So, three posts in one day, but I couldn't let today go by without documenting this truly funny day.  For those of you who don't know, I am a Special Education Teacher....(plently of joke material there with me I assure you, I know, but lets digress shall we?) I specialize in Behavioral and Emotional Disturbance/Disabilities in youth, Behavior Modification, etc.

The Fourth Grade teacher came to me with this really cool project...making actual holograms. The problem is that while I love sci-fi, I am not very scientifically inclined personally. He said "Here you go, plan on doing this with a small group at a time..." and with that I was left to discover the science of making holograms. I read the directions, which instructed me to go to the website if I needed help with the instructions...so I promptly went to the website. He and I together read them and at this point, I turned to him and said..."You realize I have no idea how to do this, right?" And we laughed and laughed, I mean it was making holograms for crying out loud, who knew it would be this incredibly involved? Obviously not me.

So there are all these powdered chemicals that you yourself (the idiot making the holograms) have to dissolve and mix. And you can't go mixing these things all willy-nilly either...oh no...they have to be dissolved and mixed in a certain order. I am doing this in a storage closet, because it is the only room with no windows. As I begin mixing the powdered chemicals my counterpart comes in, I am handling the white powder with my hands. He says, "Uh, you need to be more careful with that..." then he starts to read to me how this chemical should not come into direct contact with you because what it does is break down proteins and will basically melt your skin off... He says " I think you should go wash your hands... now" ...Thanks, Gee, Ya think?

As I stand in front of the sink, I start to think, okay, won't water make this worse? Soap, use or don't use? I know nothing about chemicals...what if whatever is in the soap has a reaction with this stuff and ....my hands are feeling warm...oh wait that's just the water temp, pfew! I wash my hands again about 4-5 times. Then a few times on my way to the office. There is no residue on my hands. But my skin is sticking to itself, the paper towel, it becomes a gummy surface, very freaky. I explain my stupidity to my administrator after I tell her I may need to go to the emergency room, but I see no reason to panic because other than the sticky strange acting skin, I was in no pain. I made several crude jokes about melting the skin off my hands. We all laugh and the secretary says "you are handling this very well."

Actually, I was amused at my own stupidity and thinking it would have served me right. I got gloves and finshed mixing the rest of the solutions.

So I have the tower set up, I have the laser taken apart (because it comes as a regular laser and YOU have to take it apart so you are getting a pure, unfiltered beam), mounted and secured the laser beam (because for some reason there can be no movement, or vibrations), have my object secured in its position and and opaque object blocking the beam (this acts as the shutter), and have the laser all plugged into the the swtich connected to the two DD batteries. The next part all has to all be done in the dark. You place a glass slide (the glass that the hologram will be on) on the object you want to make a hologram of, remove the opaque object so the brightest part of the laser is on the the glass and the slide wait 20-30 sec. place the opaque object back in front of the beam, then take the glass slide and put it in four baths (which you have created out of all those chemicals) for various amounts of time and then stand the slide vertical.

Can you believe I tried six slides and not one turned out? I later found out that my counterpart did not realize that these slides are like film and can not be exposed to light....they were all already exposed.