My analysis is officially done. I thought it was done last Friday, but Dr. S wanted me to run a few more wines last night. Soooo I was in the lab until 10:30 PM last night. I guess that's life. My paper is about 40 pages already. I am sad this summer is almost over.... but to be honest I can't take much more!! hahahaha
I guess I should let you all know the results...
Or maybe I should leave you in suspense...........
As far as antioxidants are concerned... it appears that Pinot Noirs have the lowest amount. So if you are drinking for your health's sake. Avoid this romantic wine.
If you want to proof, well it is in the pudding. And I hate pudding, so I threw it away. Hahaha, okay not really. The numbers are a bunch of jibberish so my family seems to think - but trust me on this one. Stick with a cabernet sauvignon, syrah, or merlot. Pick a wine high in tannins. A thicker skinned grape. It is always good to have thick skin, right? Case and point - the thicker the skin of a grape, the more antioxidants. - highest antioxidant wine, Cabernet Sauvignon - but I can't say this with "confidence" it just means the number is higher, but statistically, there is no difference!
So long sweet SURF.
Off to finish my paper and presentation... :( Enjoy the new photos.
Sorry readers. I have been crazy busy recently. This week is private college week and I'm helping out at admissions as well as running some more tests on these stupid wines.
I love my job. But I'm getting very annoyed. Today I slacked and decided I would use yesterday's PMS solution to avoid the 20 minutes it takes to make the new stuff, and I got great numbers.
That's the problem.
I got great numbers...
Bleh.
Dinner with Kimmy and Keenan was fun tonight. Shark bait bailed.
My presentation is coming along......... If I had results it would be nearly completed.
My day could have been worse. But I don't know how. I am in a funk. But leave it to Suchen to put a genuine smile on my face with her silly jokes. She informed me, after knocking on my shoulder like a door, that opportunity was knocking. Gotta love her.
I started to do an extraction on one of the Pinots from Yesterday - - unfortunately it didn't separate into layers. I couldn't tell you why, or how, this happened. Considering I put in two liquids with two different densities. Dr. S was convinced I "forgot" the wine........ I had nothing to say to that comment
So then I decided to save the extractions for another day because I was throughly frustrated at that point. I opened a 2005 Shiraz from Australia, 2005 Merlot from Washington, and a 2005 Cabernet Sauvingon from Washington. I ran all of the samples through the UV-Vis...
But as I was on the last wine, the Merlot, I knocked over the entire holder of cuvettes... and as I let out an exasperated sigh of "God, cut me a break for crying-out-loud" I blew all of the tiny squares of parafilm I use to cover the cuvettes all over the tiny cave I work in.... I guess I squealed out loud, because Lauren came running in and Keith immediately asked if I was okay. I wanted to scream "NO I AM NOT OKAY THIS DAY STINKS ON ICE" but I just kept working, hoping my data would make me feel better.
I decided it was a bad idea to write in my lab notebook in ink considering all of the "oops"s I had by the end of the day. So I reported to Dr. Schreiner my data that I had scribbled on my palm. He said I practiced great Chemistry, I told him not to mess with me today. My data all turned out good. Now it is just for the statistical analysis, and so on.
And to do those stupid extractions.
I did go get my nails done this afternoon, and instead of my typical French tip, I had Julie paint a really bright pink on my nails - I figure the bright color couldn't bring me down. And by the time I got home, my wonderful boyfriend had dinner started. :) TACOS!! They were sooooooo good. VERY spicy. My step-dad would not have been able to eat them.
Crossing my fingers tomorrow doesn't bite a big one too.
I can't honestly say I'm in a great mood, though lab today went exceptionally well. My family is on vacation... without me. And even though my mom promised they wouldn't have fun without me, I have a hard time believing they aren't having a blast. In fact, I hope that they are having the times of their lives. I'm just sad I have to miss out. But so goes SURF. 9 full weeks of research. It has many advantages, but this is definitely not what I was anticipating. Being stuck in Ashland, and not wakeboarding and jet-skiing, and reading, and sleeping myself crazy. I did get to join the fam Saturday through Sunday with my very best friend Kristen. I made the most of those short hours; they went by too fast. My brother and I wakeboarded doubles - it was interesting/scary/fun. I will have to post the picture my nephew took of us in mid-high-five on the wake.
But it was Monday all too soon. It was back to business, as usual. I had to finish up some of Friday's activities, which required more (dread) ... buffer. Nathan screamed at me as I filled it to volume with DI water, assuming I was adjusting the pH with water. Silly Nafy. He forgets I'm not dumb. Haha Afterward, it was analysis, after analysis, after analysis. And to add to all of this...
I got to run my first statistical analysis, which I am ashamed to admit, I had no idea how to do. I'm actually not all that ashamed, since neither did Dr. Schreiner, who sent me down to find someone in the basement who knew what to do. The basement of Copley consists of the Psychology majors/students/professors/rats... "good thing I'm not shy" was my quote of the day as I basically walked into a lab I have never seen, up to a very nice woman I have never met, and just plopped down next to her - requesting her knowledge.
She led me to her, also very nice, husband, who had a handful of coins and gum in his mouth, which we both mistaked as a snack - and became very concerned seeing his hands of coins as to what exactly he was munching on. Then he took me out of the basement, up to the psych computer lab to show me how to use their analytical program PSsomething something something.... but that is called PW something something something, for some reason, but no one calls it that, even though that's what it is called...... Which ended up not exactly working, and he ended up showing me how to do the same thing in Excel.
In comparing 6 different sets of data, I can say with 95 or greater percent confidence that my data is different... basically only 2 sets of wine can be considered to have the same amount of antioxidants. So now I am off to look at if they were aged the same, or growing in the same region, if they have different percent compositions of grapes... To be literal - my project has actually started. With only 3 weeks left, I am able to say I finally have something to show for myself and my time.
That's right ladies and gentlemen, today I am officially 21 and a half years old. Oh boy and I'm getting up there in years. It is also my sister-in-law's real birthday, so Happy Birthday to Kristin Campbell!
Today was an interesting day, to say the least. It started by watching Nathan beat the crap out of a PVC pipe with a hammer - in the attempt to break it into tiny little pieces. He wasn't successful. So I used my greater knowledge and suggested we field trip outside and hit it off a ledge. My idea worked (of course) so then we had an easter egg hunt to find all of the little pieces. We wore our safety goggles of course... PVC pipe + eye = no bueno.
Kimmy went with me to my appointment - which was conveniently by a Taco Bell (two five layer burritos please) and then we had a luncheon where we learned about how to do our presentations or posters come August 5th. Then I took some form over to HR for Keith and then helped Ian replace the CO2. No sooner did I return than Suchen came up the elevator with lots of boxes of CUVETTES!!!!! all for me!!!
Dr. S asked me if I had successfully goofed off long enough to get to work.
Rude.
But I did "get to work" and I tested my extraction and the raw wine. The numbers are all good. And I guess they make sense. However, this is a nice wine, from Burgundy, France. It only has a percent inhibition of about 46%. Since the cheapy wines from Martins, the Merlots, had percent inhibitions in the 70s I was hoping it would be closer, or higher! than just 46%.
Tomorrow I will test another Burgundy wine - from the same vintage, just a different vineyard. This will be great for comparison purposes.
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