If...

...there is a 'save of the season' award in the NHL, consider the competition closed. See the video below (sadly with a Canucks bias on Sportsnet Pacific until Peter Loubardias of Sportsnet West makes an appearance at 3:15)

For a goalie, stick saves are hard enough to make, let alone at point blank range, at full stretch and semi-prone. Will the Vezina trophy be coming to Cowtown at the end of the season? He's been nothing short of amazing in the last couple of weeks and leads the NHL in wins by a goalie.

You Know You've Lived in Canada Too Long When:

...you look at the TV weather forecast and think "ah, it's only -15 outside" and don't bother with the woolly hat, or 'tuque', as they are apparently known in these here parts.

Nearly a year gone....

...and suddenly I'm getting letters left right and centre about things that rely on my work permit. The completed extension application arrived in Vegreville on December 22nd, but no sign of the new one yet. In and of itself this isn't a problem seeing as long as I submitted my extension application at least 30 days before the permit was due to expire, I am allowed to stay in the country until such time as I hear positive news. I'm trying very hard not to think negatively; those who know me well know this is easier said than done

But it's now getting slightly problematic in that both my state health insurance and Social Insurance Number require a valid work permit for me to renew into a second year. Both require me to present the new document in the various offices downtown. But what if it hasn't arrived by March 5th? I'm not allowed to be paid without a valid SIN, and I wouldn't be medically insured. Time to get on the phones again I think. I've also received the local equivalent of the P60 end of year tax form which is ridiculously complicated when you consider it's only A5 sized. It's also only for the first two months that I've been here. Have the Canadian Revenue Agency forgotten about all those other taxes I've paid? Can I have them back if so?

:-)

Three cheers for Nobel Laureates

I've been a bit quiet on here of late. That's chiefly because I've been busy with one thing and another and I think I'd lose some serious brownie points for blogging at work. And often the impetus to blog in the evening is not high; I would rather watch the hockey and cackle to myself at being second in the chemistry department pool and the thought of the prize money. Work has been reasonably successful in the 4 weeks since I landed back in the Great White North and that's down to one thing: crown ethers.

"What's one of those, then?" I hear you ask. Simply put, it's a series of large macrocycles that bind to lithium, sodium or potassium cations, depending on the size of the ring. The chemists out there will have to stop laughing as I try and make this understandable to the non-chemists. Here's a picture of one; 18-crown-6 refers to the fact it has 18 atoms in the ring, 6 of them oxygen. I hope you can see the crown shape.

It makes the potassium salt so much more soluble, into solvents it has no right to dissolve in otherwise. And for the potassium salts I have been making (I'm sorry to be so vague but the spies from my industrial supervisors are everywhere and I'll be swimming with the fishes if I divulge any more) this has made them so much more agreeable to manipulate, rather than the hopelessly insoluble, evil flyaway solid it was before.

The development of crown ethers in 1967 won Charles Pedersen of Dupont a share in the 1987 Nobel Prize for chemistry in the general area of supramolecular chemistry. And that's a small part of the reason people win Nobel Prizes in chemistry; for their discoveries making the lives of thousands of lab minions like me just a little bit easier decades down the line.

And a postscript. Using my K(18-crown-6) mystery compound, another very successful reaction this afternoon. Experiment ALG261. Yes, the law of nine strikes again. And this time, with two new experiments to write in the lab book, I wrote in the one I wanted to work most. I'm such a cheat sometimes.