Category Archives: Whimsy

Flying Barn Door

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There is an old saying in aviation that “with enough horsepower, you can make a barn door fly”.  A friend recently gave me a copy of Principles of Flying, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1943, published under the authority of the Bureau of Aeronautics, US Navy. I couldn’t resist posting this graphic from p. 88.  [I hope this comes under fair use doctrine of Title 17 Section 107.]

Cartoon of a barn door taking flight.

The older aviation training manuals were often written in an avuncular voice that would appeal to farm boys. This Navy manual on flying takes the reader through the basics of Naval aircraft construction as well as aerodynamics. Floatplane construction and controls are particularly well illustrated.

My first airplane ride occured when I was 6. We went to a pancake flight breakfast in an airport hangar in Boone, Iowa. There, somebody was giving airplane rides for a penny-a-pound. This was a bargain price even then. I recall that the event was connected with the Flying Farmers.

My father had a pilots license and as did my cousin up the road. Cousin Verlyn had a Cessna 170 tail dragger that he flew from a pasture on his farm. One day on the rollout after landing he rolled into a pool of standing water, flipping it over and bending the main spar. It never flew again.

Though my mother worked on her license, somehow she didn’t take the flight test. This was in the early 60’s and manned space flight was all over the news. Americans were going places and to see my father riding with a friend in his Stearman doing aerobatics over our cornfield could only mean to a small boy that somehow, we could be a part of the big adventure.

My first and only ride in a Stearman during the Stearman fly-in in Galesburg, IL.

A statue celebrating the bronze enema bulb

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According to the Novosti News Agency, the Zheleznovodsk spa center recently unveiled a statue celebrating its emphasis in hydraulics.

Photo Credit- AP

“As gastroenterology is the main treatment area at the Zheleznovodsk spa center, it was decided to create such a unique monument, which is both funny and vital,” said Alexander Kharchenko, the director of the center.

“There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art,” Alexander Kharchenko told The Associated Press. “An enema is almost a symbol of our region.”

Lordy. I thought some town in Tejas owned the rights to that symbol!

In case you’re sketchy about the location, it’s just off the M-29 north of Pyatigorsk. Looks like there is an airport in nearby Mineral’nye Vody. It’d be a good reason to burn up those Aeroflot frequent flyer miles.

The juxtaposition of children, balloons, and shapely nurses in a celebration of the enema bulb seems most peculiar and is a major source of conflict for my brain at many levels.

Amphibidiene

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I finally cracked the secret of getting ChemDraw structures into a post without having to buy anything. It’s not perfect, but it is a start.

Paste a structure into Microsoft Paint which is found in Accessories in the Start Menu. Save as a jpeg. Then, re-open in Microsoft Photo Editor, crop, and save again. Finally, import to wordpress as a jpeg. Whew!

Be nice. I’m a little slow sometimes.

Farewell George Carlin

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June 22, 2008, Santa Monica, California. Comedian and satirist George Carlin died sunday evening after checking into a Santa Monica hospital complaining of chest pains. He was 71.

Carlin was a brilliant social satirist and comic. He had the ability to look at ordinary things from a different angle and see the obvious obsurdity in things most of us accept as simple background noise. This is one of the key attributes of a successful satirist and comedian.

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. 

The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.

Not only do I not know what’s going on, I wouldn’t know what to do about it if I did.

-George Carlin

Carlin was a serial quipster who pushed the boundaries of social norms. His Seven Dirty Words ended up as the center of a 1978 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right of the state to bar “indecent” of speech on the public airwaves.

While it is common for contemporary comedians to exploit “indecent” speech for shock value today, few seem to have the facility with language that Carlin had. He was able to reduce to a few short humorous sentences the dark uncertainties that many of us have with common subjects.  Carlin’s observations on taboo subjects put him well ahead of his time.

My dinner with a meteorite

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Last night I found myself sitting at a restaurant with astronomers for the occasion of viewing a meteorite. Customarily, a few observatory folk have dinner with the speaker and then we go to the observatory for a public star night. While waiting for our entrees we passed the object carefully amongst ourselves, cherishing a few moments of close contact with this rare object.

Astronomers seem to be prone to public displays of humility. I would estimate that the humility quotient was near 0.8 (8 out of 10 Sagans- the Sagan is the international unit of humility). It is generally agreed that the Buddha achieved a Sagan quotient of unity. Okay, I’m kidding.

The curious 936 gram achondrite is from the recent Berthoud, Colorado, fall.  Meteor enthusiasts refer to the arrival of a meteorite as a “fall”.  This is one of only 5 witnessed falls in Colorado. A section of the meteor has been cut off and has been the subject of investigation at the University of Arizona.

Based on the composition of the object (olivine, plagioclase, ilmenite, chromite) and based on the reflectance spectra of various asteroids, the Berthoud meteorite is thought to be a fragment of the asteroid Vesta. Imagery of Vesta suggests that a portion of this object may have been shattered by an impact in the past.

The family whose property the stone landed on are somewhat bewildered by the event. They have been the subject of much unwanted attention, so the object is kept secure at an unknown location. In October of 2004, in the early afternoon several family members were standing outside their home when they heard a whistling sound and thump. Following the direction of the sound, they found the impact site less than 100 feet from where they were standing and in a spot where one member had just walked through. Only a small part of the object protruded upward through the disturbed topsoil.

Reportedly, it was cool to the touch immediately after arrival. This is counter-intuitive given the fiery appearance of most meteors. However, the object was quite cold prior to entry into the atmosphere and the rapid transit through the air didn’t allow for heat saturation. And, ablation carries away much of the friction energy.

The low iron object has a dark fusion crust over a grey, mottled composition. Other than the crust, it is not that unusual in its appearance. 

 

Friday’s assorted scribblings

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Crimony. There was a new coat of snow on the mountains yesterday down to the 9 or 10 thousand foot level.

I’m living the Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”.  The good thing about my job is that I get to wear a lot of hats. The bad thing is that I get to wear a lot of hats.

Reunite Gondwana! 

 

B.S., Ph.D., A.D.D.

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For those newbies just coming out of school into the fabulous world of Big Time Chemistry, you have an interesting time ahead of you. You’ll soon learn that your crisp new diploma is really just a backstage pass down the rabbit hole of The World, Inc.  Your brain is now as sharp as it’ll ever be … well, after some well deserved R&R. Your capacity to spend long hours in the lab will never be greater.  And, your skin has thickened to the abuses from too many years in college. The cleat marks of rabid and unscrupulous profs posturing for tenure will scab over and vanish. Now is your chance to plant your cleats anywhere you please.

For those going into industrial slots, there is yet much to learn. Whereas in school your cohort is confined to a narrow age group, in the world you’ll land in a place filled with workers of all ages. The biggest surprise of all may be the slow realization that perhaps you’re not the only person of Ability in the room. Not all of the really bright people stay in academia or even went to college.

You’ll be able to examine people in various stages of career growth and in various capacities. There is a vast difference in corporate cultures and in time one adapts to the demands of the Machine. This Machine requires much of its people. All company Machines are constructed around a core. This core is the accounting system.  Many people are dedicated to the upkeep of this part of the Machine.  Scientists fresh out of school are often unaware of the critical importance of non-scientist staff pulling the handles and twiddling the knobs of the Machine so it can keep operating.

I happen to think that chemical plants are really fascinating places whose sophstication and importance is frequently misunderstood. Yes, they are often maligned as unattractive blights on the landscape. But from the technology pespective, chemical manufacturing is a rich part of our technological heritage and more of us need to make that point to our communities. 

There are many paths in a good and righteous career in chemistry. Some choose to stay in R&D. Others choose the dark side and enter business development or the even darker side of supply chain management (just kidding, mostly). Many will discover fascinating specialties they never new existed like scale-up, kilo-lab, pilot plant operations, or production support. Then there is quality control, analytical services, technical support, or environmental health and safety.

There are many industry segments that use chemists, so try not to get fixated on just one. It is quite possible to have a good life outside of pharmaceuticals. For students who are interested in grad school, there is polymer chemistry or a variety of material sciences. Polymer science and rheology is fascinating and there is a huge industry out there making polymers. But no matter what you pick, make certain it is something that you really dig. Then it is less of a job and more of a passion.

Chemistry on Mars

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As I live and breath. The space community has gotten serious again about chemical analysis of Martian soil. NASA is very much driven by physicists and engineers, so it is nice to see chemistry get some flight time.  Why don’t more chemists elbow these physicists out of the way to put packages on rockets? I guess we are insufferable ground pounders.

The Phoenix Lander which, to NASA‘s great credit, has successfully landed in the North polar region of Mars, is equipped with an array of analytical instruments and wet chemical apparatus for on-the-spot analysis of soil samples. Among the devices on board is a Swiss-made Atomic Force Microscope. This device will provide direct microscopic imaging of Martian soil samples. In true Swiss fastidiousness, it has multiple cantilevers for redundancy. I’m sure it keeps good time as well. 

The Canadian Space Agency has contributed a meterological station on the lander.

The lander was constructed by contractor Lockheed Martin.

Given that the lander contains hazardous chemcials for the analyses, somebody is going to have to dispose of the hazardous waste after 90 days. I hope it is properly placarded.  \;-)

 

 

Tornado Dreams

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This afternoon over lunch hour at the plant I stepped outside and saw a rotating wall cloud just a few miles west. It is unusual for tornadoes to form this close to the mountains. I’ll admit that I was disappointed to not witness an actual funnel.  

At about the same time 15 miles NW near my home, a funnel cloud was spotted. From that location, my daughter reported that fellow middle school students were huddled under their desks for an hour waiting for the storm to pass. Another 15 miles north, my wife was busy herding elementary school students under their desks in what they call the “squat and scream” position. Sadly, a nearby town suffered a strike by a tornado that resulted in one fatality and a bunch of heavily damaged homes.

Imagine if the area that comprises what we refer to as the Middle East was an area that suffered tornado activity. That would be the area from Lebanon to Iran to Egypt.  It is fun to speculate how the Abrahamic religions might be filled with parables and stories detailing the wrath of God through the agency of a tornado.

Perhaps the exodus of the Israelites might have been aided by the thrashing of Pharaoh with a tornado rather than drowning as the parting seas collapsed. Or colorful tornado-related dream accounts of the end times in the New Testament’s Electric Koolaid Acid Trip of the Book of Revelations.

After the excitement it was back to business. Work is a seemingly endless carnival of intractable problems and sticky layers of nuance.

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