How to Burn a Day (and then some)

I feel like I have been wasting time this whole week so far, and particularly today, and it's really frustrating. At the conference on Sunday, one of my colleagues mentioned that he accidentally booked an extra day on travel that he could not change; I suggested that he come visit us at the University and see our facilities. He took me up on the offer, so I spent most of today being a tour guide.

He's a hell of a nice guy, and I'm glad he came out to visit, but it felt like I friggin' well burned the day with next to nothing to show for it. Left at 9 to meet him at the bus terminal to bring him to the University; spent most of the day (except for a few hours entering spreadsheet data wrapping up the semester) with him, then went out for dinner and beers, lasting to about 9.

I feel like I'm completely spinning my wheels; this really annoys me because I was envisioning that this week, after finishing off the semester, I could get back into research work and start slamming things out that have been on my list for weeks.

I wasted yesterday afternoon at several stores looking for an immersion heater (little plug-in heater you put in a coffee mug to heat up some water, if you don't have a kettle); I intended to use it for the lab. No luck, and it seems possible that they're not sold in this country (e.g., see this product recall). In case you care, all I friggin' need is a 100-200 W immersible heating element, to make this thing work. The fish tank heater that I'm using is limited to a low temperature, and is therefore not useful to me; I'm trying to figure out if I can break the controls in the correct manner without shattering the glass enclosure. Grr.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll feel better about this week tomorrow. We've been having a return to cold weather this past week (overnight lows below freezing). I need to apologize to any of the locals; I think it's my fault--I bought a pair of shorts on Saturday; I guess the fates were not pleased.