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.