End of Summer Research 2025

This week, I concentrated on school because this was the last week of summer research for my student and I. We tried to purify product #3 by running a column, but we couldn't find anything in the fractions by TLC. David thinks the concentration might be too low, and we might have allowed some of the solvent from the fractions to evaporate in order to increase the concentration, but we did not have time. In the end, we just poured all the fractions back together and rotovapped them so we could store the small amount of solid for later. The student is planning to continue the project as an independent study this fall, but we just needed everything to be cleaned up by the end of this week.

Our last column of the summer.

Although I still feel like a noob, I can say that both of us learned a lot about conducting organic synthesis this summer. I'm proud of the reactions we ran and how much we were able to do. The instruments (NMR and FTIR) behaved well, for the most part; anytime I felt out of my depth with the synthesis, I could go run spectra to cheer myself up.

I had a good but not great night at cribbage club, improved by the people who competed in last weekend's tournament bringing back stories and also well-wishes from Beer City Peggers Dave and Eric.

My sci-fi book club read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Thursday's meeting and I didn't finish. Between the pages of my copy falling out which annoyed me, the stiff 19-th century prose style, and whatever else, I was less than halfway before the meeting. I still haven't finished. But we had a good discussion which veered into music culture and our favorite albums. I was able to out myself as a nerdy Rush fan.

Saturday night I went to Freedom Brew & Shine in Cummings with my colleague Carley. It's a big place and they were having country dancing night in a side room. It was too hot to sit outside, unfortunately. Although they seem to be a MAGA business (one of their beers is called Let's Go Brandon, for example), the staff were friendly enough and the other customers ignored us. I had the most delicious chocolate stout there (two pints, actually) as well as a really good margherita pizza from the food truck.

Flag made from shells near the restrooms.

Yesterday morning I had an unfortunate encounter with a serrated bread knife while slicing a bagel for breakfast. I sliced right into the pad of my left index finger. It didn't hurt much, but there was a lot of blood. I dripped into the kitchen sink, then wrapped my finger in the kitchen towel and made it upstairs to the bathroom (where I keep the bandages and other first aid) before I started feeling faint. I guess it's good that I've fainted enough times to recognize the warnings? I was quite worried for awhile, but I sat on the cool floor with my finger elevated and wrapped in gauze for about 20 minutes, practicing box breathing, and the bleeding thankfully stopped. The nearest urgent care is 12 minutes drive from my house and I was mentally weighing the options: drive myself, ask Samson to take me, call an Uber... while I tried not to pass out. The cut seems to be healing all right without infection, I've kept it bandaged and dry for two days. I feel like a big doofus for not knowing how to safely cut a bagel!

This weekend's big project was to organize the pantry, which has not been done since I moved in. I know we just pushed everything into the pantry as we unpacked, with no consideration for organization. It was one of the tasks on my summer to-do list, and today it happened.

Much cleaner, better organized food.

Even without a before photo, this is much nicer, and I put all my "chips and snack food" together and all my "sweets and candy" together so maybe I will be less tempted to buy more - at least until I've eaten what I have. I also labeled all the storage boxes and that makes them look more intentional. I put all the nuts in a box in the freezer, to try to keep them from going rancid. I still don't have a good solution for the many jars of spices (they remain in two large shoeboxes for now). The teas had to move into the cabinet over the microwave, and that required some rearranging.

Lastly, I worked on some little decorative pumpkins. I started these to use up the random balls of bulky yarn I had (I made placemats also to use up bulky yarn earlier this summer). I think they turned out nice and maybe they'll be gifts.

Third Week of July

Monday there was no electricity on campus, so I was only there for a couple of hours and did not get anything accomplished. I took my computer home to try to work on my portfolio, but really all I did was read a non-work-related book. In the evening I played board games with the Dunwoody group.

Tuesday I had the best night of cribbage so far and I earned second place, only 5 spread points behind the week's winner.

Wednesday I played pinball with the Belles & Chimes. I had a couple of great games, but finished sixth out of ten.

I won my match on Avengers.

Thursday and Friday evenings I just went home and relaxed after school. I wrote some letters and read books.

After losing Monday to the power outage, my student and I were back in the lab Tuesday. We did some characterization of the new batch of product #2, and there was evidence of mysterious hydroxide in the NMR and the FTIR spectra. However, we decided to try reaction #3 anyway since we're running out of time.

Reaction #3 started on Wednesday afternoon.

That reaction ran for 48 hours, and on Friday we filtered off the product. I was honestly surprised that it worked, but Yay!

It's shiny and white and there's more than I expected.

Next week we'll do some TLC and try to run a purification column. If we can get that done, it'll be a good place to stop until fall semester.

Saturday I had lunch with my neighbor who continues to try to convert me to his flavor of Christianity. This time he was adamant that I needed to go to church with him. I declined as politely and firmly as possible. He asked me questions about my beliefs but didn't really listen to my answers. His arguments all revolve around his (or his pastor's) interpretation of the Bible, and it doesn't seem to occur to him that if I don't believe the Bible is a reliable source, those arguments are unlikely to work with me. His church sounds like one of those literal ones and several things my neighbor said lead me to think it is also quite intolerant of LBGTQ, immigrants, and Muslims, not to mention women. I wouldn't go to that church for any money.

The community pool opened Saturday! At 9:45 pm on Friday night, someone shoved a notice in my mailbox about the opening celebration scheduled for Saturday 4-6 pm. Maybe I'll get to swim sometime this summer?

In the evening I went to Suwanee for The Spirit of Rush concert at Stillfire Brewing. It was great! The music was good, the setting was good, I checked off another brewery on the Gwinnett County list (no sticker though because they were sold out), and I shared a table with an interesting couple who were fun to talk to.

Enjoying a drink in the beer garden before the music.

The band!

Today I was motivated to do some things around the house. I finally installed my quilt hanger after nearly a year. Finally gave up on finding the original bolts and just bought new ones at Handy Ace yesterday. I made a paper template to mark the hole positions and make sure things were level before drilling the holes. Then I hung the three cross stitch horses while I had the tools out.

The upstairs hall is narrow and not well lit.

That was sweaty work so I had to rest awhile afterwards. After lunch I started cooking because I had decided to make Walking Taco Casserole for the potluck. It was finished just in time (I basically pulled the pan out of the oven wrapped it in a bath towel and loaded it into the car) and everyone said it was good, so I'll call that a win.

Here's a (double) rainbow that appeared over my neighborhood on my way home from school Friday.

My usual Friday evening stop at Kroger.

Second Week of July

This week was more restful than exciting. I decided against some activities I was considering for Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening to instead enjoy time at home. I fed Cody, read some books, and worked on my shawl-in-progress.

On the Spice Road progress. Section 3 stripes are complete.

There is a runoff election for utilities commissioner tomorrow, but early voting was this week at a limited number of polling places. I went over to the Dunwoody Library on Thursday evening to vote. There was a choice of three stickers: the usual one and two designed by local high school students. I got one of the students', of course.

With my sticker after voting.

Otherwise the week was full of meetings at school and working with my summer research student. We did not end up with enough product from the reaction we ran last week, even though it looks like the correct stuff, so we repeated it and hope to have enough next week to move on to the third of four steps in the synthesis.

Product #2 is a nice white crystalline solid.

Repeating reaction #2.

On Saturday, my cousin James, his wife Kate, and their two children came to Atlanta to do some things and they stayed overnight with me. Today we all visited the Chattahoochee Nature Center in Roswell. It was a very nice place, but it was extremely hot. Since we arrived before it opened, we parked nearby at Azalea park which is on the riverside, and we walked about a mile on the riverside recreation trail to get to the nature center. 

Temporary butterfly exhibit.

One of the exhibits is a butterfly house. Each person got a paint brush dipped in sugar water and you could get the butterflies to cling to it for a little while.

Tree sculpture in the Georgia wildlife room.

Indoors there was a nice Georgia wildlife area with live fish, turtles, owls, snakes, and an opossum. Outdoors there are several raptor cages containing owls, hawks, and eagles, and lots of trails. There is a boardwalk that goes out over the river that we did not have time for (and: hot!).

Great horned owls.

First Week of July

Last weekend, I visited Cordele, Georgia, and other parts of south-west and south-central Georgia.

My main goal was to attend the annual Watermelon Days festival in Cordele, which calls itself the Watermelon Capital of the World. I attended the parade early on Saturday morning.

Little Miss Melon, one of several watermelon queens of various ages.

One of the watermelon-themed floats.

The local tractor club was well-represented; this is only one.

Another watermelon float.

That's the local high school band coming up behind me.

Then explored the historic downtown of Cordele (every town in the area is "historic", apparently).

Cordele boasts an actual Titan I missile. It's in a gas station parking lot, just off I-75. 

Some of downtown isn't doing very well. There were many empty buildings and some vacant lots.

This impressive church building caught my eye.

The beautiful historic post office building.

The beautiful historic Carnegie library building.

A very pleasant park where one can watch the frequent freight trains pass.

Next I visited Georgia Veterans State Park, a few miles west of town, to see the military veterans museum and attend the festival proper.

There were lots of local artisans and businesses with booths. There was a classic car show at one end of the field. Local musicians provided some entertainment. 

Free watermelon slices, sponsored by the local 4-H club. They also had a watermelon-eating contest and a seed-spitting contest.

After my BBQ food truck lunch, I had peach ice cream.

I enjoyed the festival! My only complaint is that the locals did not commit more to the watermelon theme. There could have been watermelon ice cream, other watermelon foods and beverages, watermelons for sale, maybe even a u-pick watermelon field. People and pets in watermelon costumes. Come on, Crisp County!

While I was at the state park, I toured the museum at the visitors center, which was about military history in Georgia. There were some exhibits indoors, featuring the names of local veterans, and outdoors a small collection of airplanes, tanks, and artillery.

In the evening, I had a ride on the SAM Shortline excursion train, which calls itself Georgia's Rolling State Park. From the station at Georgia Veterans State Park, the train went to Plains in about two hours. It was very comfortable, there was a host on each car that talked about the history of the train, the areas we passed, and local flavor. There was a concessions car too. In Plains, we had a couple of hours to look around, eat peanut butter ice cream, and watch the fireworks show before the train returned to Georgia Veterans.

Ready to board the train!

The next day, I toured more of Crisp and Sumter counties. I went back to Plains to see the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, which includes the high school, train depot, and boyhood farm. Billy Carter's gas station is another attraction.

Farmhouse where the Carters lived, a few miles southwest of Plains. No running water or electricity until the late 1930's.

Billy Carter's gas station, now a museum.

Plains Depot, which was used for Carter's campaigns.

Plains business district. There are about six shops, including the Plain Peanut which sells the ice cream as well as everything else you can make with peanuts. There's an election history shop that sells authentic buttons, bumper stickers, and other memorabilia from every US Presidential election. There's an antique shop and a little cafe, too.

Plains High School, now the main visitor center and Jimmy Carter museum.

Lastly I drove to Andersonville to see the historic prison site and cemetery. The National Prisoner of War Museum is also at the park.

National cemetery. This view shows one of the Civil War sections where almost 13,000 prisoners were buried in trenches (that's why the stones are so close together). The Confederacy kept excellent records, though, so after the war nearly all the graves were identified and these stones installed. 

A view of the prison site. The reconstructed North Gate is in the upper left, Providence Spring is located in the stone structure in the center, and the original creek runs across the field in from left to right below.

A reconstructed section of the stockade, "dead line" fencing, and prisoner shelters. 

Entrance to the visitor center and National POW Museum. Built to look like a POW prison.

I did stop to visit the World's Largest Peanut in Ashburn, just off I-75.

On the way home Monday, I stopped to see High Falls State Park and hike the Falls Trail.

The wooded side of the trail. It was shady, but not much cooler than elsewhere.

The main waterfall. 

The dam above the falls which holds back the Towaliga River to create High Falls Lake, which is used for recreation. 

Tuesday through Thursday was more normal as I worked in the lab with my research student, worked in the office on some projects, and had some work-related meetings. I played badly at cribbage Tuesday evening, I played board games at Red's on Wednesday evening, and I went to book club to discuss Frankenstein Thursday evening. Friday was Independence Day, so no work. I decided to pick blueberries instead. Even with a late start, I collected 3 pounds in about 90 minutes.

My blueberries.

A blueberry bush.

So far, I've made a blueberry buckle and blueberry muffins. I have about two cups left and might freeze those for later. 

Friday evening I played board games and had dinner by Zoom with friends J & J. There had not been any early fireworks in my neighborhood this week, but as soon as the sun set there was almost constant fireworks noise until midnight. I took the trash out around 10 pm, and although I didn't see anything, I could hear the sounds all around.

Saturday evening I went to the Gwinnett Stripers baseball game with friends. The visiting team was the St. Paul Saints, who eventually won the game 3-1. Our seats were terrific and the park was very nice. It's small, surrounded by apartment buildings, and not far from my house (30 minutes' drive).

The giveaway today was this Jimmy Carter bobblehead. I like the Georgia-shaped base, and the levitating baseball especially.

One of the entertainments between innings was a mascot race. After the race the worm, hook, and bobber came up to the seats with Chopper the beaver.

 

Great view from our seats.

Traditional hot dog for dinner.