Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A not-quite-geology haiku

There's geology haiku meme going around. I'm doing lab work today. Or, well, trying. This isn't very haiku-like, but it reflects my day:

Time for some data -
the spectrometer is warm
but the shear gas won't flow.

4 comments:

C W Magee said...

A drained argon tank
Will not provide the gas flow
But may melt your torch

Kim said...

There's a new argon tank... and now the shear gas won't shut off. Something's wrong with the shear gas valve, I think.

Frustrating when we don't have a service contract.

C W Magee said...

A service contract
Allows geologists to
do geology

Kim said...

Service contracts are for places with money. Not for public colleges. (Also, spending $10,000 a year when you need one service visit in five years doesn't make financial sense. $50,000 to save $4000?)

As for the time... given that we also take out our own garbage (from our offices and labs) to save money, well...

(And if you come back to the States looking for academic work any time, remember that this is the norm for anything but the top research institutions. Even the wealthiest private liberal arts colleges don't pay for service contracts. Your skills with a wrench can be as important as your ability to interpret isotope ratios.)