Happy Thanksgiving!

Mmmmmm... TURKEY!

Kicking back and awaiting the Thanksgiving Feast.

So I at the parents house in the greater Buffalo region. Just a short hop down the NYS thruway is all the traveling I need to do for my holidays. The place has kind of ceased to be "my home" sometime over the past 2 or 3 years as I gradually shifted my life to Rochester. Now I refer to this as "my parents house". I am not even certain of an exact date in which I can clearly claim that I moved out!

You would think that as a twenty-something on the eve of Thanksgiving I would be hitting up the bars and partying tonight. Considering that is is POURING RAIN like buckets and COLD... I am not too keen on driving into the city and waiting in line outside of a bar to get in. It's odd though... I come back here and don't even feel like I know anyone anymore. I have lost touch with people. My friends are scattered in so many cities and corners of the world right now. Hmmm... :-/

Anyway, I watched "Evan Almighty" tonight. I enjoyed it. Classic Steve Carell comedy always cracks me up. It was one of those movies with subtle messages about faith and such. Not to the point where it is obnoxious but just enough so that you can appreciate it. My only complaint was that Lauren Graham bore a striking resemblance to Emily... which in turn led me to thoughts of her.

*sigh*

A day of shooting and shots in all possible shapes, sizes and varieties.

Yesterday was proclaimed by Jon and I as "The Day of Shooting and Taking Shots". Why? In one day we managed to pack in target shooting, taking some golf shots and playing "Call of Duty 2" and some other first person shooter video games. Shooting in all possible forms!

During my life, I have never been into hunting or guns, so yesterday was a bit of an adventure for me. The last time I have shot a firearm was over 10 years ago. So, I took a drive out to the rural town of Pavilion where Jon said we could partake in some target shooting with a few of the firearms that him and his father owns. Sure... why not!


We started out firing some handguns (pictured above). We chose a Smith & Wesson .22 caliber revolver (bottom right), a 9mm semi-automatic pistol (bottom left) and a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol (top). This being the first time I have ever fired a handgun, I must say that it is A LOT HARDER to aim and shoot one of these things than they make it seem in the movies. I have a whole new respect for law enforcement officials who must demonstrate proficiency in handling such firearms.


Then we switched over to some rifles (pictured above). We chose a basic semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle (top). A bolt action .22 caliber magnum rifle (middle). And finally... a semi-automatic .223 caliber M-14 rifle (bottom). That last weapon was a standard issue weapon to troops sent into battle in the Vietnam War. It fires the hefty looking bullet shown in the picture below! DAAAAAAAAAMN! That's a bit more power than the simple .22 caliber rifle that I had shot 10 years ago. The simple .22 cal. was accurate and easy to shoot. The bolt action rifle felt pretty cool to shoot. With this weapon, you can kind of imagine what it must have been like to be Vasily Zaytsev from Enemy at the Gates or that other sniper from Saving Private Ryan.


The show stopper was definitely the .223 M-14 rifle. LOUD! One hell of a recoil kick... and powerful. It's pretty damn cool to hit an apple dead on at 20 yards and watch it become vaporized into applesauce in the blink of an eye. It gets heavy after a while to hold up and aim. Even though it is a rifle with a scope it still takes some skill to aim. Once again, not like the movies and video games. I have a new found respect for the men and women in the armed forces who have had to master firing such weapons.

To top it all off, the rule that Jon's father has is, "You shoot it, you clean it." So we had to go through the task of disassembling, cleaning and reassembling each firearm. Overall, quite a new and exciting experience! Thanks Jon!

Lois: "You're drunk again." Peter: "No, I'm just exhausted 'cause I've been up all night drinking."

*yawn* Feeling a little tired out at the moment. Perhaps that's because of last evening's drinking and celebration. Here's the occasion.

First off... Chris has returned from Sweden. He was there for about 3 weeks on a company trip. Basically Xerox sent him there and worked him like a DOG! So we had a little welcome home party for the guy.

Secondly... I received my grades for the Fall quarter. In my last class I will ever have to take I earned an... A! That means that I have carried a 4.0 through all my coursework at RIT.

Now that's reason enough for me to celebrate! MacGregors... lots of food, pitchers of beer flowing abundantly, joking around with friends, checking out women, shooting pool, hitting on the waitresses, throwing darts... general guy stuff! Doesn't get much better. Plus we got Brad really drunk to prepare him for his day of substitute teaching today. That was definitely entertaining.

And now, the weekend's ahead of me. I have been busting my ass in the lab since the completion of my classes. After talking with my boss today, some more deadlines have been handed down to me. The next few weeks leading up to my departure for NYC are going to be awfully busy.

I am standing upon the precipice of a great period of enlightenment and productivity.

As the title of this post implies, I am about to embark upon a period of great enlightenment. A mini-renaissance if you will. A time when absorbing new and exciting knowledge in all aspects of the world around me will become a day to day norm. A period in which productivity will balloon to a degree in which two... three... or more days worth of productivity will seamlessly be fit into each and every blessed day.

What is spurring this?

Tomorrow is my last formal class ever!

Well... unless I decide to go back to school again to get another degree. But following tomorrow, and the subsequent final examination held on Monday, time will not have to be wasted in stale classroom atmospheres. Hours will not have to be frittered away on studying and preparing homework assignments.

My time will solely be dedicated to research and managed as I see fit towards fulfilling my goals. I will be more immersed in the arduous task of of job/internship hunting. I will be directing more efforts towards philosophical endeavors such as reading and learning about other non-chemistry related things. I will have time to tackle the formidable list laid out last weekend!

Two other things are contributing to this monumental occasion:

1. Sidd (my coworker) will be leaving for India until December 11. That means having an extra empty hood in the lab to use and pretty much free reign over all the lab's glassware! That's going to make for some productive times!
2. Emily is still in England! Review some of my previous posts for my feelings on her absence. As much as I enjoy having her around, I don't have to worry about making time for and planning dates for a brief while. I refuse to let that extra time and effort be spent on obsessively missing her but rather wish to direct it towards constructive endeavors.

This is going to be exciting!

Those bastard Austrian chemists!

One of the many things in life that gets me pissed off is when a laboratory procedure published in the literature does not work! I am repeating some previously published work done by some Austrian chemists that is closely related to what I am doing. I am working on making this molecule you see at your right so I can mess around with it my self under some different conditions. The molecule is ready for purification and according to their methods, the molecules they made were purified via silica gel chromatography with 50:1 cyclohexane:ethyl acetate.

My crude product however is not soluble in 50:1 cyclohexane:ethyl acetate!!! WTF!?

A simple 1-2-3 procedure that should take me no more than a day from start to finish is now complected. Bastards! Did I forget to mention that I am a little bitter towards these guys because they kind of published something slightly similar to my research 3 days after I proposed my research! Grrrrr.

My apologies to all those out there who have no clue what I am talking about. Just some inner rage at the moment.

If only my internal body clock was aware of daylight savings time adjustments.

I am not a fan of daylight savings time right now. The clocks do roll back one hour to give that extra hour of sleep, but what good does that do when the sun comes up earlier? Not to mention, I have an internal body clock that only allows me to get precisely 7.5 hours of sleep a night. No joke, regardless of how tired I am or what time I go to sleep, 7.5 hours and I am awake and ready to go. I practically don't even need an alarm clock.

I watched the movie "Breach" last night. It was a good movie. I would give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. A drama/thriller type. The plot had a touch of espionage and politics. It is based on a true story too making it even more interesting (in my opinion).

The great thing about this movie is that it takes place in Washington D.C. Having traveled there this past March, as I watch the movie I recognize the metro stations, buildings, highways, monuments and skyline backdrops in the film. I have walked through these places. I have been there. There's something kind of romantic (for lack of a better term) or provocative about that. It's as if you had a hidden affair with the city allowing you to connect on a deeper level to the film set in that city.

I think this is why I am so excited about going to New York City. I want to have an affair... with another city. ;-)

You know what... a girlfriend abroad *is* worth 16 [monogamous] weekend benders... or in my case, 7!

I recently read this article and wow... it hit the nail right on the head! I refuse to be mired in feelings of missing Emily's presence for the next 2 months. (*DISCLAIMER... remember, I do miss Emily, but I am trying not to let those feelings and thoughts overtake my day to day thoughts. I AM NOT AS TERRIBLE OF A BOYFRIEND AS YOU MAY THINK! HA HA HA.)

So anyway, this article discusses how to deal with significant others who are abroad for a summer. I am in that situation at the moment and am stuck here feeling jealous and nervous. How can that be dealt with? By one-up-ing everything it is that they are doing with your own experiences at home! How does this work? This quote from the article may put it into perspective:

"But the truth of the matter is, no matter how excruciating [his or her absence] is for you, no one will ever ask you 'so, tell me about your summer of celibacy'… Unless, and this is a big unless, you have what it takes to blow that stupid summer abroad out of the water."

So yesterday afternoon over lunch, Jon and I put together this list. I know I am already on the right track because we did this even before I read this article. Jon is fully on board because he's just that kind of crazy adventurous good friend who will do stuff like this! I can't ask for more!

1. Published my first scientific paper. The day before Emily left, I (with the help of my adviser) wrote, revised and submitted my first scientific paper for publication. I am damn proud of that! Other things in my posts recently have kind of overshadowed that. As soon as it is accepted, I will be happy to post the actual paper here.
2. I'm going to New York City! I've never been there. Andy, one of my college roommates lives there. He has a guest room. He's welcoming me. I'll be there for about 4 nights or so in the beginning of December. We're going to rip it up.
3. Hit up the driving range. Jon and I are working on our golf skills. We need to improve them a bit if we're actually take up this sport.
4. Crazy random Band of Brothers/Movie drinking day. Buy some beer and booze. Pop in some movies, mini-series, video games or something. Commence watching and drinking. Get rowdy and see where things go.
5. Wine tour. Get some friends and take some time appreciating the flavors, textures and colors of the finger lakes wines. (And maybe get sloshed too.)
6. Crazy drunken limo bus. Get some friends together. Pool our money for a limo bus and alcohol. Have a night out in the city.
7. Get something published in the Library of Congress. That would just be some awesome and random bragging rights!
8. Test drive a Porsche. Need I really explain that one!
9. RIT hockey game. I hear they are pretty crazy.
10. Play some tennis. In the interest of our wanna-be rich preppie-country club snub nosed inner child, we'll take up this activity too.
11. Find a place to learn and play some curling. 'Cause 'dem Canadians have one crazy sport, eh.
12. Make a short mocumentary film. We're accepting ideas right now for the script. We already know that this scene must be included!
13. Get my passport! When I was a teenager I equated having a car with freedom to travel. Now I equate having a passport with freedom to travel. With this document, Jon and my other friends can continue our randomness on an international scale. And when the opportunity arises for me to blow everything off here and travel abroad... I can do so without hesitation!