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An update: days off, lab work and such
Sep. 8th, 2011 09:48 amThere are 64 hours of vacation that need to be used prior to October 1st. Hoping for a few contiguous days off; my meeting schedule is all over the place and I'm constrained on travel far as I teach Wednesday evenings. I've scheduled Monday and Tuesday as days off. I'm looking forward to taking a very long hike (~12 miles) on Monday and a long bike ride (~50 miles) on the other.
The class I teach is on thin film deposition (thin being sub 100nm; there is other criteria to define "thin" as well that is not dependent on thickness.) Roughly thirty grad students and several former students who are informally auditing the class. After class students linger to discuss technical issues with their research projects. This is the most joyful time for me - when we can brainstorm together and I can offer some of the odd factoids and tricks I've learned from twenty-five years in the lab.
Other things:
My Buddhist chaplaincy training begins September 30th. Thisclose to finalizing an internship at the county hospital for my 100 hours of field work. I'm also starting math tutoring at a youth center near my work but suspect I won't be able to log that time.
Our labs are finally signed off by the city; they made us remove our dry fire supression system and add a sprinkler system. We did not argue as we need access to do our work but I'm pressing my boss to bring an independent consultant to do a review. Never in those twenty-five years of lab work have I had water fire supression in a chemical fume hood. That's a recipe for injury and an environmental mess. The fire marshal is an ass; now he has his hands full as there was a fatality at a small startup less than two miles from here last week.
Winge aside, the upshot is that I'm going back to the lab after a long spell at my desk to do some experiments and try to even some new coatings using nanomaterials. My staff has been dragging their feet to do this work, so I'm jumping at the opportunity.
The class I teach is on thin film deposition (thin being sub 100nm; there is other criteria to define "thin" as well that is not dependent on thickness.) Roughly thirty grad students and several former students who are informally auditing the class. After class students linger to discuss technical issues with their research projects. This is the most joyful time for me - when we can brainstorm together and I can offer some of the odd factoids and tricks I've learned from twenty-five years in the lab.
Other things:
My Buddhist chaplaincy training begins September 30th. Thisclose to finalizing an internship at the county hospital for my 100 hours of field work. I'm also starting math tutoring at a youth center near my work but suspect I won't be able to log that time.
Our labs are finally signed off by the city; they made us remove our dry fire supression system and add a sprinkler system. We did not argue as we need access to do our work but I'm pressing my boss to bring an independent consultant to do a review. Never in those twenty-five years of lab work have I had water fire supression in a chemical fume hood. That's a recipe for injury and an environmental mess. The fire marshal is an ass; now he has his hands full as there was a fatality at a small startup less than two miles from here last week.
Winge aside, the upshot is that I'm going back to the lab after a long spell at my desk to do some experiments and try to even some new coatings using nanomaterials. My staff has been dragging their feet to do this work, so I'm jumping at the opportunity.
