Another day, another zucchini

After reading Bugaboo's helpful, pep-talk comment from my last post, I went to school today to try to find this ThinkPad computer she mentioned. Once I was at school, Bugaboo continued her pep-talk in person and she helped me find the ThinkPad in SL's office. Bless you, Bugaboo.

When I came home this afternoon, I found another zucchini perched on the fence in the backyard. I went out to retrieve it and left a note that said: "Thank you! Please help yourself to cucumbers and tomatoes!"

Rob also brought some type of Tablet style computer home from work. That was the one we ended up using, because it was faster. So, I set everything up (load cell, test jig, scissors, etc) and it just worked! I have no idea what the problems were supposed to be, but it didn't seem to be having them anymore. They had said the "start signal" wasn't working... I didn't really know what that meant, but I assumed that it meant the machine would not start or record any data points. Well, tonight it was definitely recording data points. I sliced up some leaves, using some of our plants as specimens. Petunia leaves were the toughest thing I sliced-- over 1200 J/m^2. I'm thinking.... am I really doing this right?? Could it be that there is some problem and I'm so clueless about this machine that I just don't know it?? I will have to email B and see what he thinks about this.

For the time being, I am cautiously optimistic that everything is sort of beginning to fall into place!