Wednesday, January 18, 2006

RAD VAN

So it is the running joke here that “I live in a RAD VAN down by the Ocean”.  For those who don’t know why this is funny it is from a line in Chris Farley’s sketch about the “Inspirational Speaker”.  He tells kids how it is so important to be good and finish school or “You Will Be LIVING In a Van DOWN BY THE RIVER”. This is applied to me because I am always down in my radioisotope lab that is a cargo van converted into mobile lab space usually found on a Research Vessel but used here due to the lack of space available in the lab.  My Van is located at the end of the pier away from all personal interaction, and a place that is viewed as the place no one wants to be.  I have to tell you that I am so happy to finally have the chance to run some real experiments here, but I will be totally burned out soon.  

Today was extra boring, no sampling and no boating due to strong winds.  Boating is prohibited when winds reach above 25 knots and a good portion of today we had a steady 30 knots with gusts into the 40’s.  That is ok I had plenty of other tasks to tend to.  We are investigating a possible contaminant in our samples here.  In analyzing samples for DMS we are seeing production in the vials while they wait to be analyzed.  We still have yet to discover what is going on in these waters, and this is much more complicated now that we are having a heavy bloom period of phytoplankton.  

We have visitors staying here in Arthur Harbor for the next week or so.  They are a Canadian film crew here to film the daily happenings around the station and they will be trailing some of the science crews around here that are involved in animals and plant research.  No love for the chemists.  I can understand that it can be difficult but chemistry has the ability to define many things in great detail.  I will write more about this later.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The RAD VAN huh? You're never going to live this down george.

-Bill