Scott from Oregon said he liked science, so here is a bit of practical chemistry you can use. As I’m sure everyone knows, silver tarnishes. It drives me nuts because it’s so hard to remove by typical means: pastes and scrubbing. However, with a some items readily available in your kitchen, you can remove tarnish without scrubbing.

You will need:

• a retangular or square glass dish
• aluminum foil
• baking soda
• water

Boil enough water to cover whatever silver items you have. You can turn them as the tarnish is removed if they are rather large. You may want to consider lining a rather large dish (must be ceramic or glass) or sink for large items like teapots. Add baking soda. You should use a cup of baking soda for each gallon of water. (4 cups water, 1/4 cup baking soda)

Line the dish with aluminum foil. Make sure it goes up the sides. You can use more than one sheet.

Pour boiling water into the dish. Place tarnished silver items in the pan. They must touch the aluminum foil. Wherever they don’t touch aluminum foil, the tarnish will stay.

This is a simple oxidation-reduction reaction. It is also an electrochemical reaction.

3 Ag2S	+	2 Al		6 Ag	+	Al2S3
silver sulfide		aluminum		silver		aluminum sulfide

The tarnish is the silver sulfide. As the reaction progresses, you will see the aluminum darken (aluminum sulfide is being formed). This method converts the tarnish to silver and does not remove any silver, unlike abrasive cleaners. This method works very well for intricate designs.

See, chemistry can be fun!

I liked this particular cartoon from phdcomics. It reminds me of our lab, and it works for other workplaces as well. Click the comic to see it larger.

Beginning with the red square, my grad school lab could be freezing cold, so I’d put a zero there. Since I worked with lasers, I worked in the dark as well. It could be rather difficult to stay awake if you didn’t get enough sleep the night before. “Not enough sleep” is a permanent condition in grad school. My advisor (for workplace, insert manager here) was probably a “1″. He was quite calm most of the time. Although he had this really annoying habit of not answering your question if he didn’t think you did enough thinking and research on your own. You had to ask the question in the manner that told him you had thought things out a bit first and done quite a bit of journal searching and reading.

As for the white square, for years I’d say it was more “VOR,” but the past couple of years before I left it changed to “BIO”. We had one particularly grad student who smelled. He didn’t just bother those of us int he group. We shared offices with other graduate students from other groups. The stink bothered them too. They wanted me to acquaint the guy with soap before I left. None of them wanted to be the one to tell him that he stunk. It was gross. If you were lucky, keeping about four feet away meant your nose wasn’t stinging. I never got around to the anonymous letter, soap and deodorant instruction before I left. I had better things to do, and I thought they should handle it themselves.

I’d say that the blue square should have a “3″. Productivity could be sucked out of you almost as soon as you walked in the door. It shouldn’t have been that way, but it was. When I taaobutbut productivity, I’m talking about getting the stuff done necessary for the thesis. I spent a year working on hardware and software just to obtain data. That year was useless when it came to advancing my thesis. Only the data mattered. We also moved the lab at one point. Moving a laser lab means six months of downtime. More time lost.

Now my last job, I’d put a “4″ in the red square because pump alleys are notoriously loud, but climate is completely erratic (unbearably hot to unbearable cold). I’d put a “3″ in the yellow square. For the white box: “COR”. I’d give the blue box a “4″. I think several of my coworkers would agree since when I left someone suggested not returning because there was no advancement.

I would like to hear about others’ hazard rating of their workplaces. Hopefully, yours is better than mine was.

I spent several hours hunting down a photo of an event I wanted to talk about. It happened in graduate school. I have a picture of it somewhere that someone gave me, but after several moves, I can’t find it anywhere. I went through a box that I keep on my dresser because the last time I saw the photo, it was on my dresser. Seemed logical. It wasn’t there. Instead I found a stack of wallet-sized photos of me, my son and my sister. The box has old coins in it, but those didn’t interest me too much. I did find old jewelry from grade school though–a bracelet and two necklaces that I think were from Avon.

My next idea was to find the box where I keep the stuff from graduate school. Again, it seemed like a logical choice. I found all of my diplomas from college. Funny how I’ve never framed a single one. Yet, I’ve seen many people who do frame them and hang them. I never bothered to get the special MU frame that they sell that would be appropriate for displaying my doctorate. I never made a big deal out of it. While it may be considered quite an accomplishment, I never liked how it separated me from everyone else. Somehow in social situations when someone finds out you have a doctorate in chemistry they suddenly don’t know what to say to you. They feel inadequate–you can see it on their faces. Other things in the box were envelopes of stuff from places I’ve been in California when I first moved here and stuff saved from the time with an ex. The box also has my cap, invitations and program from graduation. My hood is there also, nicely wrapped in vacuum-sealed plastic. Now that I paid for. One never uses their hood unless you’re attending graduation say as a professor or honoree. But since I didn’t know what I might be doing later, I bought it. You can only get your hood at the time of graduation, and they tend to change over the years.

So after about an hour of hunting, I never did find the photo. When I was president of the graduate student chemistry association, we held a fundraiser to put a pie in the face of your professor. The money was to be used for scholarships to meetings. We recruited volunteers from undergraduate chemistry and one from the graduate school. I was there in the auditorium when the undergrad professor who taught freshman got his pie. Several of us were TA’s for his class. He wasn’t very popular with the undergrads, so it was no surprise that he earned the most votes in money. There was a drawing among the current students to decide who would get to put the pie in his face. The class had quite the attendance that day!

The grad school professor who “won” was the chair. We gathered around in the foyer one day to do his honors. Professors and grad students were there. Even some of his friends from other departments were there. Again, everyone got to draw to see who got to give him the pie. I opened up my little white paper to find the mark. Many professors told me I could make some good money by selling my paper. In the end, I did the honors to the graduate chair. Something he never forgot. There was even a bit of teasing of revenge on my defense day about giving me a pie. No pie for me that day, but I was a bit concerned. Oh, the dry cleaning!

The time has come to increase the IQ of this blog. Perhaps then I will get more reasonable searches. I’d love to know how these keywords arrive at my blog: amateur porn festival, silicon doll, groped gal vids, girls getting muddy and hot girls playroom. I’m actually a bit concerned about the people doing these searches. First, I’ve never written about any of these things. I think one word in each actually is part of a post somewhere. I also hope that I don’t know any of these people. I know some oddities and searches like this wouldn’t be unusual.

Someone also arrived here by searching for the “french equivalent of silicon valley.” Now, if anyone in France reads this, please correct me if I’m wrong. I think that Grenoble is called the silicon valley of France. The whole area is dominated by high tech industries and is a huge draw for geeky engineers and skiers. Hmm. Imagine a geeky French engineer. That French accent.

I also can’t tell you the best gyne doctor in silicon valley. Although I’d recommend that you check San Jose magazine’s doctor rankings that they do every year.

Another search was “hate living in Silicon Valley.” I’m sorry to hear that. I love it here. If you just moved here, give it six months. It took me quite some time to adjust, but going back to where I came from made me realize how great it is here. I had moved on. The city I loved as a grad student just didn’t have the appeal it once had.

So now, how do I increase the blog’s IQ? I’d like to get readers who are less interested in porn (you won’t find it here) and more interested in life. I could talk about chemistry. I have thought about it some. In fact, this week’s ACS magazine has an article on chemistry bloggers. There are only 100 blogs dedicated to chemistry. I doubt that I could cover chemistry all the time. Besides, I hardly got comments about my grad school years, so it must not be terribly interesting. Yes, porn and sex will bring more readers, but I’d like readers who don’t have sticky keyboards and mice. Sticky keyboards make it difficult to write comments.

Apparently my normal posts bring out the kinks, perverts, crass and horny. Obviously, that won’t help. Now for some smart words: chemistry (ah, but it has a double meaning), physics, calculus, fluorescence (no one comes here from that and I’ve used that one before), lasers, and nuclear magnetic resonance. There!

While a friend thinks I’m nuts, this quiz suggests otherwise. True, I don’t have the tendencies they are looking for. I have my own particular brand of nuttiness. But don’t we all?

You Are 20% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at low risk for having a social phobia. It is unlikely that you feel most comfortable in your mom’s basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

So what’s with the SciFi channel shows? Are they completely stupid only to me? A friend of mine finds watching the shows relaxing. I don’t. Why? Because the science is wrong. The statements they make are often silly. No scientist would say that. I know more science than the writers, which is probably expected with a Ph.D. in chemistry, but sad if they are trying to be believable. Typically only other geeks watch and enjoy science fiction, so the least they could do is get it right for the audience.

If the shows aren’t about the science (I think the channel should be called the Psychic Fiction channel), then the shows are so new-agey that it’s ridiculous. Frankly, I know more about the stuff than the writers on the show. Most of the psychic stuff is pretty trite. Some of it is recycled Catholic learning–the stuff on demons and possession. Boring and silly.

Also what is with the magical animals on SciFi? I think they’ve covered every animal I have ever read about either in the King Arthur stories or Harry Potter. What do these animals and the magic have to do with science fiction? Where’s the science?

The shows are incredibly predictable. Somewhat predictable is okay, but predictable and ridiculous is not. I can’t watch the shows without criticizing or laughing about how wrong they have it. Now, I often enjoy science fiction movies. They at least have scientists as consultants to get it mostly right. Star Trek tried to get it right. Even if you had to suspend belief or adjust to new laws of physics, the stuff made sense, but then they had scientists on board to help the writers. I think I could write better than the writers for SciFi. Now, I know getting into screenwriting is difficult and while they have the connections or they wouldn’t be selling their screenplays, their writing sucks.

Thanks to 2000 Bloggers, I finally cracked the 100,000 ranking on Techorati. Most likely this happened on the six month anniversary of this blog. Actually, I’m at 79,896 as of today.  While I don’t think that Technorati is the end-all be-all of blog ranking, it can’t hurt to have lots of links and hopefully lots of traffic. It has brought me more readers stopping by. I hope a few like what they read and keep coming back.

Oh…thanks K over at Yoga Coffee Outlook for the tag. Now where to start? Do I tell you things I don’t think other bloggers know about me? Or do I tell you things I think no one knows?

1) I’m allergic to mushrooms. Actually I’m allergic to many foods including peanuts, soy and bananas. Mushrooms give me a rash tough, which the others don’t.

2) I have been single for nearly 14 years. I was married for less than a year.

3) I have wanted to meet the right guy all that time and have more children.

4) On my right foot, I can move my big toe independently of the others. I can rub the big toe and the one next to it back and forth. I used to be able to do it with the left foot.

5) I hate being ignored. I drives me crazy. I will do anything to get someone’s attention who is willfully (or if I think they are) ignoring me to the point of doing some pretty crazy things.  Typically this includes calling a lot and/or poking. Maybe someday I will quit.

Time for a view on Silicon Valley…Well, more like San Francisco. The news here is abuzz with the SF mayor’s affair and admission of the affair. Who really cares? While it’s a pretty crappy thing to do to someone, the whole thing is just boring. Newsom is kind of hot. I don’t know him, nor do I know anyone who knows him, so I can’t say anything about his personality. I’m not sure anyone else out here really cares about his life either. It’s splashed all over the news media though. Ooh! Another scandal! Not. Any others out here sighing a collective “who cares”?

The vultures are circling, whether they be the media, Republican opponents or pundits. I seriously doubt that this story has any legs after a year or so. And what’s with the hand wringing over what this does to San Francisco’s reputation? As if politicians elsewhere don’t have affairs.

I have reached six months of blogging. During that time, I have changed my template, moved to WordPress and changed the template again. I have had times when I had nothing to write and days when I had several posts. I have written 196 posts in that time. I have had some great comments, although I always wish there were more. I have read some great blogs and made some friends in the process. I struggled for awhile with the writing, but now I’m enjoying it more and more. I have moved up on Technorati and soon will break the top 100,000. It’s just nice to see more readers and more people who like my blog. Thanks to everyone who has linked to me or otherwise stopped by for awhile.