Smouldering

Its the end of the week again. Thank goodness. Vodka Sodas for everyone. I am still doing the school board inventories with one more week to go. In my last blog I discussed going back to school to get my teachers certificate. I think I would be somewhere in between the "Shut Up" teacher and the "Basic Instincts" teacher in teaching style. I really don't think I could crop my testicular hair short enough to do the "Basic Instincts" style justice.

Other than the schools having much more inventory this week, only one situation really stands out. I arrive at this one high school and immediately have the feeling of "impending doom". The naked statue out front reminded me of their corrosives cabinet. You see I visited all of the schools in this school board a few months ago to do a comprehensive health & safety audit. Part of my focus was to assess chemical storage safety and at this school there was literally everything in this one cabinet.

There was:

• Concentrated Hydrochloric Acid (HCl)
• Concentrated Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4)
• Concentrated Nitric Acid (HNO3)
• Glacial Acetic Acid (CH3COOH)
• Concentrated Ammonium Hydroxide (NH4OH)

There was even a bottle of Ferrous Sulfide (FeS) in there.

As a review for all you teachers.

FeS + 2 HCl = FeCl2 + H2S

H2S if you do not know equals DEATH.

Why would you put Ferrous Sulfide (any sulfides for that matter) in a corrosives cabinet filled with acids?

Anyway, flash forward to this past Wednesday. I enter the chemistry prep room with my chaperone teacher and say the first thing that comes to mind.

"Do you smell something burning?"

"No, it just smells like a chemistry prep room in here.", he exclaims.

After some searching through the cupboards, I open the oxidizer storage cupboard to find a whole array of materials stored together: nitrates, chlorates, organics all sharing the same space, with most bottles having loose caps or no caps at all. Many of the labels were in various stages of combustion.

I take action. Defuse the issue and make everything right in world.

Now the rant.

WTF (I say in my head). Outside my head I give the teacher the lesson.

"OK, when you come into the prep room and you see the 'white' labels staring back at you, things are good. When you come into the prep room and you see that the labels that were once white, now a shade of brown -> black (with wisps of smoke) there is an issue and it needs to be investigated.

A shoulder shrug, a FREAKING shoulder shrug.

"When am I going to find time to 'investigate'. I don't have enough paid prep time as it is.", he states.

/facepalm (inserted WOW reference - I am already off my WOW topic when I said I was going to get back to it)

Anyway, the impending doom of the corrosives cabinet. They actually heeded the warning and it was cleaned up really well. Now if they could only keep the smouldering labels under control.


WOW Stuff

The elemental stuff is happening with 4 bosses. Unfortunately, I don't think it is going to last longer than next Tuesday. That is when 4.0.3, I think is going to happen. Shame, I have a few alt toons that could really use some of the gear that has been dropping. Unfortunately, the gear is dropping when the wrong toon is in the instance.

I am staying strong. I am sure the odds will finally work in my favour.

Final Thought

Remember, fire in a chemistry prep room is bad. Shrugging shoulders makes it all better.