PolarLava::Blog

Following on the heels of yesterday's Breastfeeding While Driving, today we have the brain trust that goes by the name of Latreasa Goodman.  It seems Latreasa thought it was acceptable to call 911, not once, not twice, but three times to complain that her local McDonald's ran out of McNuggets.  I'll agree she should have promptly gotten a refund when she asked for one, but you can't call 911 for that.

Next we have Joe Godlewski of Cresaptown, MD who is selling "Christian Salt".  This is sea salt that has been blessed by an Episcopal priest.  And why is he doing this?  "I said, 'What the heck's the matter with Christian salt?'"  This being because TV chefs always recommended kosher salt in recipes.  Ah, once again we are saved by religion.

Darwin, please save us from the shallow end of the gene pool!

Although they weren't completely shot, I've scrapped my NiCad batteries for my lighting system.  Looking back it seems I last replaced them at the start of 2005. (See Old, Fat & Slow)  That means I got four seasons out of them before they started to wain.  That's not too bad as I think I paid about $35 for them (5 - D cells) at the time.  And that was an improvement as they were 5000mAh rated where the previous replacements were 3000mAh or so if I recall.  So these most recent ones were the third set of batteries since getting the lighting system.  But that seconds set took its toll on the minimal/cheap wall transformer charger.  At the end the second set had a short in one or more of the batteries and it cooked the charger pretty good.  It still worked, but ever since its had that classic burnt electronics smell whenever you used it.  It's long been a concern, but these things they cost money to fix.  So towards the end of last season I started exploring options for replacing the soon to be failing batteries.

I'm using the original 10W halogen lamp for now, but may upgrade to a 12W lamp later.  I'm also using the mounting system and battery case (soft belt mounted as I use it, or can be frame mounted).  But to power it I've now purchased and assembled a set of five 10000mAh NiMH batteries with a new duel operation trickle or quick charger.  There are several advantages to this new setup:

• I've doubled the power rating so these should (theoretically) last twice as long between recharges.
• NiMH batteries don't suffer from the memory effect that NiCad's do, so these should last longer without the worry of having to completely drain them before recharging.
• The extended charge time of these batteries should allow me to continue to ride long distances later in the fall.  Typically I end up tapering off my riding in the fall because as the days get shorter and it stays darker later into the morning, I run out of battery juice before I run out of pedaling juice.
• I'll sleep better at night knowing that the old charger is now gone and not posing a scary fire risk.

It's been a longtime since I last posted under this topic.  I guess it's largely due to little things I come across now generally wind up on my Twitter page.  But this one deserves a special calling out…

So exactly when does your brain tell you that it's okay to breastfeed your kid while driving?!  Really?  You think that's a good/acceptable idea?  I guess that's probably what you were discussing while you were talking on your cell phone at the same time!

There are days I have to question my ability and mental fitness to be a parent; but thanks to our good friend Darwin, I've got people like Genine Compton to let me know —or in this case my wife I guess, that we're not so bad after all.

Dear God, why do you let these people spawn?

Being our girls started taking piano lessons a few months back, we've bought a piano for them to practice on.  The little plastic keyboard wasn't cutting it anymore and we were hopeful that this would encourage them to practice more.  Thus far it seems to be working out as they do seem to be using it even without being told they need to practice.

As noted by the title, this is a Wurlitzer Spinet Piano.  It was a little more that we intended to spend, but for the added cost the sound is much better.  It was also kind my wife's preference to buy a Wurlitzer as they were originally made here in North Tonawanda where we live.  That was long ago and this one was actually produced by Baldwin who used to own them.  In any case, it's here and it looks like this:

So in what has become an annual tradition, I trekked off to Michigan to go sit on a frozen lake and freeze my ass off.  And what also seems to be part of the tradition most of the time, we didn't catch squat.  Only the Northern Pikes we biting, and the closest we came to legal (24 inches), was a couple of 22 inchers.  Here are this year's pictures.