Not chemistry related... but I'm still emotionally recovering from seeing LOTR The Two Towers extended edition yesterday in a packed local theater. Return of the King in two weeks!

I keep spending my days mixing chemicals just to turn around and unmix them, like some kinda fool 🤡

Congrats Abdias! So proud of my former mentee. I am glad that he is still radiofluor-ishing

Is it a 4-neck 500 mL jacketed round-bottom reactor? A 500 mL jacketed 4-neck round-bottom reactor? A 500 mL 4-neck jacketed round-bottom reactor? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Out: lab coats In: lab robes I just wanna be cozy while also flame-retardant, y'know?

CONGRATS TO THESE ROCK STARS for passing their UMN Department of Chemistry preliminary exams this week! I am VERY PROUD of both of them and I am sooo lucky to have the opportunity to serve as their research mentor!

Spent a lot of time in grad school thinking about N-aryl pyridinium salts. The last 10 years have seen really cool advancements in the synthesis of these molecules beyond the Zincke reaction. Noticed there hadn’t been a review summarizing key advancements so we wrote one! Link👇

Learning Excel equation syntax might be my villain origin story.

My wikipedia app glitches sometimes and leaves comical artifacts... like the Heisman-winning, national champion hydroboration-oxidation reaction.

You don't know how good you have it until it's gone 😞 (SDBS Spectral Database of Organic Compounds is currently down for maintenance)

My first process goes into the plant Sunday evening 😍😬 wish me fair weather, good splits, and cooperative crystallizations

Update: it has been quite the learning curve in forming new lines of communication, collaboration, and high-stakes decision making, but it was awesome to see poly drums of on-spec intermediates start filling last week 🤓

Will you still honor this $4.00 offer, Sigma-Aldrich? I need some office decor.

Company matches for charitable donations are so cool... make sure to check if you're employer matches this #GivingTuesday!

"Do one thing everyday that scares you." (making a pivot table on a spreadsheet that engineers will look at)

💡: Bear bells, but for your coworkers/labmates so they don't come up and startle you at your hood.

Deciding to prep all your samples Friday afternoon or Monday morning always feels like a Faustian bargain. (Do them Friday - it'll be worth it)

tinyurl.com/4n4tyau7 ChemRxiv! Physicochemically altered variants of (hetero)cyclohexanecarboxylate are accessible by a 2-step diastereoselective 1,3-bis-trifluoromethylation then oxidative malononitrile FGI to carboxylates. We envisage that such building blocks... 1/2

My last couple weeks of "pulling the levers" developing this crystallization

Wait... are beakers called beakers cuz they have beaks? Did people just never tell me this, or did they think I knew already?