Breakfast of Champions

So I think I'm eating spaghetti for breakfast tomorrow morning. By the time I got home from work today the main grocery store was closed, and the smaller place that just sells fruit and vegetables only had bananas that were brown and black. If I was making some sort of banana shake that would probably be okay, but I really don't like my bananas looking like they were jumped in a dark alley. They also didn't have any apples left. There were onions, but I just can't imagine biting into one of them has the same sense of satisfaction.

Also, today was an eye opening day in the sense that I'd have never thought it would be so difficult to get a scientist to answer a question like "What does your technology do?", or "Who are the potential customers?" I do however have a better understanding of multilayer synthetic crystals and how they relate to carbon testing spectrometers. I'm also fairly sure that one of the scientists I was talking to today must have been thinking, "You idiot, how could you not know that every steel production facility uses spectrometers to measure carbon levels in their products."

Also, I listened to a 30 minute presentation about mushroom growing substrates. Talk about exciting.

Lastly, since these scientists are all paid by the government and work at govt. labs - and as you've heard me mention things are a little crazy here with the financial situation and things...I've learned that these scientists don't know month to month what they are getting paid. One of the guys who I've spent a lot of time with talking about many things has explained how last month he only received half of his salary because that is what was available. He is working this month on his research and doesn't know if he will receive 50% or 100% of his salary for this month. I had two takeaways from this: 1) That sucks. 2) At least these people are saving enough of their money to get through such a situation. While I'm sure some haven't saved enough and are in serious trouble, I'm guessing that there are more people here who are ready to find out they are only receiving half of their salary than people in the US who are prepared to find that out.

I have pictures to put up soon, but I'm quite tired and will be passing out shortly.