Work this week wasn't expected to be easy--lasers, at least the kind we have, are meant to be used regularly, and really need to be fired every two weeks in order to stay in prime working condition. I have just had two weeks off of work, which means that the laser wasn't fired during that time. So it wasn't surprising that I needed to do a gas exchange first thing on Monday, because the old ArF gas that has been siting in the chamber ready to fire the laser has gotten stale, or whatever happens to it to make the laser need a lot more power put into it to generate the same amount of laser energy. Neither was it surprising that even after the gas exchange I couldn't get a good performance report on Monday, or even Tuesday. However, by Wednesday morning things had settled in, and I got a passing performance report and ran our "check standards" lab book, just to get more data points as to how our system is performing.
This morning I expected I might try running some other sort of analysis, but it wasn't meant to be--the vacuum pump in the next room was off, which meant that there was no vacuum in the ICP unit, which meant that the plasma wouldn't turn on. We have no idea why it was off--as far as my colleague B and I know, no one turned the pump off. When we tried turning it on with the switch on the side of the pump nothing happened. So we went back into the lab itself and turned off the main power switch on ICP-MS unit (into which the vacuum pump is plugged). After waiting 20 to 30 seconds we turned it back on, and this time the vacuum pump started up. After a bit of a wait it did its job enough that the green light came on, saying that the system had achieved the vacuum and was good to start.
Sure enough, at that point the plasma started just fine, but when I tried to run a performance report I got a new error message "Analyzer Pressure too high". Not having seen this one before I promptly wrote an email to the service people explaining all of the above, and asking what we need to do next, and spent the rest of the work day trying to catch up on the various emails sent to me while I was on vacation.
On the bike ride home I was delighted to see a work crew out, removing the curb from the center portion of the road which the bike path has been meant to cross. We cyclists have been having to drive around those curbs ever since they got the path mostly in last autumn. They were taking out the one closest to Uni as I went past, so I paused to express my appreciation, and I asked if this meant that the path itself would soon be paved. The guy who spoke to me didn't know the schedule for the paving, but I still think it is a good sign. They had already done the one where the path crosses a road just before the turn off to my neighbourhood, and it was a pleasure to just pedal straight across that road, rather than having to detour around the curb.
Since the paint is now dry on the upstairs shed window frame I had taken down to re-paint I tried to put the window back. Since I was working on my own I got it out by unscrewing the hinges with one hand, whilst holding the window (which was open and hanging out over the drop to the ground) with the other. Luckily, the hinges sat fairly tightly into their carved recess in the frame, so the window didn't try to fall while I was still dealing with the screws, but instead had to be plucked out of the groves when the last screw was out. However, I knew that putting it back wouldn't be so easy. Therefore I decided that it might be smarter to first screw back the part of the hinges that attach to the window frame, and then put the window onto the hinges. However, I failed to take into consideration the fact that once on the hinge the window exactly fits into the opening. Therefore it isn't actually possible to lift the window high enough to put the hinge back together when half of it is on the window, and the other half in the frame. Oops. And I had come up with such a good idea of wrapping a length of nylon webbing around the window to give me a good handle and make it less likely to be dropped in the process. At that point I gave up, left the hinge half screwed to the window frame till
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lord_kjar gets back and there is one person to hold the window and another to drive the screw driver.
I have spent most of the evening getting ready for tomorrow's journey to Norway. I had packed clothes and dance shoes on Monday, but tonight I did more food prep of things to take with me, packed toiletries, do laundry and other house work so that the place will be nice to come home to, etc. Since I had just enough yoghurt left for one serving of muesli I decided to pick some smultrons (wild strawberry) to go with it, and I would have one extra yummy breakfast ready to eat on the road tomorrow (and the others will be my normal water on the muesli). However, this time, whilst picking the berries I was inspired to actually rip away the tall grass and other plants that have been growing over the rest of the smultrons (I had gotten the part that is easy to reach from the alleyway to the earth cellar a couple of weeks ago, just as the berries were first starting to come in). Today's reward was way more berries than I expected to find under all that growth--nearly a full cup of tiny, sweet berries! Yum!
It isn't yet 8pm, but I probably ought to do my yoga so that it is done when the last load of laundry comes out of the machine, then I can go to bed early--I have my alarm set for 03:30 so that I will have time to do my morning work out before I go, and actually get the food out of freezer and fridge and into the soft ice-chest before my taxi arrives at 05:20. The bus doesn't actually depart till 06:00, and it shouldn't be more than 5 or 10 minutes from here to the meeting point, but I didn't want to be late, which is why I gave it a full 40 minutes. Then I can sleep on the first part of the drive, so that I wake up on time to enjoy the mountains as we get to Norway. Have I mentioned recently how much I miss mountains? They are really the only thing that Luleå lacks to be perfect.
