So I spent the day at my previous workplace getting some things straightened out. It was interesting. Trying to remember how to use Windows 3.11 for instance, and there is a whole story about why that's necessary.

Funny thing - when I still worked there I dreamed that they had to let me go because the work had fallen off or something. They said they would help me find another job, so I wasn't worried about that. What worried me was leaving those instruments. I knew no one would love and care for them like I did. When I woke up I thought the dream was really funny but also probably true, at least as far as the instruments were concerned.

I was warned before I went today that the PNAs were gone. These are polynuclear aromatics, they elute at the end of the semivolatile chromatogram, and if you are having problems with your baseline, contamination, bad column, whatever, they just go away. I looked at the latest calibration check and it looked like crap. But I went back to the lab, with the boss's permission b/c this is out of the scope of my contract, and did a little maintenance on the GC. Just a little. The sensitivity shot up 100-fold (I'm not kidding) and those PNAs popped right out of the baseline and marched along like little soldiers. The problem now is that the chromatography is so much better than it was when the calibration curve was done that it really needs recalibration. I'll let the boss decide what to do about that.

So my dream was kind of true.

Before:


After:


Cool, huh?