Nerd and Turds

So, you ever have one of those days where you're just plain stupid? Well, I do. In fact a day like that cropped up recently where I was able to do something that I had not thought previously possible. I go a sunburn, inside, in a WINDOWLESS LAB. How had I achieved this remarkable feat of weirdness? Well first you have to understand what I do for a living, the short version is people send me stuff and I shoot it with a laser until it either breaks or burns. Sounds cool right? It can also be wicked dangerous. I have, personally, set fire to bricks and aluminum, vaporized arsenic, and pulverized selenium. If you want to check out the relative dangerousness of those various achievements go right ahead, I'll wait.......

Ah, you're back, great, where were we? Oh yes sunburns inside. Well this particular oddity was achieved when I was using a mercury lamp to illuminate a test sample for purposes that need not be discussed here. A mercury lamp in just like a regular lamp except that it emits light only in the UVB spectrum. Yep, that's right, the same stuff that give you a sun burn. I was being super careful, I was wearing the right protective glasses, keeping my face away from the lamp, the whole bit. I just forgot that a lamp is is like a flashlight, the beam expands the further you get away from it. So, long story short, I ended up with a sunburn, a perfect negative image of a mounted optic on a post burned into my arm.

This job has really weird hazards.