I love chasing the sunset with my Langster. Yesterday my buddy (Langster) and I went to the end of the runway 16 (Davis University airport) to catch one of the greatest sunset i’ve seen in weeks . I can’t get tired of the awesomeness of the sunsets in California. The end of the runway 16 is my favorite spot in Davis to find peacefulness and to regenerate after a long day at work. It is a quick and highly rewarding trip either by bike or running.

Heavy C-172…

Saturday June 6th, we had the annual spot landing and flour bombing contest at the University airport in Davis (KEDU). It was a lot of fun! This year I flew the C152 N24774 with Jackie as a bomber. Masayo was on the ground filming everything. The flour bombing rules are simple: be the closest to the target (a white circle of ~10 meters in diameter) drawn right in the middle of the runway/taxiway, fly no lower than 600ft, no slower than 80Kts (~92MPH). For the landing contest the rules are also simple : land the closest to a specific mark. To make it more difficult it has to be done without power meaning that while midfield parallel to the runway at 900ft the power has be set to idle and then glide to the mark with two 90 degrees left turn and no slip for landing. That’s tricky and a lot of fun to do.

We didn’t do well on the bombing, but oh well! who cares? We had a lot of fun flying this day. Then, after a quick BBQ, Masayo Jackie and I went for a flight above the Lake Berryessa with the C172 N4634D. We climbed to 6500ft to fully enjoy the scenery. The view was stunning up-there… and we were flying among clouds: priceless!  What a great day of flying.

A storm is upon us, clouds at 500 ft / overcast at 4000 ft and falling, visibility <3 miles, humidity at 99%, pouring rain, freezing level quit low. This sucky IFR weather should last until Monday…Damn! I was expecting having a great time this weekend with either N4624D or N4870G, but Mother Nature decided otherwise. Both 24D and 70G are old C-172 ladies but they are well maintained and still kicking. Although it is a lot of fun to fly them, it is probably better to stay on the ground and wait for the storm to pass. The good thing is that they will get a great bath and finally get clean.

A cool picture of the hexameric enzyme Quinolinate Phosphoribosyl Transferase (QAPRTase) of S. cerevisiae showing its electrostatics intimacy. Blue are +, red and – and the field-lines are displayed. The very interesting thing here is that the field-lines are rooted from each active site outside area (6 of them). I used ABPS for the electrostatic calculations and VMD 1.8.7-alpha to visualize. The substrates Quinolinate and PRPP are basically sucked-in into the active sites following the electrostatic field-lines. It is an obvious result, but those kind of analysis are cool don’t you think ? So…what about the release of the product synthesized ?

Well I have been very busy lately. I went to France for a couple of tenured-track faculty interviews at the CNRS national labs. Overall, it was an interesting experience. I had a pleasant time with the committee 16 “Chemistry for living organisms and medicinal chemistry. Design and properties of compounds of biological interest”. However, my research proposal was a little bit out of scope for this particular committee unfortunately. But overall, it was good talking with this committee.

A week after I was interviewed by the committee 21 “Molecular and structural features underlying biological functions” and the fun began. I found what I hate the most among tenured-track faculties in France: very narrow-minded person, rude for no reasons, not listening to me at all…well pathetic people for most of them. The icing on the cake was when I was explaining my current project in the US about the molecular modelling of protein (funded by the NIH). I am a crystallographer but I am currently doing protein-modeling stuffs. The committee was obviously a group of hardcore old-school experimentalists and they violently told me that it is bullshit..meaning protein modeling is bullshit…. should I laugh now and tell them they are wrong, narrow-minded and stupid or should I save that for latter…My current research in protein modelling is all about models-validation with an experimentalist (X-ray crystallography) point of view!! The committee 16 was pleased with that, so why did you guys from the 21 didn’t get that?? Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. That’s must be the reason (sarcasm). 

Some of my friends who went through this hassle before me in different committee experienced the same fun. Awesome ! In my case, I guess it was just a bad experience on that one. But, don’t get me wrong. Working in France at a CNRS or INSERM lab is cool. You don’t get much salary compared to the US, but you do get plenty of vacations, a stress-free working environment (please don’t tell me you are under stress right ?) and if you move your ass a little, you can get some grant money to do good research. But you might end-up working with some people with this typical French narrow-minded mentality where they expect you to fall into a specific old-fashion category. If you are a little bit too atypical you are over.

This being said, it leads me to think: What the heck am I applying for positions at the CNRS or INSERM anyway? right ? Do I want to work with this kind of people? I feel so much better working in the US in every possible ways. Then now, ask yourself why so many of us leave France after graduating with a PhD and never come back in the French academia system ?