09:56 – I’m building and shipping science kits, which will be the story of my life for the next couple of months. We’re in pretty decent shape on kit inventory. As of this morning, we have 40 of the CK01A chemistry kits in stock, with subassemblies on hand to build another two or three dozen; about two dozen of the BK01 biology kits in stock, with subassemblies on hand to build another 30, and bunches of labeled bottles that need to be filled and made up into chemical bags for various kits. We’re running short of a few chemicals, but I just placed an order Friday with Fisher Scientific for those, as well as bulk amounts of some of the chemicals we’ll need for the AP Chemistry kit. By “bulk”, I mean items like 4 kilos each of anhydrous sodium carbonate and anhydrous calcium chloride and a kilo or two each of several other chemicals.
Watching the developing Ukraine situation is like watching the proverbial slow-motion train wreck. Economically, the EU in general and the eurozone in particular are weaker now than they have ever been, even at the height of the crisis. One major shock is all it will take to collapse everything like the house of cards that it is. Tier III economic sanctions against Russia should be more than enough to get the ball rolling, and unless Putin backs off big-time it appears that those sanctions are very likely to be implemented. I admit that I am amazed that the eurozone appears unanimously to be supporting strong sanctions against Russia. I never expected Germany or France to support such sanctions, let alone the Eastern European EU members. I expected the US and the UK to go it alone in terms of implementing sanctions, with at best lip-service from the rest of the world. Just the US would have been sufficient, of course, because the US government has absolute control of the entire world’s banking system. Every foreign bank–including Russian banks–understands that it will be crushed like a bug if it tries to ignore orders from the US government. But with the UK and apparently also the EU on board, Russia doesn’t have a prayer.
12:47 – I was just unpacking and shelving some chemicals when I was struck by a Cunning Plan. I thought about those Stop Aging spams I sometimes see in my junk folder, and realized that I could start selling genuine Stop Aging pills that I could absolutely, positively guarantee to be 100% effective. They could probably be sold for a lot of money per pill, and they’d be very cheap to produce. The only active ingredient would be 1000 milligrams of potassium cyanide. In addition to being a big money-maker, it would also improve the gene pool. Not many products can say that.