The first week of the post-BarMinion Era has been eventful, in a very good way. Friday was jam-packed!
Remember the infamous instrument company deal? Well, Road Runner is still working on it. You may recall that the person from the company (we'll call him Corporate Guy) originally wanted all 3 of us: MacGyver, Road Runner and me. I'm the one who started the discussion of the whole thing. Since that time, though, RR has taken over and completely cut MacGyver and me out. She has done her darndest to make CG et al. think that MacG and I are still in the picture, but they know this is not true. CG was in town on Thursday and Friday of this week, so he got a first-hand view of the lay of the land. I talked with CG on Friday morning and told him about my new project. Since he had just spent a day trying to train the people in the core lab, he agreed with my assessment that I should get the preliminary data for my grant in my old lab at Wash U. In fact, he said they're the top lab in the country for this particular technique.
In the afternoon, we had a group meeting. Two things became painfully obvious in this meeting: 1. RR has handed the data analysis over to Natasha and Pippi (the stuff she told CG that I would be doing), and 2. At this poing, as much as I like both of them, they have no clue what they're doing. CG is NOT happy. He told me he'd much rather be working with me, and he also said that the deal with RR is starting to look like a train wreck.
After chatting with CG, I sent a quick email to my old boss to check with him about preliminary data. He called me back shortly thereafter to let me know that he has arranged for me to come in and work with the new faculty person in the lab, who is an expert in the type of analysis I want to do. In fact, he has a Young Investigator Award from the instrument company (very similar to the type of deal RR is trying to get). I'm scheduled to go up during Thanksgiving week, which means I can disguise it as a vacation and not tell RR or anyone in her group what's going on. I got an email from YI this morning, confirming that I can come that week, and also offering me a practice data set to play with.

I passed all this news along to my new collaborator, and he has agreed to come up with money to pay for the analysis.
I'm keeping this as quiet as possible at work. I will NOT be telling RR about this. When/if she finds out, she will absolutely stroke out. Her little house of cards is falling down around her.
Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
-- Albert Einstein