Excerpts from Bill Carroll's Blog

Editor's note: ACS President Bill Carroll visited 15 cities in 10 days during the Extreme National Chemistry Week Tour, Oct. 14–23. ACS staffer David Harwell traveled with him. During the tour, Bill posted a daily blog on chemistry.org. Excerpts from the blog are reprinted here. Enjoy.

Oct. 14, 9:30 AM, posted in transit

I want to summarize why we're doing this-beyond providing me with entertainment for 10 days. We have three purposes:

1. To attract media attention and talk about the benefits of chemists and chemistry;

2. To promote our new Chemistry Club pilot program; and last, but not least,

3. To raise stipend funds for Project SEED so economically disadvantaged students can have a summer laboratory experience.

One word about point three. I realize we all have a budget for charity, and we've had plenty of places to donate money this year, but please don't forget chemistry. Small donations add up-they really matter. Of course, if you have some extra chips sitting around, and you'd like to test my commitment, a $25,000 donation merits me shaving my head. There are other lesser, but nonetheless personal, premiums at lower levels.

Oct. 16, 11:00 PM, Nashville

The next stop was the Target House at St. Jude Medical Center. Target Co. has sponsored two houses that provide apartment-style living for long-term patients and their families at St. Jude, and there is no fee.

I was deeply impressed by the sense of optimism of all the kids and parents. I spent a lot of time with Brandon, who, at age 12, observed well and absorbed the experiments. For the families, there was a resolute sense of acknowledging the difficulties and never losing faith in a child's recovery ability. These are brave people, and there is no whining at St. Jude. I do not understand how you could walk out of that place and not have been touched by the courage within.

After another successful round of superballs, bubbles, and super shrinkers, at 4:00 PM we hit the road for Nashville, about a 3.5-hour drive. We've all had a hard time with the controls of this car. Every time Dave goes to put it in gear, he grabs the wipers' stick and washes the windows. He will get used to the gearshift on the floor about the time we turn the car in and rent one that has the transmission on the tree, and we'll never find the wipers.

We eventually got to the hotel, and the bellman asked if we were with IEEE's conference, the epicenter of which is apparently here. Obviously, we said no, and that we were there to celebrate National Chemistry Week. He said, So there are going to be a lot of nerds in town.

Oct. 17, 1:00 PM, Nashville

We are now headed east toward Knoxville and Oak Ridge, Tenn. It was a super morning at Phillips' Toy Store in Nashville. … Ah, the store. I hadn't even imagined some of the science toys we found there. First was Grow a Bug. Usually in chemistry we try to keep that from happening, but this bug grows. Put it in a 2-liter soda bottle full of water, put the cap on, and the bug almost pops it from the inside. Take a look at that critter and tell me why no lawyer made them put a warning on it that says, For heaven's sake, don't swallow this whole.

Oct. 17, 9:00 PM, Oak Ridge

We headed toward Oak Ridge and Roane State Community College. Adolph King is our host, and Adolph gave us very specific instructions on how to get there. Just to make sure we understood, we called at about 2:00 PM, thinking our appointment was at 4:00. Some of the audience was already there when we called. Yikes!

Well, nothing we could do at that point. I've had a ticket already this year on an ACS driving trip, and I'm not inclined to drive 90 to save 10 minutes when we're two hours late already. I just settled in. Dave was working, and I found myself daydreaming a little, thinking about what it would be like if someone really did give us $25,000 for Project SEED. I'm a little worried-not about shaving my head, per se, but I don't really know how to take care of that kind of haircut. I can't imagine going at it with a blade razor, because I bleed like an Irish boxer. Don't bother with a little chunk of toilet paper on the cut; get a Bounty and a tourniquet.

Oct. 18, 9:00 PM, Buffalo

We got to the Hilton Garden Inn in Buffalo at about 1:00 this morning. What a great place … this was the first hotel I'd ever been in that had a new car smell.

The way we got to the hotel was in our new ride-an eight-passenger Ford Expedition. Boy, this is a big car. Paint it yellow, and we could take kids to school in the morning.

In the morning, I did a WebEx presentation for the Canadian Society of Chemistry. We had hoped to be there in person, but their time constraints and ours wouldn't allow it, so we were virtually in Toronto.

Dave fired up the Peterbilt, and we were off for Oswego. After four days together, we've pretty much exhausted our own histories and told every story we know, so we resorted to an automobile game we played as children: Counting the Cows. As most of you know, the game is played by counting the cows on your side of the road; most cows at the destination wins. If you pass a cemetery on your side, however, you lose all your cows. Since we were headed east, then north, I had the cows on the south then east sides. We decided to make it interesting by playing for a dime a cow.

Apparently, there is a state law in New York that requires that all cemeteries be built on either the south or east sides of major highways, leaving me with no cows and a sour attitude. Dave suggested the license plate game for tomorrow. I'm still thinking about it.

Tonight we had a really unique event at the Syracuse Local Section meeting in Oswego. After a wonderful dinner, we went to an old barracks associated with Fort Ontario that is now an arts space. Three SUNY Oswego chemistry professors who are also photographers-Joe LeFevre, Casey Raymond, and Jeff Schneider-exhibited their pictures, and we heard a discussion about photographic preservation and restoration.

What's in the player: Lyle Lovett, Cowboy Man. An anthology of material from the classy country singer: smooth music, clever lyrics touching the past few years of his career. I bought this album on the recommendation of my friend Pat Costner from Greenpeace, who said she thought I resembled the profile of Lyle in a cowboy hat on the cover. Well, maybe a little.

Oct. 19, 11:00 PM, Boston

We hit the trail at 7:00 AM for Troy. Today's my day to drive the Queen Mary. I understand Ford makes an attachment for a gasoline tanker truck so it can pull up next to you while you're moving and simply refuel you in flight like a fighter jet. Might save us some time today.

Dave's GPS got us to the New York Thruway, and we pointed ourselves east. We were a bit behind time, but it is truly a beautiful drive with the leaves about 50% turned. My spirits were really high, and I tried to pass this exhilaration along to others. When I stopped to get our toll ticket, I grinned right at the attendant and said, Happy National Chemistry Week. He was flummoxed. What had the older gentleman in the battleship said? Cognitive dissonance overcame him. He would clearly need rebooting.

We arrived in Troy, N.Y., and went to the new Children's Museum-a wonderfully functional space with a planetarium dome. Rensselaer Polytech and the museum, with help from NSF, have created a truly unique film for the domed theatre called The Molecularium. The Molecularium is a ship, piloted by an oxygen atom named Oxy, that homes in on matter at different sizes. Assisted by two hydrogen atoms, they explore all kinds of materials. They pick up a couple of random carbon atoms who make weird chains of polymers and ask to be dropped off by a protein.

Look, it's a little hard to describe and do justice to it, OK? But it's a great film for the targeted ages of K-3 and has good spillover to older children as well. And I had a great time lying on the floor with my head on a big beanbag, admiring it with the 20 five-year-olds who were there.

Oct. 20, 10:00 PM, Charlotte, N.C., and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

We were met in Charlotte by Jim Martin, a chemist, former professor at Davidson, and former governor of North Carolina, then off to the Discovery Place (TDP). TDP is well-equipped and pleasant, and we met with local chemists and activists, discussing Enterprise 2015. It was also good to see Marilyn Sikes, with whom I've had many discussions about science museums and chemistry outreach. Marilyn is now an eighth-grade teacher, and my hat is off to her for having made the second-career transition.

Our evening at FIU was wonderful. We met students and teachers from four high schools including Wellington High School. Two students from Wellington wrote to me this summer asking why we didn't have ACS national affiliates in high schools. Curiously, the Education Division had developed a new Chemistry Club pilot program, and we agreed that we could kick it off with Wellington during the Extreme Tour. As a result, I presented the first credentials for an ACS Chemistry Club to Phil, Kristin, and their faculty adviser, Barbara Cloran. They will make us very proud.

Oct. 21, 10:00 PM, Los Angeles

Next up was Cal State University in Los Angeles for an unbelievable celebration. Carlos Gutierrez greeted us and showed us around. All the students doing research had posters-including two Project SEED students from last summer; the Chem Club did hands-on chemistry open to the campus (their liquid nitrogen ice cream was the best we've had all week); there were plenty of refreshments; and most important, they had this huge poster welcoming me, and they gave me one of their spiffy Chem Club baseball shirts. This is a great bunch of students.

Finally, we zipped off to UCLA to hear about their teacher outreach program. Sarah Tolbert and her volunteer grad students have developed a series of experiments for high schools based on nanotech. From building a solar cell with nanoscale TiO₂ to a functioning scanning transmission microscope, they have created six perfect inquiry-based labs. They deal with modern technology and inspire students to inquire.