18 July 2008

Friday, I'm in Love

I seem to make a lot of posts on Friday, usually about that fact that it is Friday. Well, I guess this is another of those. This week has not been terrible, though I was really busy at the beginning of the week. I was running back and forth between engineering and geology trying to get a lot of work done. I've put 12 more samples through the X-Ray Diffractometer. That's a special device that use Bragg's law of refraction to determine the spacing of atoms in the crystal latice of minerals. Because various minerals have distinct crystal spacing, I can determine what minerals are present in a given sample that I use. The 12 samples that I ran this week are whole rock samples, meaning that I crush the entire sample and put it in the machine. Later, I'll be working on clay mounts, where I purposefully try to concentrate and allign the clay minerals in the sample. This is done because many clays have similar signals, and concentrating them makes the signal stronger. It also allows me to do some clever things that manipulate the signature crystal spacing of the clays, like adding ethylene glycol and baking them at 500 °C.

After a long break from the campeign, I am planning to bring my Pirate themed world back to active play with my RPG friends. I'm planning to give the world a significant rewrite though, because there was a lot of stuff that I was never completely happy with. Some parts of the history didn't quite make sense. And I feel that the game plot itself had become rather confused and tangled. I think we'll restart at first level in a small town. I'm going to make a bit of a series out of crafting the starting town for the players. Keep tuned for that.

In other news, I may be moving this blog over to the Gameslave. Chris and I are looking into it now, so it won't happen for at least a week or more.

08 July 2008

The Research Continues

Despite a few setbacks, I'm keeping the research going. I had some samples go missing during the time that the lab was moved. I also had to spend way too much time trying to get the lab equipment to work. I was only able to get through two sets of samples during the time I had available. Now, the lab is needed for teaching again, so I won't be able to use the equipment again until the end of the next semester. But, I have plenty of other testing to keep me busy while the weather is cold and rainy.

I took the car in to get a WoF today, and as long as that turns out alright I'll be free to get my registration renewed. All this is good cause it means I'll have a car for another year. There isn't really a whole lot to report other than that. Chris, Crystal and I have begun recording a podcast for our gaming website every other week. You can find it over at www.thegameslave.com. Its not exactly a high quality production. Its basically just three friends talking about games and giving our views on the latest game related news. Still, we've been having fun with it. Mainly, we're just recording conversation that we would have anyways. If you're interested in that sort of thing, have a listen.