as well, I bought a few coffees also.
After slamming said McD's and waking up Nancy, I received some flack amounting to "you've known me for 10 years and you don't know what kind of breakfast I like from McDonald's?" I assured her that one of the options that passed through my mind was the correct one, but that
I had convinced myself her "favorite" had changed.
At this point, I was beyond delirious; the food comatose was clearly dominating any trace caffeine in McD's' coffee, and I literally began to sway, foreshadowing my cruising motion.
The next 3 hours are a blur: I pack a few things, shower; Nancy packs a few things for me, showers herself; I pass out on the bed while she's showering; she says "dude you have pack still," I get up and pack some more; I pass out on the bed again, she packs some more stuff up for me; the clock strikes 10 AM.
United Airlines Flight 900 leaves SFO for Frankfurt, Germany at 1:55 PM in their newest 747 model. This means we have to get to the airport by 11:55 AM, per their policy; also, the risk of your bags not getting on your flight, and therefore not arriving in your final destination with you, increases greatly with your lateness. This would have normally been all fine and dandy, as leaving our place by 11:15 or 11:30 would get us there on time, and it was only 10 AM. But the issue was with my firecrackering SO hard all week, I hadn't done a damn thing as far as preparing for my trip: everything I had done was to prepare for leaving work.
I was short two crucial items: swim trunks and a formal white shirt. The swim suit is obvious, and I had a few laying around, but since I've started graduate school I've put on a few more lbs. so to be sure I wanted to get a new pair guaranteed to fit. As far as the white shirt goes, there are two formal nights on the cruise. Not like coat & tie formal, like full firecracker TUXEDO formal. I was lucky to have already purchased a tuxedo some months earlier for a formal event (you know how I roll), but I opted only to purchase the coat and pants as there was a special (you know how I roll). I already have nice, black shoes, and I scored a bow-tie from my dead grandfather's belongings (he died in 2008 but we just sold their place in Sonoma and had to get all their crap out of there). So Nancy and I hopped in the 4Runner and drove down towards Union Square. I dropped her off in front of Macy's Men's Apparel, spun around the corner, and pass TF out in a yellow zone. About twenty minutes later (I'm guessing), I awoke abruptly to my pocket buzzing: Nancy was done shopping. I picked her up back around the corner, and zipped across town back home to pack the new purchases with the rest of my trip clothing.
Finally, I was done. Completely done. Packed, and ready to fall over as I had been up for about 24 hours and had worked near 100 in the 6 days leading up to this now even much more needed vacation. Well, I actually wasn't completely ready, as we needed to get my car into the parking lot at Mission Bay so I could leave it there for much longer than they allow and hope for the best. This time I was in no shape to drive, and my Mom had offered us a ride to SFO, so I had Nancy park the 4Runner on "a high numbered floor" and my mom and I followed her down there and picked her up.
When we arrived at the airport, I was essentially blacked out, and I don't really remember anything. I remember getting our bags checked through all the way to Venice, getting our boarding passes for our connecting flight too, getting some drink tickets at the Business Class
Lounge, drinking some champagne, and falling asleep watching some Republican present a surprisingly reasonable argument about something completely asinine on CSPAN. I fell asleep until it was time to board.
When we got on the plane, I was stoked to see that the rumors of UA Flight 900 (daily non-stop SFO to FRA) being on the newest 747 were completely true. I think I had seat 8G, which is the middle seat of 4 in the last row of the first section of business class. F@#$ yeah. I hadn't flown business class transatlantic (or anywhere for that matter) until ca. 2006, but now I can't do anything else. The first think I noticed was the HDTV I had complete control of. It essentially had the OnDemand special: I could watch any episode of 30 Rock, the Office, the Simpsons, etc., or any recent, decent movies. I could also play video games on the remote controller's back side. QWERTY on one side, ABXY up-down-left-right on the other. The cool thing is that I could go multiplayer if I wanted to battle anyone else. So I did what any self-proclaimed intelligent person would do: I took 10 mg of Ambien, and washed it down with a glass of champagne the stewardess handed me. In the 15 minutes before it kicked in, I figured out how to turn my seat into a bed (the new BC seats on this 747 fully recline and can support someone up to 6'3'' or so). Word. Shit! The sequencing run I started that morning would be done and Graham will have already seen the data! Should I call him at the 11th hour?! What if it's bad news? Work anxiety during my last few minutes in California for 16 days. Fun. I opted to forget what was going on, which was easy considering the sleeplessness, booze, and now drugs acting on my receptors.
I don't even remember take-off. I ate some weird meat for about 3 minutes, 5 hours into the 11 hour flight, passed back out, and woke up with 3.5 hours remaining on the flight. It was a beautiful thing.
The next thing I did was fire up Benjamin Button, a 2 hr. 45 min. film, ate some surprisingly good breakfast with a few cups'o'joe, and we pulled up at ze gate in Frankfurt around 10 AM on July 25th. Ze Germans didn't let us into the BC Lounge despite our air of elitism (sarcasm; I looked like a freaking terrorist), as for our Lufthansa connecting flight we were in the economy section. The nice (for a German) man at the gate did place us in the emergency row though, so I could stretch my legs forward. This was a small consolation though as being able to splay my legs is really my preference. Yes, that's probably a bit too much info, but big dudes and economy seats don't work well unless said dude is completely wacked out, which I wasn't at this point.
The flight to Venice was fine, and Nancy and I had our bags, our wits, and our game plan by 2 PM local time. For the first time since we left, I felt like I was on vacation.
