Ugh, I just got back in from my semi-regular jog, something I haven't done for the past week or two. It turns out that I was only 24 seconds slower than my last time, so it doesn't seem like I've lost too much fitness.
Well, the last entry I got started, however I was so exhausted from the run that I soon went to bed. This evening I also went for my usual 45 minute run, and perhaps I can stay awake long enough to write and perhaps post an entry or two.
The last two days have been up and down, one of the downs being that the heat has returned. It was up about 100F yesterday, and I doubt that it was much cooler today. One of the other downers was that on Wednesday I thought I'd almost poisoned myself. It's a long story but here goes…
From the previous entry you will hopefully know that I'm working with the heavy semi-metallic element Tellurium. Although Tellurium has fairly low toxicity, it does have one extremely nasty side effect. Upon inhalation of tiny amounts (by tiny I mean up to 0.01 mg, a grin of salt weighing about 1 mg) there is a nasty symptom called “Tellurium Breath”. It's on the web, go and look it up if you want, but it is apparently a terribly garlic like reek. Back in the 1880's, someone did an experiment on some people, the human guinea pigs ingesting 15 mg of tellurium and the horrid “tellurium Breath” persisted in some cases for up to 8 months. My worry was that after working with a small amount of material in the morning, I began to get chest pains in the afternoon and it freaked me out somewhat. I've had chest pain before, but not so soon after handling a rather unpleasant chemical. Fortunately by late afternoon the pains went away and there was no nasty breath, nevertheless, next time I'll wear a dust mask.
Today was not very productive, but I did get a few experiments moving along. It's hard to get motivated with the heat beating down and little supervision. I came home about 6 pm and decided I should work on my moped. I haven't had much reason to drive it anywhere over the last month because I usually don't need to travel very far, and usually I'll either cycle or catch a lift. Suffice to say, the poor little bike was covered in dust and the oil hadn't been changed in months. We all know what colour and consistency motor oil is like when we put it into a vehicle, but suffice to say when it comes out, it shouldn't look like runny Dijon Mustard. It took me a while to get the engine running smoothly, but eventually I did and I went for a little drive, maybe 10 or 15 kilometres to get the engine up to speed. After that I came home and went for my run as the sun was setting.
In other news, I'm sending out a big bunch of postcards at the moment, if you're reading this than you probably will get one. If you don't, then you should let me know you actually read this so I can send you one.