Boron

Element 5...boron.  Not a combination of "boring moron", but not a terribly interesting element either.  The most common boron compound that most people have seen is borax, Na2B4O7*10H2O.  Boron in its elemental state is a very hard and brittle metalloid.


Boron is essential for cross-linking the polymer chains in Silly Putty.  In real Silly Putty, the polymer chains are made from polyvinyl alcohol, but you can make your own slimy polymeric putty with Elmer's glue.  Here's a good recipe from Steve Spangler's website:

This recipe is based on using a brand new 8 ounce bottle of Elmer’s Glue. Empty the entire bottle of glue into a mixing bowl. Fill the empty bottle with warm water and shake (okay, put the lid on first and then shake). Pour the glue-water mixture into the mixing bowl and use the spoon to mix well. Add the glue-water mixture to the glue in the mixing bowl. Go ahead… add a drop or two of food coloring.

Measure 1/2 cup of warm water into the plastic cup and add a teaspoon of Borax powder to the water. Stir the solution – don’t worry if all of the powder dissolves. This Borax solution is the secret linking agent that causes the Elmer’s Glue molecules to turn into slime.

While stirring the glue in the mixing bowl, slowly add a little of the Borax solution. Immediately you’ll feel the long strands of molecules starting to connect. It’s time to abandon the spoon and use your hands to do the serious mixing. Keep adding the Borax solution to the glue mixture (don’t stop mixing) until you get a perfect batch of Elmer’s slime. You might like your slime more stringy while others like firm slime. Hey, you’re the head slime mixologist – do it your way!

When you’re finished playing with your Elmer’s slime, seal it up in a zipper-lock bag for safe keeping.

The borax dissociates to borate ions in solution.  The -OH groups on the borate ions form weak hydrogen bonds with the -OH groups of the polyvinyl alcohol (or glue polymer), which allow the polymeric chains to link and unlink as the putty (slime) stretches.

See the Boron (B) atom in the middle?  Neat, huh?

And that's probably more than you'll ever need to know about boron.  Oh, except that boron compounds make a pretty green flame when burned:

Buckeyes

My original plan for element 4 (Be) was brownie.  However, when we were recently in Ohio, my 7-year-old daughter sampled a "buckeye" at a family gathering and wanted to make some, so...

"Buckeyes" are a candy which consists of peanut butter-y stuff dipped in chocolate.  Traditionally, you don't fully dip the peanut butter center, so that the candy ends up looking like a buckeye, which is a nut from a buckeye tree.

I had these all the time when I was living in Ohio, but I don't see them as much in Virginia.  However, I don't see many obnoxious Ohio State Buckeye fans here in Virginia, either, so I guess it's an even trade.

I tried to make buckeyes once in college, using a recipe which included paraffin wax melted in with the chocolate coating - I guess this was either to improve consistency or appearance of the coating.  I evidently used too much paraffin, though, because my "candy" ended up tasting like peanut butter-flavored crayons.

Here's the recipe I tried this time: Crunchy Buckeyes.  I liked the sound of these - the rice krispies would add a nice crunch.  I made them with my daughters' help.

However, I ran into a big problem: the chocolate chips refused to melt into a consistency which would allow for dipping of the peanut butter balls.  I tried heating it up hotter (afraid I'd burn the chocolate), and I tried adding a bit of milk, which just ended up making the chocolate seize.  We did manage to make a few pathetic-looking buckeyes, but I think that the chocolate chips needed something else to thin them out - maybe paraffin, maybe shortening, I don't know.

I'll give this recipe a 3 out of 10.  I just couldn't make it work.  It was possibly a problem on my end, but a good scientist always blames the experimental procedure.

The peanut butter filling, though, was delicious!

Beryllium

Beryllium.  Hmmm...I don't have much to say about beryllium.  Having spent much of the last 18 years in various laboratories, I've seen a lot of elements, but I've never seen pure beryllium or any of its compounds.  One thing I do know is that it's toxic, so you shouldn't lick it (which, come to think of it, is a good general rule for people who work in laboratories:  "Don't Lick It.")  Also, they use beryllium in alloys with copper to make tools for use where sparks would be a problem.

I just did some research, and found some pictures which neatly demonstrate how different elements can look in their pure state versus what they look like in their compounds.

Here is a sample of pure beryllium:

Looks a bit like a melted metallic turd.  Pretty, huh?  But combine beryllium with some aluminum, silicon, and oxygen atoms, and maybe throw in some chromium, iron, or vanadium impurities, and you get beryl, aquamarine, and emerald:

Ain't science cool?

Lime

Li - what else could it be but lime?  (Well, lilac, I suppose...)

One of my favorite desserts is key lime pie.  I made some "key lime" cookies a few years ago, and was disappointed with the results, so I thought I'd try something different for this project: Guyanese Lime Cookies.  They had mostly rave reviews on allrecipes.com, and they sounded yummy.

Well, I baked these about a week and a half ago, and I'm just now getting around to writing about them (I've been busy, all right?).  I don't have any pictures, but these cookies (like my Heath Bits cookies) spread out fairly thin.  My wife thinks it might be because I've been using real butter instead of margarine in my recipes (hey, what's a few more calories?).

The taste was very different - you could definitely taste the lime, but the nutmeg and cinnamon came through even stronger.  My wife thought they had a bit too much cinnamon, but my in-laws and I thought they were very yummy, and they disappeared all too soon (the cookies, that is...not my in-laws).  (Just kidding...my in-laws are great!)

These were pretty good...I'll give them an 8 out of 10.

Home again

We had a good weekend in Ohio for my grandmother's funeral.  The funeral service was a wonderful celebration of grandma's life, and I got to see all of my aunts and uncles, and nearly all of my cousins.  (No small feat, when you consider that my mom has 7 siblings, and there are 16 of us grandkids.)  The weather was cool and perfect - I feel like I got my first taste of fall.

My younger sister Jenita and my mom.

My nephew Tanner (who looked 5 years older over the summer), my aunt Carol (who looked 5 years younger), my sister Janelle (did I mention that she's almost 40?), and my daugher Natalie.

Me and my older (nearly 40!) sister, Janelle.

My daugher Marissa, with some Colorado cousins: Riley, Walker, and Landen.

We also had a 50th birthday party for my mom's youngest sister, Carol.  Carol doesn't have any children of her own, but she has been an awesome aunt to all of her nieces, nephews, and now grand-nieces and grand-nephews.

Mom (3rd from right) with her three brothers and four sisters.

Aunt Carol (in the middle) with a pile of nieces and nephews.

When grandma passed away, she was sitting in her wheelchair with her Bible in her hands.  As I listened to the stories people shared about her life, I couldn't help but to think of the fruits of the Spirit listed in the Bible...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Grandma embodied all of these, and more.  She loved to study her Bible, and it makes me smile to think of her having all her questions answered at Jesus' feet.

We were also able to visit with my wife's family, and we took a walk with her grandmother and our nephew along the bike path near her parents' house.

Marissa with her cousin Camdyn, on the bike path.

Enjoying a beautiful fall day.

I am blessed to have such a great family!

Goodbye

I received word last night that my grandma Martin (my mother's mother) had passed away.  This has been a rough year, as I lost my grandpa Martin last August, and my grandma Clark this past October.

Grandma Martin was 90 years old.  She and my grandfather had eight children (my mom is 3rd oldest), and lots and lots of grandkids and great-grandkids, so there will be quite a few of us travelling for her funeral from around the country.  Please keep my family in your prayers.

This is one of my favorite pictures of grandma (I stole this off my sister's blog).  Here she is with her kids (at the time only six, but two more daughters were to come).  My mom is second on the left.

We'll miss you, grandma.

Lithium

Okay, moving on to element number 3.  Lithium is the first metal on the periodic table, and is the lightest of the non-gaseous elements.  It's density is so low, in fact, that it will float on water.  However, it will react with that water to form bubbles of hydrogen gas, as well as lithium hydroxide, which will dissolve in the water.

Because of lithium's low density, it is often combined with other metals to form strong, lightweight alloys.  Compounds of lithium include lithium stearate (used in high-temperature greases) and lithium carbonate (used as medication to treat mental illness).

As I'm writing this, I find that I'm boring even myself.  For those of you who actually read this post, I apologize.  Here are some lyrics to "Lithium" by Nirvana to make up for it:

I'm so happy 'cause today
I found my friends
They're in my head
I'm so ugly, that's okay
'Cause so are you

Oh, and here's the chorus:

Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah

Truly, words that capture the essence of the early '90s.

Herbs

Okay - recipe number 2.  Since I already used Heath bits for the symbol "H", I needed something different for symbol "He", and I went with "Herbs".  I don't usually bake savory goodies, since I have a very active sweet tooth, but I found a recipe for Sundried Tomato and Herb Biscotti that sounded interesting.  I found the recipe on a blog with the great name of "The Food In My Beard".  Having recently shaved off my own full beard, I now have to store excess food in my pocket instead.

The recipe actually comes from Giada de Laurentis - the "Food in My Beard" guy just added some sundried tomatoes.  The recipe calls for "herbes de Provence".  I found a whole slew of recipes to make your own "herbes de Provence", many of which included lavender buds (really?  flowers?).  My wife has an extensive herb garden, but it doesn't include lavender (I thought about substituting some zinnias, or even some dandelions), so I made up my own recipe as follows:

-some thyme

-some rosemary

-some marjoram

-some basil

-some (but less than the other "some's") summer savory

-some grass clippings that blew onto the herb garden when I mowed the yard earlier in the afternoon

Reaping the bounty of my wife's herb garden.

I stuck all this in the food processor along with 5 chopped-up sun-dried tomatoes, and pulverized it to a wet powder.  This is what I then used as "herbes de Provence" in Giada's recipe.

Biscotti is a type of cookie that you bake twice - once as a loaf, then a second time after you slice the loaf into cookies.  After the first baking, the biscotti loaf looked delicious, and the kitchen began to smell like a pizza parlor.

I was able to slice the biscotti pretty thin without it crumbling, and the second bake turned the cookies a beautiful golden brown.

The finished product.

I was a bit disappointed with the taste of the biscotti, considering how good they smelled when they were baking.  They seemed a bit flat to me - I think that some black pepper would spice them up a bit (or maybe more grass clippings).  Also, they are quite crumbly, and tend to fall apart when you bite into them.  My official mad scientist rating for these is 5 out of 10.

My wife's parents are visiting from Ohio this weekend.  I used my mother-in-law as a taste-testing guinea pig. She's big on herbs - she gave us a whole pile of dried herbs from her garden for Christmas last year.  She said she really liked the flavor of these biscotti.  My wife really likes them, too.  I'll let them eat as many as they want, and go back to baking sweets!