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Research, if only hitting the button twice was the answer

This definitely is not supposed to happen. What are we looking at here? We're looking at the platinum electrode that broke off from the high voltage block of a Beckman Coulter PACE M/DQ Capillary Electrophoresis insturment. This is not supposed to happen normally. If you see this once in 3 years, it would be rare. To see this TWICE in a month, well, I should play the lottery apparently. These things will bend, which its done way more than its share. The capillary is more prone to breaking, but while it did break for the thrid time in a month earlier that day, this disaster shouldn't have happened. I enjoy doing research for the discover and the dificulty in figuring out what the meaning is. I didn't go into research because I wanted a 10k+ machine to beat me down and wear me out.

What this means is that the service agreement that my boss paid for (at basically the expense of me ever going to a conference) will be used a lot. I'm a researcher not a mechanic, I can hear Leonard "Bones" McCoy scream that now at Kirk and Spock. Of course, I'm dreading the next set of words, "He/She/It's dead, Jim". The other shoe will drop and I'll have done nothing but bring something to its death instead of using it like a tool to solve a problem.