That was sudden, unexpected and annoying....
Just had a brief power cut. Don't know why. But RIGHT as I was preparing a microcapillary sample tube to take a melting point assay of a starting precursor material to a little something I've been working on; just as I'd begun to heat the tip of one end of it in the flame of one of my blowtorches, the lights went out, the timer on everything from cooker to microwave oven cut out, everything not battery powered, the router went down, no internet connection, although the laptop of course remained on on battery power.
Didn't last long, seems like something tripped the breakers, or might have, as resetting the fuses sorted the problem out. But was thinking 'fucking hell...ain't that just TYPICAL! right when one is in the middle of something, the faecal matter has to hit the air-recirculation apparatus. Thought it was going to stay down, right when i needed to be sat in front of a small flame on the stove top, slowly warming the oil bath in my Thiele tube, which means being sat there for a fair while watching the heat on a thermometer slowly, slowly climb, watching a mere few milligrams of material in a tiny thin glass tube's internal bore, no more than 1, maybe just about 1 1/2mm wide inside under a magnifying glass until the sample begins to melt.
Would have been sod's bloody law that would, the moment you need something to go right, and do so consistently, the fucking power went out and took the lights with it. Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes. Still, annoying time to start, whilst I'm wielding a bloody blowtorch, trying to make a seal at just the very tip of the microcapillary sample tube without damaging the rest of the delicate, thin glass tube. Not that it'd be a major problem, they come in packs of 100, and I only need a few flakes of material for testing a sample, out of what's probably a couple of ounces at least, of material, but still...in the dark, with a blowtorch near my face, trying to carefully watch the end of a little tiny bead of molten glass...great.