I have two tests and two short papers to write and I’ll have my two-year degree in process technology finished. Since I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get a job, I decided to go ahead and register for two more classes in the spring. Once the semester begins I’m going to declare a new major in psychology and begin working on a B.A. in psych. It will probably take me ten years, but I’ll enjoy the courses regardless. I’m really happy to have the first degree out of the way. Once I have a job, a lot of the things I’ve worried and stressed myself over for the last two years will be relieved. It’s so nice to finally have a break, not just from school, but from everything. I’m going to take advantage of the next five weeks to rest, enjoy myself, and take a trip or two on the bikes. It’s been a hell of a year with a lot of wonderful changes in my life. I’m really looking forward to the changes that are still coming over the next few years. One age of craziness is coming to an end and another one is just beginning to take its place. Embrace the lunacy, you might just find something new and exciting that makes a wonderful change in your life, too.
December 3, 2009
June 14, 2009
First Essay Assignment for English Comp 1, Draft 1
So the assignment is this: Describe the living conditions in a region or neighborhood with which you are familiar, using a broad range of descriptive detail (both objective and subjective) to communicate what it looks like from the outside and what it feels like to live there.
And this is my first draft. I just have to trim it down from 830 words to about 500 now. 
When I was younger I would often take jobs working for restaurants delivering food. It often surprised me how much the scenery could change in a matter of a few blocks. Sometimes there was such a stark contrast in the appearance of the neighborhood that it was like night and day on each side of the street. While most of the drivers tried to take the majority of their deliveries to the nicer areas of town, the middle class and upper-middle class subdivisions, I found the lower income parts of town to be filled with people that were much friendlier and appreciative of the service we provided for them.
While these “nicer” neighborhoods were appealing because of their percieved sense of being safer and having the greater tipping potential, I was frequently disappointed when a delivery to a nice home on a rainy Christmas Eve turned sour. It was disheartening to walk away from the door holding my three cent gratuity while looking at a shiny new blue Corvette convertible sitting in the driveway. These types of people always presented a false, almost transparent, smile that said, “Oh, thank God you’re finally here. Maybe now these kids will stop screaming and leave me alone.” Despite their income levels, new cars, and perfectly manicured lawns, they seemed almost miserable. It was just time to eat. Never mind spending time with the family, enjoying a meal, and sharing the activities of their days.
More frequently, I found myself in the lower income parts of town. These were the areas that my co-workers tried to avoid. This was the neighborhood full of homes that were built in the 1930s to 1950s, some of which were so neglected that they were almost uninhabitable. Others were so decayed that they had already been condemned. Some had the paint peeling away from the walls, shingles falling off, or missing entirely, revealing rotted roofs that surely leaked onto the floors below. Many of them had unkempt yards, some littered with old cars or appliances, surrounded with chain link fencing. Quite a few people didn’t even have cars and those that did usually had older vehicles that the owner could be found working on when Saturday came around.
I had learned not to be phased by the outward appearance of a house, or even the appearance of the customer I was about to meet. Even though the homes were in a state of disrepair, and certainly did not cost as much as the ones a few blocks away, the people I encountered had a much nicer disposition. When the door opened, I would be greeted with a smile and a friendly hello. On the occasions when I was invited in, I gained a new perspective on the people I was serving. Despite the outward appearance, the interior of some of the homes was nicely furnished with leather furniture, wide screen televisions, and polished wood flooring. Even the ones that were not so nicely appointed felt comfortable inside and bore an atmosphere of happiness. My customers in these areas were happy to see me, not because it was going to settle the children and allow them a break, but because it was time to sit down for a meal with their family.
As the smell of hot fresh food drifted through the house behind me, the children and family dog inevitably followed. Smiling faces eagerly awaited the meal they were about to have as evidenced by the cries of, “The pizza guy is here! The pizza guy is here!” After giving the patron a total, I would provide change for them, knowing that most of them were blue collar workers putting in fifty to sixty hours in the plants every week to provide for their families. The best tip I could hope for was an extra dollar or two as thanks for delivering to them on a cold, wet night. And this is when the true richness of these people made itself apparent. The customer for whom I had just given change for a fifty dollar bill would ask me to break a twenty and present me with a five dollar tip, sometimes even more than that. Others who could not afford to give a monetary gratuity would give out of their own need. “Here man, have a beer. Take a couple of slices of pizza, you’re soaking wet and need to warm up a little.”
Regardless of the outcome, I could sprint through the rain and back to my truck for the return trip to the restaurant with a smile on my face. I had brought joy to a home that was thankful to have a hot meal, a family to share it with, and a roof over their heads. They weren’t driving expensive sports cars or new trucks or living in brick homes with new furniture and plush carpets. But these people possessed a wealth the others did not. They were content with what they had and thankful to have it.
January 22, 2009
Ahhh, The Boredom Killer
School is back in session after a five week break. I was getting bored sitting on my ass all day watching TV, playing games, and screwing around on the computer. 
November 8, 2008
Proofread My Research Paper
Critique me folks. English is my weakest subject. 
The Crystallization Process
Crystallization is one of the pristine unit processes. It is described as the process of producing crystals through the precipitation of a solute from a solvent, a melt or by being directly deposited from a gas. This can be accomplished through a variety of methods including, but not limited to, cooling, evaporation or chemical processes. Perhaps our ancestors used sea salt found on the surface of rocks after the seawater had been evaporated by the sun. This process is still in use in modern solar ponds. With the fast growth of the chemical industry in the last 100 years, the demand for the study of crystallization dynamics has increased greatly. This process is used now in many industrial manufacturing areas. Crystallization is considered an important industrial process due to the large number of materials marketed as crystalline particles. Table salt, sugar, sodium sulfate, urea, and bisphenol-A (BPA) phenol adduct are just a few applications of the crystallization process today.
The crystallization process is a type of unit operation that begins by dissolving a chemical compound into a given solvent. That creates a mixture called mother liquor. Then the solute substance is precipitated from the mother liquor under controlled conditions. In order to obtain effective control over the process, importance is placed on controlling retention time and crystal mass. The goals are to achieve the most favorable conditions for the development of crystal specific surface and the fastest possible growth. The growth rate of crystal facets can be negatively impacted by the introduction of chemical impurities with strong adsorption properties which attach to the growth surface of the crystal, effectively “poisoning” the addition of new molecules to that surface. Poisoning of the crystal growth process can also arise from physical deformities attaching to the crystal growth front including misaligned or misfolded molecules.
The main factors influencing solubility are concentration and temperature. The formation of solid crystals, which cannot take place below the solubility threshold at the given temperature and pressure conditions, takes place at a concentration higher than the theoretical solubility level. This fundamental factor in the crystallization process, referred to as supersaturation, is the difference between the actual value of the solute concentration at the crystallization limit and the theoretical solubility threshold.
The crystallization process is made up of two major events. These are referred to as the nucleation phase and the crystal growth phase. Nucleation is the step where the dissolved molecules which have been dispersed in the solvent begin to form into clusters that become stable under the current operating conditions. These stable clusters constitute the nuclei. Whenever these clusters remain unstable, they begin to redissolve. Therefore, the clusters need to reach a critical size in order to become stable nuclei. Such critical size is dictated by the operating conditions (temperature, supersaturation, etc.). It is at the stage of nucleation that the atoms arrange in a defined and periodic manner that defines the crystal structure.
Supersaturation is the main factor behind the initial nucleation step and the crystal growth that follows. Neither process could occur in saturated or undersaturated conditions. Crystals are formed following a well-defined structure that is established by forces that work on the molecular level. As a consequence, during its formation process, the crystal is in an environment where the solute concentration reaches a certain critical value before changing phases.
Most modern crystallizers fall into the category of vacuum units in which evaporative cooling is used to create supersaturation. In its original and simplest form, this type of crystallizer is a closed vessel in which a vacuum is maintained by a condenser. This is usually done with the help of a steam-jet vacuum pump or booster, placed between the crystallizer and the condenser.
Tank crystallizers typically are used in batch process operations and are still used in some specialized applications. In the tank crystallization process, a hot, saturated solution is cooled in an open tank, allowing the crystallization to “just happen”. After the cooling process, the mother liquid is drained and the crystals are removed. Drawbacks associated with tank crystallization include difficulty in controlling nucleation and crystal size. There is also the high labor costs involved. This type of crystallization is used typically only in the fine chemical or pharmaceutical industries, where the high operating costs are justified by product value and preservation.
Scraped Surface Crystallizers, such as the Swenson-Walker crystallizer, consist of an open trough 0.6m wide with a semicircular bottom. The outside of the trough is jacketed with cooling coils and a low-speed spiral agitator rotates close to the trough wall, breaking off the crystal deposits that have grown on the cooled walls of the vessel.
In the circulating-liquid evaporator-crystallizer, also called an Oslo crystallizer, supersaturation is reached by evaporation. Circulating liquid is pumped through the tube side of a condensing steam heater or heat exchanger. This heated liquid then flows into the vapor space where flash evaporation occurs, imparting some supersaturation. The vapors being discharged are condensed while the supersaturated mother liquor flows through the downflow tube. Then it goes up through a bed of fluidized and agitated crystals, where secondary nucleation leads to crystallization. The leaving saturated liquid then goes back as a recycle stream to the heater. There it is joined by the entering fluid. The larger product crystals settle out while the liquor is recycled, mixed with the feed and reheated.
In the circulating-magma vacuum crystallizer, the magma, or suspension of crystals, is circulated out of the main body through a circulating pipe by a screw pump. The magma then passes though a heat exchanger where its temperature is gently raised approximately 2-6 °C before being returned to the vessel. A steam-jet ejector provides a vacuum in the vapor space. This causes boiling at the surface of the liquid. The resulting evaporation leads to the formation of the crystals which are at the bottom of the vessel body, with the vapors exiting through the top. This causes supersaturation in the swirling liquid near the surface, which deposits in the swirling suspended crystals until they leave again via the circulating pipe.
The continuous oscillatory baffled crystallizer (COBCTM) is a tubular baffled crystallizer that offers plug flow under laminar flow conditions (low flow rates) with superior heat transfer coefficient. This allows controlled cooling profiles and gives much better control over crystal size, morphology and consistent crystal products.
The crystallizer is the considered to be the core of the crystallization system, but there are various other components that need to be incorporated before the final product can be collected. The suspension from the crystallizer must be separated, the crystals dried and packed. The vapors are then condensed and the noncondensables extracted by vacuum pumps. The addition of fluid and flash bed driers, surface and mixing condensers, screen bowl, pusher, decanter and peeler centrifuges, hydrocyclones, and various types of filtration equipment are selected for these stages of the process depending on the particular product being made.
Most of the common problems encountered in the crystallization process and their causes can be grouped into two main categories: crystal (or particle-related) and crystallizer (or equipment-related).
A common problem in crystallization systems is the buildup of crystals in various components of the system. Centrifugal pump impellers, piping, tanks and drainage lines are all susceptible to crystals building up. The formation of crystals in these components cause seals to deteriorate and leak. It can inhibit pump volume severely. Accumulated crystals in piping decrease the cross-sectional area of pipes, reduce flow capacity and increase the load on pumps and motors due to higher pressures on the lines. The severity of the crystal problem depends on many factors, including chemical properties of the magma, how the system is designed, what types of equipment are selected and magma flow rates in the system.
Crystallization is a complex but highly valued process in the petrochemical and manufacturing industries. Variations of this process have been used for thousands of years, and today many types of equipment are used depending on the product needed and the cost involved. From plastics, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and food products, the process of crystallization is considered an important industrial process due to the large number of materials marketed as crystalline particles.
November 6, 2008
So Tired
Between the vasectomy last week and keeping up with school, I’ve been low on energy almost every day this week. Sleep hasn’t been coming easily and what little sleep I do get is of poor quality. I will definitely not be taking 17 hours during another semester. The course load I had for this term was way more than I expected even though I haven’t been performing badly. I’m looking forward to the Thanksgiving break and the end of the semester two weeks later. The month between semesters is going to be a lot of rest, trips to the gym, and a shitload of video games. My poor Xbox hasn’t been touched in months and I’m paying for a gym membership that has been just as neglected. The reduced course load for the spring term should give me a little more time for those things. I know I have to take my school work seriously, but I think I’ve put too much focus on the school work and not enough on taking care of myself. Bah, I need to fix the bike and just take off for a weekend. That should leave me feeling quite a bit better. BBL. 
November 2, 2008
August 13, 2008
Just One More
I have one more final to take tomorrow then I get a 10 day break before the fall semester starts. I’m enjoying this a lot, maybe more than I should.
June 25, 2008
I Feel Like Crap
Today was the first major test for the Safety, Health, and Environmental course I’m taking online and, of course, shit happened. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I blacked out early this afternoon. I woke up on the floor at 5:15 and had to rush out to make the test by 6:00. So I ended up not having time to study and review the material, I also had a massive episode of CRS on top of it. For those that don’t know what CRS is, it means “Can’t Remember Shit”. Now someone thinking clearly probably would have thought to reschedule the test, which leaves me to wonder why I didn’t even after a message from the instructor earlier today about doing so. Oh wait, I couldn’t remember shit. I know I didn’t do very well, but hopefully I can balance it out with the other three major tests. Right now I just wan’t to sleep. But I can’t because I have two more tests to take tomorrow for my morning class.
June 12, 2008
They Weren’t Kidding
I see why they refer to college as being part time and full time now. I’m only four days into the first week and I’ve spent most of my time in class or at home reading and doing assignments. That’s not to say I’m not enjoying it. This is a welcome change from the last six months of sitting at home doing next to nothing with my time. Now if I can just figure out how to survive and pay the bills for the next 18 months I’ll be in great shape.