08:52 – Barbara’s been gone 24 hours, and Colin and I are already descending into barbarism, filth, and squalor. Last night, we stalked, pounced, and killed our dinner and ate it raw. That frozen Stouffer’s chicken and brocolli pasta bake never knew what hit it. It was kind of crunchy, though. Next time, we may heat it first. All of Barbara’s training is not lost on us, however. I’m doing a load of laundry as I write this, and later I’ll clean the toilets.
I have all but two of the solutions I need for a new batch of 60 biology kits made up, and most of the bottles filled. I’ll make up three liters each of the 6 molar hydrochloric acid and 6 molar sodium hydroxide solutions today and try to finish bottling everything. Tomorrow I’ll build a dozen or two biology kits and then get to work on what I need to build more chemistry and forensic kits. As expected, kit sales have started to tail off a bit. Some days, we ship six or eight kits and other days none or one. We’re still averaging about three a day, but that’s starting to decline. In October/November, we’ll probably average 1.5/day and then jump back up to around two a day in December.
10:18 – I’m getting a bit concerned about Katie Dugan, who’s my rep at one of our wholesalers, American Educational Products. She’s a delightful young woman, and I talk with her regularly, most recently a day or two before the flooding started. AmEP is in Fort Collins, Colorado, which until this morning I thought was not one of the worst-affected areas. The news reports kept talking about Boulder, but this morning I saw one that mentioned that Fort Collins and its county have more than 350 people unaccounted for, which is the bulk of those unaccounted for. I hope Katie and her new husband are okay.