Introductions and Issues

Hello all! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Garrett and I don't know how to use commas properly. So if you notice numerous commas throughout my posts, then please forgive me in advance. It's a problem I've had since birth. No cure, sad story. Anyways, Kim was kind enough to let me post on her blog. Kim talks about me every so often in her blogs (although not nearly as often as the cat) and I will refer to her as my better half, and I don't think she would argue with that. Back to the story then. She invited me to post on her blog in mid October and I finally took it upon myself to post an entry. Hooray! This is because I have a story to tell. And for probably everyone, it will be boring and obnoxious (much like myself), but I feel like I just have to tell it to someone.

Here we go:

As some of the valued readers might know, I am currently stationed in the "beautiful" city of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta. Like Kim, I too am a scientist-in-training, and am performing a field study in this region. We are currently attempting to measure the air quality in this region. We look for volunteers, and for the few that say "yes" we go to their homes and measure the indoor air quality, outdoor air quality, and the personal air quality. One of the things we look at is particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5). These are incredibly small particles (you can't even see them) and they tend to penetrate deep into the lungs and depending on what they are made of, they can cause damage to your lungs or even cause cancer over time. So to measure the personal PM2.5, we require the volunteers to carry a pump around that is battery operated. Of course it's always a hassle for the volunteers to do this and they don't always comply with our wishes, but that's besides the point. So we use 6 1.5V C batteries strung together to power this pump. Until today, but first let us backtrack (yes, again).

On the weekend Laurie (the other grad student/slave assigned to this project) received a telephone call from one of the participants saying that his pump had died and was not working. Hmmm. Oh well, we figured, just one pump out of many and who really cares since he probably never even wore it. So this morning I tried to fix it, plugging it in to the wall but to no avail. It was truly dead. So this afternoon we head off to the WBEA (Wood Buffalo Environmental Association) office to where our equipment is being stored. We try another personal pump with batteries. Dead. Plug it into the wall. Dead. Try another one. Dead. Hmmmm, what's going on? I decide to try one of the indoor pumps (which are essentially the same, just with no carrying case). Dead. Now I'm really confused. Who broke into our storage room and sabotaged our stuff? Finally, I take an indoor pump, plug it into the wall. It works. Ok good, now I'll try it on the batteries (I started to suspect the batteries). ZAP! The pump shorts out. Ah ha! We found the culprit. Of course now that we've ruined 4 pumps, plus the one the participant had we finally found out the batteries were too powerful for the pumps. You see, we just received some new batteries that were manufactured and ordered a while ago that are apparently stronger than the old ones. But how? Seriously, how does this happen? They are just 6 C batteries strung together, and we tried a few different sets of them. The old ones worked fine. So anyways, it looks like we are now going to end up scrapping the personal PM2.5 measurements for the rest of the study. Which in itself is a blessing since it seems to deter people from participating in the first place and that's the reason why I'm stuck up here in -20 degrees temperatures, hounding people to participate, chasing them down when they don't show up for their appointments, only to get them to completely cancel when I'm finally successful in catching them, which leaves me smacking my head against a concrete wall, which leaves me with a very sore head (and a very long sentence with commas coming out my ying-yang), and then I get to do it all over (except with a headache). Not fun. Originally, this should have been my last week out here. Now I've got 24 more days (who's counting? That's right, I am!). Enough said for now, thank you for your patience in reading this. Sorry Kim, I'll keep it shorter next time. Ciao.