4LadiesandaBeaker...and a dude?

Our organics room is notoriously full of women. Before our group there have been many other women that have advanced forward or left these laboratory halls forever.  For my time here years have gone by without any sign of testosterone.  Recently and for a short time only we got a new hire that was a man!  And he enjoys graffiti as much as I like to doodle so that was fun.  He still works in the building, but was moved to a different room. 

Here is his graffiti for our room OEP

 A view from farther away to capture both of his hoods

This is a closeup of his other freehand.  I requested this spot for graffiti so the SPE counter would have a good view of it!  I thought the colors turned out great and it really brightens up the room.  We deal with mostly water samples and I love the flowing feel of this piece.  I couldn't quite get the feel of the record to come through even in a close-up, but this record is pretty perfect and looks so legitimate you want to reach out and touch it. 

Throwback Thursday Lab Style

I was going through books recently and found a journal I had to make for school in the 4th grade. Apparently science has always been my favorite subject.  I have no idea what the witch experiment was, but maybe that partially explains the old time look I went with here.  The design isn't much but kitchen supplies and random shaped objects in what seems to be a dusty wizard's lair.  When I was young I'm pretty sure I thought science was closer to magic.  Science was and still is fascinating to me in the way that magic is, but reality is usually different from imagination.  I imagined scientists more as crazed alchemists in caves making concoctions from recipes in ancient books, and creating bubbling explosions of liquids and gases of various colors.

So here's what 4th grade me thought science looked like vs. what a real life science laboratory looks like.  

Working on a Saturday

Here is what working on a Saturday feels like.  Actually working on the weekends isn't bad at all except for getting up early and going to work.  I just took this picture as a joke to send to coworkers.  Only a few people work on the weekends so the lab is mostly dark and quiet and calm.  Usually overtime on the weekends is not necessary however, we use it as a chance to catch up on dishes when it's busy, or if we need to make up hours for doctor's appointments etc.  Doing dishes in the laboratory business means washing analytical glassware.  Glassware includes things like beakers, buchner funnels, volumetrics, and flasks.  Our dishware is mostly glass, but we have a few items that are teflon or other plastics.  We wear kevlar gloves and then layer up with those huge green gloves in the picture.  We wear a lab coat every day all the time in our room, or in the hallways and coolers getting samples, but in the dishroom we wear an extra layer of plastic apron over our lab coat.  We wash our glassware with hot water and citranox, a liquid acid cleaner.  Here is the MSDS on citranox.  An MSDS, or material safety data sheet, is where you find information about the product you are using.  Labels are often not read and overlooked but worth the read always!

<https://www.alconox.com/Resources/StandardDocuments/MSDS/msds_citranox_english_ghs.pdf>

After a wash with soapy citranox, the glassware is rinsed with tap water in a sink and then washed again in a solution of sulfuric acid and water.  Sulfuric acid is known to stick to glassware, leaving a residue on the glass.  Because of this the final steps to washing analytical glassware include rinsing with tap water and then DI (deionized) water.  We take the finished glassware back to our regular O.E.P. (Organic Extraction Prep)  room where at our leisure we rinse out glassware again with a squirt bottle mix of acetone and methylene chloride.  

Welcome to the Jungle...

These are our current hood decorations and probably the most elaborate.  We love animals and they often make their way into our doodles no matter the theme.  

Here's the SPE area with our extractors up and running.  My SPE partner and I work in this little tiny area all day.  This is method 525, which takes up both hoods with the machines running samples on the left, and space for rinsing glassware in between sample runs on the right.  

 Left Hood

These our the solvent bottles hidden behind a waterfall, butterflies, and vines.

 Some closer details featuring a jaguar and evil monkey.

Tropical birds and frogs

Right hood

Mama and baby hippo wading in water

An alligator in expectation!

A relaxin' sloth

The Midwest from a Conservationist and Epic Writer

“In the narrow thread of sod between the shaved banks and the toppling fences grow the relics of what once was Illinois — the prairie.

No one in the bus sees these relics. A worried farmer, his fertilizer bill projecting from his shirt pocket, looks blankly at the lupines, lespedezas or Baptisias that originally pumped nitrogen out of the prairie air and into his black loamy acres. He does not distinguish them from the parvenu quack-grass in which they grow. Were I to ask him the name of that white spike of pea-like flowers hugging the fence, he would shake his head. A weed, likely.” 
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac; with essays on conservation from Round River

Bungalow 360-Cruelty Free shopping

I love buying from vegan, cruelty free, kind companies.  It's even better when someone else thinks about friendlier options and buys an awesome gift for me!  This company has an assortment of cute animal patterns.  I want them all!
The older I've gotten, the more I question labels, and use my money as a voice.  Everytime I say no to companies that extort resources and degrade humans, animals, and the environment alike, I am taking away the one thing that keeps them in business, money.
I've been an avid boycotter of Walmart and many other companies for years.  It feels good to give my money to companies that I support instead.

A break from the lab to the great outdoors!

This is what I would do every day if I didn't work.  Something, anything outdoors.  

These pictures are of a recent winter hike to Starved Rock. 

 St. Louis Canyon

 Peeking out from a frozen waterfall

 Snow dusting the canyon

 Tonti Bridge-last of the day light