So I haven’t posted in awhile – Thesis has been a mixed bag of frustration and jubilation, but I have kept my head down and furrowed through the work. A full formal post is coming soon, but I figure I would oblige your visual appetite.
Below is a video I made for my undergrad Applied Kinesiology class last spring. Simple project, but you can see the anatomical breakdown of Fred Cook’s shotput throw. Check it out:
Every now and again I have the distinct privilege of having a guest-blogger on the site. Elliot Williamson is a good friend of mine from back in the Track and Field days, and has become quite the craftsman in knife making and steel work. Enjoy this post about the process of this age-old craft. Afterwards, visit his site to admire his handiwork and maybe contact him if you want to purchase one of his works, or commission a custom design of your own!
What makes your steel get hard
Just imagine this scene: Two smiths are working long into the night about 4,000, maybe even 5,000 years ago at any given civilization center of the ancient world. They are doing what they normally do, heating iron and pounding it into shape to make a sword or and axe. But one guy needs to go home, and the iron is still in the fire, so he takes it out and dunks it into some water so they can put it away and go home. The next morning they take the blade and are going work harden the edges just like they did with bronze blades, but when the hammer hits the blade it bounces off and leaves a dent in the hammer. “What has happened, this iron is harder than any other iron I’ve ever seen?” Well boys, you just discovered the one of the greatest advancements in technology, the solid state reaction between carbon and iron at high temperatures and the resulting structural change when rapidly cooled. It took until the late 19th century for scientists to be able to describe what was happening chemically during the heat treatment of steel, even though it was being done for millennia. Books have been written about the subject, whole classes in engineering are devoted to it, but it’s not that complicated, in theory.
Let’s go back to our ancient smiths and start from where they were starting from: Iron ore. It was probably a potter who first discovered that some rocks melt at high-enough temperature, but once the word got out every one with a firing oven was sticking rocks in it. Iron does not exist naturally on this planet in metallic form, but it does in meteors and some of the oldest iron implements are meteoric iron, we know because they contain nickel in higher percentages than found in the Earth’s crust. So once iron ore was discovered, and there is lively debate on when that was, a process was developed to extract the iron, called bloom forging. Large amounts of ore were dumped into a big fire pit with fuel for the fire, i.e. wood, or charcoal, and air was forced through the fire, via an apprentice with a lot of lung capacity, or later with bellows of some sort. This heated the ore enough to melt some of the iron out of the rocks (about 2800 degrees F.), but this left lots of other material in the iron. Once the mass of iron and other material, or the bloom as it is known, was cool it was taken to smaller more reliable heating chamber which came to be called a forge. It was heated to a glowing orange color and then hammered and hammered and hammered to get as much of the impurities out as possible. This could take days. Once the impurities were drawn out enough so that a smooth metallic surface could be raised with a heat in the forge and some hammering, then it was ready to be drawn out to shape. Now here is were things get chemical.
The fuel used to smelt the iron ore contained carbon; some of that carbon was trapped in the iron as it melted and solidified. Turns out the more carbon present in iron directly effects how hard the alloy of iron and carbon (steel) can be. Now one major problem with bloom forging is that working the impurities out of the bloom also allows carbon to be pulled out of the steel by the very oxygen being pumped into the fire to make it hotter. So for thousands of years smiths were making educated guesses as to how hard a piece of steel would become after the magical quenching. You can feel the difference when forging the steel, high carbon-containing steel is much harder to draw and shape than low-carbon steel, but there is a huge range in hardness in steel and it must have taken years to be able to know which steel would make a good sword and which was better suited for a farming tool. Today we know that steel containing .2% carbon or higher will heat-harden into the 40s on the Rockwell C hardness scale, as you get to .4% you can reach the 50s and once you cross the .5% threshold the steel will harden up to 60 HRC. The Rockwell C scale is just one of many scales used to determine the hardness of metal. It is done by a machine which strikes the metal in question with a set force and the indentation is then measured. But what does it all mean? 50 HRC is considered to be a spring temper, meaning the steel with flex, but not bend, returning to its original shape once the load is removed. The leaf springs in your car are the best example of this. But carbon content is not the real key to hardened steel, it is just the door.
The true fundamental answer to why steel hardens when heated and cooled rapidly is all about the relationship between carbon and iron on a chemical level. Post bloom forging the carbon in the steel is lumped around in the iron, creating pockets of hard-carbon within the softer iron. This distribution of carbon within the iron is call ferrite, yes it has name as do all the different distribution states of carbon in iron and there are quite a few, but we will stay with the big three. Ferrite is sort of the base state of steel, where all the alloying elements are doing their own thing. Carbon likes carbon so it hangs out together, just as iron does. This affinity is natural, but it can change and heat produces this change. At high heat, 1900 degrees F. and higher, both carbon and iron become agitated with all that extra energy around and they shed that energy by glowing and moving around. This is one of the quirky things about steel, this movement is not a phase change, the steel is still a solid piece of steel, but on a molecular level the carbon is being repelled from itself and collecting iron atoms in covalent bonds that arrange around the carbon into crystalline structures called carbides. Don’t let the name fool you not all carbines center around carbon, it was just first observed with carbon and the crystalline structure has been called a carbide ever since. So at this almost 2000 degree temperature a lattice work of carbide develops and this state is austenite which is an almost even carbon distribution. Now if it were possible to instantly remove the heat and freeze this structure we would have and almost perfect crystalline structure in our steel and it would be similar in hardness to a diamond, but we can not. We have to settle for a slightly less organized structure can martensite. The distribution of carbon is still fairly uniform, but the crystalline structure is imperfect with some fully formed carbine and some not so fully formed. We can freeze this structure and that was what our ancient smiths did when they took their steel from fire to water within about a second. The rapid dissipation of heat-energy doesn’t allow the carbon to re-attract to itself, thus the carbides stay locked in the iron matrix. The more carbon, the more carbides, the greater the chance of any impact hitting a carbide, and bingo, a harder steel. But there are some other things at work here as well.
The quenching process is not perfect and some areas in the steel do in fact retain the austenitic structure, great right? Wrong, diamonds are hard, and so are perfect carbides, be they are also brittle because the iron surrounding the carbon forms weak covalent bonds with the other iron atoms. Here is lays the great balancing act of steel: Too hard means breaking, to soft means bending and warping. Luckily martensite has the best of both world; carbides for hardness, but imperfect structure for malleability. To get rid of the left over austenite and take the brittleness out of steel you must temper it. If you hold the steel at given temperature for period of time, the austenite reverts back to martensite. But hold it at too high a temperature or for too long and the martensite reverts back ferrite as you give the carbon energy to break its bonds with the iron in its carbides. This must have been a real pain in the ass for ancient metal workers. In modern metallurgy we have tons of data and every type of steel produced is required to have a graph depicting its “S” curve, which is basically the temperature by time and yield structure in line graph form, and a table of tempering temperatures by time and yield hardness. So today there is a “recipe” for any given steel and any given hardness you hope to achieve.
This is all much more complex and really more of a study in quantum mechanics than I have made it out to be and I have taken some liberties with terminology to help demystify the whole process. But for all the complexity in explaining the hardening of steel, it is fairly simple in practice. There are many different kinds of steel with widely varying alloy contents and each steel has its own temperature were the solid state change occurs and this call the critical temperature. But one thing does remain constant the color at which the steel will glow when the austenite temperature has been reached, and the lost of ferromagnetism. There is certain bright orange color and a lost magnetism which is easily recognizable, especially when the magnet doesn’t stick anymore. But the color is how smiths have been judging the critical temperature for millennia, and it works. The Japanese sword smithing tradition has a saying: “When blade glows with the color of the raising sun, then blade has gained its soul.” Tempering is little bit trickier and involves a lot of trial and error. Most of the time 400 degrees F. for an hour or two will take the brittleness out of the steel, but with some of the high alloy steel with much more than just carbon in them the tempering temperature can be up to 1000 degrees F. for two rounds of two hours each. So thank goodness of tempering tables.
Again this just a basic overview of the heat treatment of steel. There is so much more I could discuss, but won’t as I have read several books on heat treatment and they tend to be rather dull. I hope that you never look at a leaf spring, knife, or I-beam the same way again.
Happy hardening,
Elliot Williamson
Ferrum Forge Knife Works
So I’m back in SD. And a ton of work to do before we start data collection on Aug 20th. I haven’t updated very much on the progression of my thesis, but here is where I stand.
We’ve conducted VO2Max tests on 8 Subjects, 6 Males, and 2 Females. I’ve had to drop 3 of them for various reasons. But here are the data on the 5 subjects I’ve got scheduled so far…. Take note of the category 1 cyclist weighing 137.3 lbs and putting out 453 watts!
Next week is the fun part. Because there are at least 12 people who will be involved in the collection of data, Kim suggested that I put together a visual timeline to organize people, and to distribute this so everyone knows exactly where they are supposed to be and what they are doing. Well, 3 hours later and 4 revisions yield this: The master blueprint 😛 Anyways, back to more work.
Ireland Highlights:
Ok I admit it, I failed at updating every day like I intended to, and some time has passed since the Ireland trip but here goes my best recollection.
The first night in Dublin, Mike, Steve, and I hopped in a cab to go to a tiny town called Malahide, and took our driver’s recommendation to go to a nice seafood restaurant right on the water. It was beautiful, and our first real taste of irish culture… I ate a nice seared ahi tuna, very fresh, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. My favorite quote of the night: Upon Steve’s close inspection and admiration for the label on that night’s wine, our waiter came by and asked if we wanted another bottle.
Steve: “Um, no we’re going to take it easy tonight, we just had a long flight across the Atlantic and we’re just tired…”
Waiter: “Sir, you do know what country you’ve landed in right? This is Ireland…. You can have more than one bottle between the three of ya!”
Galway/Oranmore
On the long drive to Oranmore, we stopped at Clonmacnoise, the most important 6th Century Christian monastery site in the Irish Midlands, and the final resting place for the Kings of Tara. This site was over 1400 years old, and it’s ruins really showed the many attacks on the monastery site by different parties and tribes. Today it stands as a very holy and solemn site dotted with high Celtic crosses overlooking the River Shannon.
The next three nights we stayed at the Oranmore Lodge hotel, which is the former ancestral home of the Blake-Butler family. The place was very B+B-ish, although much bigger, and the service was very nice. The hotel included a big lap-swimming pool, a steam room, sauna, gym, and jacuzzi; all of which I took advantage of. Right after settling into the hotel we had a full rehearsal with the group, which we all felt a bit shaky about our first performance which would be the next day in Kylemore Abbey.
Dinner that night was at Bunratty Castle, built in 1425, and it was a Medieval Banquet that started with live entertainment and mead, a honey wine, followed by a four-course meal which included curry soup, pork ribs, chicken, and well, the rest is a bit fuzzy as I was able to convince the ladies of the castle to let me have my own pitcher of mead. David Chase was dubbed the Duke, and was charged with the responsibility of being the guest of honor – thus the decision on food selection, quality and criticism, was on him. It was a fun night!
Connemara Region and Kylemore Abbey
We took a long drive out to Kylemore Abbey, a late 1800 castle built into a steep hillside and sitting on a lake, originally built as a gift by a wealthy man, Mitchell Henry for his wife who died shortly after of dysentery after a trip to Egypt. On the far bank of the lake is a small gothic chapel, dubbed the cathedral in miniature – This is where our first concert would be held. Logistically it was a nightmare as the chapel was narrow and thus we ended up stacking bassists 5-6 deep in the far back of the altar. The performance itself, well, just OK – many people including myself made some key mistakes, singing on rests, singing flat or missing pitch completely, etc… but it was nice to get the jitters out on the first day.
My favorite moment of that day: Our repertoire consisted of many different types of music from different times and regions of the world. Our first encore was an old Irish tune called “I know my love.” There was a sweet old Irish lady sitting in the front row directly in front of me, and her face exploded in joy when she recognized the tune and she started singing aloud, her face was just full of life and I could tell she was transported back to her childhood when she first learned that song, and it nearly brought me to tears, it was a very precious moment for me.
Cliffs of Moher
This geological attraction is one of the most popular in Ireland, it is on the western Irish coast, and the monstrous sandstone shear cliffs are absolutely breathtaking. One Facebook comment on my wall about the Cliffs of Moher alluded to the Princess Bride J. It was the first real test of my photographic skill on this trip, and I tried my best to capture the grandeur of it. Also this was the only meal on the trip I really did not enjoy. I guess a chicken sandwich is a little too daunting of a challenge, ha.
Roundstone
Easily my favorite place to stay, Roundstone is a tiny fishing village on beautiful Galway Bay, in Connemara County. It actually faces east across Galway Bay, but it give the false impression that you are looking across the Atlantic. Our group was so big that we were split up into 5 different B+B’s across the village, but we were within 5 minutes walking distance from each other.
The first night, we had a community music sharing night with the local people. I was simply stunned – the opening act was a group of very young local artists, some of which had turned professional and made a long trek home from Dublin to make the performance. Here’s a link to a video clip of them dancing and playing. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1563986581278&ref=mf
More later…..
Ireland Day 1
I’d been pretty apprehensive about the trip in general; I’m the youngest one on the trip… Fred drove me to the airport and as soon as I got there, Ray, one of the bassists, brought me a plastic baggie of green goo – turns out it was lime jello shots with peppermint schnapps…. And there began the adventure. The plane ride, absolutely awful. I think the worst part is not being able to sleep. Well, or sleeping for 1-2 hours and then waking up, thinking that we only have one or two hours to go, just kidding, 5 hours! But they served us dinner, which was a piece of potroast with mashed potatoes and gravy, and a roll.
I met a new friend on the trip, Lauren, who’s the violinist accompanist. She’s a 25 year old USC graduate who won the Young Artists Competition with La Jolla Symphony. We sat on the plane together and played the movie game until we fell asleep. Well, she did. When we got off it was cloudy and rainy, but I was SO freaking happy to be getting off the plane. My sinuses were hurting really bad, even though I took like 8 sudafed. The terminal was long and had the moving walkway-escalator types. It’s pretty modern and clean. Then was the wait for customs…. Long snaking line. The customs agent I got was a gorgeous blonde girl, with these crazy blue eyes. My stay in Ireland is starting off well. She asked if I was there for business or pleasure, I, in my best james bond voice replied, “Both.” She laughed and asked if I was with the singing group. I was, and she requested that I prove it to her, and I sang her a little tune!
Got out of the terminal and the first thing I did was change out some dollars for some Euros. The excahange rate is about 1.35 at the moment. After that I went to buy a simcard for my iPhone. I bought a 10E simcard for O2 and made my first calls. Outside the weather was quite dreary, but I welcomed the wonderful fresh cold water splashing on my face after being cooped up in a plane for so many hours. We hopped on the tour bus, we had 2 drivers/guides, TJ and Sean. I was surprised that I had data serveice on my phone and promptly updated my facebook status. (Surprise im a facebook whore).
After getting into the hotel, which, admittedly was quite beautiful and modern, the rooms have a built in energy saving decive in where it forces you to put in your key to work the lights, we rested a few hours before having some breakfast downstairs. The irish eat a very hearty breakfast. Mine consisted of white and black pudding (or also known as blood pudding), sausage, a fried egg, and of course, potatoes. I would soon learn that this was a pretty common breakfast and we continted to have it every morning.
After breakfast we went and saw the Book of Kells, a manuscript of the 4 holy gospels, with very elaborate scripting and images, imagine the huge ornate first letters of pages. I tried to take pictures of it, and I got in trouble.. Boo. It was after this we had our first late-comer…. Nathan was 15 min late, and some people went back into the museum to find him. Upon walking back to the bus we realized that my roommate Mark was nowhere to be found. Another search party failed, but as we were about to pull away we see him running frantically towards the bus! 😛
Sorry for the rare updates. More to come! Wi-fi is kind of hit and miss in the countryside…
Pictures are up on facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2540139&id=3303735&l=e2074b30a6
On our last day at White Mountain, we visited the Patriarch Grove, which hold the oldest trees on Earth. It was beautiful, and in the quiet morning, seemed very sacred, holy grounds. The trees were twisted around and the great great grandfather trees were the base of the new trees, forming a very weird visual landscape against the background of the White Mountains.
An excerpt from Gorp.com
Of the many scenic wonders found within the Inyo National Forest, one of the most amazing is the ANCIENT BRISTLECONE PINE FOREST, located between 10,000 and 11,000 ft. in the White Mountains, east of the Sierra Nevada. These trees (Pinus longaeva) are the oldest known living trees on earth. Here in the White Mountains, the ancient trees have survived more than 40 centuries, exceeding the age of the oldest Giant Sequoia by 1,500 yrs.
Each Bristlecone pine, from young seedling to ancient relic, has an individual character. Young trees are densely clad with glistening needle-covered branches that sway like foxtails in the wind. With their bristled cones dripping pine scented resin on a warm afternoon, they exude all the freshness of youth. As centuries pass and the trees are battered by the elements, they become sculpted into astonishingly beautiful shapes and forms. These”old age” gnarled Bristlecones command complete attention, for there is a definite emotional impact upon meeting a 4,000 year-old tree. The aged trees tenacity to maintain life is impressive. While most of its wood is dead, growth barely continues through a thin ribbon of bark. When all life finally ceases, the snags stand like elegant ghosts for a thousand years or more. They continue to be polished by wind driven ice and sand. The dense wood is slowly eroding away rather than decaying.
Thin clear air and crisp ultraviolet light drench the high altitude arid slopes where the Bristlecone Pine makes its home. At this high elevation, one has the impression of a lunar landscape. The trees manage to survive in the poorly nourished, alkaline soil with a minimum of moisture and a forty-five day growing season. In fact, the trees longevity is linked to these inhospitable conditions. The trees grow very slowly, adding as little as an inch in girth in a hundred years.
Those that grow the slowest produce dense, highly resinous wood that is resistant to rot and disease, are more likely to join the Fraternity of the 4,000 year old Ancients. Not all Bristlecones attain great age. Trees anchored to more moist slopes grow fat and tall, produce less dense wood, and succumb at an earlier age. Long life is then granted to trees that are able to cling to life under situations of severe duress.
If you want to learn more about the ecology of these beautiful trees, visit:
http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/intro.html
V
The aforementioned video. About 35 degree water, the result of snow-melt. For about 5 minutes my head wasn’t pounding. It was exhilarating! Daniel said… “There better not be any sharks!”.
Enjoy!
V
Zach has a secret talent – dancing with fire… For the last few years he has been practicing this ancient warrior-style dance… Pretty awesome. I was able to capture alot of it with my flash, with extended shutter time. For photo-guys I strobed at 1/8th power, shutter at 1/10th of a sec, and f/10. This way I was able to get him, and his priceless expression, plus the movement of the fire-stick.
After the show we go inside for a wonderful tri-tip dinner masterfully crafted by Scott, accompanied with root veggies, and cranberry walnut salad with balsamic vinegrette. 
Well done. I can say if anything, the food up here is worth the sickness, for I haven’t lost my appetite. We chat some more about local sights and world traveling. Scott has been the cook up at Barcroft Lab and Crooked Creek Lab for hte last three years, and he absolutely loves what he does, and it shows.
After dinner we decide to see if we can catch the rest of the fireworks show at the Bishop Airport. By the way it is below 30 degrees outside with a crazy windchill so we are wearing huge “oompa loompa” puffy jackets to stay warm!
We then hop into the rental SUV and drive down to the gate that locks up the trail to Barcroft. For those people not affiliated with the research station who still want to hike up the mountain, this adds another 2 miles to their hike. We did run into a few day-hikers during our mini-hike, and another one with a dog walking in pitch black darkness. As we are driving down the lights of Bishop, CA are shining through, and suddenly we see a burst of fireworks. We get out of the car and admire the show from afar for about an hour. Unfortunately I have no pictures of this, and also none of the stargazing we did afterwards but by far the clearest and brightest I have ever seen the Milky Way. PS…. how can we be in the milky way and still see it? In August I will come back better equipped to do some astrophotograpy with the guys from UCSB.
Inspired by the fireworks display we just witnessed, we put on a show of our own! These were the ones we bought from Phantom Fireworks the day before: The 3 volcanoes – Mt Etna, Mt Kiluaea, and Mt. Vesuvius, 2 “Electric Shock fountains” and our favorite, the “Firecracker Fountain” or affectionally known as cracker mountain by the staff. 
Current time? 2:24 AM PST. I’m still nursing the headache… insomnia like none other, and suddenly nosebleeds. I guess I better drink some more water. It’s damn dry up here, and the low pressure makes it even worse. We are heading off at 7am tomorrow AM to see the Bristlecone Pines, which I have been DYING to photograph all weekend. San Diego ETA: 7pm.
Vince
This morning David came in and woke us up at 8 or so. Breakfast was on and so we made our way down slowly.
Scott made us a delicious Caramel Sourdough Baguette French Toast, with FLAT bacon (amazing), roasted fresh peaches and some eggs. I swear, this guy’s a genius. While eating breakfast David and Zach suggest we jump into the pond. About 150m from the lab is a small-ish pond that is made up of pure snow-runoff from the mountain above. We decline, but more on this later.
We’ve found out that everything is more of an effort at altitude. Feeling extremely tired from just eating breakfast, we veg on the couch watching the Tour de France, until we doze off. At 12:30 I wake up and decide a shower is in order…Well, after some rousing with Daniel and Johnny we decide to check out this pond.
It’s further than we expected, but it’s pretty big, and deep. Anyone who knows me…. what did I do? Strip down to the skivvys and peer pressure Daniel into going in with me. Video Clip coming soon….. Luckily we were able to peer pressure Johnny into going in also. It was… say… a crystallizing experience. Dipping my finger into the water was a terrible idea, it was instantly numb. We hesitated for 5 minutes, making jokes, and then we just did it! I stepped in knee deep and then dove face first into the middle of the water, where it was deepest. My breath was instantly taken away, and replaced by cramping muscles and super-panic-survival mode. I saw Daniel in the corner of my eye and just terrified girl-screams coming from both of us, and Johnny rolling around laughing. We swam like we were being chased by sharks and found our towels. It was an amazing experience, and for 5 minutes I had forgotten about my AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) misery,
We ran back to the lab and made some gigantic sandwiches. I snagged the last cheesy-bagel (sorry Johnny) and we dug around the fridge for more snacks. We sat around chatting with Scott, who was warmed up in his puffy coat, and laughing at us for jumping into the pond, and even more so that we peer-pressured Johnny into following suit. It turns out that the pond is the excess from the well that supplies the drinking water from the lab. Oops! I think it gets filtered on down the line anyways.
What kind of science blog would this be without science content? After a real shower (which was amazing), Johnny sat us down and took some measurements of our breathing. 
The protocol was 15 minutes of quiet breathing of room air, at 12,500 ft, and then 15 minutes of sea level air at 0 ft, about 21% O2. It was a wonderful break from the headache, and it was amazing to experience how quickly the headache and AMS symptoms subsided. Daniel felt the same way. Pulse ox shot back up to 97, 98% about normal, but my HR never dropped below 100bpm. Interesting…
After another post-meal nap, we embarked on a short hike. There was no way we were going to try and summit the peak of White Mtn at 14,257ft, since none of us were acclimatized yet (except for Johnny who had been popping Excedrin Migranes all day, lucky bastard).
The amazing thing is that there is still snow, despite it being July 4th, and it being 65F out. I had no idea how I was going to react, seeing as my SpO2% was still in the low 70’s. The terrain around here is very rocky, with spotted grass vegetation, but no trees as we are well above the tree line. The hike itself was a bit challenging especially with the added insult of altitude. I soon realized that no matter how slow or fast I went, I was breathing the same, and my heart rate was about 160bpm.
We went up the longer less-steep route to get around this mini peak that afforded great views of the Owens Valley and of Barcroft Lab, as well as the rest of the Sierra Nevadas, and eventually we were able to get an amazing view of the Summit of White Mountain.
The snow was still melting, and we could hear and feel the streams of really fresh, pure water flowing below our feet, and it made for a very serene experience. There wasn’t much wind, and as you can see the weather was perfect. 
The peak of White Mountain is really a staggering sight. At 14,257 it is the second highest peak in California. Admittedly it is the easiest “fourteener” as it is a 4 hour approach, but there is also an access road up to there because the Summit Lab has lots of equipment up there. 
Anyways, evening festivities will be posted in the next entry! Hope you guys are enjoying these pictures and following along in my endeavors!
Vince
But last night, I got really sick. I’m sure the beer I had with dinner didn’t help much. My headache turned into a full on migraine, with extreme pressure behind my eyes, causing them to be bloodshot red.
Daniel offered me some Fruit Snacks, and for some reason we all agreed it might help with the pain. I ate 3 of them… loudly exclaimed UH-OH, and ran for the bathroom. Except I didn’t run, I stumbled, and fell, and Johnny ended up carrying me to the bathroom where I projectile vomited dinner.
Sue had recommended I drink some coffee – I asked David first if it might interfere with the measurements. I was pretty desperate at this point because I couldn’t take any medication to help the pain. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat in the kitchen in the dark as David searched for Tylenol. Time: 3:15am. Finally he found the only 2 tylenols on the mountain and I put my head down on the kitchen counter. 10 minutes late I had an extreme urge to pee… which turned out to be the 3rd theme of the night behind headache and insomnia. I finally went upstairs with an extra cup of green tea and laid down for 10 more min before having to go again. It was a rough night.
Waking up this morning felt ok, but as you can see in the pic below… not much better. Long day ahead of us!
Vincent Tedjasaputra, Ph.D. 
