10:29 – Barbara’s dad may or may not be released from the hospital today. They’d planned to leave tomorrow for the family reunion in Pennsylvania, but they may have to delay their departure until Friday. He’s feeling much better, which isn’t surprising since he’s on heavy antibiotics. In addition to the pneumonia and UTI, Barbara told me yesterday that they’d mentioned that he has an S. aureus blood infection. I would imagine that they’re treating him with bacteriostatic antibiotics and are concerned that the infection(s) will come roaring back once they take him off the antibiotics.
When Barbara arrived home yesterday, she immediately asked what the terrible smell was. I’d gotten several deliveries yesterday, which were still stacked in the foyer. I’d noticed a slight musty/rancid smell but I wasn’t able to localize it. When Barbara walked into the foyer, she immediately narrowed it down to a box that contained three one-pound bags of sodium dithionite, which is a chemical that will go into the forensics kits. It’s a bleach used in fabric dyeing. The MSDS says that it has a “characteristic slight sulfurous odor”. According to Barbara, it’s anything but slight. She may be right, because those bags were heat-sealed aluminized plastic, and some odor was still able to escape.
I told her we’d be packing 25 g of the stuff in 30 mL widemouth bottles, and she immediately replied, “*You’ll* be packing…”. When I told her that in addition to the odor problem, the chemical was spontaneously combustible if exposed to air or water, she said there was no way she was going to touch it.
Speaking of hazardous chemicals (and sodium dithionite is classified as only slightly hazardous), I’m always looking for ways to eliminate shipping hazards while maintaining functionality. One of the chemicals I’d like to ship in a kit I’m designing now is universal indicator solution, which is very flammable. For some other chemicals I can get around that problem by shipping a bottle that contains only a tiny amount of the dry chemical. The kit buyer can then simply fill the bottle with, for example, drugstore isopropanol to dissolve the chemical and make up the actual solution.
The problem with universal indicator is that it contains four indicator chemicals in really tiny quantities, as in 0.03% w/v. That means that for a 15 mL bottle I’d need somehow to put more or less exactly 4.5 mg each of bromothymol blue, methyl red, phenolphthalein, and thymol blue powders in each bottle. That’s obviously impractical, but I have a cunning plan, which I intend to test when I have a moment. Rather than mess with the dry chemicals on a per-bottle basis, I’ll simply make up the actual solution, fill each bottle with 15 mL of it, and then heat the bottles at low heat in the convection oven in my lab until all of the liquid evaporates. I’ll then allow the bottles to cool, cap them, and ship them with the kits. And people wonder why my wife calls me Baldrick.
Robert-
Being as they are all available in dry form is there a reason you can’t combine the powders in the appropriate ratio and then put a measured amount in each vial, leaving out what I assume is a major step?
It’s nearly impossible to get a mixture of powders that is sufficiently homogeneous to ensure that the correct amount ends up in each bottle. And even if I managed to get the mixture homogeneous initially, as I handled it the denser chemicals would tend to settle to the bottom of the mixture. I considered mixing the powders with gum arabic or a similar binder (to cause them to adhere) and running them in a powder mill for a day or two, but even that wouldn’t guarantee homogeneity, and it’d be a lot more work.
With my cunning plan, all I’d have to do is fill the bottles as usual and then put them in a rack in the drying oven for several hours at low heat.
Just came out of an hour-long power failure, which categorically destroyed my plan for the day. I have an evening appointment with an hour’s travel time, and was attempting to get about a half-dozen things accomplished before that, but they were all interdependent. I could have coped with loss of 1/2 hour, but not an hour. So all that stuff will have to be moved to Friday, as I have an all-day appointment tomorrow. Arrrgh!
Problem was replacement of a 3-phase transformer somewhere in the neighborhood. They knew exactly how many customers would be affected–52. Why they could not have called with a warning is beyond me; they used to before the electric utility was privatized. In fact, they often came around to the house a day in advance and left a card detailing exactly what would happen and at what times. I am on a tight schedule to get some work done before a 23 August deadline, and I just lost a whole day. Don’t get me started again on why so-called free enterprise (free to screw you and me in many, many ways) loses hands down to government-run utilities. And then they call me back to tell me that my power has been restored. No shit, Sherlock. I had no way of knowing.
I’m going to have to quit buying consumer-grade modems/routers. Have a D-Link combination ADSL modem/router. It never has worked right, from the get-go. D-Link tech support has been non-existent. In one of the ironies of outsourcing, I actually got hold of AT&T customer support in India, connected to a guy who knew exactly what he was talking about, and got the thing set up for me, when no one at D-Link could. Bet he isn’t still working there. It was one of those things where the syntax of entries was wrong in the D-Link ‘Quick Start Guide’, but the guy knew that and told me what it should be.
Once working, the D-Link functions fine (except half the lights on it don’t work), until there is a power failure. Then nothing works. When the power was restored, after the computer finished all its examination of hard drives and files, no surprise, there was no LAN connection. Went out to the router, and the power light was red. Bad sign. Turned it off and back on. No change—still red light. Unplugged it for 10 seconds and plugged it back in. After about 2 minutes, some of the lights started blinking and the red power light turned to green, and after about 5 minutes, it claimed I had a DSL signal, but the WLAN was not working. Went to the computer, which showed I was connected to the Internet and all was functioning properly. Back out to the router, which showed no WLAN connection, no LAN connections at all, and no Internet light. Why doesn’t this thing come up automatically and perfectly by itself, after a power failure?
Hi Chuck, if you need that kind of power then you should have a very large UPS or a generator. The power dropouts are only going to get worse here in the USA. Here in Texas, I expect us to have weekly power outages of an hour or more regularly since we are not investing in new power plants to replace old ones much less our 5% population growth per year that we have been experiencing for the last decade.
In fact, after a major storm, I would plan for not having power for three to seven days. Much worse if you are within 30 miles of any coast line.
People do not realize that the more reliable power is, the more it costs. And getting past three nines costs exponentially. Double neighborhood feeds, etc.
When it comes to dealing with inconveniently timed power failures, I’ve found the library to be a good place to run off to with a laptop. It’s not the greatest, but at least Internet access is available. It’s closer than the closest Starbucks, and they don’t expect you to buy anything. Of course the only place you can use your cellphones is across the library from the tables with power and Ethernet connections.
After hurricane Ike, the cell phone service here in Houston was very spotty for six weeks. Only text messages worked with any regularity.
I also forgot to mention that the EPA has a moratorium on new power plants here in Texas right now while they figure out their new greenhouse gas permits. They have told all the power plant people that they do not expect to issue the first GHG permit until some time in 2014.
We are working on being prepared for, first, a month with zero power or heat in the dead of winter. And no cell phone capability. Figure out what you need at your site and get cracking.
From a month to three months to six to twelve.
As Lynn says, this is gonna be more frequent and for longer periods. We are a couple-hundred miles from ocean coast but we can expect more in the way of ice storms and blizzards, and the occasional mild earthquake, usually centered north of us in Quebec.
The house/mortgage underwriters saga continues here as we just passed the first scheduled closing day yesterday. Now extended for two more weeks.
And I just saw the nooz, apparently considered a flash, earthshaking, by way too many people, that half the country now supports the other half, and is held in contempt and loathing for doing so, and our lords temporal would like us to pony up even more, when they deign to notice our existence at all. And our national infrastructure of roads, bridges, dams, power plants and grids, continues to disintegrate.
I’m going to have to quit buying consumer-grade modems/routers. Have a D-Link combination ADSL modem/router.
I have a D-Link DRI-655 that has proven quite reliable with my Comcast service. Power goes out and the box cycles back up without any difficulties. Nothing for me to do but just wait.
On occassion I have had my service quit but that is a Comcast issue which requires power cycling the modem. The cheap-ass designers did not include a reset or power switch on either the modem or the router so you have to unplug both devices to reset them.
My D-Link has been very reliable as has one for my friend. I run two SSID’s, one for my computers and one for guests. All just work as they should. Even running IP6 for all the computers that connect without issues.
RBT wrote:
“I told her we’d be packing 25 g of the stuff in 30 mL widemouth bottles, and she immediately replied, “*You’ll* be packing…”. When I told her that in addition to the odor problem, the chemical was spontaneously combustible if exposed to air or water, she said there was no way she was going to touch it.”
See how much easier your life would have been if you’d just majored in computer science, maths or physics? One of my pals majored in organic chemistry, and said it ruined his sense of smell. One term of organic chemistry labs was enough for me…
Chuck, I’ve got a D-Link DIR-655 router. Zero problems from day one. (3.5 years ago.)
Offhand I don’t know what we have here; which is good.
I don’t need organic chemistry to bring stinks to the house. I have two teenage sons. “Clean you room, you pig! That means change the sheets, do your laundry, and bring all of those dirty plates and cups to the kitchen. What the hell is this? Put it in your garbage can — it’s right there, two feet away — and then you’ll be shampooing the carpet.” The only good news is, we don’t have a problem with flies in the house. I assume the smell from the bedrooms kills them all.
My modem/router is a D-Link DSL 2640-B. It is a piece of junk, IMO. Got home after midnight last night. Very pleasant evening of supper and convivial conversation with people I have not seen since high school. Most were in my high school, and also at the student-run campus radio station at IU/Bloomington. Great night after 40-some years of not seeing any of those folks, most of whom went on to careers in radio and TV. Our core group back then, was pretty committed to the industry.
Anyway, I get home to lightning and thunder and figure I had better check the weather maps, but the Outlook progress bar is up. In my case that is always bad news, because I have it set to appear only when there is trouble sending/receiving. And the weather maps will not display, as none can find the server.
Okay. I know there has been no further power failure, because I have 2 clocks that flash if the power is down for even a second. Modem says I have DSL, WLAN, and Internet. Obviously, that is not true. I double-check my computer, and it is talking to the LAN. I try pinging something, and it cannot resolve the names.
For the second time yesterday, I power cycle the damned modem/router. After a good 2 minutes, it is showing DSL, WLAN, but no Internet and no LAN lights. Back to the computer, and everything is working. I check the DynDNS reporter thingie, and notice that I have a different IP address than it was reporting a few minutes ago, which leads me to believe the D-Link was malfunctioning for a long time. Usually, if I just quickly recycle the modem, I get the same IP address back. Not this time.
That modem/router has a mind of its own. Obviously, the indicator lights are just decoration, as they do not show the bonafide state of anything. When recycling the power, they all flash on, so none are burned out, they just refuse to display true conditions. LAN and Internet are the 2 that seldom ever come on, even when there is clearly a LAN connection, and the Internet is working fine.
Chuck, it’s not worth the stress, just replace the darned thing. If you want a different brand, I’ve had pretty good luck with Netgear stuff. Seems “semi-professional” if you don’t get the absolute cheapest models.
@SteveF: I showed your post to my two teenage boys. One of them has what we call the “midden” in his room. This is the unknowable pile that begins right next to his bed, and spreads until is has consumed his entire room. We eventually make him prune it back, and it begins spreading again…
What does Midden translate to? With my meager 10 years of German, I would guess something like ‘the living trash pile’?
It’s a kitchen garbage pile, from the Viking via Middle English.
Middens are nice sites for archaeologists to sift through, from all cultures, including contemporary ones.
Teenage boyz. Not a problem.
Teenage grrls. Apocalypse.
Ah, okay. I heard it often in Berlin, but never really knew what it was beyond their word Abfall. People would eat something and pass the wrapper (which is actually Verpackung) to someone else and say “Midden”. But now I see Müllgrube, which was just called Müll in our house. That’s the stuff that got taken down to the compost bin. Müll essentially = Midden.
What goes into a midden is food scraps. What comes out of a midden is career politicians.
Sorry, we’ve adopted the word into the family language, and I actually thought it was English. Price to be paid for living here so long, I suppose…
“…career politicians” and banksters, Wall Street speculators, lawyers, college and university humanities and social “science” faculty, advertising and marketing “professionals,” and chickenhawk sons of bitches who keep barking war, war, war but never went themselves and their kids don’t go either.