Not just for last minute science fair projects

My bathroom sink has been draining rather slowly but instead of buying drain cleaner, I thought I would try a homemade (and more earth friendly) drain cleaner. I pour a 1/4 cup of baking soda down the sink followed by a 1/2 cup of vinegar and then pushed down the plunger so that none of mixture bubbled out of the drain. I let it sit for about 30 minutes and then poured about a cup of boiling water down the drain. And it actually worked pretty well, I still had a little bit of water left in the drain which I think reduced its effectiveness a little bit. But I was reading the comments for the post at website specializing in homemade cleaning products and pouring boiling water down the sink rather than cold or warm water is the best.

What exactly are you trying to do, Hank? Turn our school into some kind of bohemian Montessori lovefest? - Dale Gribble

That fancy internet machine

Over the winter break, I decided that I should go to the eye doctor to get a check-up (it was about 2 years since my last one). Instead of buying glasses from the eye doctor, Rachel talked me into buying my glasses online. So after a few days of looking at the sites and through all the frames, I ordered a pair of glasses from goggles4u.com a little more than a week ago. And today, they arrived in the mail:



Ordering the glasses was pretty easy. The site has a huge selection which can be overwhelming at first but you can narrow down the frames based on color or material. Most of the frames (including mine) cost about $13. The page for each frame lists the measurements of the frame, like the width of the frame, the height and width of the lens area and width of the bridge. And there are pretty good instructions for measuring your face (or your current pair). For some frames, you can try them on virtually. You upload a picture of yourself and the glasses are then superimposed on your face. The scale can be a little weird but I was able to shrink my picture and enlarge the frames enough to make it look slightly normal. There are a couple options for the lenses as well like thickness or made of glass or polycarbonate. They also have bifocal lenses but the frame size has to be large enough for the bifocal. I ordered the polycarbonate lenses that had anti-glare and UV coating and are scratch-resistant which cost about $30. Entering in your prescription is pretty easy but if you are concerned with it, the is an option to fax them a copy of your prescription to them to avoid any mistakes. I had a good experience ordering my glasses on-line, it was way cheaper and the selection was huge and varied (and it was kinda of fun to see myself in frames that I would never wear), but I did get lots input from my mom, Rachel and Lucy before I finally picked my frames.

PEGGY: You may not have noticed it, because I wear bold eyeglasses to draw the attention to my head, but your mother has exceptionally long and handsome feet.

I'll be your handy man (or woman)

I visited Rachel this weekend which means we (Rachel, mom, Lucy and I) went to IKEA. I've been needing a larger CD tower for a while now and I found a nice one at IKEA (even on sale!) so I put it together this evening after I got back from Ann Arbor.

Pod, Pod, Pod

I've missed the last couple weeks of book reviews, but I will try to make up for it. Before I left for the holidays, I read "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney (first published in 1955 and adapted into a movie in 1956, 1978, 1993 and 2007). The novel opens with the small town doctor in California getting a call from an old girlfriend who is worried about her cousin. The cousin insists the uncle that raised her isn't her uncle. As more and more people in the town insists a friend or family member isn't his or her friend or family member. A local psychiatrist insists that it is all psychologically. Eventually, the townspeople not longer think someone they know isn't right. And then a friend (of the doctor) finds a body in his basement that resembles him (the friend). I have to say, even though I knew the basic plot of the book, it was still really suspenseful. I could definitely see how the novel inspired at lot of science fiction stories. And it was interesting to here the science portion as science was in 1955 (especially considering that the structure of DNA was determined only 2 years earlier). The novel is also the source of the term "pod person" (or people). I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction.

On the edge of Loonytown and taking the train to the city centre

It's been almost a month since my last post mostly because I was home at the farm during the holiday and there were lots of other things to occupy my time (and a majority of the people who read this blog saw me over the holiday season). And since I have to children, photo-based blog post are not as cute. Fortunately, the amount of snow that has fallen here at Ashland has motivated me to write some posts. Christmas at the farm was really nice (even though I didn't get to farm until 5pm on Christmas Eve) because everyone was there (including 4 children under 5). Deidre and her family (and grandpa) came up for Christmas dinner (and games) which is always fun. The little boys were pretty good but there were some moments between Silas and Ellis that lead to crying (one or both of them). My mom got all the little boys little plasma cars (which could be ridden by adults) which were appreciate most by Silas, Ellis, and Orrin (and by extension Emmet because often he was Orrin's passenger). Bridget and Orrin went to Orrin's parents for New Years so we didn't have a big party this year but we still had a good time singing songs after Ellis went to sleep. Trey and Rachel went home a few days after New Years and so I spent lots of time giggling and watching movies with Mom and Lucy and playing with Vaughn until I drove back to Ashland on Sunday afternoon. I was (of course) kinda bummed to go back to work (my apartment is so quite compared to the farm on Christmas) but work is going okay. I'm moving cubicles on Friday (to a better cubicle with more space) on Friday. Unfortunately, my new desk is at a slight incline so turning around can be a little annoying.

BOBBY: I'm gonna cross the track and bring Mr. Witchard a soda.
HANK: That's crazy! Why would you do that?
BOBBY: I'm giving 110 percent, Dad.
JIMMY: Go to here, go-to boy! I want a soda! Go to now!