Timing is pretty much everything. I am always amazed at just how much timing affects the way in which things come together and how important pacing, patience and planning and preparation are to accomplishing goals. Whether those goals are long lasting international policies, military strategy, financial planning or planning out scientific or commercial projects, there has to be a point at which the right people are in place with appropriate strategy and logistics in place. However, therein lies the magic… being able to predict just how to pull this off and how to effectively deal with the unpredictable vagaries of life and their influence on goals is what makes big projects possible and the people involved in them so valuable. While I like the concept of synchronicity in a romantic sense, I don’t believe in pseudoscientific descriptions that are based on acausality. Instead, I am biased towards hard work and preparation combined with some degree of talent in finding appropriate team members that compliment each other. This is where progress is made and while there have been some personnel issues with the loss of a crucial member of the programing team Pavel, we are in a pretty good place to move forward on our metabolomics strategy. The right people are falling into place at our organization, relationships are being established and solidified in the case of reunited friends, and the team we have here in the Marclab and the Moran Eye Center is a dream come true that I will be eternally grateful for.
The introductory photo at the beginning pretty much exemplifies what I am talking about with timing. We are taking delivery of a JEOL 1400 electron microscope (pictures soon to come) and Ann came up to shoot some images. She was setting up with her camera and remote flash and I turned with my camera to capture a photo of her, pressing the shutter button precisely at the same time, only after metering the shot and deliberately underexposing some to experiment with manipulation later. What resulted is a completely un-retouched image that appears undermetered, yet pleasingly so…
As an aside, a little teaser of the latest project is shown below with James as we build a central component to our strategy.
