Goodbye

As August comes to an end I'm also thinking it's time to end this blog. It's been fun for four years and hope that those who have read it are better prepared to face the everyday challenges of life.

Our fragile Infrastructure

There is an excellent editorial by Matt Gurney at the NationalPost.com about the fragility of our infrastructure and how the best laid plans of governments and men go oft awry when reality proves more complex than anyone had planned for. Gureny argues that our infrastructure is more complex than anyone can possibly understand or imagine; that failures are inevitable; that restoration can be difficult; that recovery can take days, weeks or even months. We should all be prepared with supplies to care for our own needs, without power or water, for several days.

Here are some of the highlights from the editorial ...

Sometimes, huge and complicated systems (or even systems of systems) are brought down by fantastically tiny glitches that happen to strike at exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. [...] And so it was during the Northeast blackout of 2003, which cut electrical power for 55 million people in the United States and Ontario. That was eventually traced back to a combination of a computer glitch
and unusually hot weather causing power lines in Ohio to droop and make contact with tree branches that hadn’t been properly pruned. That was all it took to shut Toronto and New York City down.

[...] defending against this sort of thing is extraordinarily difficult. The systems that sustain our economy and civilization are too complex to be easily managed, or even understood by the trained professionals who run them. Returning to the 2003 blackout, the investigation into it revealed that even as the situation spiralled out of
control, utilities operators in Ohio had no appreciation that their electrical grid had become unstable and little understanding of how, as transmission wires overloaded and generators automatically shut down, the problem would ripple throughout their electrical system.

[...] Emergency preparedness is a good thing for governments to focus on. But [...] there’s ample evidence that governments are simply incapable of adequately tackling the complexities of disasters confined to even a single building. If something big ever happens — and sooner or later, something always does — we should all expect to be on our own for days, or longer. The systems we’ve built to support ourselves are just too complicated to repair any faster than that.

To fruit or not to fruit?

One of the hard things to give up on a low carb diet is fruit. But not all fruit is high carb, for example, half a cup of raspberries contains 3.5 grams of net carb, whereas half a cup of raisins contains 61 grams of net carb. That's 17 times more carbs for the same serving size!

When you're in a maintenance mode some low-sugar fruits may be suitable for the diet plan.
Here's an ordering of fruits by sugar content by about.com

1. Berries - lowest in sugar and high in antioxidants and other nutrients.

2. Summer Fruits - Melons, peaches, nectarines, and apricots are low in sugars.

3. Winter Fruits - Apples, pears, and citrus fruit are moderate in sugars.

4. Tropical Fruits - Pineapple, pomegranates, mangoes, bananas, and fresh figs are high in sugar (guava and papaya are lower than the others).

5. Dried Fruit - Dates, raisins, apricots, prunes, figs, and most other dried fruits are extremely high in sugar. Dried cranberries and blueberries would be lower, except that a lot of sugar is usually added to combat the tartness.

Spain & America History

Today I'm amazed by the sheer number of Hispanics in America. In my town we don't just have "spanish" food but specific restaurants that are Colombian, Mexican, Argentina, Peruvian, etc. What makes the rise of Hispanic culture in America especially ironic is that Spain was the original European nation in America. (Yes, the Danes arrived early but they didn't stay and had little impact on the continent).

Following the "discovery" of America by Columbus on behalf the the Spanish, Juan Ponce de León explored Florida in 1513. In 1528, Panfilo de Narváez sailed along the Gulf Coast of the United States and was shipwrecked near Texas. Between 1539 and 1543, Hernando de Soto traveled along the Appalachian Mountains and the lower Mississippi Valley looking for “Seven Golden Cities of Cibola.” Francisco Vasquez de Coronado traveled deep into the great plains, as far as Kansas, looking for gold between 1541 and 1543. Smaller groups from his expedition discovered the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed up the west coast and claimed the California area for Spain.

Spain founded two of the oldest cities in the United States—St. Augustine, Florida, (1565) and Santa Fe, New Mexico (1609). And yet after almost a century of Spanish exploration, Spain disappears from American history. What happened?

One explanation could be that the explorers never found a city of gold in the region of the United States. They found riches in Mexico and South America by destroying the Incas in Peru and the Aztecs in Mexico and those regions were ruled by Spain for centuries. When the English and French came to the Americas, the US & Canada were the only option since Spain was very defensive of Mexico and everything south.

Spain was an active supporter of the American Revolution providing intelligence, food and ammunition to the revolutionaries from the beginning of the war. Benjamin Franklin reported from Paris to the Congressional Committee of Secret Correspondence in March 1777, that the Spanish court had quietly granted the rebels direct admission to the rich, previously restricted port of Havana under most favored nation status. Franklin also noted in the same report that three thousand barrels of gunpowder were waiting in New Orleans, and that the merchants in Bilbao "had orders to ship for us such necessaries as we might want."

Spain's help in the War was considered to be decisive in the final outcome by denying the British the opportunity of encircling the American rebels from the south, and keeping open a vital conduit for supplies. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez, (pictured above) defeated the British colonial forces at Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez in 1779, freeing the lower Mississippi Valley of British forces and relieved the threat to the capital of Louisiana, New Orleans. In 1780, he recaptured Mobile and in 1781 took by land and by sea Pensacola, leaving the British with no bases in the Gulf of Mexico, except for Jamaica. In recognition for his actions to the American cause, George Washington took him to his right in the parade of July 4 and the American Congress cited Gálvez for his aid during the Revolution.

King Charles III of Spain recognized George Washington, sending him gifts such as livestock from Spain that Washington had requested for his farm at Mount Vernon.

Interesting that our history books recognize France's help during the Revolutionary War but leave out Spain.

College Debt for Life?

When I was in college in the '80s the growth rate for college tuition was 10% much higher than the rate of inflation at the time. And it appears that things have not changed since then. The cost of college continues to growth faster than anything else and beyond reasonable expectations (see graph at right).

The result is that many Americans now graduate with a huge debt that takes decades to pay back and prevents them from buying a house and otherwise establishing a normal middle-class life.

What was new to me this morning is that even senior citizens are affected by college debt. SmartMoney.com reports the Federal government is docking an increasing number of Social Security payments to pay back college loans, up to 15% of the monthly benefit. Now these are not deadbeat seniors who failed to pay back their own loan after 40 years but rather parents & grandparents who co-signed loans for their children or grandchildren.

So beware, co-signing a loan can follow you into retirement!

Look at all that black smoke!

On August 7, a small, "seemingly insignificant leak" was found at one of the country’s biggest oil refineries located near San Francisco. Though required by California law to “immediately” notify the public of any gas leak, fire or oil spill, Chevron did not consider the leak to be an immediate danger to residents nearby.

“At that point in time, there really wasn’t anything we could advise the
community to do,” said Mark Ayers, the refinery’s fire chief.

Yet some two hours later, that small leak became an intense fire that sent acrid black smoke into the sky and more than 1000 people went to hospitals with health complaints of eye irritation and breathing problems. All but a handful of patients were quickly treated and released, hospital officials said.

A county wide Level 3 Hazardous Material "Immediate-Extreme-Health-Hazard" alert was issued advising local residents to,

"shelter in place, go inside, close all windows and doors, turn off all
heaters, air conditioners and fans. If not using the fireplace, close fireplace dampers and vents, and cover cracks around doors and windows with tape or damped towels." [fireplaces? in California summer?]

That's a pretty rare alert. Consider this,

While Bay Area air quality officials excluded potentially toxic pollutants, their analysis did not say exactly what was in the smoke that boiled out of the refinery's No. 4 Crude Unit, only that the air around the refinery was unlikely to cause any long-term health effects.

Chevron admitted that the fire caused the refinery to emit large clouds of sulfuric acid, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and hydrogen oxide. "We apologize for the fire and smoke caused by yesterday's incident," the company said in a statement.

What's up your nose?

Via the Consumerist,
Isaak was sick for three years with terrible sinus problems from ages 3 to six.  The doctors assumed that it was bacterial and prescribed antibiotic after antibiotic but this never solved the problem.

Then one physician looked outside of the box (outside of the nostril?) a bit and noticed that there was some kind of foreign object up the child's nose. Did [Isaak] remember putting anything up there? ["I put some spaghetti up there, but that was a long time ago," Isaak told the doctor.]  A specialist removed the obstruction, which turned out to be a "ball of fungus" surrounding a tiny, flexible LEGO tire. The child's health problems abruptly disappeared.

According to Isaak's dad , "I asked him, ‘Dude, how did that even get in there? We think he bent it in half — it's pretty flexible — and that it opened up once it got into his sinuses."

Make your own mini-Grill

From LifeHacker comes this simple idea to make your own mini-grill

Use tin snips or heavy duty kitchen shears to cut strips into a can. Fold the strips back (carefully - don't cut yourself on the edges) and line with foil.  Add a few charcoal briquettes and you're cooking!

Food to prevent Heartburn?

The exact opposite from yesterday's post, here are 13 foods that fight acid refluc according to Health magazine.

1. Oatmeal  (I recommend steel-cut, not flaked or instant)
2. Ginger (in moderation).  very surprised this is viewed as calming instead of inflammatory
3. Aloe Vera - i've used it on cuts but never tried eating it
4. Salad - (hold the onions and tomatoes, fatty cheese & creamy dressing) - I have found my stomach did well with a lot of salads
5. Bananas - low acid value great for 99% of GERD sufferers. I used to eat a banana a day and stopped recently for a low carb diet. Now my GERD is acting up. Perhaps I need that daily banana.
6. Melon
7. Fennel - I had some for lunch today
8. Chicken & Turkey (skin free)
9. Fish & seafood (never fried)
10. Roots & Greens (Cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, green beans, etc)
11. Celery - boring but filling
12. Parsley - "For thousands of years, parsley has been used as a medicinal herb to settle the stomach and aid digestion".  We grow this outside. I'll have to eat more of it.
13. Couscous & rice - I do find I do better with rice

Food that cause Heartburn?

I'm not sure I agree with the list of Food To Avoid to Control Acid Reflux at About.com. I understand that acidic foods are a problem. But personally I've never noticed a problem with meat or dairy. Each person is unique ...

Food Group	Foods To Avoid
Fruit	• Orange juice • Lemon • Lemonade • Grapefruit juice • Cranberry juice • Tomato
Vegetables	• French fries • Onion, raw
Meat	• Ground beef, chuck • Marbled sirloin • Chicken nuggets • Buffalo wings
Dairy	• Sour cream • Milk shake • Ice cream • Cottage cheese, regular
Grains	• Macaroni and cheese • Spaghetti with sauce
Beverages	• Liquor • Wine • Coffee, decaffeinated or regular • Tea, decaffeinated or regular
Fats / Oils	• Salad dressing, creamy • Salad dressing, oil & vinegar
Sweets / Desserts	• Butter cookie, high-fat • Brownie • Chocolate • Doughnut • Corn chips • Potato chips, regular

Food Group	Foods To Avoid
Fruit	• Orange juice • Lemon • Lemonade • Grapefruit juice • Cranberry juice • Tomato
Vegetables	• French fries • Onion, raw
Meat	• Ground beef, chuck • Marbled sirloin • Chicken nuggets • Buffalo wings
Dairy	• Sour cream • Milk shake • Ice cream • Cottage cheese, regular
Grains	• Macaroni and cheese • Spaghetti with sauce
Beverages	• Liquor • Wine • Coffee, decaffeinated or regular • Tea, decaffeinated or regular
Fats / Oils	• Salad dressing, creamy • Salad dressing, oil & vinegar
Sweets / Desserts	• Butter cookie, high-fat • Brownie • Chocolate • Doughnut • Corn chips • Potato chips, regular

Food Group	Foods To Avoid
Fruit	• Orange juice • Lemon • Lemonade • Grapefruit juice • Cranberry juice • Tomato
Vegetables	• French fries • Onion, raw
Meat	• Ground beef, chuck • Marbled sirloin • Chicken nuggets • Buffalo wings
Dairy	• Sour cream • Milk shake • Ice cream • Cottage cheese, regular
Grains	• Macaroni and cheese • Spaghetti with sauce
Beverages	• Liquor • Wine • Coffee, decaffeinated or regular • Tea, decaffeinated or regular
Fats / Oils	• Salad dressing, creamy • Salad dressing, oil & vinegar
Sweets / Desserts	• Butter cookie, high-fat • Brownie • Chocolate • Doughnut • Corn chips • Potato chips, regular

Food Group Foods To Avoid For Acid Reflux

Fruit
Orange juice
Lemon
Lemonade
Grapefruit juice
Cranberry juice
Tomato

Vegetables
French fries (too much fat?)
Onion, raw

Meat
Ground beef, chuck  (I love hamburger)
Marbled sirloin
Chicken nuggets
Buffalo wings  (too spicy?)

Dairy
Sour cream
Milk shake
Ice cream
Cottage cheese, regular

Grains
Macaroni and cheese (? is it the dairy or the grain?)
Spaghetti with sauce (acidic)

Beverages
Liquor
Wine
Coffee, decaffeinated or regular
Tea, decaffeinated or regular

Fats / Oils
Salad dressing, creamy
Salad dressing, oil & vinegar

Sweets / Desserts
Butter cookie, high-fat
Brownie
Chocolate
Doughnut
Corn chips
Potato chips, regular

Where does the money go?

The Atlantic.com created an interesting chart based upon a story by Planet Money. It shows what % of income is spent on different categories by different wage brackets.

How does this compare with your family budget?

Are nuclear facilities secure?

After 9-11 there was some discussion about safety at nuclear power plants; would a plane crashing into a cooling tower cause a meltdown or not. Opinion was mixed. Some expert evident says, "The risk that planes will crash into nuclear plants and release potentially lethal clouds of radioactivity is significantly higher than official estimates" while the Nuclear Energy Institute (the nuclear energy industry’s policy organization) disagrees, "Structures that house reactor fuel at U.S. nuclear power plants would protect against a release of radiation even if struck by a large commercial jetliner".

Whoever is correct, I suspect this statement from SecurityManagement.com hits the nail on the head, "The United States is woefully unprepared to protect its nuclear power plants from a terrorist attack, a former CIA officer divulged on CNN.com"

Consider this recent story,

Tennessee's Y-12 National Security Complex houses 300 to 400 metric tons of bomb-grade uranium. The Oak Ridge plant, enriched the uranium for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II and continues to be a mainstay of the U.S. nuclear defense program. The Department of Energy has repeatedly claimed that security at the site is robust enough to defend against more than a dozen heavily-armed terrorists with inside knowledge of security procedures.

And yet, last month,

Three peace activists — including an 82-year-old nun — infiltrated the highest-security area of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in a predawn protest Saturday, reportedly evading guards and cutting through three or four fences in order to spray-paint messages, hang banners and pour human blood at the site where warhead parts are manufactured and the nation’s stockpile of bomb-grade uranium is stored.

I have to agree with this conclusion from the HuffingtonPost,

When a nuclear weapons facility can't stop infiltration by an octogenarian nun, it's time to reassess its security standards.

Six Surprising Superfoods

An article by Men's Health magazine reminds me of Woody Allen's movie Sleeper. When he wakes up from frozen sleep he learns that the foods he thought were unhealthy, like steak and chocolate, are actuallyvery healthy. Everything he knew about food & nutrition was wrong!

Here are six food that you might think are "bad" but probably are not

1. Full-fat cheese: "one of the best muscle-building nutrients you can eat" and "even when men ate 10 ounces of full-fat cheese daily for 3 weeks, their LDL (“bad”) cholesterol didn’t budge."

2. Iceberg lettuce: famous for having NO nutritional value but in reality"half a head of iceberg lettuce has significantly more alpha-carotene, a powerful disease-fighting antioxidant, than either romaine lettuce or spinach."

3. Mushrooms:I saw a sign at an Asian grocery that described mushrooms as the vegetable that does not taste like a vegetable. The fungi metabolites "have been shown to boost immunity and prevent cancer growth"

4. Pork chops: "contains almost five times the selenium—a mineral linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer—of beef and twice that of chicken"

5. Red Pepper flakes: "consuming a gram of red-pepper flakes—about half a teaspoon—30 minutes prior to a meal reduced calorie intake by 16 percent."

6. Vinegar: "when people consumed 2 tablespoons of vinegar with a high-carb meal, their blood sugar was 23 percent lower"

What if the entire country lost power?

Two weeks ago the power grid in northern India crashed leaving 370 million people without power for six to 12 hours. That more people than if the entire US and Canada went dark! And then a few days later, half the country lost power with over 600 million people affected.

India is used to daily power blackouts so "hospitals and major businesses have backup generators that seamlessly kick in during power cuts, and upscale homes are hooked to backup systems powered by truck batteries." Small businesses and the poor are not lucky and lack the funds for power backup. Some had to go without water as well pumps had no power to pump.

According to India’s Central Electricity Authority, demand for electricity during peak periods outstrips power generation by an average of 9 percent. So the system is overwhelmed and frequently fails, just not on the scale seen last month.  The government wants to spend $400 billion over the next five years on power-sector investment, adding 76 gigawatts of capacity by 2017. That’s on top of the 85 gigawatts of power India has added in the past 10 years. It's hard to keep up with growing demand.

Stuck in traffic for 7 hours

Thousands Sat In Their Cars For 7 Hours Tuesday As Police Played Blame Game

On July 24, an shut down County Road 39 and Sunrise Highway in Southampton creating "sheer agony, bedlam and confusion" for hours for trapped motorists.  "I feel trapped,” one woman said. Another motorist said,
“I have children that are hungry, thirsty; 95 degrees in the car, and we have no gas and nowhere to go.”

Authorities passed the buck as Village police blamed the state police who in turn blamed the town police for closing the highway to clean oil and clear debris from a collision between a car and a garbage truck. Motorists were left in the dark and waiting, and waiting.

Nearly seven hours after the roads were closed, traffic began to ease.

When a reporter (who was stuck in the jam) questioned officials, would traffic be like this during a hurricane evacuation, the Suffolk County’s Office of Emergency Management responded, No way, in case of a real emergency "a coordinated effort would take place bringing all the response agencies together operating on one specific plan.”

[Now think back to Hurricane Katrina and the "coordinated" effort in Louisiana. If police cannot handle normal events, don't expect better performance during a crisis. ]

The Red Cross recommends that everyone be prepared for traffic events like this by having a go bag with you in your car. Keep snacks, water and a working phone in the car at all times and try to keep the gas tank near full.

Computer Activities with a Purpose

If you use the Internet at all, odds are you've been asked to complete a "CAPTCHA". These are the distorted "words" that a human is able to read and type but are supposed to stump computers. Captcha's were invented in 2000 by Luis Von Ahn, Manual Blum, and others at Carnegie Mellon University and stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

In a talk at Ted.com, Luis Von Ahn said he felt guilty about Captchas and the time lost in filling them out. They are needed to prevent computer spamming but could there be a better use of people's time? So Von Ahn created reCAPTCHA which looks the same but instead of random, distorted words, reCAPTCHA uses words that stumped OCR (optical characters recognition) while digitizing books in the public domain for the Gutenberg project. Each reCAPTCHA is shown to hundreds(?) of people and the majority vote is used to update the word in the digital copy of the book. With 100 million reCAPTCHAs every day, the service has been able to digitize thousands of books.

Von Ahn's PhD thesis was devoted to Games With A Purpose, or GWAPs. Can people have fun on the Internet and accomplish something useful at the same time? One example is the ESP game. Two random people are show the same photo via the Internet. They receive points for how closely their description of the photo matches. The best matching descriptions are saved by Google to help identify photos for future image searches.

Von Ahn's newest project is http://www.duolingo.com/. His team thought, why not learn a language and help translate the Internet at the same time? The online lessons in English, Spanish, German, and French are free. My wife & I have learnt a lot. With duoLingo you earn points by translating actual websites in foreign languages and rating the translations of others. Give it a try!

Quilts

When I hear the word quilt, my mind pictures elaborately stitched creations like those made by the Amish. My wife & I love quilts and occasionally frequent quilt shows and exhibitions to see new patterns and cleverness of design. But I was reminded by a post at SurvivalBlog.com of the humble origins and true nature of quilts. My mental image of quilts was equivalent to thinking of hybridized orchids as the only "true" flowers or a gourmet meal as "food".

Quilts were meant to be practical. I have two "camping quilts" that my grandmother made that we still use in the winter. They are made with a simple design of large squares of old scraps. As the fabric gets old and brittle we've replaced some of the squares. In centuries past, quilts were highly valued, often being listed in the inventory of homes for inheritance settlements. 

A quilt is not the fabric design but the construction method of building a blanket sandwich with two outer sheets and an warm insulating center . "Quilting" is the stitching that keeps the insulation in place so it does not bunch up or slide to one end of the quilt. There are "whole-cloth" quilts with no cut pieces at all, just two white sheets and bunting in the middle and yet these can be amazingly beautiful with elaborate stitching patterns used to sew the layers together.

The elaborate stitching patterns are optional. My wife made a denim quilt a few years ago; she bought old jeans at tag sales, removed the seam stitching, ironed them flat, cut squares, and connected the squares on a sewing machine.  For the final "quilting" step we used a thick needle and yarn to tie the layers together with a knot every 6 inches or so apart.

I also learned from the SurvivalBlog.com post that denim is not the best choice for a quilt. It's heavy. (I'll say, you can feel the quilt pressing down as you sleep).

"when you want to stay warm, heavy is not what you want.  To properly insulate yourself from the cold, you need trapped air, and if the top layer of the quilt is of a heavy fabric, it squishes down the insulation and just doesn't keep you as warm."

Manual Backup for Cars?

When technology fails, it's always nice to have a low tech backup. For many years my wife & I resisted buying cars with electric windows and door locks. Suppose the car goes in the water and the electrical system shorts out. How will you escape the car? We had one car dealer argue, "it's free", but it was not a matter of cost, we WANTED the old-fashioned locks and windows. Also today it's impossible to but a new car without power windows.

When my father rented a car recently, he & I were stumped. How do you turn it on? There was no keyhole for ignition; just a "Start" button. We pressed the button and nothing happens. We later learned that the start button only works while the brake pedal is pressed.

Another "power" feature on new cars is keyless entry. But what if you press your "key" and nothing happens?
This is the bane of drivers in the Bermuda Triangle of lost cars in Yonkers, NY.  According to the Consumerist,

"A nearby funeral home owner says he's had constant complaints about people getting locked out of their cars, including his brother who had to get his car towed away."

A "radio-frequency specialist says there's likely a malfunctioning device in the area that's overpowering all the other quick signal bursts from remotes with its constant strong signal. He says drivers who experience such a thing should bring their keyless remotes as closely to their cars' antenna as they can, to minimize possible interference.

Local employees have learned to park far away or else PUSH their car out of the no-key zone.

Care for Old Cars

My parents are buying a new car and discovering the sticker shock of what new cars cost. They spent thousands of dollars to keep their 10+ year-old-car in good shape but it was recently totalled in a fatal car accident while driven by a friend who was house sitting while my parents were on vacation.

The car I drive every day is ten years-old and given the economy it's not unusually for families to keep their cars running longer and longer. PopularMechanics offers advice for maintaining old cars:

1. Love Thy Cooling System:
   one sure way to kill a car is overheat the engine and run it without coolant. Hoses get old and need to be replaced  - check your service manual. My car just passed the 100K mile mark and got new hoses and a new water pump
2. Brake Time:
   
   "Flush (completely replace) the brake fluid every two years. [...] check on the smaller pieces while you're in there. If your car is more than seven years old, replace the rubber brake lines when major brake work is required. If the rotors or brake drums must be removed, check the wheel bearings.
3. Black Gold:
   
   Your oil should be a "not-too-dark amber fluid. If the fluid that flows from your crankcase is jet black and contains bits of silvery flakes, you've got problems."
4. Don't Do Everything Yourself:
   
   "Periodically have an independent repair shop check critical steering and suspension components"

Money Tips for All Ages

The FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), the government corporation that insures bank accounts, has published a booklet with Money Tips for All Ages
http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnspr08/spring_08_color.pdf

Topics include:

• Practical Advice for Everyone
• For Teens: How to Ace your First Test Managing Read Money
• Young Adults: What to Know Before Declaring Your Financial Independence
• Newlyweds: Staring a Household on Solid Ground Financially
• Midlife: Multi-Tasking
• Parents: Teaching Children
• Before Your Retire: Getting Ready for the Golden Years
• After Your Retire: Living on Reduced Income
• Caregivers: Helping Disabled or Elderly Relatives
• Life Events: Ways to Cope with Big Changes

http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnspr08/spring_08_color.pdf

Lightning in Slow Motion

Here's a video may change your understanding of lightning, http://vimeo.com/28457062
It shows a strike at 7,207 frames per second and begins with a "negative leader" forking its way down trying to find something to "ground" it. Note how the tendrils branch out like tree roots. Then one branch touches ground and something remarkable happens. All the other branches vanish as a positive return stroke follows the lightning path back up to the cloud. I was also surprised at how long the return strike lasted - I thought the movie was over but the frame counter at the bottom was still going.

Here's how Wikipedia describes a lightning strike:

In a typical cloud-to-ground strike, electrons descends from cloud base to ground. Just before the strike leader reaches the ground, the charge in the step leader induces a huge electric potential in objects connected to the ground (some 10's of million volts), that brings up spikes of positive charge flow from high sharp objects, lightning rods, people, trees, etc. connected to the ground. Once the descending and rising charge paths have met massive amounts of charge flows in the 1 cm thick ionized channel of air centered in a lightning bolt channel--this massive flow of charged particles heats the air and gives the brightest part of a lightning strike. The stepped leader of a bolt of lightning may take on average about 20 milliseconds to reach the ground. Occasionally much longer lightning strokes occur which take more time. Once the downward and upward current flow impulses meet--a few meters or tens of meters above earth—a much more conductive connection is established between the cloud and the ground and the front edge of the return stroke electrons zip from the cloud at about 0.3-0.5 times the speed of light, c, on the highly ionized lightning stroke path. Return currents may continue for several microseconds or even repeat.The return stroke with its much larger current flow produces the highly visible intense main lightning strike as it heats and ionizes the surrounding air in the lightning channel to about 30,000 degrees C (54,000 degrees F).

Don't leave Children & Pets in Cars

I've written before about the dangers of leaving children and pets in hots cars. It can be fatal. Some adults think this is OK so long as they leave the car running with the air conditioner on. Here's what can happen in that scenario ...

A grandmother left her 13-year-old granddaughter alone in the car with the keys while grandma went shopping at a Michigan mall. The teen decide to try her hand at driving. She hit a utility pole and a few parked cars before eventually nestling the vehicle sideways between two other parked cars.

Both the girl and the grandmother may face criminal charges.

To Boldly Cut Pizza

This is just too funny to pass up....  A Star Trek Enterprise shaped pizza slicer!!!

http://therazorreport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boldly-cut-pizza-where-no-man-has-cut.html