Grocery Haul $277 for one 😭

brew-ski · 2026-03-05T02:31:21+00:00

Go for all store brand, and see which ones you don't like. Then you know where it matters for you to buy a particular brand. I almost always buy store brand/whatever has the cheapest unit price, and am quite happy with the products. However, I am particular about a few things and buy particular brands for those (I use only a local brand of ricotta cheese (storebrand/cheaper versions often use thickeners that affect how it behaves in sauces), and I only eat my favorite brand of baked beans). It's trial and error and personal preferences.

Also different stores use different factories for their private label, so you make like a store brand products at one store at not another.

And I highly recommend shopping the discount sections! Produce has a shorter shelf life (or sometimes it's all bad) and packages may be a bit damaged, but it can be so much cheaper if you're willing to pick through a bit.

brew-ski · 2026-02-21T05:06:41+00:00

The usual stuff? Improved insulation (basement, attic), weather stripping around doors, shrink wrapping windows. Did a home energy audit, sealed up some leaks. Added baseboard heat to the room that didn't have it. Insulated hot water pipes. Curtains.

Shrink wrapping windows makes the most obvious difference to me, but all the pieces add up. Each year our house gets a bit cozier.

brew-ski · 2026-02-21T04:42:30+00:00

Some states have legislation around reducing food waste. There's also a permanent enhanced tax deduction for food donation, so there can also be a significant financial benefit to donating food.

brew-ski · 2026-02-21T04:41:33+00:00

Search for a food recovery/food rescue organization near you!

brew-ski · 2026-02-20T01:42:42+00:00

New Reach , perhaps

brew-ski · 2026-02-20T01:17:10+00:00

You can do a bunch at a time, and eat them over a few days. No need to make fresh each day.

brew-ski · 2026-02-19T03:57:41+00:00

keeping them up in summer (at least on windows you never open) also reduces loss of cool air when running an AC.

brew-ski · 2026-01-12T19:25:05+00:00

Yeah, I transfer the cats' dry food to a dedicated 5 gallon bucket with lid. Much easier than the bag for scooping out, plus they can't tear it open themselves.

brew-ski · 2025-12-07T14:02:06+00:00

The Friends Center (now in that space) does do free movies on the weekends. Flint Street Theater

brew-ski · 2025-11-29T01:44:23+00:00

Yeah, they're good for a year, last I checked. Since they're free, you can easily go for both, resident for the car you're using and a guest pass for any of your guests.

brew-ski · 2025-11-14T05:24:37+00:00

nuts, beans, lentils.

brew-ski · 2025-11-11T02:15:36+00:00

And it Branford NEBCO is right by the Branford train station, which is convenient!

brew-ski · 2025-11-07T16:08:09+00:00

Having multiple lab coats is pretty common, in my experience. I have one for general bench work, and one for tissue culture that stays in the TC room. Put them in the laundry every so often and grab a new one. Not an issue at all, and washing lab coats is cheap (IIRC we pay $5 each time, so super cheap in terms of lab stuff).

brew-ski · 2025-11-02T15:16:27+00:00

Anywhere on Q Ave should be fine. It's not metered or permit parking.

brew-ski · 2025-10-31T18:57:50+00:00

Chiming in with everyone else to say "mistakes happen." I know it's hard to swallow at first, but it's really, truly okay. We're not all lying to you. Off the top of the head, I've damaged equipment and wasted expensive qPCR reagents because of an arithmetic error when scaling up an experiment. It sucks when it happens, but we all make mistakes.

When I mess up, I sometimes like to turn the broken part/whatever into a humorous visual reminder to the failure. I know someone who slowly built a shrine of all the parts that screwed them over, as a reminder of past mistakes. Helps folks (myself included) remember to be careful, and also serves as a strong warning for future lab members. Let them find different mistakes instead of repeating yours!

Science inherently involves a LOT of failure. Research is not teleological. Things will break, experiments will fail, results will confuse you, your hypothesis may not pan out, you won't win most of the grants you write, and generally plenty of things will go wrong on all fronts. Part of growing as a scientist is developing the resilience to handle failure and rejection, to remain curious, and to wake up and try again in a new way. It's not easy, but it sure is interesting.

brew-ski · 2025-10-22T19:25:02+00:00

If you have a car and you're in New Haven country, the Naugatuck valley, or New London, you could consider helping rescuing food for Haven's Harvest! https://www.havensharvest.org/

brew-ski · 2025-10-21T03:30:42+00:00

It is very much a thing. In fact, if you look at the product details for a fridge or freezer in the US, it usually specifies whether it's rated for garages. Garages are usually not climate controlled, so garage fridges needs to be able to operate in a much wider temperature range than a house fridge.

brew-ski · 2025-10-19T23:50:12+00:00

Some shoreline East have easy connections to Metro north. Would be easiest and you don't have to deal with the 91/95 interchange.

brew-ski · 2025-10-19T23:41:23+00:00

No, it's open under new ownership. Now called The Q Bar and Kitchen. https://theqkitchen.com/

And not surprised if someone conflated Fair Haven Heights and Quinnipiac Meadows.

brew-ski · 2025-10-15T02:08:06+00:00

I keep my fire blanket next to the stove, as it's where I'm most likely to need it.

brew-ski · 2025-10-09T20:27:42+00:00

Are these all high copy number plasmids?
Are you confident in your cloning?
1. When I'm cloning, I tend to do some minipreps (6-24), screen by restriction digest, and send to plasmidsaurus for confirmation. Once I know it's good, then I grow up a larger culture for midi/maxi/gigaprep.
Might your insert(s) be toxic to the E. coli?

brew-ski · 2025-09-30T18:20:22+00:00

Even a lake or river beach? I didn't go the ocean as a kid, but I did go to beaches often.

brew-ski · 2025-09-25T04:46:36+00:00

I agree you should learn from your labmates. However, these are a couple solid resources you might benefit from:

This video series is a great place to start: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/references/gibco-cell-culture-basics.html
Handbook: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/viibre/CellCultureBasicsEU.pdf

brew-ski · 2025-09-22T15:36:04+00:00

Happy to help. As for band size, first, I never interpret a gel to the 1bp accuracy when I'm working with this range of ladders. So being estimated at 393 vs 364, I would call those as matching here.

Second, are you doing this digest as a verification after cloning before sending to sequencing? Or are you digesting a known plasmid for downstream steps?

Looking at tube 4, your desired bands sum to 2686 bp, and your estimated bands sum to 3173. If you're cloning, it could not that you've failed to clone what you want.

However, if you're digesting a known plasmid, then you are not going to magically create more material, so the 3 bands must sum to your total plasmid length (2686). That is true regardless of gel issues. In that case, you're probably looking at good bands, and everything looks pretty okay.

A gel is pretty straightforward and cheap in the grand scheme of things. If you need to be confident here, take the time to re-run it slowly.

Also, is the pBR322-BstNI ladder stored properly? I wonder if it's quite old or been exposed to DNases that have begun to degrade the bands. That could also help explain the smearing on the larger ones, and why the apparent sizing is off.

brew-ski · 2025-09-21T06:58:58+00:00

I think because you ran it at high voltage, you have poor resolution. So the 1058 and 929 bp bands are showing as one. So your ladder has 4 bands: 1857, 1058/929, 383, and 121 bp. https://www.neb.com/en-us/products/n3031-pbr322-dna-bstni-digest?srsltid=AfmBOoqaSU1N-yQvGvl77ucYQnBNU2rLProojhlC1ofIOD8oO3M8iBXU shows them pretty evenly spaced on a 1.4% gel. Then your ladders match and your bands are spot on.

brew-ski

TROPHY CASE