Barney Grubbs
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barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Barney Grubbs
@barneygrubbs.bsky.social
1.4K followers 2K following 400 posts
chemist
he/him
north central long island
linktr.ee/barney.grubbs
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barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Great to visit the kid on her new home turf this weekend & meet some of her new friends & see some old friends (& white knuckle through two exciting baseball games in unsympathetic territory)!
from right to left, mother, daughter, father, in partial shade in front of a beautiful pond with autumnal trees in the background on the Haverford campus. the kid’s in a dodgers shirt & the gray old man is wearing an Altadena phoenix shirt from @gwenckatz.bsky.social
November 3, 2025 at 3:39 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Last Javits water bottle report for a while—co-instructor tagging in.
17 lost water bottles in a black bin. Three pairs of glasses. USB Charging cables. Pencil pouches. All next to an electronics recycling box. Jackets and hats stuffed in cubbies underneath. Two handled paper bags hold some promise.
October 24, 2025 at 8:35 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Special Organic Chemistry Exam 2 Engineering Building lost water bottle & extinguisher obstruction report
Ten water bottles of assorted colors, a red coffee cup, a Bulova glasses case, a USB charging cable/plug, and a blue Kumon pencil pouch on a brown fake wood grain table in front of a glass cabinet containing a red fire extinguisher and a notice reading, “STAYING SAFE ON CAMPUS” with contact info for emergencies.
October 24, 2025 at 12:27 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Favorite sign from this morning says something about my age & how much TV I watched in the late 70s/early 80s.
Photo of Juan Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter holding a large note reading, “Release the files! Signed, Epstein's Mother”
October 18, 2025 at 6:48 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
WEEK 8 Javits lost bottle report. Up to 14 bottles but holding at two umbrellas.
A black bin containing ~14 lost water bottles of varied designs, several binders, a pair of glasses (obscured), & ear buds, next to an electronics recycling box. Several jackets & umbrellas are tucked tidily into cubbies underneath. A sign reading “WATER BOTTLE Lost & Found” is taped to the wall. A copier sits idly toward the rear of the room.
October 17, 2025 at 8:55 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Usually the surprises this campus offers up are not particularly exciting, but running into an outdoor Ozzy tribute concert on the way back from class is totally rad
a four-piece band on a stage in front of a brown brick building. A video marquee shows a picture of Ozzy smiling and reaching out toward the viewer with the words, “OZZY OSBOURNE 1948-2025”
October 16, 2025 at 9:10 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
After a couple of weeks off, week 7 Javits Lecture Center lost bottle report
A black bin containing ~13 lost water bottles of varied designs, and a pair of glasses (obscured) & ear buds, next to an electronics recycling box. Several jackets & umbrellas are tucked tidily into cubbies underneath. A sign reading “WATER BOTTLE Lost & Found” is taped to the wall.
October 10, 2025 at 8:38 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Week 4 Javits Lecture Hall lost bottle report. Cooler weather & first round of night-time exams appear to be having an impact
A black bin containing ~11 lost water bottles of varied designs, and a pair of glasses (obscured), next to a pile of three or four long-sleeved shirts/jackets and an electronics recycling box. A sign reading “WATER BOTTLE Lost & Found” is taped to the wall.
September 20, 2025 at 2:01 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
at the very least messing around with synths & pedals has gotten me to the stage where replacing an HPLC pump power supply is manageable (but big 120 V power caps are still scary). still need to fix the switch wiring, secure everything, & seal it back up.
partially disassembled Knauer hplc pump with a newly installed power supply and a working display on a piece of cardboard with a screwdriver and wire stripper in the foreground and the old power supply in the background. Bookshelves with chemistry books even further back.
September 17, 2025 at 6:32 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Week 3 Javits Lecture Center lost bottle report
A black bin containing 8 lost water bottles of varied designs, a pair of glasses, some pens, and some kind of cable next to what looks like a jean jacket and an electronics recycling box. A sign reading “WATER BOTTLE Lost & Found” is taped to the wall.
September 12, 2025 at 8:44 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Week 2 Javits Lecture Center lost bottle report
A black bin containing 5 lost water bottles of varied designs, next to some lost bags and an electronics recycling box. A sign reading “WATER BOTTLE Lost & Found” is taped to the wall.
September 5, 2025 at 8:51 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
real glad they are taking their time working out the ventilation problems in our 500-student classroom (wall-mounted CO2 unit that’s supposed to trigger increased ventilation at 950 ppm reads 730 ppm, portable meter shows 1322 ppm & was confirmed by a pricier meter)
A hand holding a portable Aranet 4 CO2 meter next to a wall-mounted thermostat/CO2 meter. The wall meter claims a CO2 concentration of 730 ppm while the portable meter says 1322 ppm.
September 5, 2025 at 1:58 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
it seems possible wikipedia might have an image from a different chapter? the copy on the internet archive has a different (but somewhat similar illustration) archive.org/details/ortu... - p 625
Old image of a woman from the 1400s next to a table with what look like clam shells. There is Latin text below that starts “Capitulum XXXV. Cerula…” but I’m not confident I can properly transcribe the rest.
September 4, 2025 at 1:03 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
leaving the kid with some big old trees
giant white swamp oak with a fence around it on the Haverford College campus
August 27, 2025 at 6:40 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
labs.chem.ucsb.edu/hayton/trevo...
Two heating-mantle-heated glass distillation systems in a fume food. The one on the left is clear (probably over chunks of sodium), and the one on the right has the suspicious blue/purple color of a sodium or potassium/benzophenone ketyl pot that is just waiting to catch on fire.
August 14, 2025 at 11:28 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
RIP Tom Lehrer #synthsky
July 29, 2025 at 2:56 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
freestyled a set a few years ago from rebar, fishing line, & a t-brace (had to add a little cloth sail thing to it to catch the wind better)
July 27, 2025 at 12:42 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
some sounds from the rollz-5 & some other synth modules
July 12, 2025 at 11:51 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Mostly finished building a Ciat-Lonbarde Rollz-5. Shoddy woodwork! Sketchy dangling paper mounted circuits (added a battery clip later)! Tangles of alligator clips! Pleasing (to me anyway) bursts of clicks & blips & static! and it seems to work fine with the regular synth parts.
an irregular red oak box (about 16 inches tall and 13 inches wide) with small red, blue, & purple knobs, yellow, green, blue, and red LEDS, and a bunch of brass screws, many connected by alligator-clip terminated wires of different colors—a build of the Ciat-Lonbarde Rollz-5 the back/bottom of the box described in the other photo. Four 3.5 by 5” pieces of cardboard, five cardstock-mounted circuits, tangles of wire, and a dangling 9 volt battery. Somehow it seems to work & hasn’t shorted itself out
July 12, 2025 at 11:47 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
A side detail in a set of great stories, but still entertaining to imagine I could check out the refurbished models of the same fire stairs tomorrow. (from _Crook Manifesto_ by @colsonwhitehead.com )
“Pepper's last visit to a college campus was the time he and T.T. ripped off that Stony Brook lab, years ago. (Never did find out what was in that barrel but still remembered his relief that it did not explode when it fell off the dolly and bounced down the fire stairs.) He lingered before the flyers and posters in the hallways-working with the film kids made him curious about what made the young set tick. Everybody's research when you're…” _Crook Manifesto_ by Colson Whitehead (Part 2, Chapter 3)
July 8, 2025 at 4:25 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
not even a stump left.
An well-manicured green lawn where a majestic old Copper Beech once stood with brick academic buildings in the background.
June 9, 2025 at 3:32 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
excited to be in dc to see @kateaubrecht.bsky.social become an AAAS fellow!
a stage with a blue-lit black curtain behind it & a crowd seated facing it. a woman in a maroon dress stands to the left holding a stack of awards. Two women stand center stage. Ine in a brown blazer is presenting Kate Aubrecht, in a white jacket, with her AAAS Fellow plaque.
June 7, 2025 at 4:09 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
boxed it up with a paper circuit Fourses
A rectangular light wooden box with two switches at the bottom of the top face. The right side has a circle of 12 brass bolts sticking up with two connected by alligator clips connected by a white wire. The left half has four knobs (two red, two black) in a square toward the bottom and a 4 x 10 grid of brass bolts above them. At the top are output jacks for each side. A red cable connects one of the brass bolts on the left to the output bolt at the top left. A small mixer sits to the left of the box.
May 30, 2025 at 3:34 AM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Back on the 4-month dermatologist visit plan. Mind your sun exposure, young people!
Headshot of a gray-haired man with grat glasses and a small bandage on his left temple, where a small squamous cell carcinoma was recently scraped off. Behind him through a window is the Stony Brook University football stadium, then a line of trees, then Long Island Sound, then Connecticut.
May 20, 2025 at 2:41 PM
barneygrubbs.bsky.social
Happy (& amazed) that you can make noises by soldering components through a piece of posterboard. Old Man Grassi by Ciat-Lonbarde (www.ciat-lonbarde.net/ciat-lonbard...) #synthsky
May 19, 2025 at 12:28 AM