why, yes, I did profit from it!
Aug. 21st, 2010 02:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaSome time back my boss scheduled me for microprobe time Thursday and Friday of this week, since that would give me enough time from my last experiment finishing to get the capsules mounted into epoxy and polished and ready to go. However, it didn't work out that way. When I downloaded the experiment and freed the capsules from their nest and took them down the hall I discovered that the lapidary lab was closed. Since it was sort of near lunch hour, it could have been closed because the guy who works there was out to lunch. However, it is August in Milan, so it could mean that he's away on Holiday. As I started walking up the stairs to my office I encountered two of my colleagues, and stopped to chat with them, letting them know that the lab was closed, and wondering which it was. They told me about the vacation list posted in the lift, and we went to check. Yup, on holiday till the end of the month. However, one of my colleagues says that he's cleared to do the epoxy stuff (my boss told me that the lapidary guy doesn't want anyone else messing with the epoxy, though we are welcome to polish our own samples--apparently not everyone cleaned the mixing containers properly, and so he set up the policy). So I made an appointment to meet him to tack care of that step, but when we went in we discovered that the ingredients are not where he expected them to be. There were, however, a variety of locked cabinets and no sign of a key. So I e-mailed my boss with the story, and let him know that I still had plenty of questions I wanted to answer about the previous experiments, if he doesn't know where the ingredients are stored. He replied that he didn't, but hoped I could profit from the probe session anyway.
Accordingly, I went through the list of samples I've got (both mine and the ones a predecessor did a decade ago that no one ever did anything with the data) and made note of which ones had only 1 to 3 analyses of one (or more) of the phases present (more is good, since we do calculations to determine typical composition of the phase, and it takes more data to figure out what is typical) and which ones have phases wherein the "typical" results have large error bars (more data can help that problem, too). That gave me a list of about a dozen samples to look at. The sample holder takes six at a time, and I was scheduled for two days. Perfect.
Thursday I arrived at the scheduled time of 09:00, gave my samples to the probe operator, who put them in, checked to be certain I remembered how to do the sample selection and analysis, and he wandered away, leaving me on my own. I worked till mid-day, took an hour off to run home for some lunch (I had some bread dough in the oven, so was able to have fresh baked rolls in addition to left over rice& veg) and returned to work. Mid afternoon, as I was getting kind of tired, I encountered a phase in one of the decade-old samples that looked different from the others. I checked its composition and realized that it is talc, but the records for this sample from back then said there isn't any.
To understand the importance of this, you must understand that the whole goal of this project is to determine at which temperatures and pressures talc is stable for these particular rock compositions. We have two different compositions, which are run in each experiment, one in each of two capsules. To date, in the nine experiments which have been both run and analyzed only three of them had talc at all, and of those three only one, we thought, had talc in both compositions--the other two had it in only one (but the same one). Now I know that talc is present in both samples in two of the three runs that have it. This is useful information! Howe did they miss it a decade ago? Well, apparently this is a much better microprobe than they had back then. At least that is what my boss told me when he first suggested that I re-analyze the old data.
As a result of finding the talc, my energy levels increased, and I wound up working happily at the microprobe till 9pm on Thursday, and then returned and worked again today from 9 to 5. Alas, I haven't yet had a chance to actually process my new data--after leaving today I needed to pack my bags for two weeks away and tidy up the apartment afterwards so that I will be happy to return to it. (and I'll have to go back there again before leaving, to get the tomatoes and plums out of the fridge before I go--they will not survive in their a full fortnight). It is now nearly 03:00. In an hour I need to walk to the train station to catch my bus to the airport.
I have no idea what kind of internet access (if any) is provided by the conference in Budapest this coming week, but hopefully I'll be on line regularly. I'll go from Budapest to Salzburg the weekend after the conference, to tour a <href="http://www.salzwelten.at/salz_en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&itemid=21">salt mine that I went to as a small child with my dad, and loved every minute of it. I treasured the box of salt rocks (in various quality types) that he got me for many years afterwards.
The following week in Vienna I will only have internet in the evenings since I'll be in class during the day. Then I actually get to sleep in my own bed for a night or two before heading to the Alps for the textile forum, where I am very unlikely to have internet access. From there I head to one final conference (three days that time), so I won't truly be home again till the 16th of September, which gives me just over one week to recover before my mother arrives for a month. She wants to go visit my cousin in Cairo with me while she's here, but right now the list of travel looks daunting enough without another weekend adventure. Granted, if I know me, the thought of an adventure will probably sound more appealing when the time actually comes.
Accordingly, I went through the list of samples I've got (both mine and the ones a predecessor did a decade ago that no one ever did anything with the data) and made note of which ones had only 1 to 3 analyses of one (or more) of the phases present (more is good, since we do calculations to determine typical composition of the phase, and it takes more data to figure out what is typical) and which ones have phases wherein the "typical" results have large error bars (more data can help that problem, too). That gave me a list of about a dozen samples to look at. The sample holder takes six at a time, and I was scheduled for two days. Perfect.
Thursday I arrived at the scheduled time of 09:00, gave my samples to the probe operator, who put them in, checked to be certain I remembered how to do the sample selection and analysis, and he wandered away, leaving me on my own. I worked till mid-day, took an hour off to run home for some lunch (I had some bread dough in the oven, so was able to have fresh baked rolls in addition to left over rice& veg) and returned to work. Mid afternoon, as I was getting kind of tired, I encountered a phase in one of the decade-old samples that looked different from the others. I checked its composition and realized that it is talc, but the records for this sample from back then said there isn't any.
To understand the importance of this, you must understand that the whole goal of this project is to determine at which temperatures and pressures talc is stable for these particular rock compositions. We have two different compositions, which are run in each experiment, one in each of two capsules. To date, in the nine experiments which have been both run and analyzed only three of them had talc at all, and of those three only one, we thought, had talc in both compositions--the other two had it in only one (but the same one). Now I know that talc is present in both samples in two of the three runs that have it. This is useful information! Howe did they miss it a decade ago? Well, apparently this is a much better microprobe than they had back then. At least that is what my boss told me when he first suggested that I re-analyze the old data.
As a result of finding the talc, my energy levels increased, and I wound up working happily at the microprobe till 9pm on Thursday, and then returned and worked again today from 9 to 5. Alas, I haven't yet had a chance to actually process my new data--after leaving today I needed to pack my bags for two weeks away and tidy up the apartment afterwards so that I will be happy to return to it. (and I'll have to go back there again before leaving, to get the tomatoes and plums out of the fridge before I go--they will not survive in their a full fortnight). It is now nearly 03:00. In an hour I need to walk to the train station to catch my bus to the airport.
I have no idea what kind of internet access (if any) is provided by the conference in Budapest this coming week, but hopefully I'll be on line regularly. I'll go from Budapest to Salzburg the weekend after the conference, to tour a <href="http://www.salzwelten.at/salz_en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&itemid=21">salt mine that I went to as a small child with my dad, and loved every minute of it. I treasured the box of salt rocks (in various quality types) that he got me for many years afterwards.
The following week in Vienna I will only have internet in the evenings since I'll be in class during the day. Then I actually get to sleep in my own bed for a night or two before heading to the Alps for the textile forum, where I am very unlikely to have internet access. From there I head to one final conference (three days that time), so I won't truly be home again till the 16th of September, which gives me just over one week to recover before my mother arrives for a month. She wants to go visit my cousin in Cairo with me while she's here, but right now the list of travel looks daunting enough without another weekend adventure. Granted, if I know me, the thought of an adventure will probably sound more appealing when the time actually comes.
