When Chemists Attack

I’ve just sent off all the final grades for the spring semester, and suddenly I no longer have giant stacks of papers to slog through. It makes me feel a little … well … dazed.

Of course, I can’t get too used to the lack of grading.  Summer semester is just around the corner!

There was a total eclipse of the moon tonight. The sky was also mostly clear, so I got to see the eclipse. Here’s some of what I saw.

Early in the eclipse, the moon started to disappear.

As more of the moon was covered in shadow, it took on a red/orange color.

Almost all of the moon is in shadow here.

Total eclipse!

Hope the weather was clear in your town for the eclipse!

Sorry if you’re using a feed reader – some of them don’t set the referrer tag correctly for the images on this site. If that happens, you can see the pictures by visiting this post with your web browser.

Warning: Long rant ahead!

Background

As some of you know, I’ve been teaching using a Tablet PC. I’ve found it to be a valuable tool in the classroom, and I use it for all my teaching work now. A little while ago, the hard drive in my tablet came loose, wreaking havoc with my data (which was mostly recoverable). I decided to buy another tablet from ubid.com, worried that my current tablet might destroy another hard drive. So I ordered one, and they shipped it via what I thought was FedEx. And that’s where the story begins …

Day 1

The new computer was scheduled to arrive. I had a lab exam to give, but I figured that Patty would be home in the early afternoon. No problem, right? Wrong. The first delivery attempt was at 9:43 AM. What’s more, they wanted a “direct signature”, so I couldn’t just sign it and let them leave it behind the door. That’s ubid’s fault, but why on Earth would anyone try to deliver a signature-required package to a home at 9:43 AM? Most of the population would be at work between 9 and 10 AM on a weekday.

I’ve missed FedEx packages before, so I thought I knew what to do: Just go to the FedEx distribution center (on the same street as my school) and pick up the package after work.

That’s when I found out that the FedEx that has my package … isn’t FedEx. It’s FedEx Ground, which is another company that FedEx bought. How can you tell them apart? FedEx Ground is green instead of orange.

So I figured that, since I didn’t know where FedEx Ground actually was, I’d give them another chance.

Day 2

I had a stack of papers to grade, so I decided to come home after my morning classes and wait for the new computer. I can grade papers just as easily at home as I can at school, after all.

I checked the package tracking between classes (that’s just before 10 in the morning) and … found that FedEx ground had already attempted delivery. At 9:43 AM. Again.

Hey, at least they’re precise!

So I decide to call FedEx to ask what I could do to get my new computer. That’s when I found out that Hell actually exists, and it is the voice response system at FedEx. The system is designed (by sadists) to be “easier” to use. You’re supposed to say things like “Track a package” to select what you’d like to do, instead of pressing a number button on the phone. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, I’m a Southerner. And I was calling from work – on a digital phone system. Taken together, those two things meant that Hell couldn’t understand a word I was saying. Eventually, Hell decided to let me punch numbers. So I punched zero to talk to a representative. But Hell wasn’t quite through with me:

“Before I transfer you to a representative, are you calling to ship a package?”, it demanded.

“No”, I said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand that. For faster service, next time indicate whether you want to ship a package.”

Hell then transferred me to a human. After telling the human that FedEx Ground had twice attempted delivery early in the morning, I asked if there was any way to schedule a delivery attempt. “Anytime after or even during lunch would work”, I said. So the FedEx human called the local FedEx Ground office and suggested that my computer be delivered a little later in the day. “We can’t guarantee a specific time for delivery,” she said, “but I’ve let them know that you need this signature-required package delivered in the afternoon.”

When I arrived at home, the door tag the driver left had a curious message:

… with an illegible phone number (that I’ve made a little more illegible for this post). “Call if not wanted.” Odd, since I had that morning navigated through Hell just trying to get my new computer. Oh well, at least the driver would know the package needed to be delivered tomorrow afternoon instead of tomorrow morning.

Day 3

Off to work again! Just after my first class, I check – on a whim – to see if the package was on the truck again. As if to spite me, the driver had attempted delivery even earlier: 9:28 AM. Plus, he’s lied about it and marked the package: “Refused by recipient”. (Who was there to refuse the package? Did one of my cats answer the door and decide I didn’t really need a replacement laptop?)

So I dialed Hell again, but this time I just started hitting “0” as soon as Hell answered the phone, which eventually got me to another human. “Okay,” I said, “I need this package for work. I have tried to get FedEx Ground to come to me and have called several times trying to get this package. I most certainly did not refuse delivery. Since you will not deliver the package to me, is there any place I can pick it up?”

This FedEx human sent me off to the FedEx Ground facility. Unlike regular FedEx facilities, the FedEx Ground facility is located … in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. Not even FedEx themselves knew where the place was, as evidenced by the directions they provided. It’s a good thing that I was able to find out which industrial park they were in on my own, otherwise I’d still not have my laptop.

When I arrived at the FedEx Ground facility, it was immediately obvious that the place was not meant for mere package recipients. I had to be buzzed in through an iron gate. (No, really!) There wasn’t a desk to go to for package pick-ups. When I found someone to help me get my laptop, it too them half an hour for them to figure out what truck it was on. I suppose most people just give up on their packages by this point?

Conclusion

Eventually, I got my laptop – and I’ve been enjoying using it in my classes this semester. And I even learned a few things! I learned the location of the top-secret FedEx Ground facility. I learned how to get out of Hell. And I learned to never, ever ship a package by FedEx Ground. (And sellers, if I know in advance you use FedEx Ground for shipping, you’ve lost my business.)

Postscript

I debated whether to publish this post. It’s been sitting in my unpublished drafts for more than a month. Am I being too hard on FedEx Ground? Don’t things go bad once in a blue moon with every shipper? Perhaps.

But the tale above wasn’t my only bad experience with FedEx Ground. I’ve got another nightmare in the making. I purchased something off of Ebay recently, not knowing that the shipper used FedEx Ground until it was too late. Things are going … just as I expect from FedEx Ground.

The originally scheduled delivery date for my package was today. As you can see, they loaded my package on the truck and … drove around all day with it, not even bothering to attempt a delivery.

Might I suggest a new slogan for FedEx Ground?

“FedEx Ground: Packages check in, but they don’t check out!”

Follow-up

After driving around all day with this week’s package, the FedEx Ground driver must have gotten bored with it.  So he stopped by the house while I was at work and left the package out in the rain.  Thankfully, the package was double-boxed and the water hadn’t yet soaked through the first box when I made it home.I suppose I should count this as a successful delivery.  By FedEx Ground standards, anyway.

This was once a pond.

(Click the image to enlarge.)

Patty pointed out to me that the FDA has ruled that phenylephrine-containing over-the-counter congestion remedies are “…probably effective, but it’s murky.”

I can remember my first experience with phenylephrine – back when the meth scare was just kicking into high gear and stores had started selling pseudoephedrine behind the counter. I quite often have nasal congestion problems, and Sudafed had always worked for me. So I grabbed a box of Sudafed PE, not realizing that it contained a different decongestant. (I was in a hurry, and I had naively assumed that Sudafed PE – the only Sudafed on the shelf – was traditional pseudoephedrine-containing Sudafed.) For all the good it did me, it may as well have been homeopathic nasal decongestant. It probably had some sort of effect on me, but it sure as heck didn’t clear my nose. After a day of suffering, I read the box more closely and noticed that the decongestant in the Sudafed PE was different. The next day I bought some pseudoephedrine.

So it doesn’t surprise me at all to hear researchers saying that

“If you have a stuffy nose, and you take an over-the-counter product containing phenylephrine, you will still not be able to breathe through your nose after you take it. That’s the bottom line,” Leslie Hendeles, a professor of pharmacy and pediatrics at the University of Florida, contended before the advisers met.

“There needs to be a dose-response study where you look a 10-, 25- and 50-milligram doses and determine what dose would give you a relief of your stuffy nose without side effects,” he said.

… or we could go back to selling a decongestant that has worked just fine for years, and for which a safe and effective dose is already known.

Teaching late afternoon labs means I’m quite often out at the college until well past dark, especially in the late fall.  This evening, I happened to walk beside a window just in time to catch a glimpse of this:

A pillar of fire by night… 

Click the image to enlarge to 1024×768.

Don’t forget to back up your important data periodically. Even once every five or ten minutes may not be sufficient!

… because you never know when the hard drive in your laptop will come loose and start rattling around just like the rattle inside a can of spray paint.

Hard drives, apparently, do not take well to this sort of thing. Arrgh.

This is probably not the best way to get more space in your laboratory.

The fire in a chemistry lab on the fourth floor of Hunter Hall [at Clemson University] was reported to officials around 9:10 p.m. and was under control roughly 25 minutes later, said Robin Denny, news services director for the university.

The fire took out one of the chemistry labs and caused some damage to the rest of the fourth floor.

The building reportedly was unoccupied at the time of the fire, and officials had not found any indications as of Friday night that any release of chemicals had taken place,

I went to grad school at Clemson, and I’m glad that no one was hurt in the fire.

But … since when is the chemistry building unoccupied – on a weekday – at only 9 PM? Sure, it was a Friday, but there had to be some grad students around!

If anyone else has any info on the fire, please let me know. I’m curious to know what started the fire. So far, I’ve only seen/read this, this, and this.

When you work a community college schedule, you take lunch whenever you can get it. On Wednesdays, that’s about 1:30 PM. It’s not too late – considering that I have had schedules where I don’t get to eat lunch at all – but it did put me outside in the suffocating heat of the early afternoon.

Today, I’m at the Subway in the local truck stop. I’ve just finished my sandwich, and am walking out to my car. I see something at the corner of the building. Something that looked a little like this:

Dust devil image from Wikipedia

I didn’t take the picture above, but it’s a fair sample of what was churning at the corner of the building as I started to walk out to the car.

It didn’t register immediately that I was standing about ten yards away from a dust devil, and that it might be a good idea to stand somewhere else. A dust devil is just not something you expect to run into at a truck stop on the outskirts of a city.

That, of course, did not matter much to the dust devil – which was heading my way. And so I am currently brushing sand off my drink and out of my hair, my clothes, my eyes …

Great start to the afternoon, don’t you think?