Another insanely busy day… I'm going to take Friday off just to recharge with family. One great feature of today was a short talk i gave to a group of folks at the museum in Barre on the Maker movement. The room was packed with 60 to 80 year olds. My talk was part of the osher series .. A nationwide adult learning movment funded by the legacy of Bernard Osher. This was one of the best audiences ive had in a long tike.. Hey were engaged, lots of ideas and lots of questions. It was such a hoot !

Simce i was in barre i took a few minutes to go over and visit my firend and old admin Jleigh. She was doing great.. I followed her and her day care kids on a short walk so we could catch up.. Shes so awesome..,i loved seeing her. Shes been in chemo for the last couple of months, but still manages a day care and keeps rescue pugs. Shes one energetic woman !

Got home and worked with Froend john to finsh up a long standing project.. While we were working i learned that our good firmed Scott amd GF Kim gave birth to their first son.. Welcome Gabriel !

Ok.. Gotta get back to work.. More tomorrow…

Nita all, nite sam,

-me

 

So… Gabe and i were both procrastinating last night.. And some how we ended up shining my UV laser on some olive oil.. We were kinda surprised to see that the normally blue violet beam made a bright red florescent spot in the oil. We tried other oils: canola, grapeseed, etc.. But they all fluoresced a dull green.. Or not at all. So.. Looks like we figured out a way to detect fake olive oil…

Then Gabe told me that he had heard that all the great healthy benefits of using olive oil go out the window when you heat the oil even a little.. Evidently heat breaks some of the good polyunsaturated double bonds in the fats and causes them to saturate with hydrogen bonds…. (Hence saturated fats) That lead father and son to hypothesize that such a restructuring might change the florescence of said oil…

So.. We got out a frying pan and heated a small amount of Diane’s really good virgin olive oil to the point it smoked then let it cool then poured it into a glass We then poured an equal amount of uncooked olive oil into an identical glass. We then shined the UV laser through both..

 

Pasta fazoul ! It worked… The uncooked oil had the same bright red florescence..

 

The cooked stuff had a completely different crazy pink florescence

 

So .. Weve invented a way to detect heat induced saturation of olive oil. I searched the internet and didn’t see anyone else who had reported It.. how cool is that ?

Anything to put off homework… ,

Nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Still jelagged… but had a wonderful day… Diane and I went for a 3 and a half our walk up on Ricker mountain again Our goal was to go up the stephensville brook trail to the old sawmill.. there used to be a big community up here a hundred years ago.. but it’s all gone now…  just cellar holes and scrap’s of brick and steel are left to show all that was here..

 

 

we found this very cool moss man… isn’t he cute

 

this was the most amazing find of the day. A welded steel wheel hoop that a fair size tree had grown through 

 

This is one of the 150 Hp boilers used to power the sawmill.. there were 200 people working here around 1900

 

the saws here were used to make wood for ammo boxes .. and wooden forms called ‘lasts’ for making shoes..

 

there are some plaques up there describing some of the home sites.. the first cabin site dates from 1790.  this guys name was Russ.. he lived here from 1861 until 1920.. .. its hard to imagine anyone living up here then.. it’s so remote now.. it would have been a whole days walk  or half a days horse ride into Waterbury from here.. 

ok.. jet lag really kicking in.. time for sleep.

more tomorrow..

nite all. nite sam

-me