NOS

#1

Dear chemists,

Should I spend $1000+ of my faculty development money to attend the National Organic Symposium in Boulder, CO?

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#2

Dear beer enthusiasts,

Should I spend $1000+ of my faculty development money to attend a chemistry conference near a hot bed of craft breweries and brewpubs?

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Depressing

Ugh, we have a pond behind our house. It is covered with ice... again.

Will this winter never end?

Today, in an attempt to appease the gods of winter (who are all bastards, by the way) I shall sacrifice some grains to them by allowing some chosen yeast to eat their innards.

Behold, the Chosen Ones (by, 'Ones' I mean 'Billions'):
The gods better be pleased.


UPDATE: I just realize the picture I posted is essentially a yeast orgy as they reproduce by budding. I'm sorry if I offended anyone's delicate sensibilities with my pornographic picture.

Kegging

Here's a picture of me filling my kegs. I filled three kegs. Right to left: Cream Ale, Irish Stout, and Spiced Ale.
About 1 day at 20 psi of CO2 pressure and the beer was fully carbonated.

Worst time of the year.

As a sports fan, this is one of the worst times of the year. The NCAA basketball tourney started last Thursday in typical fashion with a flurry of activity. During the course of 4 days, 50 basketball games were played. Some were good, some were almost great, some were boring, some were stupid, and some were downright bad.

The games were done by late Sunday afternoon and now....... now we have to wait!! I hate this time of year.

I'm not the biggest college basketball fan. I pay casual attention during the season, but I get really interested during the tournament. After the first 4 days of work-skipping action, I need more.

It's like doing crack for the first time and then having to wait a few days to get your next hit. [FYI I know nothing about this]

So now we wait until Thursday until our next hit. Pitiful? Yes, no doubt. The good news is that when the championship rolls around, I will be burnt out on college basketball. Then I won't care.

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In related news, Tubby is staying. At least that's what he says. This is unusual for us Minnesotans. We do not know how to deal with rumors that someone is lusting after the head coach of one our sports teams.
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While the Gopher basketball team is done, we can now turn our attention to the annual event known as "Minnesota Plays in the NCAA Hockey Tournament." Like clockwork, the powerhouse Minnesota Gopher Hockey team will be playing in the tournament just like they do every year.... wait a minute.... what the f***???.... AH CRAP!!!!!

HF is in what?

Today in Pennsylvania, a truck carrying hydrofluoric acid (HF) overturned. CNN.com had a story about it. As so often happens, the main stream media continues to display a certain degree of scientific illiteracy.

In the story the author wrote:

It also is an ingredient in high-octane gasoline, refrigerants, aluminum and light bulbs.

HF is indeed a nasty little molecule that demands a great deal of respect, but I can assure you, it is NOT an ingredient in gasoline, refrigerants, aluminum and light bulbs. HF is used in the manufacturing of these things, but it is not an ingredient. A subtle difference, but an important one. Even a quick Wikipedia search could have helped.

If you don't understand science, don't write AP stories related to science. That's why I don't write AP stories about poetry, cricket or knitting. I know what these things are, but I don't know enough to be accurate.

NOTE: I was going include a picture showing some HF accidents, but some of them were too gruesome. I didn't want to gross out any unsuspecting reader. Do your own search.

Curse of all curses

I found out something amazing and sad today. Fellow blogger, mjenks, suffers from a terrible affliction. He is allergic to hops. Yes, hops. The hops found in beer. In other words, he can't drink beer. I can think of few fates worse than this one.

So, tonight I drink a home-crafted Irish Stout while watching Notre Dame duke it out with UAB in the NIT.[1] Cheers, mjenks. This one is for you.

[1] Truth in blogging: I actually spent most of my time watching the Minnesota Wild beat Colorado in a 'howkey' match.

Sophomore year Spring Break

During my Sophomore year, me and two girls (a male friend of mine backed out) took a trip to Boulder, CO. We jumped into my 1982 Chevy Celebrity and headed west. One of the girls lived in Nebraska so we had a place to stop along the way.

We got to Boulder, and I was amazed. Boulder is a very nice town, and I used to think that until I attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Then, thanks to football rivalries, I learned to dislike Boulder. Petty? Yes, but I digress.

The other girl I was with had an aunt that lived in Boulder so we stayed there. I don't remember doing to much. We were underage and so we didn't do any drinking or partying. We did touristy stuff. We went to Rocky Mountain National Park. Most of it was closed due to snow. We went to Red Rocks and I pretended to be Bono when U2 was live at Red Rocks.

The biggest highlight/farce of the trip was our quest to find some Crystal Pepsi. Denver was a test market for Crystal Pepsi, and we had plans on scoring a few cases and selling them for profit back in Minnesota. We searched around Denver for a while and found nothing. It turns out we were about 2 weeks early. It also turns out that Crystal Pepsi was crap and not worth the effort.

We headed back to Minnesota and as we were driving across Nebraska, I noticed vehicles traveling in the westbound lane were increasingly covered with snow. Little did we know, we were heading into a major late season snowstorm. Once we got to Lincoln, NE the snow started to get heavy. We made it to Omaha and realized we needed to make a decision. Thankfully, one of the girls on the trip had an uncle in Council Bluff, IA, just across the border from Omaha. We got there and stayed the night. I didn't want to stop. I had an Organic Lab on the next day.

Travel the next day was pretty decent. We made it back, but I missed my lab.

Nothing too exciting, but it was a fun trip and I'm glad I went.