Tired

Well after nearly a week off from the gym we went last night, and let me tell you it was painful. My legs are still aching from the pain and right now all I want to eat is a greasy burger.

So, I went home last night after an okay day at work, and I made a quick dinner, read one of my wifes short stories, and took the dog for a walk. Then it was off to the place of torture for 2 hours of grueling excercise.

So, we played squash for an hour, which is our usual schtick. But this time after game two I was exhausted. I was breathing heavy, I was sweating. I was tired and it was pathetic. I mean it's only been like 6 days. 6 lousy days and my body was making me pay for taking the time off. So, we played three more exhausting sqaush games, and I was beat.

Now, we still had all our weights to do, and I just wanted to get them over with. After only doing the Chest Fly, Row machine, and bicep, I wanted to stop. But that was just the begining. In my mind I was ticking them off as I was going, next was the leg press, hammer press (squat machine), leg extension and leg curl. My legs were aching, but I wasn't done yet. I still had lots of machines to go. Then it was the shoulder press, leg abduction, and the instrument of torture (see here Another night of Pain and Suffering ). Okay, I was tired, but I was on the home stretch. What I didn't realize is that my heart was just beating away. I did the leg aduction and I was down to only two more pieces of equipment. The torso rotation machine and the ab machine. I was home free. Only my body decided at this point it had had enough. I was on the torso rotation machine when all of a sudden I started to feel nauseous. I had that feeling in the back of my throat that I was going to throw up all over the equipment. I quickly made my way to the changing rooms and sat on the toliet and relaxed. It was at this moment that I could just feel my heart pounding in my chest. I had overworked myself to the point of making myself sick. A few more minutes of rest, relaxation and deep breathing and I was starting to feel fine again. But I skipped my last two excercises and next time I won't make the same mistake.

After working out we went and got a frosty (I know, I know, but you do need to eat something after working out) and believe me it was so good. I cannot describe how good that frosty tasted. Anyway, after that I pretty much collapsed on the couch for an hour and then took the dog out, and by the time we got into bed I was completely exhausted and basically passed out.

So there you go, another exciting and tiring evening.

I'll do a chemistry update later today, on something I will be doing this afternoon (again very general).

Organic Chem 101, Part III

Okay, so today in the lab I'm doing what is known as a Hydrogenation reaction. This is smiply what it the name says it is. I'm adding hydrogen to the molecule. Simple right?

See sometimes if you read the label of some comercial products such as oils, butters and lards, they will list them as partially saturated, or partially saturated fatty acids. Which just means that they have been partially hydrogenated. Cool eh?

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/organicprops/alkenes/hydrogenation.html

So what does all this actually mean?

Well first something that is Unsaturated, is a molecule that has a double bond (see the diagram below), and something that is Saturated has no double bonds (again see diagram below). Why do they use the terms Saturated and Unsaturated. It's just a term that refers to whether each carbon molecule is maxed out on the number of bonds that it has. An Unsaturated Carbon is only bonded to 3 other atoms, whereas a Saturated molecule is bonded to 4 other atoms.

So, how does one go about adding hydrogen to an Unsaturated system?

Fairly simply actually. What you do is you take your Unsaturated molecule, dissolve it up in Methanol or Ethanol (Ethanol is less flamable and less likely to result in an explosion or fire) and you add your catalyst, which is usually Palladium absorbed on charcoal (or carbon). Usually you only need a few mole percent of catalyst for the reaction to proceed. Then you put it under an atmosphere of hydrogen and stir. The usual way of putting it under a hydrogen atmosphere in a Chemistry lab is to fill a ballon full of hydrogen, and attach it to your flask. This will cause the flask to fill with hydrogen and allow for your reaction to take place. These reactions are usually fairly clean, so the only purification required (assuming you go into the reaction with clean material) is to just filter the solution through celite (crushed fossilized sea creatures).




What actually happens at a molecular level?

Well, what happens is that the Palladium usually co-ordinates to the double bond in a pi-allyl fashion, and also co-ordinates to one molecule of hydrogen. The hydrogen then adds across the double bond, giving rise to your unsaturated system.

So what does it mean when something is partially hydrogenated?

Well it means just that, only some of the double bonds in the molecule have been hydrogenated, therefore it is not fully saturated, but it's not still in it's fully unsaturated form.

So, any questions? Do you feel any smarter?

Easter Weekend

Here is a quick update of my fabulously exciting Easter Weekend.

Thursday Night:

The wife and I went out for dinner with another couple, just to a diner and we sat around and chatted for a few hours. Nothing really exciting happened there.

Friday:

We hung out with the same couple during the day, did some shopping together and went out for dinner with them and another couple. Here's the fun part I guess. Usually when we go out for dinner after dinner we get the bill split three different ways. Usually this is not a problem. However, at this place if you don't ask for them to split the bill up front they won't split it. We had the manager come out to our table and he refused to split the bill. I mean how hard is it to split a bill? What if they made a mistake on the bill, they'd have to correct it, right? Well splitting the bill would be pretty much the same thing. I think that he didn't know how to work the cash machine properly. Anyway, the wife of the couple that we go out with often got fairly upset at this and started reaming out the manager, and finally we just payed our bill and left.

Saturday:

In the morning and afternoon we got our geek on with several people, and in the evening the wife and I just picked up some dinner at Boston Market and Collapsed at home. We were actually fairly exhausted because we hadn't had much time just vegging.

Sunday:

First thing Sunday morning while I was walking the dog by a fence in a field near our place, I heard the rustling of bushes and when I looked over I saw the bouncing white tail of a deer moving away from me. Looking closer through the fence I could see just a few feet away a deer staring straight at me, and just a few more feet away from him was another deer. I stood there silently with the dog and stared at them for a few minutes. They didn't even move. Such beautiful creatures. I could never be a hunter. I'm such a softy. Anyway, later that day we travelled to Pennsylvania to go to a grocery store, to pick up some vitamins for my wife and a few other odds and ends, we came home and cleaned up the house a bit and then just relaxed at home for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was fairly nice. Around 8:00 I went out to pick up some snacks because for some reason I really wanted to snack on something. So I ended up going to a 7-11, where some guy was bitching at the shop keeper over 50 cents and threatening to call the police. Okay, wait a minute, why the hell would a customer call the police on a store? It didn't make any sense. He was causing quite the scene, but I just picked up my stuff and headed to the cash register, only to find out they only took cash. ACK. So I had to head on down to a different 7-11.

For the last few years my wife and I have been paying for almost everything via credit or debit, we don't often have cash. I'm still surprised by places taking cash only, I mean come on join the 90's at least sheesh.

Anyway, I managed to pick up some very healthy snacks, okay not really but gummy bears and beef jerkey are almost healthy aren't they? Anyway, at about 10:00 my wife asked me if I wanted to have a shower with her and I of course said yes. So we showered, I got re-dressed and took the dog out and we popped in a movie and went to bed.

Weekend Summary:

The Good: Hung out with people and socialized and cleaned up the house.

The Bad: We slacked off and didn't excercise, it's time to head our lazy asses back to the gym and there was not even the hint of sexual activity.

Uber Geek

Okay, I have a confession to make.

I'm a Geek.

I know, I know you're saying to yourself. Of course you're a geek, you're an Organic Chemist. But, my geekdom does not end there oh no.

You see, ever since I was a young lass back in the day, I've always enjoyed playing games of all sorts, boardgames of all types, strategy games, war games, video games and even role-playing games.

Now even though I had pretty bad asthma as a child I wasn't a shut in, I still went outside very often as a child and played at the park, or played street hockey (I'm Canadian Eh!) and other sports. As I got older I graduated from team sports to more opponent bases sports and played things like Tennis and Squash. I really took a shinning to Squash, and I'm not sure why, but I still play that to this day.

Anyway, back to my geekiness. So, my idea of fun back in high school was hanging out with 4-5 guys in someones basement and playing all sorts of games. It was a blast, we had a lot of fun. We destroyed each others civilizations, we blew up their battleships, we delved into dungeons and discovered riches, we did all sorts of things.

This continued on through University, while most University students were drinking, partying and having wild sex with multiple partners. I was hanging out with my few close friends, drinking soda, eating nacho's and playing games. Every Saturday we would get together and play something, and for me it didn't really matter what that something was, but whatever it was I always had fun, because I was hanging out with people I liked.

I even met my wife through geeking activities. She so doesn't look like you're typical geek. But she likes to get her geek on as well, probably not quite as much as I do, but we definately have a commonality there.

To this day, I'm still a geek and I love playing games. I own tons and tons of games, most you've probably never heard of or even cared to play. But ever since I've moved into the states and lost my group of regular friends, it's always been difficult to get my geek on. In California for the last 6 months we did hang out with a bunch of Marines and geek out, which was kind of cool. They were the buffest geeks I've ever seen. :)

So, now that we're here in New Jersey, we've found a few people that we can get our geek on with. Our hunt here has been pretty successful, and we've definately met some very nice people through our geeking activities.

So what does that make me, a grown man who plays boardgames and role-playing games?

An Uber-geek of course.

Mish Mash

Well I've been such a bad blogger the last couple of days, I haven't posted and I haven't posted on my regular reads. So this post will contain a Mish Mash of what has happened over the last few days.

Okay, well Friday night we went out for dinner with two other couples to a TGIFridays in Pennsylvania. We had to wait about 40-50 minutes for a table, the food sucked rocks. I'm talking worse than diner food, you know what I'm talking about and the service was horrible. The conversation however was alright. All in all it was a mediocore evening, but better than sitting on my ass watching T.V.

Saturday, we packed up the dog and drove back into Pennsylvania (King of Prussia) to be more specific and hung out with a few people for a few hours and then headed back home where my wife and I spent some time watching a movie. We finally got our asses into bed late, had some very medicore sex, and finally went to sleep.

Sunday, the wife kicked me out of bed to go walk the dog, which was difficult because I was exhausted, but I did. We went and worked out and after 2 hours of pain (the instrument of torture is still hurts) we went out for dinner with one of the couples that we saw on Friday night. We chatted with them for a few hours and then we headed home where we played a game for a few hours. My wife asked me to take Monday off, so that we could just have a relaxing day together. I said sure. We went to bed late.

Monday, I slept in. Well as much as I could before the wife kicked me out of bed to go walk the dog. I took the day off work, and after walking the dog, I did some computer work. My wife woke up and we chatted for a bit, and then went back to the bedroom and.... watched a movie and had an afternoon nap. We skipped out totally on our workout and just relaxed at home, watching movies, t.v. and playing games. It was nice.

Tuesday, I arrived at work and tried to get some work done, now that I'm down to a three day week, and nothing seemed to go right at work.

However, Tuesday night, was our Fitness re-evaluation. So here is a re-cap of my Fitness:

I now weigh 173.3lbs (my weight is unchanged)
My Blood pressure was 108/56 (which is really good)
My resting heart rate was 50 (I'm almost dead, or I have nerves of steel!)
My Aerobic Fitness level was only slightly improved
My Bicep Strength was less (something wasn't quite right with that one)
My Flexibility was the same (which means I'm about as flexible as a steel rod)
My Body Fat dropped by about 2%, so now I have 21.3% body fat as compared to 22.9%

All an All not much has changed for me over the last 6 weeks :(

My wife however is doing much better, weight remained the same but she improved quite a bit in her Aerobic Fitness level as well as strength and her body fat dropped about 2% as well. She really wants to get rid of her belly fat, and I'm sure it will happen, but she's very impatient. Plus, she's really not that heavy, so trying to lose 5-10 pounds for her will be pretty difficult. You can definately start seeing the toning in her body. Her ass is starting to look more amazing than it already is. :)

I can see my body changing slightly too. I doubt that I'll end up losing much weight, mainly because I'll probably end up replacing the fat with muscle. So how much I weigh really doesn't matter to me, it's more about how I feel and look; I weigh about what I should for my height. Working out is definately making me feel better and healthier about myself. Now I just have to be able to cut out all the junk. Eventually. :)

Anyway, that's what you've all missed out on for the last 4 days.

I might update a little later with something, any questions?

A Blast from the Past

I figured what the hell, this was something that I was thinking about from a comment I made a few days ago. I said something about there is something about a man in lab coat that just makes them hot. I was kidding but it kind of made me think of this:

See, I'm an organic chemist (read: Geek), and I when I met my know wife I had just finished Graduate School, but I was still working in the lab for my supervisor for a start up company that he and another professor were working on. I actually worked fairly hard for him, staying late many nights trying to get this horrible, and I mean horrible chemistry to work. However, he was really impressed by me and gave me a super reference letter.

My wife was fascinated with what I did, to me it didn't really make a lot of sense, but she thought what I did was really cool. So much so, that even when I would come home for dinner, she would ask if there was anything that I needed to do in the lab and could she come watch or help?

Now, this just floored me, my previous girlfriend, had no such interest in my work. So one day I decided to take her to the lab and show her what it is that I do. So, I showed her how one works up a reaction (which is different for every reaction) but usually at some point you have to strip off the solvent using a roto-evaporator (which is basically a vaccum, where you heat up the end with the solvent turning it into vapour and cool the other end so that it condenses in another flask) and then purify it. In undergrad labs this meant manually running a silica gel (fine white sand) column.

She really liked seeing me in action. For some reason it seemed to fill her with a sense of pride (something I'm sure I've sinced beat out of her by this point). It actually turned her on, seeing me do my job.

So, I would occasionally take her to work with me in the evenings when I had a few extra things to do and she would actually help out. It was fun, we bonded and all that. One, night when nobody was around, and while I was doing something in the lab, she came up behind me and just started stroking me. It was nice, but I told her to stop, what if someone came in. But she wouldn't stop, she just kept rubbing my crotch and smiling wickedly. I couldn't even concentrate on what I was doing.

She unzipped my pants, and continued to stroke me. Again I told her to stop, but this time I was actually trying to touch her back, but she shoved me away and just continued stroking. All the blood had left my head, I couldn't think anymore, my breathing was getting heavy and all I wanted to do was rip her clothes off and throw her on my desk. But she wouldn't stop and she wouldn't let me touch her and I couldn't hold it off for much longer. I exploded in her hands.

Then we just cleaned up and then I finished up my work.

The next day all I can remeber doing is smiling smugly at all my labmates.

Ah, those were the days. :)

Same 'ole Same 'Ole

Well last night was another evening of torture. This time we were actually at the gym for about 2 and half hours, we actually played squash for about an hour and half or so.

The squash went fine, except that my wife nailed me with the ball twice, once on my left hand, which is sporting a mighty fine welt, and once in my upper back. That's just one of the many perils of playing squash. It was fun though.

Our weight routine seemed to fly by but by the end I was incredibly sore. Even right now I'm fairly sore. I think I may have pulled something as my right arm right around my elbow is fairly sore right now. At least we have two days off from torture, so hopefully I can heal.

When we got home from the gym I was exhausted, and we just sort of sat on the couch and watched T.V., and then my wife begged me to go pick up some food from the store because she was so hungry. I had zero desire to get my ass off the couch, but I'm such a nice guy that I went out to the store and picked up some food and snacks for her as well as an azalea plant. Am I not the sweetest?

Earlier she had been complaining about the lack of greenery in our apartment, so while I'm carrying the basket of food, in one hand and a heavy item in the other, I managed to grab the plant and make it out of the store alive. Come to think of it, that may be where I actually pulled something.

By the time I got the stuff back home I was really tired, and it was around 11:30, but I still had to take the dog out for his final walk of the day and get ready for bed.

I'm sorry to report no action on my front, much to my dismay. Perhaps this weekend, but I have my doubts.

I'll update this later, during lunch, which is coming up soon because I'm incredibly hungry. Maybe something from my past.

Over reaction

I really wanted to post yesterday, but it was just one hell of a busy day that I just didn't get the chance. I had a meeting from 9:00-11:30 then lunch and then I had a whole bunch of work to do. I may go into further chemistry details later for all my adoring fans. :)

Well I think I might have been over reacting the other day, mainly because I was exhausted. I thought going to the gym was supposed to provide me with more energy, I can honestly say I'm feeling the opposite. :(

Anyway, things between me and the wife have been progressing along rather smoothly over the last couple of weeks. We've definately been very flirty and that's very refreshing. The only thing that I could complain about is the lack of sexual activity.

Anyway, so on Tuesday, I came home from work we had dinner and then went to work out. Our standard Tuesday schedule. However, our work out was definately painful and I think that's just because we're pushing ourselves to the limit, which I guess is good right?

Okay, so after working out, we decided to go out for coffee with some friends that live across the border. So, we met them at a diner had a snack, and a drink and chatted for a couple of hours and then headed back home.

Well as we were getting ready for bed, the wife went into tease mode and started flashing me. It's hard to describe fully what exactly she did, but needless to say I was completely turned on. I knew that it probably wasn't heading anywhere so I tried to just ignore it and concentrate on something else.

But once we were in bed she laid on the teasing very strong by rubbing herself up against me and then when I would reach out to touch her, she would pull away. So, I would roll over and she would rub up behind me and I would reach out to touch her and she'd pull away, this went on for a while and I was incredibly aroused. Finally, I rolled over to face her, figuring she would probably not try anything because it would be too easy for me to touch her. But, this time she rolled over grabbed me and slid me between her cheeks, and then she pulled away.

There was enough of a lapse in some of these times for me to go from hard to soft, back to hard again. I was like a yo-yo. She told me that she was wet. I said I didn't believe her and she wouldn't prove it or let me find out for my own.

Eventually I just turned towards her and started kissing her neck and working my way south. She didn't stop me. Eventually my face was between her legs, and her legs were slightly bent and her feet were resting on my thighs. Three orgasms for her later, her knees were incredibly sore from all of the tensing.

She felt kind of bad that I didn't get any action, but I told her not to worry that I really enjoy giving her pleasure. We cuddled for a bit and went to sleep. Which is entirely true, I love pleasuring her it brings me great joy, the smells, the taste, the sounds, feeling her body tense and convulse. I love it all.

The morning came far too quickly, and I had a hell of time getting out of bed. I contemplated calling in sick, but I had a meeting at nine that I really should go to. So I got my ass out of bed and spent an extra long time in the shower. My wife was actually awake after I got out of the shower, and the only way I could describe her as different. She was singing the theme song to some show that she didn't like, and being very chatty.

Work was horrible. I was tired and unmotivated, but I did accomplish a lot anyway. I almost dozed off in my cubicle once, but after that I tried to keep myself busy. I talked to my wife breifly on the phone around lunch time but she was actually busy writing and wanted me to get off the phone. This was a big deal, she hasn't been motivated to write for a long time, so I complied.

Anyway, when I got home from work, she was writing away, listening to music and in a very good mood. We went out for dinner with the same friends we had coffee with the night before. They came over for a bit afterwords and by 11:00 last night I was just ready to pass out.

So there you have it. I should run now, I have a lot of work to do and I'm procrastinating.

I might be back for an update later.

Lunch

So today I set up a couple of reactions, if I have time maybe I'll talk a little bit more about them. But, my wife called me at about quater after 11 and asked if I was going to surprise her and come home for lunch today. I actually was thinking of going home at lunch today, but if someone asks if you're going to surprise them it's not really much of a surprise is it?

So I told her no that I had a lot of work to do, and that I wouldn't be able to come home at lunch today. This was all a lie of course, but it's okay to lie if it's for a good reason right?

So I left work at 11:30, and I headed out and picked up some very unhealthy lunch at Arby's (mmm Chicken, Bacon, Swiss) and headed home. She was surprised, she was in the middle of paying bills, this month is going to be a little tight, but we'll pull through, it seems there are always months where everything seems to come due all at once.

Anyway, she was wearing tight light blue long underwear, pink socks and one of my sweatshirts. Hot right? Not that it really matters. Anyway, we enjoyed our lunch, we didn't really talk to much. After lunch I offered to take the dog out for her, so that she could finish paying off bills. She straddled me while we were sitting on the couch and I just enjoyed the closeness of it.

I still couldn't shake what she had said last night though.

Anyway, I took the dog out for a short walk and accidently stepped on one of his paws. Mainly because he tried to run under my feet, but I still felt bad for making him yelp. Anyway, he survived the ordeal pretty much unscathed and went back about his business of tracking bunny, squirrels, and deer.

Anyway, I kissed her on the head goodbye and headed back to work. Right now I'm just waiting for some information on an analysis I'm running for one of my reactions. So I thought I would just give a quick post.

I might update again a little later.

Steak and BJ day

Well yesterday was steak and BJ day and unless 2 hours of working out is considered steak, and a frosty at Wendy's is considered a BJ, then I pretty much missed out.

Yesterday involved me heading home after work, making a excellent dinner of Delgar Cuccina (read as Kraft Dinner) followed up by doing dishes and taking the dog for a walk. Top this all off with one hell of a work out, my one ankle is still sore and my lower back is definately sore, followed by a frosty and some nice quiet relaxation in front of the t.v.

No steak, and no BJ for me yesterday, or probably in the near future I will predict.

The culmination of our evening ended with us in bed having a conversation, in which we discussed many topics but the one that really got to me was when we started talking about our relationship.

I basically stated that I think things were starting to get better.

She basically said she thinks things are fine the way they are and that there are no problems.

ACK? No problems? We have like NO sex life and we don't have any problems?

I think at that point I lost all hope. What do I do at this point? She doesn't even think it's an issue?

I've had hope for such a long time, but now it's totally gone. I don't know what to even do anymore.

Chemistry 101 con't

Back by popular demand (meaning nobody actually reads or comments), here is another installment of Chem 101. I should probably rename the course to Organic Chem 101, because that's what I'll be talking about.

So today in the lab, I set up a Mitsunobu reaction, which is named after, yes you guessed it, a chemist named Mitsunobu. Here is a link to what the reaction actually does, showing actual structures. Isn't that exciting. I can't actually show you what I'm doing exactly because that information is confidential but I'll go over the basics of it.

Mitsunobu reaction

So basically what a Mitsunobu reaction does is convert an alcohol into an amine and also inverting the stereochemistry. Sounds complicated right? Stereochemistry what the hell is that? Well I'm going to try and explain it as best as I can.

You see, Carbon, likes to bond to four things, like Methane or CH4. There is only one way that these atoms can be combined and they can only form one product. However, when Carbon bonds to four different atoms it can actually bond to them in two differnt ways. Therefore this Carbon atom has what we call chirality. Show below are the two different ways of drawing CHFBrCl.



As you can see from the picture, the two molecules are mirror images of each other. This pair of molecules are known as Enatiomers. What this means physically, is that they basically have all the same physical properties, such as melting points, boiling points, etc. BUT they each react differently to plane polarized light. Trying to isolate one from the other is incredibly difficult because they are so similiar, I won't go into details of how one can accomplish that. Anyway, this is what is known as stereochemistry. As chemists we refer to them as having either R or S stereochemistry.

We arive at the R or S, by looking at the above molecule on the left and assigning priority to the different groups. An atom with the largest molecular weight bonded to the chiral carbon is labled with a 1, and then so on. In the case of the molecule on the left bromine has top priority and we label that with a 1, Chlorine is next, Fluorine is next and finally hydrogen. Now with the lowest priority group facing into the page (which is drawn for the molecule on the left) you draw an arrow connecting 1 to 2 then to 3, if this arrow is clockwise, then we assign the molecule as R (it's a german term for clockwise I believe) and if it's Counterclockwise you assign it S. Now for cases where the drawn molecule doesn't have the lowest priority group in the back, you can do the same thing, but if your drawing gives you R you just have to reverse it, therefore it would be S.

In the case of the above drawing, the molecule on the right is R and the molecule on the left is S. Fun? A 50/50 mixture of enantiomers is known as a racemic mixture.

Okay, now the reason that chirality is important in my line of work is because our bodies are made up of amino acids and they all exist in one single chiral form. What this means and it has been shown in the past by some drugs. Is that usually only one enantiomer works on a specific target, but sometimes the other enantiomer acts on a different target causing very sevre and often fatal side effects. Drugs now a days are not allowed to be a mixture of enantiomers just for this reason. So, it's very important in my job to make sure that things are enantiomerically pure. Sounds complicated doesn't it?

Well I hope you enjoyed this little stereochemistry lesson, if you have any questions please feel free to ask, and please just comment away anyway

A Weekend of Blah

Well let's see, my weekend was rather unmemorable.

On Friday night we decided to go to the gym and play squash, which was okay, but I think that we both still hurt from all the punishment that we've been giving our bodies. She continued to use her ass against me and after a couple of well played shots she definately beat me fair and square. But I'm sure pulling down your shorts has to be against the rules somewhere?

We continued flirting a bit throughout the evening but nothing major and I was so exhausted by midnight that I pretty much just fell asleep watching a movie in bed.

Saturday was our first day of nothing. We didn't do anything of interest on Saturday, we both putzed around the house, we started doing some laundry, vacuumed and tidied up the house, and then sat around watching T.V. and playing on the computer. We played a video game together for a bit which was fun. We cuddled in bed for a bit and then fell asleep.

Sunday, was our second day of nothing. We should have headed to the gym today, but my wife wanted another day off to rest, and I was in agreement. After getting up and having some breakfast, we actually ended up back in the bedroom around 1:00 PM and just popped a movie in the DVD player and watched it in bed together. It was nice, our bedroom is very dark and it was nice and cool. It was very enjoyable. Afterwords we putzed around a bit more and again around midnight I was exhausted and fell asleep again in bed.

Today I'm tired, and not looking forward to working, but ah what can you do.

Perhaps I'll bitch some more later today if I get a chance.

Bloggerland

Well bloggerland seems to be FUBAR'd for me today, I can't seem to post comments on anyones sites. So, I have been trying to comment on a few of my regular blogstops and have not been able to .

Well I don't have a lot of time to blog today. I'm so tired today, which is strange since I didn't work out last night. But I did probably only get about 6 hours of sleep so that could be the problem.

My wife and I weren't as flirty last night, and I still have no action to report :(. Tonight I'm not sure what we're up to, but we'll probably go out for dinner or pick something up and I believe we're going to head to the gym for a bit. Other than that, no real big plans for us this weekend. But that's okay because we've actually been pretty busy lately. Going to the gym 4 times a week at two hours a pop, really breaks up our days.

At lunch today I'm going to run out and get a haircut, I look like such a total slob, I haven't had a haircut since I left San Diego (ie end of December), so I'm overdue. Throw in the fact that I've only shaved once this week and I look like a total skid. After my haircut, I'll pick up some lunch and head on back to work. I think I'll leave a little early today. I have nothing pressing that requires my attention, and well, it's Friday right?

Well I did carry my wife into the bedroom last night, however, the dog kept jumping into the back of my knees and we almost all made a spill in the hallway. But I guess he figured we were ingnoring him, so we played chase for a minutes before bed.

Chase is this really fun game where all you have to do is lunge at the dog, and he goes all crazy and starts running around the house. Then he stops near you and you lunge at him again and it starts all over again. He actually gets a lot of excercise from it and sometimes you can even do it while you're sitting on the couch. Ahh, sometimes it would be nice to be so easily entertained.

Anyway, thats all for me now. I may update later today if something inspires me or I'm just really bored because I can't seem to comment on anyones site.

Another Night of Pain and Suffering

Well last night was night three in a row of our workout routine. See we go and workout Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and then Thursday. Originally this was because we had dog agility classes on Wednesday, which left Friday and Saturday open for whatever we decide to do.

So last nights work out went fairly well, we started off by playing some squash. My wife decided to distract me several times by showing me her ass, purposely bending over in front of me to pick up the ball, and making comments like, "Do you want to touch it?" while I'm trying to serve. Needless to say I was distracted. Heck even once she pulled her shorts down a bit so I could see her pink thong. Man I can't believe I lost that game, ah well, it was fun.

We went through our weight routine rather quickly, probably because we could see the end in sight. Everything was going well, I did my two back machines, followed by biceps and triceps and shoulders. After that my arms were incredibly tired, so it was on the the leg press, leg curl, leg extention and the squat machine. Man now my legs were incredibly tired.

So after that I decided to move on to what I affectionately refer to as the "Torture Chamber" which in reality is known as the gravitron. This thing just punishes my arms and back, which means it must be good for me right? Remember back in gym class when you had to do chin ups? Well the gravitron is pretty much like that. Basically there is a plate that you kneel on and a set of weights, what the weights do is offset your own weight so that you're not lifting up your entire body weight. Which is what you do in regular chin ups. Well the added function of the gravitron is that it has a set of parrell bars so that you can do some parallel bar push ups as well and really work those arms and shoulders. Ack I ache just thinking about it. Anyway, last time I lowered the weight on the gravitron 10 pounds, which means I'm lifting ten more pounds of my fat ass, which means lots of pain and suffering. Anyway, after one set of 15 of both the parellel push ups and chin ups, my arms were in a lot of pain. I took a short breather and then attacked the machine again, this time I could only do 10 chin ups and 13 push ups. Man my arms were sore.

Anyway, after surviving the torture chamber, it was on to the Abduction and Aduction machines (inner and outer thighs, come on ladies you know all about these bad boys!), which means my work out is slowly coming to a close. We always finish off with the ab machine, followed up by the torsor rotation machine, and then some stretches and we're all done.

I was so sore, after that work out, and I must have worked my ass pretty hard because one of my butt checks was aching!

So, after a wonderful work out, we headed back out into the cold, and I mean cold, there was some really nasty cold wind. Brrrr I'm just shivering thinking about it. We headed off to the grocery store to pick up some fruit, other food and some snacks.

Note: DO NOT GO GROCERY SHOPPING AFTER WORKING OUT, YOU'LL END UP BUYING A CRAP LOAD OF UNHEALTHY STUFF THAT YOU DON'T NEED

Needless to say I ended up bying some chocolate covered raisins, and some cinnamon buns. Mmmm cinnamon buns. Have you noticed I've been focusing on buns lately? Strange? For some strange reason I've been craving chocolate covered raisins for awhile. My wife was a little more healthy with some muffins, un-salted pumpkin seeds, ranch flavoured rice snacks, and some beef jerkey.

So, after getting home. I put away all the grocerys and cleaned out our gym bags while my wife wrote an e-mail to someone, and then we collapsed on the couch, with some goodies and watched, "Law and Order: SVU." I actually enjoyed the eposide, it was a little creepy but SVU tends to be a little creepy anyways.

After the show was over I was absolutely dreading what had to happen next. My body was aching and one of my butt cheeks was pretty sore. Plus it was really, really cold outside, but I had to take the dog out. Well I managed to take him out for about 10-15 minutes but after that I was just too sore and too cold, and we shuffled back inside.

Then my wife and I jumped into the shower together, to warm up a bit and wash away the grime and sweat from our work out. It was nice and relaxing. Just being with her in the showering was very arousing, but I definately didn't push the issue. I just enjoyed the warmth and the closeness of her body. She got out first and I stayed in for a bit just to continue to enjoy the warmth and while she was brushing her teeth she dumped a glass of cold water on me. Evil, she is pure evil.

We finished getting ready for bed, watched t.v. for a few minutes, and then I kissed her on the forehead and I pretty much passed out.

This morning I had no desire to get out of bed, I was a little sore but mainly tired. Finally I managed to drag my ass out and get ready for work. My wife was actually up, and still lying in bed. We chatted for a bit and then I took the dog out for his morning business, and brought him back to the bedroom. My wife was still awake, lying in bed cuddled up in her duvet.

Every morning before I go to work. I usually kiss her on the forhead sleeping or not and tell her to have a good day, or something. But remembering the cold water that got dumped on me the night before, I decided to rip off her duvet and place my cold hands on belly, she started giggling and squirming and screaming. Then the dog started barking and his tail started wagging, he wanted in on the play action. So, we got the dog up on the bed, and we cuddled as a family for a moment and then I took off for work.

And here I am.

Afternoon Delights

Well it's really starting to snow here, which made my decision to go home for lunch probably not the brightest thing that I should have done.

See when we were living in San Diego, my work was only 10 minutes away from home and there were several fast food joints on the way home, so at least once a week I would pick up food and head home for lunch and spend time with the wife. Occasionally we would walk the dog together or I would be kind and do it for her, if she was really in a writing groove.

However, now I live about 15-20 minutes away, which still isn't that far, but there is nothing between here and home where I can stop and pick something up. So, to pick up something for lunch I have to kind of drive out of my way, pick it up, head home and usually a good 40 minutes has already passed. But, today I decided I would head home and bring the wife some lunch and maybe take the dog out for her because it's damn cold and windy outside and I'm nothing if not a nice guy. ;)

So I drive to a fast food establishment that shall remain nameless and I decide to take what I think is a short cut, and probably would have been if I had turned at the right street, needless to say I sort of overshot where I was going and had to double back. The roads are starting to get worse and better yet my windshield wipers aren't really working properly! So finally I arrive at the fast food establishment that shall remain nameless wait 5 minutes to pick up my food and head on home. The weather is steadily getting worse, and it's slow going but I finally arrive at home. It's now been about 45 minutes, so not too bad, I'm doing okay for time. I was pretty much planning on being a little late coming back from lunch.

So, we enjoy a nice meal, chat a bit and make fun of the dog, and then I say I have to head back to work and that she'll have to take the dog out herself. She's still in her PJ's because she didn't get up until 11:30 today because she didn't sleep very well last night. She begs me to take the dog out with her. I tell her to get ready quickly, so we can do it and I can get back to work. She then asks if I want to have a shower with her and she tilts her head in that cute innocent way. Boy did I want to have a shower with her, but I didn't really have the time. She even pulled her PJ's down and showed off her ass.

Wow, let's just say that working out is doing wonders for her ass. Or maybe I'm just incredibly horny lately. But I still really don't have time, so I tell her that I'll run the dog out for her quickly. Then, she pulls down her pants again, showing me her ass, and she slightly bends over and says, "Don't you want to touch it?"

Ack, of course I want to touch it. I'm sure my breathing changed at that point and I'm sure my voice did. Blood stopped flowing to my brain and started flowing to my nether regions. The last thing I needed to do was wander around outside in the cold, walking the dog with a raging hard on. I quickly put the leash on the dog and was out the door.

After a quick tour around the complex I brought the dog back and was ready to just say bye and leave. But my wife got up as soon as I was in the door and came over to me. She hugged me, and started rubbing my butt and asked, "Are you sure you don't want to have a shower with me, the hot water, and rubbing soap all over me."

Oh god, of course I do, I thought to myself but I had to get back to work and I knew nothing would come of the shower. I told her that I had to get back to work and kissed her on the forehead, then she turned around and lowered her pants again and said, "Are you sure you don't want to touch it?"

I had to, there's only so many times a nice cute butt can be shoved in your face before you have to reach out and grab it. It was so smooth so warm, god I wanted her right then and there, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I knew that she was teasing me, but I liked it.

I kissed her slightly on the lips and told her I had to go and that I hope she gets lots of writing done this week and then I left.

Of course the weather had continued to deteriorate, and by the time I had made it a few blocks I had thought to myself, that I just should have stayed home, had a shower and relaxed with my wife. Then when my windshield wipers were completely frozen and I was driving with an iced over window I thought to myself, man I'm an idiot.

Crash and Burn

Today I'm extremely sore, and I want to say that I'm sore because of a wild night of monkey love, but the reality is I'm sore because I worked out last night. After working out last night I was extremely sore, which is kind of strange because I didn't actually do any harder weights because I bumped them up the day before. Maybe it had to do with the little bought of food poisoning I had, or maybe my body just hadn't recovered from the previous work out?

Anyway, nobody cares about my soreness, so what to write about today, hmm how about some past stupidity.

Let's see, a long time ago, in a place far, far away (okay only a few thousand miles, but you get the picture) I went to a movie with a bunch of friends. We all piled into a blue mini-van (one of their parents vehicles) and headed off to the movie theatre. Now I can't honestly remember what the movie was, but the whole time we were jacking around like a bunch of young punks and I think afterwords we went a shot a few rounds of pool (or billiards however you want to call it). Afterwords they dropped me back off at home, and one of my jackass friends decided to throw a pop can on my lawn, so I threw it back through the sliding door of the mini-van. Playful insults were being thrown back and forth, and finally after they threw it out once, they closed the sliding door and me in my brilliance jumped onto the side of the mini-van standing on the railing and holding the handle.

However, the driver had no idea what was going on and basically took off with a shot when he heard the door close. There I was clinging to the side of the mini-van as it continued to speed up down my street. The guys in the back began screaming at the driver to stop the vehicle, but he hesitated not actually knowing what was going on. It was at that moment that the small little railing I was standing on decided to give out.

It was at that moment that I learned that a man can't run 30-40 km/hr, and that pavement hurts a lot. Luckily I fell away from the mini-van and completely avoided the tires, or I might not be here writing this tale. In the end I scraped up the top of my wrist pretty badly and my hands as well. But otherwise I was realtively unscathed, nothing broken other than my pride. I still have a scar on my wrist which acts as a constant reminder of my stupidity.

So I highly recomend that everyone ride inside of vehicles rather than on them because pavement hurts and gravel hurts worse. :)

Chemistry 101

Well today I thought I'd talk a little about what I do, I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I thought, what the heck. I mean how many people know what an organic chemist does?

Anyway, in the movies all chemistry labs involve the bubling of colored liquids and these strange set ups of aparatus. This is not the case, really a more acurate representation is that depicted in CSI. I have a fume hood, and a lab bench, plus lots of glassware, most of it not very funky.

You see most reactions are set up in a round bottom flask or vial, and the reaction is stirred using a magnetic stir bar (which is basically a small magnet coated in teflon). So you add your reagents to the flask, add solvent, and stir. Occasionally you'll have to heat or cool the solution depending on the reactivity of your reagents. The more reactive your reagents the cooler you have to go down to usually -78 degrees celcius, if your reagents are fairly unreactive you may have to heat them up. Now there is a little more to this, but basically this is all it takes to run a reaction.

But you see after the reaction is completed, not only do you usually have your product, but you usually have starting materials, other side products as well as polymerisation products all floating around in the solution. But for the purposes of new pharmaceutical agents you need to have pure product. So, the real difficult part of the chemistry process actually begins.

Purification, is the most important step and probably what I spend a majority of my time doing and is the reason I've decided to write this today. See today I had thought I had purified a reaction, but in reality it is still a mixture of very similar products and now I have to try and develop a new method to purify it.

There are several ways to purify an organic compound.

1) Extraction: You can take your organic solvent with your mixture (chloroform, dichloromethane, hexane, ether, ethyl acetate, and many more) and you can add water to this, which will form two layers, and then shake them up so that they mix and let them settle. What will happen is compounds that are hydrophillic (ie preference for water), will be extracted into the water layer where as the more hydrophobic (ie dislike water) comopunds will stay in the organic solvent. Extraction is a good way to get rid of water soluable compounds, but I try to avoid it like the plague because usually it's not the water soluable compounds that are a problem, plus most the compounds I'm trying to make right now are fairly water soluable and trying to get rid of water is a nightmare.

2) Crystalization: This is a very nice technique and can lead to very pure compounds, the problem is that the more impure your starting sample the more difficult it is to recrystalize out a single material. This technique is usually only used to purify out material that is fairly pure to start with.

3) Chromatography: This is the method of choice for most organic chemists. You see chromatography takes into account the polarity of your molecules. Poor mans chromatography involves using a glass column filled with ultra pure sand, these sand molecules are very fine and very pure Si02. You place your compound at the top of the silica, and then you run organic solvents through it. What happens is that your compounds get absorbed and deabsorbed onto the silica, which translate into them moving down the column at different rates depending on their polarity. You see silica is fairly polar, so the more polar your molecule the longer it will stay absorbed to the silica.

The opposite to this is reverse phase chromatography, in this case you have a very non-polar solid material, usually some sort of long chain carbon containing group and you use polar solvents such as water and methanol or ethanol or acetonitrile. In this case the more polar your molecule is, the faster it travels through the column.

Anyway, right now I have a very polar molecule that I've tried to purify using both methods, and in both cases I can't seem to seperate out the mixture. Right now it's a mixture of two very similar products and now I have to design some sore of normal or reverse phase chromatography method to give them enough seperation so that I can purify them and submit them for testing.

Anyway, I'm sorry for boring you all. If you made it this far that is.

Friday

Well it's Friday and I'm so looking forward to the weekend, not because I have anything big planned, just that I'm looking forward to relaxing.

I don't have to go work out until Sunday, so my body can recover from the previous punishment! Although last night all we did was cardio, I was still pretty sore and tired afterwords.

Up until today things were actually going fairly smoothly with my wife, but today she seems to be pretty hung up on something I did a long time ago, I'm not exactly sure why, but hopefully I can help change her mood before we go out for dinner tonight.

Our weekend is pretty sparsely packed, so perhaps I'll get a chance to keep the couch from floating away. One can only hope.

Personally, I'd like to go home tonight and jump my wife and stay in bed all weekend. Of course if I actually told her that she'd have a fit. I wish that wasn't the case.

I'm so very tired today, I don't know why, I got at least 7 hours of sleep that's enough isn't it? I seem to be tired a lot lately, I wonder what I can do to fix that?

Well I hope everyone out there has a wonderful weekend, and lots of wild sex so that I can live vicariously through you.

Later

Another Day another Dollar

Today's post is brought to you by the letter "P".

Why P, I have no idea, I just decided to pick a letter and the first thing that popped into my head was P. Do I have to go to the bathroom, I don't think so. What is it about the letter P that has caused me to choose it? Do you know what I could be thinking about?

Well this post is pretty much going nowhere fast, kind of like my sex life. :)

Anyway, today my Chemistry is working well, and in about 20 minutes I have to go to our weekly company lunch meeting. Mmm free food. Afterwords I will continue to slave away on my project and hopefully discover something grand.

Last night, we worked out again. We're actually doing very well and sticking to our original 4 days a week. Afterwords I'm always very sore. Yesterday, I bumped up all the weight, just so I could get that extra level of soreness. Today, however I'm only a little bit stiff, in more ways than one.

After working out, putting away our stuff and cleaning up the kitchen, I tried to convince the wife to have a shower with me after I took the dog out. She said she would just shower in the morning. So I took the dog out for his evening walk and when I returned she was toweling herself off.

Ack! I had asked nicely, and she even said she wasn't going to bother showering!!! But after a few minutes in the shower I relaxed and let it go. It was probably for the best, if she had showered with me, I would have tried something and got shot down, and just angered us both I'm sure.

So, here I am rambling on and on about nothing. There is nothing too exciting going on, and I don't have any exciting plans for the future. Tonight we work out yet again, Friday I think we are going out for dinner with two other couples. Saturday we have to take the dog to the Vet to get a booster shot, and I think we're having coffee with someone. Other than that my weekend is free in clear. I think I'd like to spend a day just vedging, doing nothing to mentally challenging. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

This morning I woke up with a raging hard on, which is rather annoying when you really, really have to go to the bathroom. Trying to pee with even a slight chubby becomes challenging and occasionally messy. I suppose that was way too much information. Oh well. If I get a chance and my muse hits I'll be back later today.

Something

Well I figured I should at least put something on my blog today. I must keep all my fans happy, right?

Fans? You out there? (echo: You out there, out there, there...)

Hmm, today has actually been a busy day at work. I had a meeting from 9:00 to 11:00, did some work, had some lunch, and I've been working non-stop since 12:30 (it's almost three now), I'm going to be heading back into the lab after I post this magnificant piece of crap.

Last night the wife and I went out for dinner with another couple, it was good we stayed out chatting for several hours about a variety of things, politics, movies, you know the drill. It was fun, I'm sure we'll do it again. Actually I think we are scheduled to go out on Friday, and possibly have coffee on Saturday. We'll see how the rest of the week shapes up.

We didn't make it to the gym last night so tonight will be workout night, which means more pain and suffering, but it's for a good cause right?

So I figure I'll open up the floor to any questions? Anyone have any questions? Anything they want to know? Anything? I'll try to answer anything you might be interested in knowing.

Ah well, time to head back to the lab.

Ask away.

The Friend

Okay, so today's Blog is devoted to someone, who is WAY more screwed up than I am.

See we have this friend back in San Diego, that I'll call V. Anyway, we met this guy V almost 2 years ago and we used to hang out from time to time with him and other people.

Over time we found out more and more about V. Like he plays the bass guitar, and that he's in a band, and that he takes it seriously. That's great, it's great for people to have goals. However, he's already 36 years old, he's really out of shape (read obese) and he wants to be a rocker.

Personally, I think the odds of him becoming a sucessful rocker are nill, but I'm not going to say that to him. Who am I to shatter someones dreams, not that they would listen anyway.

But the real story here, is the other member of their band. We'll call her R. Apparently R and V have been playing together for 7 or 8 years. Heck, V even followed her up to Seatle for a time being and they both ended up back in San Diego.

Now V works as a technical writer to pay the bills, he's not doing too bad brining in almost 80k a year. V thinks R is beautiful and talented. R is also a lesbian. R also lives with V. They live in a converted shed (total dump) near the ocean in San Diego. V pays for the studio they practice in and for the rent on the apartment. R contributes nothing. V pays for the adds, V pays for R's Cell phone, V lends R his car, V lends R money, V pays R's legal bills. For the last three years, V has supported R finacially. V could have bought a fricken house in San Diego buy now if he hadn't been supporting this leech. They try to get a band together, but R seems to have issues with anyone else joining the band. Hell they went through 4-5 qualified people in the time we knew them. How are you gonig to be sucessful if you can't even form a band? You get the picture.

V is basically married to R without benefits. He doesn't even realize that he's being used. He thinks he's doing it for the music, where in reality, she has him totally wrapped around her finger. Now, I tell my wife, V is a big boy and he can make his own decisions, but she really can't stand seeing him get used like this. So, she sets out to slowly make him realize that R is using him. It wasn't until we were actually leaving San Diego, that he was starting to come around, and it wasn't until we were in New Jersey that he finally decided to cut her off.

There was aparently even one time when V lent R his vehicle for her to drive to Arizona, instead she apparently got pulled over in Utah and they found weed in the vehicle, or something like that. He then ended up lending her money for legal bills. She claims she used to be a prostitute for the mob, but got out. How I wonder? She claims she has a criminal record, hence legal fees.

The wife did a background check on her, and found no evidence of a criminal record, or anything for that matter.

How can someone lie so much? How can someone fall for it?

Anyway, as it stands now, V has decided to finally cut her off, he's giving her no more money and has asked her to move out at the end of March. He cuts off her cell phone service, it was in his name. She begs for it. He refuses. She says she just found out that she has ovarian cancer, from a blood test and that she needs money for the surgery. He refuses. But for some strange reason she really, really needs the cell phone, and continues to beg for that money. Why would you even care if you had a cell phone if you have cancer? Shouldn't you be worrying more about the fact that she could be dying?? Yesterday, she threw a tantram and asked why he was doing this to her, why? why? why?

Right now, my wife and I don't believe she has cancer and that she just continues to try to up the ante and manipulate him into caving. I figure it's only a matter of time until he does, my wife is more optimistic. She's been talking to him and trying to build up his confidence and to make sure he's staying strong, but we'll see how long that lasts.

How does something like this happen? How does one become so blind?