Secret Geek strikes again
Within everyone there is a secret geek trying to get out and ruin one's cool and expose you as a lover of comics or software design. I like to fool myself that mine stays well-hidden, but there are undeniably times when it cannot be silenced. So forgive me the next two minutes of enrestrained enthusiasm for SCIENCE.
Today was my second day at PNNL (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) in Richland, WA. More information on this can be found here: http://www.emsl.pnl.gov/emslweb/, but suffice it to say that it's a pretty big complex of national labs in the US where very exciting science happens every day, nay, every second!
Working here means I get to help out with the experiments of two people who write the papers that I read and cite all the time for my PhD, exciting enough already. But better than that, in only two days I have found these people to be AWESOME!
Their set-up here is like a paradise for someone with a passing interest in chemical dynamics. You may have seen the CAD drawing of my experimental UHV chamber? Well, imagine that SUPERSIZED, with not 10 ports, but 31!! They have almost every piece of instrumentation I have ever heard of and their lab is a maze of gas lines, vacuum pump tubing and computer screens all monitoring various exciting properties of water. I am so enthused about the work that is going on here, I have voluntarily stayed late both days! Not to mention the fact that everything I do makes me want to run back to Manchester and quickly apply those ideas in my own work. Aargh! What if I forget everything before I get chance to return?!
***End of Science***
Sorry about that. I will resume beating the aforementioned inner geek with a large metaphorical book of Fairy Tales.
Check out my Flickr stream for photos of my US home, walk to work and proof that I work on Avenue Q...
Today was my second day at PNNL (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) in Richland, WA. More information on this can be found here: http://www.emsl.pnl.gov/emslweb/, but suffice it to say that it's a pretty big complex of national labs in the US where very exciting science happens every day, nay, every second!
Working here means I get to help out with the experiments of two people who write the papers that I read and cite all the time for my PhD, exciting enough already. But better than that, in only two days I have found these people to be AWESOME!
Their set-up here is like a paradise for someone with a passing interest in chemical dynamics. You may have seen the CAD drawing of my experimental UHV chamber? Well, imagine that SUPERSIZED, with not 10 ports, but 31!! They have almost every piece of instrumentation I have ever heard of and their lab is a maze of gas lines, vacuum pump tubing and computer screens all monitoring various exciting properties of water. I am so enthused about the work that is going on here, I have voluntarily stayed late both days! Not to mention the fact that everything I do makes me want to run back to Manchester and quickly apply those ideas in my own work. Aargh! What if I forget everything before I get chance to return?!
***End of Science***
Sorry about that. I will resume beating the aforementioned inner geek with a large metaphorical book of Fairy Tales.
Check out my Flickr stream for photos of my US home, walk to work and proof that I work on Avenue Q...
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