To put things in perspective, Sam had never really invented anything chemistry related by this time.  In fact, this was a skill that he would not develop until sometime later after being fired by the GM.  During the beginning stages of his indoctrination into the herd Sam met routinely with the GM.  Sam told me that during meetings with the GM the student was required to submit ideas which were then discussed and finally each meeting concluded with the GM retaining the original copies of the ideas that the student had brought.  These ideas were placed in the bookshelf drawer previously described earlier and possibly transposed and cataloged at a later date by the GM himself for future use.  Regardless, the entire experience of being able to present ideas was fascinating to Sam.  The whole idea that such a famous professor would sit and listen to a student was an ego boosting experience for Sam.  Still, the GM was not completely satisfied with the ideas Sam was coming up with so he requested that Sam see a visiting scientist from Belgium and also professor Hardwood of the same chemistry department (not that he was really constructed of oak).  Sam recalls professor Hardwood being somewhat agitated by his visitation and him stating “why should I give the GM all my ideas?”  Sam then presented these third party ideas to the GM but he still wasn’t satisfied.  Finally, the GM reached into his treasure chest and pulled out what he thought was a sure fire idea for a great project.  Unbeknownst to Sam at the time this idea was doomed to failure from the beginning and that his soft underbelly was about to get ripped apart at a later date by no other than the GM himself.

So our foolish Sam began work on the GM’s project.  Despite keeping grad student hours he managed to make progress that pleased the GM.  Again a digression is required here.  As it turns out the GM managed to keep very lucrative hours for himself.  Typically the GM would wander in to the University of Asscrack at around 2 pm, sit in his office for 4-6 hours and then scurry back home.  At most he taught one class per semester (if that) and still managed to rake in a 5+ figure salary.  Of course this is just a minor price to pay for the tax paying peons who reside in the great state with nothing on each end and yet it is so high in the middle.  We will get back to the millions of dollars wasted on the GM’s (supposed) inventions, not a single one amounting to any industrial significance.  According to Sam the GM would give praise by saying “keep up the good work” and “don’t worry about the literature I’ll take care of that you just focus on the laboratory work.”  Finally Sam gave his first talk on this research.  In the audience were people from the exploder tire company.  Several days later they informed the GM that on a recent literature search a Japanese company that makes copying devices amongst other things had recently patented the chemistry Sam had been working on.  The GM immediately did a 180 on Sam.  “It is your fault, it was your responsibility” said the GM to Sam.  Sam was then reassigned to train one of the exploder tire company’s employees how to do some of the techniques developed in the GM lab while the GM tried to decide what to do with Sam’s project.  I should digress here yet again.  This is when Sam started to wake up.  The tire exploder scientist that Sam trained basically told Sam that the GM was going to be made a coinventor on a patent covering an idea he came up with.  It would appear that the GM was nothing but a parasite; however, Sam still wasn’t sure.  One thing Sam did know is that the GM had lied about protecting his soft underbelly and that his project sure wasn’t original as promised.  In another “hindsight is 20/20 moment” Sam told me that later it came out in a local newspaper that the Japanese company mentioned above had previous dealings with the GM.  In fact, from the chemical literature a number of Japanese researchers had spent time in the GM’s lab working on almost identical chemistry.  It was of little doubt to Sam that the GM’s sure fire idea had ultimately come from one of these visiting Japanese scientists.

Sam began his journey in the GM’s lab in earnest.  One thing stood out almost immediately, the equipment and everything else in the GM’s labs were antiquated and in most instances substandard.  This would prove almost fatal to Sam in the not too distant future in addition to almost permanently handicapping his right hand but for the present time Sam was content that this was where he would learn to become a great scientist.  In the GM’s lab Sam received some minor training in the use of what was called a glove box.  In retrospect he noted that the GM’s glove boxes were far from being cutting edge even compared to those commercially available from the 1950s (some 40+ years ago).  Sam’s 20/20 hindsight recount of this was that not only was the bulk of the equipment substandard but so were most of the skills of the chemists who were part of the herd.  For example, one student activated molecular sieves in a convection oven at a little over 100 °C.  No one knew how to transfer liquids properly into a dry box or simple skills such a freeze-pump-thaw degassing of liquids.  There was only one Schlenk line in operation and it was questionable in construction not even possessing a mercury bubbler.  Sam told me about how one time a 500 mL Erlenmeyer flask literally disintegrated in his hand while attempting to remove a ground stopper from its corresponding opening.  By some miracle Sam wasn’t hurt because he told me the particle size of glass left was extremely fine (not a single large piece).  We will see later on how such faulty, heavily used glassware would return to bite Sam in the behind with the GM nipping at his heels.  The chemical storage was in shambles (one example is shown here).  Bottles with contents leaking and whiskers of volatile materials that had condensed on the cabinetry were not uncommon.  Lab drawers half hazardly stuffed with an assortment of useless junk were numerous.  Not only did Sam never receive any sort of lab safety training while at The University of Asscrack but the people in the GM’s lab further entrenched unsafe practices into his lab skills set.  For example, it was common practice to transfer liter quantities of volatile solvents out on the lab bench itself with no ventilation.  Sam strongly believes that it was his stint in the GM’s lab that led to him developing asthma, a condition that he did not have prior to working there.

Still, Sam was initially content and he found the process of devising his so called “original” project fun.  The GM made a big deal of telling Sam that a project in his lab not only had to be unique but it had to have commercial application.  Furthermore, the GM made it clear that students would share in the rewards stemming from any inventions made in his laboratory.  Sam thought back to a cartoon hanging in the hallway that was supposedly penned by the GM himself.  It showed a thin research scientist standing in front of an obese manager who conveniently resided behind a desk not unlike what the GM sat behind with a word bubble rising from the manager’s mouth.  This word bubble contained a sentence to the effect, “Thanks for your idea, here is a cookie.”  According to the GM such things would not occur under his watch and it was meant as a mockery of industry.  But again this leads me to another departure from Sam’s story.

One thing that I have never quite figured out is how certain events occurred according to the GM biography.  According to the story line his academic career as a graduate student somehow managed to continue not long after the defeat of the goose steppers by the red tide (and US of A) but the sickle of the latter group apparently cut short GM’s completion of his degree (possibly he helped too many grannies get to the bakery?).  I’ll have more to say on what Sam told me the GM had to say about the leader of the labor movement country later in the story (sorry for yet another digression).  Next the GM (miraculously) managed to move to the Van Trap family’s former country and was subsequently awarded a Ph.D. prior to traveling to France and then Canada.  This at times makes me wonder if the workings of operation paperclip or something similar may have been going on in the background for I could surely see the managers of such an operation thinking it funny to bestow the GM moniker on this individual.  From there he managed to enter the US and work shortly for a German company (one of their factories is about 45 minutes from me and is stinky) and then big oil (think of tons of birds and seals being covered in oil in a cold environment) and while with the latter company not only went to Japan but somehow managed to work with the best known (American) scientists in his field of study.  This is all finally before making it to The University of Asscrack.  Now, back to Sam…

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).