I assume I’m not the only one who is growing tired of having the republicans tell the democrats or anyone that dissagrees with them that they just don’t understand what is going on in Iraq.  Be it the president, VP or any Joe Blow senator / congressman, the message is always the same: you’re dumb and clearly uneducated about the world.  Well then, please educate us elected official.  If they can teach a monkey sign language surely you can use small enough that I will understand what the true situation in Iraq is so then I too can continue to spread this knowledge.  Dickheads.

Anyway, I received the final nod to head out to Caltech to work at JPL for the summer.  I’m so damn excited if for nothing else than a change of scenery.  I won’t have a car out there but I’ve made arrangements to have my bike come with me.  It is about a 6 mile ride from the campus where I will be living to the lab I’ll be working at.  I sure hope it doesn’t rain a lot out there.

Speaking of bikes, I’ve been seriously looking for a road bike.  For the un-introduced - road bikes are the ones with the perilously skinny tires that enable you to exceed the speed of sound on big hills.  The motivation is that since the bike will be my primary mode of transportation it would be nice to not have to drive a tank around.  Though I love my current filthy whore of a bike, elegant and efficient it is not.  We’ll see how the money works out.  A decent new road bike is like $600 and good used one isn’t much less.

So I’ve been burning the midnight oil a lot recently at work. I’m still trying to perfect the molybdenum sintering problem that has been haunting me now for longer then I care to think about. Anyway, tonight was / is another marathon session - it goes like this:

Pumps on around 2pm shortly after which a noxios cloud of my binder evaporates and is pumped towards the ROTC guys playing army outside.
Once the brush fire is gone, close the tank and actually close the chamber door and pull vacuum.

Wait for vacuum.

Crank the furnace never designed to work in vacuum up to its maximum possible temperature.

Wait for it to warm up.

Wait for 4 hours at temperature.

Wait for it to cool down below the molybdenum oxidation temperature (700 C).

The whole process requires almost no thought and is devastatingly boring. Sure I make the best of the early stages and get some productive work done, but as I’ve now been staring at a 4 digit number for almost eleven hours (for the 3rd time this week), I’ve pretty much lost my mind. So what is the best thing to do? Pull my bike ($3 / gallon bitch please - I’m not driving) into the building and ride it around. At 3 am, there is not a soul left in this place - other than those being tortured of course.

The game is to try and complete a “lap” of the MEEM basement “U” without touching the ground. This is somewhat tricky at full mental capacity but downright fun when you’re tired and really really bored. The hardest part of the 1/10th mile track is turning around in the lab. I’m in no danger of wrecking anything of course, but it is such a tight turning radius that it resembles ballet on a bike. My Panaracer’s have suprisingly good grip on last summers floor wax job which is probably good since if I wiped out and was knocked uncouncious, I’d be undoubtedly awoken by a camouflage hat be attached to a human speaking with a very thick yooper accent (facilities).

Anyway, turbo pumps are spinning down,  almost time for me to go home and sleep.  Good night or almost good morning.

ShiftyEyesMI: well basically I awoke this morning at 7am from my lease signing bender with the new housemates and felt the need to punish myself for being a douche bag and getting loaded on a sunday
ShiftyEyesMI: so I literally drug myself across the floor, got ready
ShiftyEyesMI: and took the long way into work on my bike
ShiftyEyesMI: like an extra 2-3 miles just to make it hurt a little more
ShiftyEyesMI: then I continued to wear myself into the ground the entire day
Scott:  wow.. My body just thanked me for never punishing it like that HAha
ShiftyEyesMI: me and my body have “an understanding”
ShiftyEyesMI: bah but beating myself up over it is half the fun - plus I defiantly got more done this morning then I usually do
ShiftyEyesMI: sure I was basically sweating blood
Scott:  well thats good
ShiftyEyesMI: but meh
ShiftyEyesMI: so did Jesus

From wikipedia entry on Ice:

Slipperiness

Until recently it was widely believed that ice was slippery because the pressure of an object in contact with it caused a thin layer to melt. For example, the blade of an ice skate, exerting pressure on the ice, melted a thin layer of the ice. This was thought to put a thin layer of water between the ice and the blade providing lubrication.
This explanation is no longer widely accepted. There is still debate about why ice is slippery. The explanation gaining acceptance is that ice molecules in contact with air cannot properly bond with the molecules of the mass of ice beneath (and thus can vibrate like molecules of liquid water). These molecules remain in a semiliquid state, providing lubrication regardless of any object exerting pressure against the ice.