Frozen Ginger Ale

This is a simple science experiment that’s pretty cool and easy to do.

·         Take a one liter Ginger Ale – remove label

·         Place it in freezer for at least 90 minutes

·         After removing from freezer place it on a table and open.

As the bubbles begin to rise to the surface they will start to freeze instantly. This freezing process will start at the top of the bottle and continue downward until the entire contents are frozen solid.

Baseball Cards

While looking through my mothers old house I came across my old baseball card collection. Here are a couple of them; Darryl Strawberry and Pete Rose.

Chinese Copycat Beer

One of many imitations from China. 

Dihydrogen Monoxide Poisoning

Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

Dihydrogen monoxide:

* is also known as hydroxl acid, and is the major component of acid rain

* contributes to the "greenhouse effect."

* may cause severe burns.

* contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.

* accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.

* may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.

* has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been greatly found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage recently in Japan.

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

v as an industrial solvent and coolant,

v in nuclear power plants,

v by the U.S. Navy in the propulsion systems of some older vessels,

v in the production of Styrofoam,

v in biological and chemical weapons manufacture,

v in the development of genetically engineering crops and animals,

v as a spray-on fire suppressant and retardant,

v in so-called "family planning" or "reproductive health" clinics,

v as a major ingredient in many home-brewed bombs,

v as a byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion in furnaces and air conditioning compressor operation,

v in cult rituals,

v by the Church of Scientology on their members and their members'

v by both the KKK and the NAACP during rallies and marches,

v by the clientele at a number of bath houses in New York City and San Francisco,

v historically, in Hitler's death camps in Nazi Germany

v during many recent religious and ethnic wars in the Middle East,

v by many terrorist organizations including al Quaeda,

v in community swimming pools to maintain chemical balance,

v in day care centers, purportedly for sanitary purposes,

v by software engineers, including those producing DICOM programmer APIs and other DICOM software tools including DICOM routers,

v in animal research laboratories

v in pesticide production and distribution.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer! The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use. Dihydrogen monoxide is mostly remembered by its chemical name as H2O.

Tsunami Videos

Birthday Party

 My youngest son just celebrated his 10th birthday which led to a night out at one of our favorite restaurants.

US Military in Miyagi Prefecture

Getting Back to Normal

Newborn Kittens

Yesterday while celebrating our youngest son's 10th birthday there was another event going on underneath the bed. Fluffy was giving birth to her second litter of three kittens. We haven't named then yet as we are giving the newborns a little while to their new surroundings. Inside the Transformers Devastator toy box.

Piggly Wiggly opening day

Before Piggly Wiggly opened up this shopping center in Zebulon, North Carolina, it was a vacant area.
But on the first day of opening, the entire park area stayed completely full for nearly the entire day. The other grocery stores, Food Lion and Compare Foods were like a ghost town.

Japan Barbie

Found this at Target

Tainted Reality To Collect Donations for Show Your Heart at Upcoming Live Events

link Tainted Reality, the subculture entertainment website, will be collecting donations for GACKT's Show Your Heart charity to help the victims of the March 11th Japan earthquake and tsunami. Fans who make donations of $5 or more will receive a hand made ribbon showing their support, courtesy of Tainted Reality staff. Donations will be collected at all of Tainted Reality's live events in the months of March and April. These events include:

March 18-20: Rose Noire at Zenkaikon
March 25: Rose Noire at Digital Ferret, Philadelphia, PA
March 26: Rose Noire at Tokyo Shock, Baltimore, MD
March 27: Rose Noire at Club Europa, Brooklyn, NY
March 31-April 3: lix and Call of Duty Black Ops video game Tournament, Tekkoshocon

100% of all funds collected will be donated to Show Your Heart.

About Show Your Heart: Founded by Japanese pop singer, GACKT shortly after the recent earthquake and tsunami, SHOW YOUR HEART is a charity to raise disaster relief funds. The foundation is supported by many music artists in Japan, including Shinya from LUNA SEA, DAIGO from BREAKERZ, Ni~ya from Nightmare, Versailles, and labels such as Darkest Labyrinth / Starwave. In the short time since the charity has come into existence, it has already raised $1,255,462.53 to ease the suffering of the Japanese people in the wake of these tragedies.

About Tainted Reality: Tainted Reality is the premiere source of sub-culture based entertainment in the United States. They specialize in programing revolving around Japanese Rock (J-Rock), video games, and web comics. Tainted Reality hosts their own internet radio network dedicated to Japanese musical programming and produces radio shows such as Tainted Reality & The Tainted Reality Talkshow. Tainted Reality often conducts interviewswith some of the biggest musical artists of Japan like Yoshiki of X Japan, Die of Dir en grey, Miyavi and MUCC. They also have managed and organized tours for prominent J-Rock bands such as BLOOD, Versailles -Philharmonic Quintet-, The Candy Spooky Theater. They have also produced entertainment media such as the Darkest Labyrinth Vol.1 DVD and the Darkest Labyrinth CD.

Piggly Wiggly shirt

I saw this shirt at a Piggly Wiggly store in Zebulon, NC.

My Day Job

A couple of pictures of displays I have been building lately at work. 

NASCAR

ACC - (Atlantic Coast Conference)

Lizard Lick Towing

There is a TV show called Lizard Lick Towing that appears on a cable network called Tru TV. It’s interesting to watch this show seeing as how the location of this show is about three miles from where I live. Every once in a while I would recognize a few local people on the show, much so that the people who have appeared on the show are starting to talk about it. Wendell, North Carolina is a small town less than a mile from a place so small that if you blinked while driving through the area you would miss it is called Lizard Lick.

 I am friends with people at the local grocery store in Wendell and with the usual topics of conversation in sports, gas pricing or who’s sleeping with whom; the growing topic is the number of people who have appeared on this show telling their stories on how they were paid to be on it. Few were paid as much as $25 just to be seen running out of their house looking like an idiot as they try to save a vehicle that was towed to their home earlier that day.

So for all accounts, the show can be entertaining at time as everyone in the surrounding area is stereo-typed as typical brainless rednecks. Or realize that a great deal of these reality shows is fake as any other show on TV these days. Obviously the people staring in this show have found a niche that works for them and they are providing income for their families as with the other people who put the show on TV. But it does seem a big difference from the days of The Andy Griffith Show about a small town sheriff of North Carolina promoting honesty and values to this current show that seems to promote ….something. 

To visit Lizard Lick Towing and experience their huge gift shop simply leave Raleigh, NC on east bound 64 hwy towards Rocky Mount, NC. Exit 432 turning right onto Lizard Lick road. At the first stop light you will see their place of business across from the Swift Mart gas station with the giant lizard on top of the ATM machine. Not too far from the Carolina Mudcats baseball stadium.

An Interesting Story

Nothing like checking up with old friends and finding out a funny situation had grown to look like a Monty Python skit, of sorts. The following events are true and have been building up over the years and recently reached its conclusion just a few weeks ago. The event I am about to share with you happen the way you are reading it but the names have been changed.

For a while I was staying in Berkeley, California. While living there I met a lot of great people as well as encountering people who made die-hard Liberals look like Ronald Reagan. Having to deal with many city laws and ordinances any person can easily break the law and not even know it. It was at this time staying here that I realized that I had an accent. Living all my live in North Carolina never dawned on me that a huge majority of people couldn't understand a word I said. But that's another story I'll share later.

While staying in Berkeley I was sharing a house with a few other people. One of the joys of living with co-workers. Life was going great as most of our time was watching, for a lack of better word, a group of hippies that grew their own clothing from their over grown yard of weeds as the smell of strange scents drifted from their rented house. The neighbors on the other side of our place were more normal. During the Summer time we would get together at our place for a cook-out while the hippie’s called us murderers for eating meat. Ah, good time.

Our normal neighbors, Max and Raquel had been renting the house from a restate agency for about ten years by the time I moved into the neighborhood. They were able to get a great deal on it when they first moved in. The house had been vacant and was in need of major repairs. They made an agreement with the agency to deduct the price of repairs from the rent. Needless to say they were able to live there for a little over three years before they even began to pay rent.

When they first moved into the house, the back yard was over grown with untrimmed trees and vines covering all parts of the house, rusted plumbing as with the electrical system requiring a huge upgrade. The house needed painting as with several floor boards and crack drywall in need of replacement. A huge task but this was what this couple loved to do in their spare time. Even the real estate agent was impressed with the remodeling that they returned the couples security deposit. These people made Bob Villa look like Mr. Bean.

One side of the house was left almost untouched. The trees still appeared overgrown with a few vines clinging to the house. They kept thick curtains on all the downstairs’ windows which most people did on this side of the street due to the strong sunlight during the afternoon time.  But the real reason for the over growth and thick curtains was due to a more money saving effort.  But over time as the remodeling had come to a finish they became bored with little to do so as they always did, they planned to find another fixer-upper to move into. In time their luck worked with them as his job required them to move to another state where they were able to find several house to choose from.

Before their departure, we had a huge party that even their real estate agent came. Due to the work they did on the house and their friendship with the Realtor they were able to get another couple they work with to move into the house. And so as Max and Raquel moved on with their life, the new neighbors, Brandon and Lynn Ann became close friends with us with summer cook-outs as with outings to different places. Max and Raquel did inform the new couple in on their big secret so as the years marched on, Brandon and Lyn Ann family grew to include a son.

In time Brandon and his family had moved on as well. As with the hippie family, they were arrested due to an electrical short circuited causing a small fire leading the police to find the entire basement covered with marijuana plants. Another couple, Henry and Sonoko eventually moved into the house after Brandon and Lyn Ann left but they kept mostly to themselves. They were never told Max and Raquel’s big secret. Over time they began cleaning up the side of the house with the overgrowth and discovered something rather interesting.

Upon clearing the overgrowth away they found a window that over the years was not visible from inside the house. It seemed that Max had built a book case that covered the whole window area that from inside the room you would never know a window was there. On the outside window was a place card declaring the building to be vacant. Near the newly discovered window was the power meter. And then the real entertainment began. It seems that when Max and Raquel were fixing up the house they discovered the power meter as well as the vacant place card.

They decided to try something that apparently worked pretty well. As the power company came around to check the meter, they would instinctively go to where the meter is located at. Putting thick curtains on the nearby window as well as building a book case around the window to not only block the inside lighting but sound as well. The Meter Reader would see the Vacant building sign before trying to make their way through the overgrowth to reach the meter. Naturally as it was proven, they would simply give up trying to get to the meter and would simply record the last reading from the meter. No power used so no power bill to pay.

So as the Meter Reader made his rounds again discovered the newly trimmed area and successfully recorded an accurate reading from the meter. And as the couple received their first power bill were understandably shocked. I was told that it was over $100,000. Needless to say the new tenants challenge the bill and they were able to clear themselves of having to pay the total amount which was passed on to the Rental Agency. They tried to locate the former tenants with no results. Max and Raquel had already moved a few times over the years and couldn’t be found quickly.

 Brandon and Lynn Ann were contacted but seeing as they were now living in Connecticut chooses not to talk to the Realtors about it. Max and Raquel were located and threatened to appear in court and forced to pay the total amount. This led to an interesting development of sorts. When Max made a written agreement to deduct the cost of repair to the house from the rent there was a much worded clause to cover any future expenses relating to the house’s up-keep. In layman’s terms, the Realtor became stuck paying the full power bill.

So as unlikely that this will ever happen again, it’s great hearing these kinds of stories from old friends. An occasional letter from time to time eventually paints a masterpiece that as the full story is unfolding, keeps us connected no matter how far apart we live.