science « Suburban Adventure

Returning to Internship

With so many people having been removed from my previous work place there was a strange freedom to everything I did. If I needed a stapler I could just grab it from the cube of someone who had been dismissed. If I had a question or a concern, most of the people I could ask [...]

Going Through Lube

One of our products at work is designed to be taken rectally but only after a healthy slathering of lubricant has been applied. The videos of that product in action in a faux-butt required several takes and I went through almost a pound of lube. By my calculations, that’d be enough to get a 200 [...]

Using a Prism

Guessing at Christmas presents is somewhat alien to the Robinson’s. We provide lists from which one chooses an item for another party. Just guessing seems odd and barbaric akin to going to a restaurant and just guessing what the chef could prepare based on knowing it was a Greek restaurant. I have found this is [...]

Vacuum Sealer Dos and Don’ts

Shipping out cookies in weights of greater than 13 oz is a bit more expensive than one would wish. Priority mail becomes the best shipping option and generally this will cost between $7.00 and $10.00 for any sort of goodly sized box. But if one can successfully pack cookies in an envelope which are shipped [...]

Max Scratch Test

My father and I were sitting at our kitchen table, Max was laying on the floor. Me: Have you noticed that Max doesn’t seem to do that thing where if you rub a dog’s belly, one of the legs starts going? Dad: Of course he does. *rubs standard dog-leg-whirl spot Me: Don’t think he does. [...]

Lab Science

Chris: What’s that on the ceiling? Me: A brown marmorated stinkbug. Chris: We should deal with it *goes to cabinet, grabs hand full of rubber bands*

In short succession, six people with baccalaureate degrees in some sort of science were shooting rubber bands at the ceiling. After about 5 minutes of firing, I cheated and [...]

St. Patty's Day Attire

I made the error of saying I’d have an experiment done before the next day, forgetting that the process took six hours… and I’d have to run it twice, so I didn’t go home Tuesday night. The experiment involves testing materials against a battery of dyed mock digestive fluids. At about 2 AM I finished [...]

Sources of Variance

The results of the first test under the fake colon waste method didn’t come out as expected so I met with the requester to figure out what the cause was.

Him: There were two sources of error, first, I think you applied the product incorrectly. Me: Really? I’ve done it this way for every previous [...]

Back to the Colon

Only one test method I’ve learned required signing legal documentation. The mixture for this particular method is the colonic equivalent of the recipe for Coke syrup and the entire time I’ve done this mixture I’ve treated it with a deference bordering on the sacred. Today I was running through the blending process when I found [...]

Body Worlds

Pat Toye, Clara Rimmer, Joe Naylor and I took a spur-of-the-moment trip to the Body Worlds exhibit at the Franklin Institute and after talking about whether rain would increase or decrease visitor count with the line attendant we went in. Notes:

The theme was “Body Worlds 2 & the Brain”. I went into the exhibit [...]

Suburban Adventure