Here I wish to digress one moment and say something on behalf of GM.  Once the reader finishes with this story he/she will come to the conclusion that the GM is a truly decrepit and sorry individual.  One doesn’t even need to read between the lines to see that his life is a complete charade and the natural human response is one of pity.  On the other hand, it also does not require much effort to see the true evil nature of this person and therefore reversal of said pity is only fitting.  Still, once the story concludes the reader will realize that many people not only stood by idly while the GM spun his evil web, but many willing participated in his evil schemes.  In any event, we will return to the GM’s bio at a later date, on with the story.

The GM always had this air of pseudo-aristocracy on display.  I use this terminology for it was nothing but pomp and show but Sam was too simple at the time to see this.  Neither was Sam in tune with the obvious fact that someone from a goose-stepping jackbooted country (no not the US of today) would never have a name such as GM.  As one friend of Sam who saw through the haze most eloquently termed this professor as “der über GM.”  Another cohort of Sam described GM as walking with a pipe shoved up his ass as he strutted around The University of Asscrack’s premier center of attention.  Possibly he retained much of the skeletal structure inherent in most Goat Men which is conducive to such a stride.  It would be quite entertaining to ask Red Elk as to whether he met the GM during one of his trips to one of the inner earths.  The GM had an unusual sound to his voice when he wasn’t baaing.  From Sam’s GM voice imitation it is difficult to describe.  First, every word is purposely drawn out and uttered in an almost bass like tone that always ended much stronger in volume on the last syllable.  Second, it has a European signature to it; the type that makes English an unattractive language.  Still, on his first meeting with the GM Sam became enamored with the GM’s show.  To Sam he had finally met a professor that was a true scientist, one where he would learn skills of value for his endeavor of becoming a successful chemist.

The GM was unlike most other professors in another way.  To enter the herd of the GM you had to first present a resume.  In retrospect Sam told me that the main purpose was to gauge whether you had potential to generate useful ideas, a skill that the GM himself apparently lacked despite having 80+ patents to his name.  These facts will become obvious as the story progresses; however, even I was shocked by the revelations Sam’s story shed when it came to the GM’s inventive skills (and lack thereof).  Once the GM deemed Sam to be a valuable tool to achieving his evil ends a speech was delivered.  Sam gave me some of the highlights.  According to Sam the GM sat behind a desk of his that housed a computer off to the side and behind him was a bookshelf of sorts with numerous drawers.  The drawers of this bookshelf (unbeknownst to Sam at the time) actually housed the GM’s treasure trove of ideas.  Ideas that had been presented to him by others to be exact, but I digress.  The GM then asked Sam if he had heard the story of Damocles’ sword?  Sam said he did not know of it.  So the GM began to tell Sam how Damocles was made the guest of honor by enemies of his and above his head they suspended a sword by a single hair.  The GM continued, “This represents the inherent danger I take on when hiring a new student.”  Little did Sam know that even this speech was stolen by the GM.  Sam told me that some years later he was watching The History Channel while drinking pints of beer and the episode featured a clip of a speech by one of the sons of the famous US senator GM, the deliverer of the speech being a man whom would later become a martyr of sorts in the Lone Star State.  In the speech the martyr said almost verbatim to law makers what the GM had said to Sam during this initial indoctrination into the herd.  The GM then said something even weirder.  “Don’t worry; I will protect your soft underbelly.  I will make sure that your project is original.”  Still Sam foolishly not only believed that such odd statements were just a European thing but he also took stock into the GM’s promises, something that would haunt him later.

Disclaimer:  The following contains a few word components that certain readers may find offensive: ass and damn.  If such wording bothers you then read no further.

Let’s start off discussing Sam.  Sam is a somewhat complex individual.  In many regards he is the typical guy who is into things like beer, motorcycles, exercise/sports and sometimes women yet he still has his peculiarities.  One of his girlfriends did what I would call a pretty accurate synopsis of the major portions of his brain.  According to her it was divided into at least three main regions: sex, food, and chemistry.  Knowing Sam pretty well myself I would say that she missed a few minor portions of gray matter but the point is he is at least two-thirds normal John Doe American.  On the other hand, he is a workaholic and quite dedicated to inventing and chemistry which makes him a bit unusual and somewhat of a nerd.  I could go into great depth concerning the number of adventures Sam has gone on, most of which 99% of people never experience but to do so would lengthen this document greatly.  For me one of the main messages of this story is that Sam is (unfortunately) an ardent believer in the good of man and is a little too trusting of people in general which has resulted in him being taken advantage of over the years.

In any event, while pursuing an advanced degree in a specialty field of chemistry at a school that has the largest program in the topic area (The University of Asscrack) Sam happened upon a professor who will be referred to as the Goat Man (GM).  The story of the GM seems to be one veiled in mystery to a large degree.  It just so happens that according to one of the few biographical sketches of this individual he was born to a middle class family in one of the countries where the swastika was the symbol of piety.  I often wonder (due to the time line of events given in this biography) if he was a member of Hitler’s youth guard, probably helping some poor old Jewish grandmother to the bakery no doubt.  But for me the greatest mystery of this man is what is his true name and how has he been able to operate so successfully in the eye of the public under such an obvious guise of falsehood?  This piece of detritus stole the name GM from a well-known US senator after he floated across the pond during his initial immigration to the US via Canada; however, unlike the US senator the GM of our story had no famous sons that were assassinated.

The following is based on a true story where only the names of people and places have been changed.  I became aware of these events long ago; however, the protagonist of the story (Sam) never went public at the time since he did not have the financial resources to fend off the antagonist {Goat Man, (GM)} and none of the witnesses to these events had the courage to come forward.  With this being 2012 and supposedly the end of time according to the extinct Mayan culture I thought it appropriate to bring Sam’s story to light.  For those who doubt the accuracy of events as portrayed here I have retained copies of materials supplied by Sam and they are quite damning to say the least.  Sam has also told me that he will be releasing the names of the people and university involved along with numerous documents in the not too distant future.  The moral of this story is age old and a familiar one, when good people stand by and do nothing evil reigns freely.  My purpose in publishing this information is to take a stand for good, for as we all know good always wins in the end… Dr. Stewart P. Lewis

Anymore these days I avoid ordering through Fisher Scientific.  If you read my post on the problems I had with needles the fact is I tried for over 1 month to get replacements by sending numerous emails (ca. 12) and making multiple phone calls (ca. 6) to both Cadence and Fisher and they still both ignored me.  Finally by persistence alone I was able to get a replacement pack of needles sent to me.  It was then that I found out that as long as the needles were hand bent there was no leakage issue.  So when I discovered this I informed both Fisher and Cadence, apologized, and paid for the replacement pack even though I never needed them in actuality.  Now, Cadence had previously been determined to test the mandrel bent needles and had requested that I send them back; however, on me informing them hand bent needles didn’t leak they went back to not responding to my email messages!  I’ll say this.  My VWR representative (Courtney) has really gone out of her way to help me to the point of entirely replacing a flat of costly vials when only 4 were damaged to giving me about $200 worth of Qorpak jar lids for free because VWR made an error in the order number twice.  So pretty much anymore these days I order exclusively through VWR and if you have a choice I suggest you go with VWR.  I’m pointing these things out because I’ve noticed that despite the US having transitioned to a service from manufacturing based economy customer service at most of these companies is nonexistent.

Defective from the start (refer component), Innovative Technology lemon dry box

Another defective refer component, service valve of Innovative Technology box

Well, once about one year rolled around from the last refrigerant refill the same behavior surfaced again so more 409A was added.  This time the refer only worked for about 3 months.  I had Accord Air come out and sure enough there were no less than three leaks!  One leak was due to a rusted accumulator (see below).  Notice all the wonderful rust on the box components.  I was told that this was never insulated correctly and that was part of the problem.  The next leakage point (you guessed it) was the service valve (see above)!  It must have been leaking (slowly) long ago (like when the box arrived).  But the real surprise (not) was that there was a major leakage at the thermal expansion valve (top most picture).  This was still wrapped in the original cork tape insulation when Accord Air started their work.  According to the technician (whose bill exceeded $1,000), there was an external retaining clip and some sort of adjustment nut that had both been tampered with from the day the unit was made!  When I confronted Innovative Technology, Inc. with the fact that the manufacturer had sold me faulty components from the beginning their reply was “oh well, the unit is 8 years old, what do you want us to do.”  I recall these same jokers saying more than a year before that they stand behind their products.  Yeah, more like they do so as to hide from the customer once they find out they’ve been sold a lemon!

Another picture of the defective accumulator

The Lemon Dry Box (defective refer components, accumulator)

Not long after I got that squared away I noticed the compressor for the refer unit was switching on more frequently than usual and that the temperature didn’t stay regulated very well.  I had a friend that works on refrigeration come out and the culprit was coolant was basically gone.  So he refilled the unit with 409A and it worked well for one year.   Meanwhile, (and I need to try and get a good photo of this, difficult due to reflection from the window) an oily residue started to exude from the window gasket in the box.  This happened despite the fact that I was only using minor amounts of deuterated benzene for NMR work as the only volatile material allowed inside the box!  When I brought these problems up to Innovative Technology, Inc. they had nothing useful to say nor did they offer to fix the problems.

By now you are probably thinking surely things couldn’t get any worse, well guess again.  I relocated to a larger more professional lab setup.  No David (Innovative Technology, Inc.), my lab is not in a business incubator (tard) but might as well be given the money I’ve spent in UHP nitrogen and repairs on this box of yours.  The box was shut down for the move and the manual that was supplied had no instructions on shutdown.  That led to yet more problems (e.g. a saturated oxygen sensor), still I have to say that Innovative Technology, Inc. did step up to the plate here and sent me a replacement component.  I’ll go one step further here and say that it would have made sense for me to double check with them to make certain nothing was amiss.  If this sort of behavior had continued (i.e. them paying for defects/etc. directly caused by them) then I wouldn’t be writing this blog.  Not long after taking care of that issue one of the solenoid valves on the catalyst bed went.  Mind you this unit was not much more than 1 year old and the replacement was only around $700.  This is when I had my dry box epiphany.  All the leakage (gas wise) was through connections to these solenoid valves.  My solution (after many hours of testing, telephone calls, etc.) was to replace the junk push in tubing connections (remember the tubing that ruptured earlier) with Swagelok components.  This greatly reduced (but did not completely eliminate) the leakage problems.  Oddly enough, during one of numerous conversations with one of the technicians at Innovative Technology, Inc. I was told that the design was less than perfect and that a cost effective solution would be to have dedicated air pressure going to these solenoid valves instead of the standard setup where UHP nitrogen pressure (also used as the box working gas) activates the solenoid.

As I glanced up to see where all this water was coming from I noticed a small iceberg formation on the top of the compressor.  The service valve (which I had no idea at the time it was a service valve) was encased in ice.  Had I possessed the knowledge that I have now (back then) I would have avoided this iceberg situation; but oh no, not me!  This box was going to go down like the Titanic.  Innovative Technology, Inc. was nice enough to dispatch a refrigeration repairman to take a look.  Morris (heating and cooling?) stopped by and the repairman quickly decided the main problem was insufficient insulation.  His solution, wrap everything with PU foam insulation (you can see parts of this which I hadn’t scrapped off in the previous blog post picture).  This appeared to fix most of the problems; however, as I would soon learn later it did nothing but help cover up a large slew of existing problems (i.e. manufacturer defects).

The Lemon Dry Box (Part 2)

The day when my system one box arrived I was excited.  Within a very short period of time I had plumbed in UHP grade nitrogen (at 60 psi) and no sooner did it reach the box then a piece of thermoplastic tubing that runs on top of the solenoid valves for the catalyst bed burst.  I can’t blame Innovative Technology, Inc. for that.  In fact, at the time they didn’t believe it had happened as according to them the tubing was rated for about 1,000 psi!  I took photographs (wish I had retained them) and sent the defective section to Innovative Technology.  They figured it was a fluke from the tubing manufacturer (who it was I have no idea) and I continued to use the remaining good section of the tubing (with no further ruptures).  Despite this the box consumed large quantities of gas even when not in use.  At first I thought this was due to faulty Swagelok components, but as we will see later, it was actually due to the poor connections on top of the solenoid valves (one of which was junk itself) and overall poor design.  It was then that I noticed the gauges on the antechambers were not working.  This triggered an uneasy feeling in my gut, and it was only the beginning of my troubles with the lemon dry box from hell (i.e. Massachusetts).