It's good to be back. First of all I'm going to apologize and state that I don't think I'm going to try to catch up on everything I've missed thread wise.
My week at the conference in NC was fun...if you are a chemist. I couldn't find that hot sauce store in the Crabtree mall in Raleigh.
The second conference in MD was great because I did a lot of networking...through hot sauce! I ran 4 hours out of my way to visit Peppers in Rehoboth Beach. I picked up a good bit of stuff, and selected two bottles to take to meals at the conference. By lunch the first day, I had found two other chiliheads, and one of them convinced me to bring more bottles at dinner. At dinner I start to become famous. The other conference attendees started watching us put hot sauces on pita chips and our food, and that's when we decided to have a contest.
The next night before dinner, people watched in amazement at myself and Sandar downed chips with Csigi's Savina, Uncle Big's Killer H.S., and CaJohns 10 (the three hottest I bought at Peppers). It ended in a draw when we agreed that the bottles would be empty before someone withdrew. It then developped into a conversation about chemical tolerance (all of us are chemistry teachers/professors) and the whole burnt tounge vs developped taste debate. The best part is that by the end of the conference everyone knew who I was because of hot sauce (I'll find out if this is a good or bad thing later when I start looking for a job).
On the way home, I was able to visit Mr. D's. It was my second time there, and it was busy...even though I thought I had it timed that I would beat the lunch rush. The food was excellent, just like last time (hot wings), and Marco did find some time to come say hello despite the fact that he was really busy. I left with a jar of savina salsa (I love that stuff), Marco's newest creation (Marco, if you are reading this - It's AWESOME), and a bottle of Big Dawg's Slobber Sauce (haven't gotten around to it yet).
I had a rather unpleasant surprise awaiting me and my arrival at VT. While I was gone, some of my labmates used my THF still and didn't clean up afterwards, and when I needed it cleaned the guilty party wasn't around so I went about cleaning it myself. A THF still uses elemental sodium metal to remove (read: react) with residual water that is found in THF. To do this, alcohols are used because they react with the sodium in the same way, just not as violently. This method works well if there is only a little sodium left (which there should have been if it was used properly). Unfortunately, there was a large chunk buried underneith the organic tar. (If you want to see how violent this reaction is click here. The video uses a 50 g chunk, which is approximately the amount of sodium in the still at the time.) Needless to say, bad things happened, and a barage of glass, cork, and chemical shrapnel was hurled at me, a scant 3 feet away. Here is a picture of just one of the wounds 5 days later.
Then it caught fire...a large pillar of yellow flame 3 feet high was in my hood and I was being eaten alive by chemicals (that organic tar I previously mentioned). I went to the safety shower, and while trying to douse myself I heard a *POOF* followed by a yellow cloud engulfing the room...it was the first time I was ever actually afraid for my life. I immediately left my lab and started telling my co-workers next door to evacuate. Well, thankfully that poof was a fire extinguisher and not a secondary explosion like I thought it was. That's when someone pointed out my blood trail and blood in my clothes. A trip to the hospital and a week of serious lab cleaning later and I'm ok.
Long story short, I'm back, I'm ok, and ready to do non-explosive chemistry and chili consumption.
My week at the conference in NC was fun...if you are a chemist. I couldn't find that hot sauce store in the Crabtree mall in Raleigh.
The second conference in MD was great because I did a lot of networking...through hot sauce! I ran 4 hours out of my way to visit Peppers in Rehoboth Beach. I picked up a good bit of stuff, and selected two bottles to take to meals at the conference. By lunch the first day, I had found two other chiliheads, and one of them convinced me to bring more bottles at dinner. At dinner I start to become famous. The other conference attendees started watching us put hot sauces on pita chips and our food, and that's when we decided to have a contest.
The next night before dinner, people watched in amazement at myself and Sandar downed chips with Csigi's Savina, Uncle Big's Killer H.S., and CaJohns 10 (the three hottest I bought at Peppers). It ended in a draw when we agreed that the bottles would be empty before someone withdrew. It then developped into a conversation about chemical tolerance (all of us are chemistry teachers/professors) and the whole burnt tounge vs developped taste debate. The best part is that by the end of the conference everyone knew who I was because of hot sauce (I'll find out if this is a good or bad thing later when I start looking for a job).On the way home, I was able to visit Mr. D's. It was my second time there, and it was busy...even though I thought I had it timed that I would beat the lunch rush. The food was excellent, just like last time (hot wings), and Marco did find some time to come say hello despite the fact that he was really busy. I left with a jar of savina salsa (I love that stuff), Marco's newest creation (Marco, if you are reading this - It's AWESOME), and a bottle of Big Dawg's Slobber Sauce (haven't gotten around to it yet).
I had a rather unpleasant surprise awaiting me and my arrival at VT. While I was gone, some of my labmates used my THF still and didn't clean up afterwards, and when I needed it cleaned the guilty party wasn't around so I went about cleaning it myself. A THF still uses elemental sodium metal to remove (read: react) with residual water that is found in THF. To do this, alcohols are used because they react with the sodium in the same way, just not as violently. This method works well if there is only a little sodium left (which there should have been if it was used properly). Unfortunately, there was a large chunk buried underneith the organic tar. (If you want to see how violent this reaction is click here. The video uses a 50 g chunk, which is approximately the amount of sodium in the still at the time.) Needless to say, bad things happened, and a barage of glass, cork, and chemical shrapnel was hurled at me, a scant 3 feet away. Here is a picture of just one of the wounds 5 days later.
Then it caught fire...a large pillar of yellow flame 3 feet high was in my hood and I was being eaten alive by chemicals (that organic tar I previously mentioned). I went to the safety shower, and while trying to douse myself I heard a *POOF* followed by a yellow cloud engulfing the room...it was the first time I was ever actually afraid for my life. I immediately left my lab and started telling my co-workers next door to evacuate. Well, thankfully that poof was a fire extinguisher and not a secondary explosion like I thought it was. That's when someone pointed out my blood trail and blood in my clothes. A trip to the hospital and a week of serious lab cleaning later and I'm ok.
Long story short, I'm back, I'm ok, and ready to do non-explosive chemistry and chili consumption.
