So, what good deed or deeds have you done for the day?
I'll start: wishing well the lovely young receptionist, who it seems, we've both missed each other and wondered where each other had been, who works at my local dr's surgery. Haven't seen each other in a while, so we both caught up, and had a good long talk whilst waiting for my appt.
She's not been well, blood clot on the lung. Gave her some warnings about a few foods and aspirin, because she's on blood thinners currently.
And just a moment ago, removed a slug climbing up a large plastic drum with a tap dispenser mounted on the top whilst it was still near the bottom. It didn't know of course, but it REALLY wouldn't have had a happy time of things had it managed to climb to the very top or near that tap, because thats a couple of gallons of fuming concentrated hydrochloric acid, that has to be stored outside because even through the closed valve of the tap, it can't be stored anywhere near any sensitive or metal equipment. Keeping it in the same ROOM as my lab stands where I fix my boss-head clamp grips and subsequently, clamps to (the kind of clamps that you turn a screw to tighten or loosen a pair of slightly curved wide prongs coated in a layer of a softer, chemically resistant plastic with a little give so as not to break them) that are used for securely gripping hold of the necks of lab flasks, separatory funnels, condensers, distillation heads, vac takeoff adapters and what have you. Just keeping that weighted stand (its cast iron or steel) in the same room as the tank of acid rusted it so badly now I'll have to give it a more controlled bath in something like dilute sulfuric or phosphoric acid to strip away the thick layer of rust that it ended up covered in within days.
Something tells me that slug wouldn't have enjoyed getting to the top of the tank, which now I have to store in the garden, to avoid corrosion of the internals of things such as my autoclave, lab vacuum pump, any steel wool (which is useful for ghettoing up fine iron powder by cutting it up with scissors into as little bits of fine fluff as possible then putting it in the kitchen spice grinder. Although I doubt its particularly good for the spice grinder either) and I am sure as shit letting that thing enter the same room as my sensitive digital scale (accurate to 0.001g at least, can't remember whether its 1mg or 10ug, the former I think, CBF checking, I've got fallout II to play
, but certainly accurate down to single digit miligram resolution in 1mg increments. The last general purpose one I had was accurate only down to 10mg, so pretty crappy really but served for weighing out reagents and that ended up getting brutalized by acid vapors of sulfur dioxide and HCl gas, after a SOCl2 spill which welded the thing into a blob of plastic and rust, which needless to say never turned on again. I'm not having my sensitive lab balance, or for that matter my microscope (got that for a steal at about 200-300 quid second hand from a pathology lab, and second hand or not there isn't a thing wrong with it, although a trinocular head rather than binocular one would have been a nice extra if it could have been had at that price range, for mounting a computer-controlled USB camera on top for taking digital photomicrographs, but as it is, the best I can do for photography of slides is to use my digital camera on the maximum magnification and macro closeup set), came from india, but again, nothing wrong with it, and coming secondhand from a pathology lab, for that kind of original use it needs o be able to view microorganisms clearly. And its certainly good enough for viewing single cells clearly, especially with stains and stain-counterstain combinations as well as for when I want to take a look at the spores of fungi under the microscope to aid in identifying the species before I decide whether its destined for the cook-pot or if its a poisonous look-alike for something I would otherwise want to eat. Shows up the likes of red and white blood cells, platelets etc. clear as day, without even needing to go highest magnification with my best eyepieces and objectives mounted, of the conventional type. The oil-immersion lens is even better for higher magnification still. Whilst I've never found any to look at, there are certain kinds of giant viruses even, such as mimivirus, mamavirus etc, that this could show up under the highest magnification its capable of. So blowed if I'm letting that anywhere near acid fumes, since its unlikely I'd find another of that quality at such a bargain price.
(these giant viruses are unusual in size, afflict amoebae, and don't pose any threat to humans, but they are unusually complex, for a virus, and of such size as to be visible under a top-end light microscope, which for a virus is absolutely massive at a thousandth of a millimeter or two across compared to far smaller than the physical limits of optical microscopes altogether for most virus types due to the wavelengths of light in the visible spectrrrrrr)
