8/28/07 – 1616
Chicago, IL
roughly $1000 + of glassware

I hate doing dishes. Doubly so as not only do I have to clean the dishes in my kitchen, I have to clean the dishes in the lab. And the latter typically piles up three times as fast. Granted, I’m the one who dirties them in the first place. It’s just boring at hell. (Thank you mypod.)  But if you don’t do your dishes, things get crusty and it only gets harder to clean them the longer they sit. And the items you don’t wash end up being the same items you need to use. “I think I’ll run a Friedel-Crafts Acylation today. Uh oh, I went home last night and forgot to clean that good three neck round bottom flask from the Ullman Coupling.” So I drop a few #$%# and remember that at least I have a drying oven that speeds up the whole process. I’ve done the same thing with frying pans at home. Luckily, eggs and bacon do not require anhydrous conditions.

I’m assuming that if you’re still reading, you didn’t glaze over too much when I tossed acylation into casual blogging. So while we’re still on the topic of lab work and kitchen work, I’ll also point out that I have a tendancy to use cooking and baking as a metaphor when describing what I’m doing in the lab to family or other lay people asking about my work. Speaking of which, my muffins are done.

8/26/07 – Undisclosed Location – Chico, CA

It’s the simple things in life that can amuse the child in all of us. Whether it be flying a kite, making a paper airplane for the first time in years, remembering all those secret hidden spots on those classic video games or….  watching a friend draw cartoon characters on her boyfriend’s foot during your Sunday session of good ol’ fashion weekend recovery. The modern classics are in effect on this day. Here we have Spongebob, Stewie, and whoever that really messed up one is supposed to be. Oh the detail! Anyways, the world is full of amazing things but some of the really simple things that might seem dumb to some folks are excellent sources to cure that bore-dumb, whether it be from a Sunday or Monday and in my case a Tuesday because I finally saw the picture I took of it. Some times, you just need to know where to look to cure your boredom…  at your friend’s foot. Especially if they had spent the weekend drinking.

8/24/07 – 880 Freeway/237 Carpool Fly-over – Milpitas, CA

Concrete dinosaurs make their mark all over this great state. Spanning through the air, curving all over the place crossing over each other and casting shadows to the ground. They are fun and sometimes you even feel as if you are going to launch out into space because the angle of them. Sometimes people even do because they are so fun to go over very quickly just to get to the downward slope where you feel like you are on a racetrack. This one bothers me though, this is not your normal fly-over. This one is a damned carpool lane. I have been to a few states in my life and for some reason cannot recall if they have carpool lanes or not but I can tell you this…. the “carpool lane” is killing California. Every morning I awaken to the news and watch the “traffuck” reports only to see 6 lanes in each direction backed up bumper to bumper with a very open carpool lane sitting off to the side. Yes, California has too many cars, too many people, too high of gas prices and definately too much “traffuck” but to limit and fine people either too poor to buy the fancy new hybrids that are given carpool passes even when they do not meet the regulations that were the founding basis for carpool (2 or more adult passangers) or are too anti-social with their co-workers to actually be able to carpool is insane. Some people just want to work to survive or make a little money, not to be ridin’ shotgun with some dipshit. I work in an office alone most of the time and commute from a place a hour away from the closest co-worker who shouldn’t be coming in to the office anyways. So explain to me how I’m supposed to manage a carpool to get on these magical super freeway lanes where cars can actually go?? While I do enjoy seeing these giant mazes of concrete shooting up into the air and passing over my head… there is another thing biting my biscuit on this. They block out my satalite radio, and while it may be terrestrial radios fault for sucking so badly that I refuse to listen to their commercials and greatest mtv hot 100 bullshit jams, these assholes over head are still whizzing around California 20+ miles an hour faster than me AND making me have to listen to the outside world instead of sweet tunes by my favorite groups because their heavenly free pass super lanes are casting shadows and blocking my signal.

Take California…