A Moment Amidst the Madness

I have successfully run the gauntlet. I've completed the penultimate battery of exams with satisfactory if unspectacular results. I've made my way through the senior comprehensives feeling that I'm not entirely ignorant in the various disciplines of chemistry. I've completed all the required lab work for my last laboratory class. And I've been to Colorado and back for Thanksgiving, where Nancy and I spent a peaceful and very enjoyable weekend with my family—an unscheduled stop in Laramie notwithstanding.

I'll write more about all of that later.

For now, I'm just taking a moment to gather myself for the final push. I should be studying, but I've been immersed in chemistry all day. So I took a little break, soaking my aching back and working on my resume. I'll turn in early tonight, just as soon as I've posted this, probably. Then, when morning comes, it all starts again. Classes start at 7:30, when I hope to get the last exam from the gauntlet back. Then my focus turns to my lab class. I have four lab write-ups due a week from tomorrow, and I need to get my lab notebook caught up. Final exams will follow shortly thereafter. And then I'm done.

I can hardly believe it. I'm almost done.

Book Report

This is a one-page review of a lecture I attended for my Inorganic chemistry lab. Fascinating stuff, yes? -M
--

Applications of Molecular Sieves
Seminar Report, Chem 5730
Submitted 22 November 2005

I attended a lecture on molecular sieves presented by Dr. Steve Kuznicki on Friday, 11 November 2005. In this lecture, Dr. Kuznicki discussed both the composition and uses of these remarkable molecules.

Dr. Kuznicki first explained the nature of molecular sieves. They are uniformly porous inorganic structures with charged surfaces. Structurally, they resemble stacked straws, with chains of certain key atoms held together by rings of other atoms. This creates a three-dimensional grid through which molecules of certain sizes can pass. The holes in certain molecular sieves can be made to specific sizes. For example, the holes in titanosilicate sieves such as CTS1 shrink predictably when heated. The size of these holes can be controlled to allow for very precise molecular selectivity.

Dr. Kuznicki also talked about several important applications of sieves. One example was air separation, which has traditionally been done by distillation. Using sieves, however, oxygen and nitrogen can both be separated from air at conditions close to room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure.

A second application of sieves involves separating nitrogen from natural gas. Inert nitrogen gas exists in natural gas in concentrations up to fifteen percent, which makes the natural gas burn less efficiently. With molecular selectivity of as little 0.80 Ångstroms, sieves can be used to trap nitrogen molecules as natural gas flows past. When the sieve is full, the pressure is reversed and nitrogen flows out. Natural gas purity can be increased effectively and inexpensively by this procedure.

One final example involves hydrocarbon cracking. The tar sands of Alberta are thought to contain oil reserves equal to approximately four hundred billion barrels, or about forty percent of the world's known supply. But recovering oil from tar sand is difficult. The density and viscosity of the source material creates problems, and tar sand typically contains about four and a half percent sulphur. Nickel and vanadium contamination are also problems, making the procedure expensive and very hard on catalysts.

Natural molecular sieves may be the solution to these problems. Fossilized zeolite deposits in Arizona could be used to catalyze the recovery of petroleum from tar sand. The structure of these zeolites is such that hydrocarbon cracking can take place on the outside of each zeolite fossil platelet. Impurities such as sulphur and heavy metals would be trapped on the inside of the platelets. This process, if successful, would provide significant financial advantages. The catalyst would be available for pennies per pound, a substantial saving over traditional hydrocarbon cracking catalysts. The waste product—essentially just dirt—could be disposed of equally inexpensively.

Dr. Kuznicki concluded his presentation by providing a look at the structures of specific sieves and talking about other possible uses such as mercury scavenging. His lecture was very informative. Molecular sieves are playing an increasing role in some important industrial processes, and research opportunities in the field are plentiful. Having made many advances in the field himself, Dr. Kuznicki would make an excellent mentor for those wishing to explore chemistry in this emerging discipline.

Two for Thursday

Part I: Friday's Feast
Friday's Feast, 18 November 2005.

Appetizer When do you feel impatient?
When I have to explain the same thing, time and time again, to the same set of people at work. Yeah, I know, it's good practice for being an educator.

Soup How many times in your life have you had a broken heart?
More than I'd anticipated. I thought I was done with all that carp when I got married.

Salad Name a book you would like to see made into a movie.
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. Tolkien, Rowling, and Lewis have all had a shot. Now let's have a fantasy where a female lead gets to kick the @ss of evil.

Main Course If you could thank one teacher for what they taught you, who would it be and what would you thank them for?
I would thank my high school math teacher, Randall Hess, for being an example of a tough but fair teacher (and coach), and a genuinely good and decent human being.

Dessert What is your favorite kind of pie?
Grandma Martin used to make a wonderful sour cream raisin pie. She never wrote anything down, so when she left this world, she took the recipe with her.

--

Part II: Top Five on Friday
Top Five on Friday from The Music Memoirs:

Top 5 "Forgotten" Artists.
(You know, those bands that are still around, but when you mention them people ask you if they are still recording or alive.)

1. Asia (Last studio CD: Silent Nation, 2004)
2. Kansas (Last studio CD: Somewhere to Elsewhere, 2000)
3. Rush (Last studio CD: Vapor Trails, 2002)
4. Toto (Last studio CD: Mindfields, 1999)
5. Yes (Last studio CD: Magnification, 2001)

[Rush and Toto have both done 'tribute' CDs since the ones listed, but they don't count. Original music only here. -Ed.]

Gauntlet

I swear that this is the craziest couple of weeks of my life. A week ago Monday, we started an experiment in my Inorganic chemistry lab. We were supposed to take hydrated chromium (III) chloride, dehydrate it with carbon tetrachloride, and react it with liquid ammonia and ferric nitrate to make hexaammine chromium nitrate, [Cr (NH₃)₆] (NO₃)₃. It took us a long time to find all the equipment we needed. Most of it hadn't been used since last year's labs, and neither the professor, the TA, nor the stockroom folks knew where everything (or anything, in the case of the stockroom folks) was.

We finally got the apparatus set up and ran the procedure. We were supposed to have converted the dark green chromium chloride crystals to the violet anhydrous form. Instead, we ended up with black crud around the neck of the reaction flask, and a shiny, mirror-like coating in the main part of the vessel. We seem to have managed to reduce the metal to pure chromium. Pretty, but not terribly useful.

We came in Wednesday determined to run the chromium procedure again, quickly and efficiently. Yeah, right. We first found that some idiot had chipped a large piece out of the neck of the $100 quartz reaction flask. The missing piece was right next to the air outlet nozzle we needed to use in order to keep the reaction conditions right. So we had to carve a chunk out of a rubber stopper to make sure there was clearance at the outlet without compromising the seal at the end of the neck of the flask. We also had to replace the 15-inch (38.1 cm) glass inlet tube that somebody had decided to break in half and use as a dropper for hydrofluoric acid. (They didn't realize that HF will etch, or even dissolve, glass, apparently.) That involved a trip down to the basement and the glass shop. And then we had to replace the aspirator valve on the faucet in order to get a good vacuum going. Who'd have thought a crescent wrench would be essential to getting a passing grade in chemistry?

Anyway, at long last, we ran the procedure. Again. And we got decent results this time. That is to say, most of what we ended up with was violet powder. But we had a few large chunks that never seemed to react,so our purple was mixed in with a lot of grayish-black and a little dark green. Still, it was better than what we had before.

Thursday I had a quiz in my Thermodynamics discussion section. It dealt mostly with electrochemistry, which was no big deal for me. I also had an exam for my lab class. That went pretty well, I thought, although we won't get the exams back until this Thursday. I guess I'll find out then.

Friday we had to turn in the writeup for our first Inorganic lab, which involved making ammine complexes of silver, copper, and nickel sulfates. Our results were pretty good for nickel and silver, but our empirical formula and yield were both off for copper. My lab partners and I collaborated on the calculations—thank heaven for spreadsheets!—but I did most of the actual writing for the report. We've already discussed how we're going to do things differently for the next one.

Friday night at work was a complete disaster. We were running seven different jobs, which was no big deal. The shift started at 3:00, as usual, and was scheduled to run until 9:00 that night. But just about 6:30, we had a power spike. All but three computers in the building went off. We had the interviewers restart their computers, but they couldn't connect to the server. So we restarted the server and the autodialer, which takes a while even under ideal circumstances. We then had the interviewers log back on to the system. They could find the network now, but the phones weren't dialing. So we had to shut down their stations, the server, the dialer, the backup—in short, every computer in the building—and restart from scratch. We finally got everything back in order around 7:45, by which time it was useless for those leaving at 8:00 to start a new project. So we sent them home and spent the last hour watching our late-nighters and trying to clean up the mess in the system.

Saturday I conducted a training session at work. In addition to the nine contestants (out of fifteen scheduled), I also had to train somebody that will probably end up taking over the training sometime in the near future (presumably after I graduate and find steadier work). Large groups always seem to take longer to train, and having to teach the new trainer how to do everything added to the required time. And that was fine; I was prepared for all of that. What I was not prepared for was having the computers crash again, just as I was getting ready to show the trainees how our software works. Long story short, we had an hour's delay and I got out about 90 minutes later than normal.

Sunday I just rested. I was so exhausted that I came home and crashed after church. A couple of hours later, I awoke, ate, and crashed some more. Needed the sleep, I guess.

Monday morning started with an exam in Inorganic chemistry. It was bad. There were two chapters covered on this exam: boron chemistry and group theory. The boron stuff went all right, I think. But I really struggled with the group theory. There was one big problem—worth 40% of the exam—and two smaller problems. I struggled with all of them. Carp. I can take some comfort that I did significantly better than the average on the first two exams, I suppose. At this point, I'm willing to go with Derek's advice: C's get degrees.

Monday also found me back in the lab. We took the mostly purple powder we'd made Wednesday and tried to turn it into a yellow powder. We set up a distillation apparatus to make liquid ammonia from ammonia gas. Having obtained about 100 ml of the stuff, we dropped in a pea-sized piece of sodium metal. This produced something really hard to find in nature: solvated electrons, floating around surrounded by ammonia molecules but not actually attached to anything. (By the way, if anyone asks, electrons appear to be dark blue.) We reacted our product with this and some other stuff (that's technical jargon) and finally produced a rather minuscule amount of the desired product. It took us the full four hours to do this. Meanwhile, another lab group, building on everything we had suffered through, was able to do in four hours what took us three full lab periods to accomplish—and got much better results in the process. But I'm not bitter or resentful. Much.

I started the day today at 5:45 a.m., getting up in time to eat a little breakfast, get cleaned up, and drive to the train station to catch Trax to campus for my 7:30 Quantum Mechanics discussion section. The TA never showed up. So I went to the computer lab with the intention of writing a report on a seminar I had to attend for the Inorganic lab last week. No, I didn't get it done, but it's not due until next Wednesday. Instead, I took a little time to study for the Senior Comprehensives I'm taking on Thursday and Friday. I've been worried about these all semester—probably more than I need to be, one of my classmates told me today. Still, I'm more than a little nervous. It would really suck if my graduation were delayed because I did poorly on a series of standardized tests. High stakes, indeed.

After Friday, I'll get a few days to recuperate. These few days will be spent getting ready for the big dual finale: back-to-back exams in Quantum Mechanics and Thermodynamics on Wednesday. We have four hour exams in thermo over the course of the semester, but only two in QM. When when we had the first one, the professor scheduled it for the same day as the thermo exam that day, too. At least the final is scheduled for a different day.

So there you have it: disastrous labs last Monday and Wednesday, an exam and a quiz last Thursday, a lab report on Friday, an exam yesterday, Senior comps on Thursday and Friday, and two exams on Wednesday morning, followed immediately by driving the Dreadnought to Colorado on Wednesday afternoon/evening for the Thanksgiving weekend. Add to that a couple of shifts at work that were more difficult than they really needed to be, and that pretty well sums it up.

If I survive all of this without having a psychotic episode, I'll really have something to be thankful for.

...Toil and Trouble

Part I: Friday's Feast
Friday's Feast, 11 November 2005

Appetizer If someone made a statue of you, in which pose would you like to be?
I don't suppose 'limping' would be a good choice, so I'll go with standing and looking off toward the distance, with a book in one hand and an Ehrlenmeyer flask in the other.

Salad What perfume/cologne does your best friend wear?
The only person I know who really wears perfume has so many different varieties that I wouldn't even know where to start. I know she's got Obsession, though.

Soup Name something satisfying about your work.
I like the diversity of the interviewers I work with. We have students, retirees, punks, anarchists, Pagans, right-wing nutjobs, left-wing nutjobs, and a guy who really did play with Elvis.

Main Course What was the last excuse you made, and why did you need to make it?
"I'm sorry I don't have the lab report done yet, my computer crashed. Again."

Dessert Complete this sentence: I wonder why _________________.
...so many people who know so little spend so much time talking. Do they not know that they sound like complete idiots, or do they just not care?

--

Part II: Top Five on Friday
Top Five on Friday from The Music Memoirs:

Top 5 "Number" songs.
(Songs with numbers or first, second, third, etc. or any other number related words.)

» "Number" by Cross Canadian Ragweed
» "Flavor Crystal 7" by Joe Satriani
» "18 And Life" by Skid Row
» "When I'm Sixty-Four" by the Beatles

And, of course,
» "Jenny (867-5309)" by Tommy Tutone

Not Again

I was working on my lab write-up this morning, and my computer was running noticeably slowly. So I got to a convenient stopping point, saved the data, and restarted.

The restart failed. When I manually rebooted the system, I was met with this greeting:

There is a problem with your display settings. The adapter type is incorrect, or the current settings do not work with your hardware.

:: bashes head against wall ::

I don't have ruttin' time for this!

Call Me Frank

I was the apparent target of mistaken identity today—not once, but twice. First, I had just left my Thermodynamics class and was walking to the Bookstore. As I passed between the Biology building and Building 44, I heard someone say, "Hey, Frank." Then, a little louder, I heard, "How're you doing, Frank?" I looked over to see a man who had just interrupted his conversation with a young lady to speak to me. He was looking straight at me. So I answered.

"I'm sorry, I'm not Frank."
"You're not Frank? You look just like him."
"Sorry, I'm not him."
"Do you sing opera?"
At this point, I couldn't help but say, "Not even at gunpoint."

That pretty much ended that conversation.

Then, after our lab session today, my partners and I went over to the library to work on calculations for the write-up for last week's lab. We had just finished and e-mailed the spreadsheet to everyone when someone else walked up, looked at me, and asked, "Do I know you?"

Here we go again. "Maybe," I answered noncommittally.
"From Institute?"
"No, probably not. They won't let me in there. I'm too old."

I stood up at this point, mostly because we were getting ready to leave. When he saw how tall I was, his expression changed a little. "No, you're not the guy I was thinking of. But you look just like him."

He went on for another minute or so, and to relieve the awkwardness, I finally just introduced myself. He did likewise, and I promptly forgot his name. I think it was Steve, or maybe David. Or maybe it was Frank. I honestly don't recall.

On the way out, I told my lab partners about the Frank Incident from earlier in the day. They had a good chuckle about the whole thing. I said something like, "I don't even know anyone named Frank." Lab partner Jason replied with, "There's Frank Burns." Gee, thanks.

So there appears to be someone wandering around the University of Utah campus with my face. Poor fellow. I hope he doesn't get me arrested....

Bits and Pieces

Okay, I haven't blogged in earnest for a while. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things that have been going on in my life.

School Daze
I'm two weeks into the very last laboratory class of my undergraduate career. My lab partners and I have spent the last four lab periods making, processing, and analyzing ammonia-ligand compounds of silver, copper, and nickel. We finished up the procedures on Wednesday; all that remains now is the write-up. I'm supposed to take the numbers and observations we gathered and use them to determine how many ammonia ligands wrap around each metal atom and what the resulting geometry is for each complex.

The other classes are going pretty well. We just had the third of four hour exams in Thermodynamics. The fourth is scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving. The syllabus for Quantum Mechanics says we have an exam on the 22nd, which is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The problem is that we don't have classes on Tuesday in QM. So it may be the day before Thanksgiving as well. That would leave me taking that exam at 9:40, followed by the Thermo exam at 10:45. The same thing happened on October 12th, and it was not a lot of fun. As for Inorganic, we have exams in kind of an ad-hoc manner. Once we finish a section, the professor lets up determine, as a class, when we want to have the exam. I don't know when that next exam will be, but it had better not be on the 23rd, or my brain will explode.

I Want to Be Ben
I've had some fun with movies recently. Nancy and I saw Fantastic Four last week at the discount theater. I really enjoyed it. I've never really read the comic book, but I've always liked the characters. The Thing is a real favorite. As it turns out, Michael Chiklis, who played the gruff but lovable Ben Grimm, was the only one of the major cast members who actually read the comic. According to IMDb.com, it was because of Chiklis that the Thing was accomplished by costuming rather than digital effects. He looked great, and even under the makeup he emoted well. Lesson: pay attention to those who know the source material.

We also saw The Work and the Glory: American Zion last weekend. I've never read any of the books by Gerald Lund, so I don't have much of a basis for comparison. Maybe that's a good thing. But I enjoyed this movie as well. It was hard to watch sometimes; there are scenes of violence and even torture, and it's not pleasant knowing that these sorts of things happened to real people and not just movie characters. The character development was good, though, even if the ending was a little abrupt. Apparently that's the way the book is, too.

We watched What's Up, Doc? on video a while back. Funny, funny movie. I'm not normally a big fan of Streisand's music, acting, or politics, but this was a really, really funny movie.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, I finally saw Napoleon Dynamite. It was painful to watch. I was almost that awkward and clueless in high school. Maybe more than 'almost'. The difference is that I've never been able to draw.

Open Mouth, Insert Athlete's Foot
I just read that Terrell Owens has been suspended indefinitely by the Philadelphia Eagles. What an idiot. What was he thinking? He spent most of the preseason whining about how underpaid and unappreciated he was. He was suspended for a week back then. Now he does the same thing while his team is in the middle of a potential playoff run, and he expects a different outcome? Whatever. Just shut up and cash your six-figure paychecks already. Heaven forbid you should ever have to get a real job.

The Joy of Payday
I found regular unleaded gasoline last night for $2.27 per gallon (that's 70 cents per liter, Canadian). The last time I filled my tank, I paid over $2.75 per gallon. All told, I paid about $15 less to fill the Dreadnought this time. That was a nice change.

I also bought some new sheets, pillows, and pillowcases last night. For the curious, they're striped in dark blue, less-dark blue, maroon, and white. I've had the plain blue sheets I've been using for more than a year now, and I felt it was time for a change. Even after an initial washing, the new linens are still a little stiff, but that'll get better. The new pillows are wonderful - oversized and overstuffed. Very cozy.

I also had to buy a new white dress shirt. I had only three: one reserved for very special occasions (i.e., where I'm not likely to get food stains all over it), an old one with short sleeves and a now-too-tight neck, and one that needs to be ironed every time I wear it. This new one will be good for general winter use. Hey, if you're a Mormon man, you can never have too many white dress shirts!

Music for Nothin' and your Tunes for Free
As mentioned in the last post, I've had to reconstruct my computer over the past week. In the process of doing so, I had to download a lot of drivers and programs. One of these was WinAmp. When I downloaded the newest free version, I got an offer for 100 free downloads from eMusic.com. I've never downloaded music before, mostly due to the fact that I've always had dial-up. But with my sweet new broadband connection, I decided to give it a try.

All I will say is this: you can use up a hundred free downloads in a hurry when you download an album at a time. In the end, I decided not to extend my membership beyond the free trial. Their selection of 'mainstream' music seemed pretty weak. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, as I consider the majority of mainstream music today to be carp. But I was unable to find several pretty common songs that I was looking for. They probably couldn't get agreements with those record labels. Stupid RIAA.

On the positive side, they did have quite a bit of alternative country and classical that I liked. In the end, this is what I used my downloads on:

Various composers: Glass Harmonica
Alan Hovhanness: Symphony No. 22 ("City of Light"); Cello Concerto
Ferde Grofe: Grand Canyon Suite
Ottorino Respighi: Symphonic Poems
Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash: Distance Between and Walk Alone
Lorna Bracewell: Little Miss Obvious and God Forbid
Jason Boland & the Stragglers: Somewhere in the Middle
I also got a live version of John Hiatt's "Perfectly Good Guitar".

It's Alive!
Yes, my computer is back up and running. I managed to save everything that I felt was worth saving - love that CD burner! - and cleaned up the hard drive as much as possible. Then it was time to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.

I weighed some of the pros and cons, and tentatively decided to go with Ubuntu Linux. Yes, there were going to be some issues, mostly with software and compatibility. I have a lot of software, mostly games and the like, that are Windows specific. And Iomega doesn't have Linux drivers for its Zip 100 PPT drives, one of which I still have, and is still working just fine after a decade. But the Linux install disk came with Open Office, Thunderbird, and Firefox - all of which I use anyway. So I decided to take the plunge.

Alas, there were difficulties. I put in the Ubuntu CD and ran the installation. It copied the files over and detected hardware just fine. After about fifteen minutes, I was instructed to restart the system to complete the installation. That's where it all fell apart. The computer was unable to find the hard drive.

I took my machine in to work on Tuesday in the hopes that Allen, the closest thing I have to a tech wizard, would be able to help me fix it. Alas, he wasn't there. So I muddled about with it fruitlessly for a couple of hours. At last, I figured out how to get into the BIOS and make the computer boot from the install CD that came with the hard drive. I managed to get it to work, after which I tried to install the Linux again, with the same results. Conclusion: Ubuntu doesn't like my hard drive when it comes to partitions. So now I’m back to Windows 98. Lucky me.

Okay, I suppose that's enough for now. Good day, everyone.

Double Back

Part I: Friday's Feast
Friday's Feast, 4 November 2005.

Appetizer What was the last game you purchased?
A cribbage set, which I bought as a gift. I can't say for whom, of course, since Christmas is still a month and a half away.

Soup Name something in which you don't believe.
I don't believe that either the political Right or the political Left has all the answers.

Salad If you could choose a television personality to be your boss, who would you pick?
Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Either that or Principal George Feeny from "Boy Meets World".

Main Course What was a lesson you had to learn the hard way?
Assume nothing. Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.

Dessert Describe your idea of the perfect relaxation room.
I picture a library with large windows and comfortable, overstuffed chairs. The walls would be filled with ceiling-high shelves of books about anything and everything imaginable. Soft music, maybe Vaughan Williams, plays just at the edge of perception. No telephones, no computers, no communication devices of any kind are to be seen.

--

Part II: Top Five on Friday
Top Five on Friday from The Music Memoirs:

Top 5 songs that best describe your life "right now".
I was just thinking about this the other day. Strange....

1. "Place in this World" by Michael W. Smith
The wind is moving
But I am standing still
A life of pages
Waiting to be filled
A heart that’s hopeful
A head that’s full of dreams
But this becoming
Is harder than it seems

2. "Who Will Stop the Rain?" by Asia
This problem is insoluble
The answers seem impossible
The logic ceases to exist
Yes, I'm talking about Quantum Mechanics.

Choices 3 and 4 make up the great dichotomy of my life:
3. "Impulsive" by Wilson Phillips
I don't wanna think about it
Don't wanna think clear
Don't analyze
What I'm doing here
Wanna be impulsive
Reckless

4. "Be Still My Beating Heart" by Sting
Be still my beating heart
It would be better to be cool
It's not time to be open just yet
A lesson once learned is so hard to forget

5. "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas
Carry on
You will always remember
Carry on
Nothing equals the splendor
Now your life's no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you

And for the curious, I did get my computer fixed, at last. I'll write a real post later.

Midweek Music Thing

This week's Take Me Back Tuesday from The Music Memoirs:

Name three songs that begin with the first letter of your middle name.
1. "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford
2. "Stray Cat Strut" by The Stray Cats
3. "Sad Man's Song" by Mark McCrite

Name three artists that begin with the second letter of your middle name.
1. Johnny Cash
2. Cutting Crew
3. Chumbawumba

Name three albums that begin with the fifth letter of your middle name.
1.
"Tambu" by Toto

2.
"Talk" by Yes

3.
"Too Low for Zero" by Elton John
(Good thing I've got five letters in my middle name, isn't it?)