CSIRO/U of Melbourne Day

Today was an early morning as I wanted to get out to CSIRO early to take care of some samples with Cara. Unfortunately, I woke up with my head-cold in full gear - not a great start to the day. I took the train and bus out to CSIRO as I have done before. However, this time there were a ton of people trying to get on the bus. The driver was great in that he just kept telling people to get on (to the point where he had to stop letting people validate their bus passes or else the system would reject them because the bus was so full). I have never been on a bus that was that packed. I couldn't reach anything to hold on to, but it didn't matter because I was so tightly pressed against other people (mostly Monash University college students) that I wasn't going to move anywhere. There were people sitting on the dashboard of the bus (literally resting on the windshield). In any case, we made it to Monash safely and I walked over to CSIRO (right next to Monash University).

I got to CSIRO around 8am and had forgotten that no one else gets there that early... So, I sat around and did other work until Cara showed up around 9am and we got right to work on boiling some of Joe's samples in acid. The treatment isn't difficult, but they want me to be around to help with it since I have more experience with this sort of thing. It all works out okay though, I would much rather hang around with the CSIRO group than fight with the AFM...

I caught up with Aaron and got some of the photos from the MSA student conference that was in Wollongong 2 weeks ago. Here is the 'conference photo'. For any readers who are membrane-people, see if you can pick out Anita Hill, Vicki Chen, Tony Fane, and/or Pierre Le-Clech (as they were some of the head-lining scientists and faculty members at the conference).

I also talked with Aaron about his upcoming trip to the U.S. He will be in Austin during South by Southwest (http://sxsw.com) which is a music, film, and art festival in Austin. It's a pretty big deal, so Aaron is having a bit of trouble finding a place to stay in downtown Austin. I made some suggestions, but I think it will be difficult to find a centrally located hotel in Austin during that time. There are certainly other places to stay, but they won't be as close to the downtown area.

After that discussion, I went back down to the lab to find that the steam that had condensed on the outside of the sample vials caused the 'water-resistant' marker to wash away... This was not good... I went back up to the offices to get Cara and start talking about what to do. We went back down to the lab and started to take the sample vials out of the larger holding beaker when she noticed that if you held the samples in the light at just the right angle, a little bit of marker residue was still visible. So, we dodged a huge bullet there and were able to identify (and re-label) all of Joe's samples. After getting the samples sorted, it was time for me to head back to the University of Melbourne.

I came back to find that Judy was working on setting up the AFM for doing hydrated sample work. Apparently, this is far from trivial as we had a lot of trouble getting good images. I guess a lot of it comes down to selecting the right resonance frequency for the tip (which you have to measure) and then setting the right forces and driving force frequencies for the instrument. I understand how these things work at a superficial level only, so I'm not great at knowing what to do to make the image look better. Unfortunately, since Judy is learning too, she's not much better. This is definitely a case where it would be nice to work with someone who has a lot of experience in this area.

So, we struggled our way through the afternoon and finally started getting some decent images when the guy who runs the AFM center came in to say hi. Clearly he was originally American and he immediately picked up on the fact that I was not from Texas. He did his undergrad at the University of Delaware when Andrew Zydney was still a professor there (prior to becoming the chem. eng. department head at Penn State) and he did his PhD at Carnegie Mellon when Darrell Velegol was still a PhD student there (before later becoming a chem. eng. professor at Penn State). So, we had a bit in common there. But I didn't really like the guy from the start. He had a very condescending tone when he asked me why I would have wanted to go to the University of Texas for graduate school (Carnegie Mellon does have a good graduate program, but check the rankings if you're curious to see where UT sits). Unfortunately, over the years, I have met a few people from Carnegie Mellon who have come off as being very stuck up. That being said, I also know some great people who do or did go to school there (including Eric 'Go State' Menendez - who is one of the most genuinely friendly and humble individuals I know). Don't get me wrong, I am extremely proud of both Penn State University and the University of Texas but I try very hard to avoid projecting a superiority complex over others - regardless of where they are from.

He sat down and flew through a tutorial on how to use the instrument. This was nice, except he went through it so quickly that it ended up not being helpful 20 minutes after he left the room. He also made a few other condescending remarks that didn't sit well with me. He was talking about the feedback controller and he made some comment about whether I would know anything about control theory (a standard chemical engineering course that I have taken). I politely told him that, yes indeed Penn State does teach control theory in undergraduate chemical engineering. He also made a comment about the sample being a polymer membrane and mentioned that he had worked for a membrane start-up company - so he knew about membrane stuff. I really wanted to ask him how that company is doing considering that he's running AFMs in Australia now. Anyhow, it just seemed like he's one of those people who isn't completely satisfied with how things worked out and so they take out their frustrations by trying to be dominant over other people. I think he knew that I come from a well respected university and he wanted to take some shots at me since he knows something about using AFMs (whereas I do not know so much about AFMs). I'll live, but with the head-cold and all, I could have done without that conversation.

Afterward, Judy and I tried to collect a few more images before I decided to call it a day. I came back and just finished running through my seminar for Mikel Duke's group at Victoria University. I will go out to Werribee to give the seminar and tour their facilities tomorrow afternoon (after working on the AFM for a bit during the morning). I enjoyed talking with Mikel at the MSA and ICONN conferences, so I am looking forward to the visit!