The submissions for tomorrow's Grand Rounds continue to come in, and my wife continues to try to throw me off by referring to it as "Ground Rounds". While working on that, whatever I end up headlining it, I can recommend reading the recent series of posts from Chad Orzel over at Uncertain Principles. Under the heading of "A Week in the Lab", he's going into the details of his research project in atomic spectroscopy. "Slow-Motion Experimental Physics Live-Blogging"!

Update: I originally had a link to one of the series here, but Chad has assembled the whole series of posts in one handy spot.

I assume that he'll eventually get things working, but he probably assumes that, too. That doesn't make the lab work any easier. Although this is very far indeed from the kind of work that I do, the rhythms of research are the same. Fix three things before you do the one thing you were trying to - it's a universal law.