Polymer Magic and other random thoughts

Coming Soon

2010-03-21T08:14:00.000-06:00

Wedding and honeymoon pictures ;)

What I did for my summer vacation.

2007-11-03T23:15:00.001-06:00

Spray painted and hung a new shower rod.
New chandelier in the grand dining office.
A fan to cool the discussion library.
A new fan for extremely tall people to hit their heads on in Angela's bed room.
I addition to duct tapeing different appliances together and taking pictures of dirty light bulbs.
I will have to remember this technique next time I need to clean the walls and ceilings.. Just paint everything no one can tell the difference ;)

Angela's new appartment revisited....again ;)

2007-11-03T23:03:00.001-06:00

I had to start with the kitchen ;)
This stove looks much better than the original and even has a working emergency cut off.
And books on shelves... just not in order yet.
Desk in one piece again ;)
Angela's room in good order ;)

The Kitty on the trip up and Hiding

2007-11-03T22:41:00.001-06:00

Bella had an interesting trip to Angela's new apartment.

I don't think she wanted to have her photo taken.... In her kitty mind I think she thought blocking access to the brake pedal would speed up the trip. Once we arrived, after the epic battle removing her from under the drivers seat, Bella found her old hiding spot in the back of the old couch.Miss photogenic just loved getting her picture taken...

Well the kitty was safely delivered to the new apartment and all of Angela's furniture and all were moved again, for the third time in as many weeks.

Hot and spicy move

2007-10-16T17:12:00.000-06:00

Angela's move into her new apartment was going well....

I even recorded a video Saturday morning....

And then we had a minor conflagration of polymers and a gas stove....

But it is getting cleaned currently.

And the last of the gaming pictures

2007-07-08T02:05:00.001-06:00

More Gaming

2007-07-01T00:29:00.000-06:00

More pitures. These are in battle order.

"Line abreast and don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes"

Steamroller

2007-06-17T16:46:00.000-06:00

Here are some images from a tournament I ran recently:

"Stop tickling my horse!"

My Travels

2007-06-10T11:34:00.000-06:00

My travels.... only 8% :(

Hope I did not miss any.

Reality Check

2007-05-29T20:36:00.000-06:00

"ABSTRACT Objective: To estimate the relative number of deaths in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from international terrorism and road crashes.
Methods: Data on deaths from international terrorism (US State Department database) were collated (1994–2003) and compared to the road injury deaths (year 2000 and 2001 data) from the OECD International Road Transport Accident Database.
Results: In the 29 OECD countries for which comparable data were available, the annual average death rate from road injury was approximately 390 times that from international terrorism. The ratio of annual road to international terrorism deaths (averaged over 10 years) was lowest for the United States at 142 times. In 2001, road crash deaths in the US were equal to those from a September 11 attack every 26 days.
Conclusions: There is a large difference in the magnitude of these two causes of deaths from injury. Policy makers need to be aware of this when allocating resources to preventing these two avoidable causes of mortality. "

Scary Thought

2007-05-27T13:15:00.000-06:00

New Orleans Crime Blog

Some perspective

2007-05-27T12:16:00.000-06:00

"Hardly a day goes by without the press reporting about some new outrage perpetrated against women and girls in Islamic countries. How can we in the West stand idlely by while women and girls are treated as little more than sub-humans in these Islamic countries ?"

"Most commentary on gender and politics in the Middle East and Muslim world assigns a central place to Islam, but there is little agreement about the analytic weight Islam carries on the topic of women in Islam, accounting for the subordination of women or the role it plays in relation to women's rights. "

Fear and Terrorism

2007-05-27T08:56:00.000-06:00

What happened to "Nothing to fear but fear itself"? Every time we change our behavior or allow our freedom to be limited the terrorists win.

A short list of compiled US death rates. Rates are given in deaths per 100,000 per year.

Motor vehicle accident 1999-2002: 15.3

Firearms 2003: 10.3

Terrorism 2001: 1.06

Terrorism 1993-2003: 0.012

Just wanted to show everything in perspective. We should be at terror level chartreuse on cars ... They are dangerous. Everyone driving should be licensed to handle a lethal weapon. We should raise the driving age, minors should not have such great responsibility. Re-licensing every couple of years should be mandatory. Think about it ...

A final note on death rates:

Calming the natives

2007-05-12T23:19:00.000-06:00

NEW POST!!!!!!

And I have not had a cigarette in 3 weeks ;)

On Her Majesties Occult Service

2007-04-22T14:40:00.000-06:00

Charles Stross's excellent spy/horror thriller. Just think what James Bond would do if he had to face an evil mastermind who summons demons from the nether world. Well and James is a computer tech... with a palm pilot and no Walther PPK. But he does get the bond girl... err... umm... physics professor. As a scifi author Stross turns a good sentence and injects a bit of reality into spy work... with some unknown horrors and magic.

Current projects at work

2007-04-15T10:43:00.000-06:00

Some people wonder what a polymer scientist is much less what they do. Currently I am working on several projects:

Wood composites for commercializing alternate crop

Developing soy bean protein based adhesives
to replace existing petroleum based adhesives
Urea formaldehyde (UF) resins are commonly
used in commercial particle board manufacture

Formaldehyde is a carcinogen and is federally
regulated
Recently California imposed stricter regulations
cutting emissions 80% by 2012
This level is barely above the formaldehyde emissions
of wood naturally

Currently our adhesive matches or surpasses physical properties of UF resin boards, but our press time is longer and adhesive cost is an order of magnitude greater than UF adhesive

Modification and commercialization of powder coatings

Powder coatings are what they sound like

They contain little or no volatile organic
compounds
They are eco friendly, but are relegated to commercial
application processes
Most common places you will see a powder
coating is on large appliances at home
They are also used expensively as barrier
coatings and undercoats in the automotive industry

We have completed the first of 4 resins and
it should be scaled up to 70,000 lbs by the end of April
The second only requires a duplication and it
will be ready to move to the scale up process
Preliminary work on the final two has also
been completed

Development of a novel fire retardant and insulating coating

All developmental work has been completed and
outside testing is underway
Commercial production may begin in the near future

Advancements in materials and test methods for structural composites

Primarily investigating the state of the art
at this point to determine the best direction for the research

And that is what I am doing ;)

2007-03-28T11:50:00.000-06:00

I will endeavor to keep this up to date. Currently I have nothing to comment on, so I will just give an update on what is going on with me.

I am searching for a house in Hattiesburg. The prices are reasonable if I don't mind having a fixer upper. Considering I am only planing to be in H'burg for the next 2-3 years. Raising the value of a hope with repairs and then selling should be a good investment. Rent in the nicer apartments is $700+ and that would cover a 30 year mortgage on $100,000 house.

Something funny

2007-03-27T00:53:00.000-06:00

This is very funny. And you should vote.

2007-03-27T00:00:00.000-06:00

Well this is just a test run. Or test post. We have to start somewhere.

"Smile the world is watching you."