I think my thumbs are bruised.

So much PCR! Thus, so many tubes.  And those suckers hurt my thumbs when I have to open and close them so often.  But as far as actual progress goes, I started doing PCR on the exons.  I ran a gel on Exon 1 to make sure everything was ok . . . there was a lot of primer dimer so I cut the amount down again for my next batch.  We'll see how that one turns out.  I've got the 3rd and 4th exons cooking in the thermal machine right now.  Here are some pretty gel pictures for you; the bright band is primer dimer, the lighter one is the actual DNA.

My work day in the lab is from about 9am to 7 or 8pm so far.  The funny thing is I don't even mind!  I guess I just really enjoy this stuff.