07:14 – I had an interesting conversation with our mailman yesterday. I commented on the $15+ billion loss the USPS had just reported, and he commented that much of that was because of the $11+ billion USPS is forced to pay to fund health care for future retirees, something that no other federal agency does. I said that in the long run it didn’t really matter because none of us were ever going to see the pensions and retirement health care that we were supposedly paying for now. He agreed completely and commented that he thought it was time to start stocking up on canned food. I said, “We already are,” and he replied that he and his wife were as well.
Over the weekend, we’ll build another 30 chemistry kits and another 30 biology kits for inventory. Although sales are much slower now than they were in August/September, slow is relative. So far this week, we’ve sold two forensic science kits, two biology kits, and four chemistry kits. We’re still in good shape on forensic science kits, but we’re down to only three chemistry kits and two biology kits in stock.
10:12 – I just finished making up the last chemical but one for the chemistry kits. (That one is starch indicator solution, which I make up in the kitchen rather than the lab.) As usual, I waited until last to make up the hazardous/obnoxious chemicals, finishing up with 6 M sodium hydroxide, which’ll dissolve a glass stirring rod if I’m not careful. So, today I’ll fill and cap the final six or eight sets of 30 bottles for the chemistry kits. I’ll leave the sealing to Barbara. She likes to shrink the cap bands on the 30 mL bottles of regulated chemicals with the heat gun.
As always, I feel a bit hypocritical when I’m working with chemicals for the kits. I always wear splash goggles, of course, but I don’t wear gloves for any of them. Having concentrated bases or acids contact my hands doesn’t really worry me. If it happens, I just rinse the stuff off with cold water. I do draw the line at concentrated hydrochloric, nitric, and sulfuric acids, though. Those I’ll handle without gloves. But anything much more hazardous/corrosive than those I’ll wear gloves for, if not double gloves.
15:46 – Barbara is leaving work an hour or so early this afternoon to go run errands and then have dinner with her parents and a couple of friends. I just finished the last set of bottles for the chemistry kits. We now have 30 of each chemical and 60 of several. So I decided to knock off early, too, and watch some more Heartland reruns.
When I started watching Heartland reruns yesterday, I noticed that Netflix streaming was showing 67 episodes. That’s 13 episodes from series one and 18 episodes each from series two, three, and four. Until yesterday they had only 45 episodes available: all of series one and two and the first 14 episodes of series 3. But then I checked the Netflix website, which is still claiming to have only those 45 episodes. Oh, well. I prefer to watch streaming, but I have series three, four, and five on disc.
Speaking of stocking up, hope you all have your Twinke and DingDong supply as Hostess is no more.
I bet Hostess products are bringing big bucks an eBay and CraigsList now.
Keep your powder dry.
Me, I’d wear gloves for all hazardous materials. What if you open the tap and there is no water?
I guess I’m just yellow… :-[
If the tap runs dry, I have several hundred liters of water stored in 2 liter soda bottles, at least 100 liters of which is right outside the door of the lab.
Would it make sense to cut a largish hole in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket, fit a tightly sealed plug, attach a D handle to the plug, fill with water, and set it up over the sink? I don’t know if it’s a realistic problem for the water to be shut off while you’re in the middle of an operation, but you might want a bigger booosh of water than the faucet provides.
I hear you, about not wearing gloves. I’m no chemist, but I was originally trained as an electrical engineer. When I change a light fixture or a light switch, I rarely switch off the breaker. If I can’t avoid mashing wires through a tight hole or something, I’ll sometimes put a tab of electrical tape over the end of the live wires, but that’s more the exception than the rule.
After enough experience, you pretty much know how to handle yourself and your equipment to avoid any significant danger. I haven’t had a shock in decades, just like you haven’t lost your fingers to your chemicals. In fact, the last really nasty shock I recall was back in high school, picking up an unplugged, open chassis that turned out to contain a charged, high-voltage capacitor in the bottom. In one hand, across the body and out the other hand.
“Booosh”.
This is why there should be a tip jar. What a wonderfully onomatopoeic word.
Well, if worst comes to horrible, there’s a high-flow shower two steps from the door of my lab. Also, other than scheduled maintenance, I don’t remember the water ever failing, ever. It’s really not a problem.
You mean some people actually turn off the breaker? I’ve never bothered for stuff like installing/replacing a receptacle or switch. Of course, we work with girly 120VAC. If I lived in Europe or somewhere else that used manly 240VAC, I’d throw the breaker before I touched anything.
When working with them electron thingies, I sometimes turn off the breakers, sometimes not. If it’s convenient I usually do, as a cheap safety measure. If I have to walk through three rooms, down a flight of stairs, and through a cluttered basement, I usually don’t bother; the “cheap” safety measure just doubled the time cost of swapping the outlet.
Besides, in old* houses and workplaces, the breakers are usually mislabeled if labeled at all. Even the master switch sometimes doesn’t kill a line. The last close call I had was in cutting a 220 line with linesman’s pliers. The master lever was pulled, so supposedly the entire floor was cold. Well, I’m sure you can see where this is going. The good news is, I was wearing leather gloves and the pliers had thick insulation on the grips. The bad news is, there was a nice circle blasted out of the cutting edges.
* With “old” meaning “any building I didn’t do myself and keep a copy of the wiring map for”.
I have the worst story ever about butchered wiring. Well, not counting some commercial locations that I did phone/network wiring for.
My parents’ house was built roughly the same time ours was, late 60’s or early 70’s. Houses of that vintage may have twisted-pair or quad (untwisted 4-conductor: green, red, black, yellow) wiring. But whatever moron ran the phone cables in my parents’ house apparently got a deal on some short lengths of 25-pair cable. Instead of doing the wiring right with home runs, he did a loop. But when one of his pieces of cable ran out, this moron spliced the two pairs he’d used on the phone jacks he’d already wired to two random pairs on the new length of cable. Actually, he didn’t even bother to use pairs. He just pulled four random wires out of the bunch and twisted them onto the ends of the four wires he’d been using.
Working on a dental office renovation maybe 20 years ago I was was in the same exam room as the guy working on the dental chair. His method for turning off the breaker was to take his pliers and short the line. What a moron. No concern for any damage he might cause to other equipment on the circuit. This was before we put monitors on most chairs like now but of course the computer itself is usually on the counter behind the chair and often on the same circuit. Glad we don’t ever see each other now.
His pliers had arc burns all over them. But I guess he worked fast and cheap.
My family house (ie, my mom’s house, not my wife’s and mine) is maybe a century and a half old. The electricity and plumbing was added well after. They first put in DC wiring with very thick copper wire and thick but mostly useless (and by now rotted away) insulation, strung from ceramic insulators from the joists. When AC power came in, they just re-purposed the wires. That was the situation until my brother and I rewired the house and barn about 20 years ago. Sometimes I marvel that it didn’t burn down.
Actually K&T wiring is at least as safe as modern wiring. Even if the insulation has rotted off, the ceramic knobs and wide separation of the wires keep things safe.
One part of the tale I left out (hectic here today; bursts of things I have to take care of Right Now with gaps of idleness with unpredictable duration) is that the ceramic hangers were only in the horizontal runs in the basement. The vertical runs up from the basement had the wire mostly loose in the spaces between the studs — at the top and bottom they were attached to opposite sides of the 14″ gap, but free to flop around in between … with rotted off wire insulation.
Remodeling my parents 90 year old house last year I ran across a lot of the old post and single strand stuff, insulation long gone. I removed all I could and replaced it with modern grounded stuff, but suspect there is some still in the plaster walls.
90 years means that there was time for a LOT of creative wiring. The worst (apart from live 220V just laying on the ground under the house) was one of three porch lights, with the ground and neutral reversed, that we *thought* was on a disconnected overhead circuit (the first two were). Fortunately it was a short ladder and I softened my friends fall with my body. We traced it back to the stove circuit, and found it used a 15′ piece of lamp cord…
About stocking up for The Big One: keep an eye on your stock! A month ago I went to do my yearly swap out of old batteries for new, and discovered that not only were most of the AA, AAA and D cell emergency batteries gone, but ALL THE FOOD in the accessible bin. About 60 cans worth. I’m guessing the handyman I had in to do the yard work while I was traveling on business. Sheesh.
I love Netflix streaming. They have all 6 seasons of Psych now (the kids and I find it hilarious).
I wonder if we’ll see Chinese Twinkies in the near future. Thanks a lot union thugs! 18,500 more people on Obamacare who’ll probably get a waiver for the penalty. The unions will get Obama to issue it.
Should lantern batteries be swapped out yearly ?
I think yearly is a bit much for AAA, AA, C, and D alkalines. I remember reading a study years ago. IIRC, alkalines maintained >50% capacity after being stored unused for seven to 10 years at room temperature. If you discard alkalines after a year’s storage, I suspect you’re discarding a battery that’s still at about 99% of original capacity.
I rotate on a two year schedule, roughly. Same with the canned food.
New batteries to the bin, old batteries out and into the household for use.
The manufacturers claim many years of shelf life now, on the packaging, but it doesn’t hurt to play it safe – I’m about ten miles from the San Andreas Fault.
An oddity I’ve noticed over the years – D cells seem to die within a month or two of any use whatsoever. Not sure why, some chemical thing? RBT might know.
I do like the modern D-cell lanterns with LEDs – very bright and very long lasting, compared to the old filament bulbs. Just don’t put the batteries in the lantern until you need it.
Sorry, that’s not a very clear statement on the timing. Essentially I try to use consumables on a cycle – about a third to a half each year, replacing as I go.
“…n old* houses and workplaces, the breakers are usually mislabeled if labeled at all. Even the master switch sometimes doesn’t kill a line.”
Check. Had to do some stuff here recently, and surprise, surprise, only about half the circuits labeled at all and those wrongly. Will do so from scratch and we gotta get an electrician in now anyway for several items I am not competent to do.
“…(hectic here today; bursts of things I have to take care of Right Now with gaps of idleness with unpredictable duration.”
Check. Same as most days up here. At work and at home.
Mrs. OFD home for eighteen hours so fah and now rushing off to Montreal to help daughter with her paper on First Nations, daughter allegedly in a panic. Amazing. 37 right now and a gorgeous late fall day.
My mum was an arch hoarder and would buy lots of stuff when it was “on special” at the supermarket. When she moved from the family home into an aged care facility my sister had to take mum’s stash to her place – there wasn’t room at the facility, which in any case provided all meals. So now when I doss down at my sister’s place I am fed 5-10 year old cans of soup, etc., which taste perfectly okay.
I must have inherited my mum’s hoarding genes, 15 or more years ago I stocked up on bourbon when it was on special. I like bourbon, but don’t love it, so some of those bottles are still there, unopened. So I didn’t really save any dough by stocking up. But if WWIII had started since then and Canberra had missed out on being hit I would have been able to drown my sorrows for a considerable period of time.
Back in my student days at *IT, I lived in a house which was originally constructed circa WW I. A lot of the wiring was done with paper insulation, and much of it was out of reach and still that way. The breaker box, having been added onto and patched in more than once, was an electrician’s nightmare. There was one bulb at the top of a set of stairs from the bottom to the top floor that we didn’t know how to turn off. At one point we actually turned off *every* breaker in the box at the same time, but the bulb continued to shine. We left it alone. There was also essentially no insulation in the exterior walls, such that on cold days you could place a six pack of your favorite beverage against the wall and it would be nice & chilly that evening. We used to joke that we at least got some heat from the resistance of the wires as we all plugged in space heaters. Ah the good old days.