In which the Author ponders the importance of location.

I really thought I might take a picture of my building in the snow this morning, but then I left my camera at home and I haven't figured out how to get pictures from my phone to the computer (I'm sure I could TRY to figure it out, I just haven't, yet). So just imagine that thing up there has naked trees and white stuff stuck to it.
This building is called the VONTZ CENTER FOR MOLECULAR STUDIES. Doesn't that sound cool? I'm impressed. I have mixed feelings about this building. It looks like Dr. Seuss built it. In reality some famous architect guy (Frank O. Gehry) designed it. it leaks. The shades in my lab don't go up (I sit on the other side of the topmost window on the left in that picture up there). There is only one elevator in the public part of the building, although the service elevators usually work (one day last week, one of the elevators was leaking). It really doesn't seem to me that there is much in the way of efficient use of space here.

But you know what? This building is REALLY COOL! When U.C. first started building it, I was working at Children's, and I thought, "I'm gonna work there someday". Instead, I had a couple more kids and wound up quitting research to teach a couple of nights a week at Cincinnati State and being a former scientist. Then, when Karen started first grade, I got back into science at Children's again. I kind of forgot about the Vontz. I was doing CANCER stuff, which was equally as cool as MOLECULAR STUDIES. And I loved working for Children's. It's like being in the Peace Corp, you know?

But, the Children's job ended and I sent my CV out to the world at large, and the Vontz found me again! Okay, Sarah found me, and gave me this great job here. Interestingly, the actual doing of science isn't any different in this building than it is in an interior cinderblock lab at the medical school or looking out over the Cincinnati Zoo from my perch high atop the research building at Children's...things still go wrong, sometimes go right, I have good days and bad days, I love science, the art of thinking about science, and I wish I could win the lottery so I could quit science and be a full time artist/mom/goat farmer.

Could I write any more run-on sentences? I could, but I think I'll go make a cup of tea and sit in the middle of the VONTZ CENTER FOR MOLECULAR STUDIES and think about science...or just watch traffic on Eden avenue.