Today in chem lab we did an experiment that involved the precipitation of crystals from solution. We took a reaction, cooled it and waited for crystals to grow in a flask. At one point I was just staring at the crystals, watching them slowly grow.
It reminded me of a particular ski trip I went on with my mom when I was in middle school or something. On the ride up, we noticed that if we did not turn the heat on in the car, ice crystals would grow on the windshield. They were pretty sweet, they would generally grow in straight lines, but every once in a while they would branch out at different angles. After a while my mom and I got really cold and could barely see out the windshield, so we turned the heat on and destroyed the crystals.
I don’t remember anything about the actual skiing that day.
I don’t usually write about music, but this is just so ridiculous that I can’t help it. It’s an album entirely comprised of Mobb Deep vocals over Bob Marley beats. True genius.
I just boiled some eggs that are just about a month past good. Partly because I’ve run out of bread for sandwiches and partly because I’ve never truly felt (smelt!) the wrath of a rotten egg.
Actually sort of a let down. The eggs didn’t smell when I boiled them nor when I peeled them, yet they were clearly unfit for eating. I was able to press my thumb into the soft white part of the egg, and it would depress easily. However, instead of splitting open like a normal egg, it slowly returned to it’s normal shape. It was sort of like rubber or one of those Tempur-pedic mattresses.
I eventually split one open to see if the yolk smelled foul, but it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t eat any of these eggs though, it seemed unhealthy.
I just spent over 5 minutes trying to find the result of France’s friendly match against Paraguay today. I found this amount of searching unacceptable. Maybe it was partially my fault for trying to navigate through ESPN, the “worldwide leader in sports” assuming that they would carry soccer results.
Then it dawned on me that I’ve been totally spoiled by the internet. I expect and demand that all the information in the world be at my fingertips, a concept which has only been realized in the past ten or fifteen years. It got me thinking, 15 years ago this information would be impossible to find. It wouldn’t just take five minutes of searching, I’d probaby have to wait for tomorrow’s newspaper to (ha!) publish the result. Then I realized that American newspapers would not publish this either so I’d either have to call someone in France or I’d just be out of luck.
My iPod just died, and almost exactly on time. When I bought it, I had heard that the battery dies after 3 years. Mine died after 3 years and 1 month, right on schedule.
All in all, it was definitely a worthwhile investment.
As part of my knee rehab, I go to the gym almost every day after work. This gym is unique however, because only MGH employees can work out there. In fact, it’s not only unique, but sort of ridiculous. First, I noticed that people regularly read the New England Journal of Medicine while on the treadmill or stationary bike. Ok, this isn’t that absurd, of course you’d expect people’s interests to be reflected in their reading. But in other corners of the gym, people are lifting weights in hospital scrubs. This definitely looks a bit strange, but some of these people have the additional distinction of being ridiculously jacked. I’m not talking just jacked in the context of being healthy and working out a lot, some people there are body builder/questionable steroid usage jacked. Imagine walking into a hospital and the Rock is diagnosing you. It’s kinda like that.
You also hear some fun comments. My favorite? A guy was talking to his personal trainer and said this about an exercise:
“I had some trouble with that one. I had to retract my anterior tibia really hard.”
