A Long Time Coming

"Hi. My name is R..."
"Hello R."
"...and I have neglected my blog for almost a month."
"That's okay. We've all done it."

There's a lot to cover folks. So let's get to it. In no particular order...

Football:
My Horns lost to OSU at home. Horrible play-calling by Greg Davis. What little confidence Colt had from those two first-half drives was scuttled by the "Let's hold down the margin of defeat" attitude that plagued us for so many years during the Mack Brown Administration. Our secondary got exposed. They didn't bump at the line like I told them to and we paid dearly for it. Tarell Brown wouldn't have been much help. Chizik really lost some luster with me after that performance. I think Colt will become a top-notch QB in the next few seasons. I mused that we should make the field soggy to minimize OSU's speed. That came to fruition this past weekend against Penn State. Oh well. That's what they get for not listening to me. I'm actually a little scared about the OU game. Not that they have a defense either. I'm not saying we're gonna lose; just scared.

A hardy "Get Well Soon" goes out to the Blonde Blunder that is Chris Simms. I'm sure he's happy knowing that he has a bosom buddy with my boy Sarge; or should I say a spleen buddy. In all seriousness though, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. To take all the garbage we gave him at UT and not whine about it shows you his character. Here's wishing him a speedy recovery.

Work:
Well, it could be worse, right? There's this one drug product that our company bulk manufactures and we've had lots of problems with it. A good Doctor that has spent many years dealing with this compound class once said to my lab manager "I hate XYZ!" Needless to say, this last batch ran into a large problem yesterday and put us behind schedule. Well, not put us behind schedule, but the GMP group. It's just that QC is essentially the last stop and most of the blame and vitriol gets thrown our way. It doesn't matter that the folks upstream have done all the getting behind. It's up to us to get it out three days ago, and when there are problems, and inevitable if something is 'RUSH' or 'BACKORDER' it has problems, the question is "What's the holdup?" and the answer is "QC." And it seems that 90% of the prodcuts coming into QC are rush or backorder. And there's this cute little trend starting of not one, but two bright green BACKORDER stickers.

But things are looking up. The first reason is that we are in the process of interviewing candidates to take over part of what I'm doing. Let's review the hats that Ryan wears at work:
1. Running/Maintaining 3 Gas Chromatographs (GCs)
2. Running/Maintaining 2 Gas Chromatograph - Mass Spectrometers (GCMSs)
3. Sampling of GMP raw materials
4. Sending Outsourced Analyticals.
Most of our instruments are purchased from Agilent and you can see what a GC looks like in the upper lefthand corner of their Gas Chromatography page.
The candidate we will hire will take over Hat #1...which will free me up to do special projects. Don't get me wrong. It'll be nice to have someone take that over for me. The thing is, it really hasn't been busy enough to need that 2nd person. I've been able to handle this workload for the most part and I think I've done more than a bang-up job of it. But when I get our new hire trained, whenever they do hire someone, I will be foisting Hat #4 on that person as well. Devious, I know, but that's what happens to the rook.

The second thing I'm happy about it that I just finished the annual OQ (Operational Qualification) on GCMS#2. It takes two days if everything goes right. Well, last Friday something went wrong. Terribly wrong. There are these things called filaments in the Mass Spec that provide the electrons to make things happen. Well, one broke. And it's best to replace both filaments, not just one. So I rush-ordered some filaments and got them yesterday morning. In the meantime I cleaned the ion source and put in a new column, so everything is pretty much brand spankin' new. And it passed with flying colors today!! What a relief. Especially since last year's calibration expires in four days. I know, I know. It's hard to kick the habit, but I excel under pressure.

Third, I won Scrabble today. Ended quite a drought. We―me, Red, D$ and G-Ray―all have comparable vocabularies, so the saying has been "Whoever draws well, wins." Except the prior three weeks I've drawn two 7-letter words during the course of play, but had nowhere to play them. So it's been frustrating to me, and the game has lost some of its luster. Today I didn't draw exceedlingly well, but I managed to get 'nettled'. I tried to play it twice and the combo word was challenged and I lost my turn. Brian throws out an innocent enough word in 'rice' on the line above the bottom. During D$'s turn I see him staring at the top-right corner of the board, where he ends up playing. G-Ray thinks about throwing back, but wants to get some points in hopes of drawing a consonant to make his 7-letter word. He plays in a different part of the board, and I get 83 points for 'nettled', 're' and 'id'. It's all academic from there folks.

And there's usually Spades going down the rest of the week, which is tons of fun. It gives us two things to look forward to each day instead of one, because it gives us a break from all the muck and mire of the day.

Last, but first in priority, Family:
C looks so beautiful carrying our next daughter. We still haven't completely decided on her name, but we've been calling her Abby for the past month-ish. She just has this glow about her that you'll only understand if your wife or a close friend is pregnant. I'm vehemently hoping that the December 31st due date holds up so we can get our tax break. It's the little things in life. Thanks to all the wonderful ladies who come to playgroup and especially to MP, TO and AF, who are flexible to make playdates on the fly. I appreciate y'all just as much as C does.

M's vocabulary has just exploded. She tries to say almost every word we give her. One of my daily duties that has come with C's ever-expanding belly is bath-time. It's been loads of fun as we have made our own routines. Whenever we're heading out of the bathroom she has to turn the light off. And when we get into her bedroom, she turns the fan and light on. Momma was giving her a bath the other night and didn't know this and M made sure that she got to do the lights and fan. She's been trying to pick up water with her fists and eat it. She's into going down the slide on her belly. Tonight she climbed up into the cradle in our room. She's been getting better at using soft hands with us and with friends. Mealtime has gotten a little better, too. But it's still hard to realize that her diet will balance out over the course of a month.

Gramma and Opa came down this past weekend and we had a fun time with them. M showed them she knew the sign for W (Opa's name) and said Opa and Gramma repeatedly. Tonight she stood at the window saying "Gramma. Gramma. Gramma." They also helped us do some housework, which we are very grateful for.

Well, that about sums it up. If you can call it a sum. I know there are many things I've forgotten, but this'll have to do.

I hope you have a great rest of the week.

God bless,

R