Monday, June 25, 2007

Slackjaw - The Book Review

I recently finished reading Slackjaw. I was intrigued by the back cover. It was supposedly written by a man who went blind, Jim Knipfel . The picture of the author reminded me of this guy I went out with in college. If the author was telling the truth about anything, there is no way it could be the same person I knew.

The guy I knew was Bob. Now, Bob lied a lot too, but they aren't even close enough in age to be the same person, so obviously someone is lying. But they both wore a silly hat. I could excuse the blind guy, but he started wearing the hat long before he lost his eyesight. Bob was just an ass.

What I was looking for was a "behind the scenes" look at blindness. Apparently it is a secretive society because once he adjusted to his handicap, the book ended. So I would say to anyone who reads my review, don't read it outloud. If you aren't willing to share your world, it goes back double the same.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Local Drainage Issues

There are so many complicated solutions for drainage. I think we overlook the simplificastic solution. Send our liquid to the sun aboard the space shuttles and we will get it all back in the form of rain. The advantage to this is that we will get more rainbows. That's how the ancient Greeks did it.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

What Did Eva Eat? or How To Control Carpenter Bees

Every year we have to contend with carpenter bees outside our house and our garage. I tried using sprays and they didn't work. I'm trying to be more "green" now, but that's not the true reason I stopped spraying. But officially, that's why. The true reason is that the sprays didn't work. If they did work, I didn't see an immediate kill.

I started using a tennis racket to kill them. It is fairly effective because the open lattice avoids an air thrust that would alert the prey. It is best to take a swing right at the face as it moves forward. The "thwack" sound is satisfying and it lands nearby. You have to smash it into the ground repeatedly to finish the job. Also, don't let your kids lick the racket later on, especially if you use the spray to slow the bees down for the swing.
This past weekend, when I was bragging to my husband about my good stats, and had the bugs lined up in a row on the porch to count cou, he acted like, "there she goes again. At least she has some mishegas so she's not nagging me." He didn't say it, but I could tell.

I looked it up the on the internet and found a lot of references to "bee tennis." I pointed out to my husband that it is an accepted method that even several agricultural extension people say helps keep down the carpenter bee population. He said he didn't know what an agricultural extension even was. I said, "You know, like the guy on Green Acres that gave Oliver advice about the farm?" He remembered him and then I started wondering about that guy and looked him up. It was Hank Kimball.

Then I started looking up other important facts about Green Acres and found out Eva Gabor died of respiratory failure as a result of food poisoning. It is ironic because her character on the show was known to be a bad cook. In fact, when I have car trouble I often think about the episode where her pancake cutouts were used to fix the truck.

Everywhere I looked on the internet, it said the same thing about respiratory failure from food poisoning. I would really like to know what she ate that killed her. I want to avoid eating whatever it was. If anyone knows, please let me know. I will warn everyone.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Christmas With The Dunlaps


Traditionally, we eat the Christmas Tree after New Years Eve.

Travel Update


Spring Break in San Francisco
Don't Go!
I went to San Francisco for Spring Break. It is the worst beach in Mexico.
I did find an statue of Stephan Leonoudakis though.