I feel there's been a lack of intelligent content recently, and there's this story about a couple of guys and a Washington College Dodge Intrepid that hasn't quite gotten old yet.

So last Wednesday was the first collaboration meeting with our wonderful extended research family at the University of Delaware. All things aside, the meeting went exceedingly well: we discussed everything from the basic procedure to... well, the procedure in depth. Dr. Herson is always a great person to work with and very on top of things, though at least as busy as Dr. Verville (which I didn't think was possible for some time). Her student researchers are also very nice, though very different from past ones. One seemed very knowledgeable and was very open with her thougths and opinions in discussing adjustments to the procedure, which I hadn't really seen even in Dr. Herson's graduate students before. The other was nice as well but less experienced than Andrew and I, which is really unusual for the UDel lab. I think she will be a big help, but she needs to get some proverbial Salmonella under her belt so she can discuss the topic intelligently.

In any case, the research meeting was a wonderful and productive little tea party, and it would have made the trip a very nice one. However, I've gotten ahead of myself. That morning, when I went to pick up the car from the WC car pool, I had visions of the new Accord or whatever it was sitting in the lot. While the ancient purple Intrepid should have been a disappointment, I was more impressed by the fact that it ran after 189000 miles. So we got going, and everything seemed well; the air conditioner ran sufficiently, which is better than some WC vehicles, and significantly better than the truck Dr. C took out last year whose headlights died about an hour from the college.

We arrived at Newark and met Dr. V, at which time Andrew and I noticed a hissing coming from the front of the car. Imagining tires studded with broken glass and nails, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were fine. It took a while before we noticed the growing pool of antifreeze under the car. Dr. V called her husband, who said it was probably just overflow of the coolant reservoir, and not to worry. So we had coffee and lunch (and I missed a chance to play pool - damn!) and on the way to the science building for our meeting, checked on the car. The pool of antifreeze was large enough that it had run out from under the car, but we decided it could wait until after the meeting, and the engine was still too hot to do anything anyway.

We met, etc, and when we went back out I popped the hood and Andrew checked the antifreeze reservoir. He says the only thing in it was steam; I didn't even see that. So Dr. V had us follow her to a nearby Pep Boys. In the four blocks or so, the heat meter rose from the bottom to the middle - I don't know what translates to "your engine is melting," but I wasn't interested in moving the car any more. So we go in, and the Pep Boys desk jockey tells us their garage is closed for the night. At this point, I was the only one not particularly annoyed, so the cell phones came out and calls were made. After about ten minutes of deliberation with various people, Dr. V just decided to take us home (two hours out of her way). I'm told someone from Buildings and Grounds had the car fixed and went to get it, but I haven't seen it in the motor pool. That's probably a good thing, but regardless, when we have our next research meeting we are taking the newest vehicle they have. Unfortunately, there isn't such a thing as "too new to break"...


So now that I've put the story down in its entirety, I can stop worrying about telling it and forget it ever happened. If anyone asks, or if I find a need to reference the story, I'll simply give out this url. Ah, the conveniences of the Information Age. I guess I'm just too long-winded to write stories like that on a regular basis, so I'll have to go back to recording random thoughts. Which, since I haven't played computer games to-night, I have been unable to avoid. However, in the interest of functioning sufficiently tomorrow...