Turn It Up! (Innovative iPhone Amplifiers)

His

Hers

Funny thing how people separated by great distances sometimes stumble upon similar ideas. My husband, who is always on the lookout for interesting blog ideas found this cool way to turn up the volume when you play your favorite jam on your iPhone. Lately I have been enjoying Weird Al’s Mandatory Fun on mine but regardless of your taste in music this trumpet iPhone amplifier is pretty classy and uses no electricity either. These devices, like the one pictured here, are made from salvaged trumpets and other brass instruments, with assorted machine parts and they’re designed to amplify and direct the music (or other sounds) played through your iPhone and iPad. Here is a similar idea I found. Using a paint roller cover and 2 plastic cups from your local Dollar Tree you can make a cheap iPhone amplifier. The how-to you tube video I watched was in Spanish but it needed no translation since the concept is pretty simple. Yep, so back to the like minds (or as we sometimes say-great minds) coming up with similar ideas at the same time, well we may have like minds but we are miles apart!

 

Street Harassment

After becoming the million and one-th viewer of Hollaback!’s, the nonprofit dedicated to ending street harassment, you tube video currently trending and then reading some of the comments I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to add my point of view, two cents, or what have you. This post comes on the heels of my last post about Fat Girl Costumes, no less. The women in the video who spent 10 hours walking the streets of New York is just a regular sized girl wearing regular clothes, nothing ‘provocative’ and she doesn't acknowledge any of the attention she receives as she follows her videographer who is wearing a hidden Go Pro video camera needless to say, unbeknownst to the rest of the world and specifically the girl’s street harassers. The girl is the recipient of more than 100 harassments which include catcalls, verbalized comments, and several short stalking periods but not all are shown in the video. None of the comments were simple good mornings or good evenings. That’s a quick summary in case you aren’t one of the more than one million and one viewers and might have missed this on social media or the Today Show or wherever this is being shown. The comments I read were quite interesting and point up to me the difference in how men and women basically view the subject of street harassment. Several commenters state that what Hollaback! labels as street harassment are simply compliments but I tend to agree with one of the Hollaback! founders, who says (and I am paraphrasing here) that hearing comments about your body every five minutes makes you change the way you walk down the street, because women are often not hearing these ‘compliments’ the way the complimentors may be intending them. I wave and say good morning to everyone I cross paths with on my walks and bike soirees around my small town of St. Marys, GA and I feel pretty sure that any words of encouragement I pass on to other joggers and walkers don’t fall into the street harassment category. As you may also guess, I am not a recipient of street harassment either.

Fat Girl Costumes at Walmart

Here is another reason I just plainly cannot stand Walmart. On their website yesterday they advertised a fat girl costumes category for Halloween. With the actual photos of the costumes the labels used the more PC term, plus sized. But seriously, who wants to be a fat female vampire for 30 bucks or a fat diva or witch for $50. For that matter who would want to dress up as an emaciated any of the above? Not to mention did you notice the prices for these costumes are seriously outrageous too? Then there is the whole issue of body image. The emphasis on this and photo shopped images through various advertising venues, billboards, and all kinds of TV and electronic media is tough enough on young girls and even old girls (like me) these days. The truth is there is a lot of variety in the sizes and shapes of the human body, and that is how it is supposed to be. Ever consider that perhaps your imperfection is perfection for you? Regardless, I am not going to Walmart on line or in person for any kind of costume ever. This latest stuff even though it was quickly removed from the website cinched it for me. I’d rather save my money and dress up as Robin William’s Mrs. Doubtfire or Martin Lawrence’s Big Mama with clothes out of my own closet! 

Volcanoes, Hawaii, and the Moon

What do Hawaii and the moon have in common? The answer is volcanic activity.

Right now in Hawaii, Mount Kilauea is sending lava in a different than usual direction (the opposite of where it was flowing when I last visited the big island), toward Pahoa village, a historic former sugar plantation consisting of small shops and homes with a population of about 800 people, a populated area that may soon need to be evacuated. The leading edge of the flow is about 110 yards wide and spreading, and is only 100 yards from the nearest residential property there. Walking out on the lava field as tourists was fun when my husband and I were there a few years ago but having lava creeping toward my home would be another story.

The moon, a place I have yet to visit, and our planet’s natural satellite, isn't just a dead rock orbiting us out in space. It may still have some fire at its core. Dozens of small rocky formations spotted by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were laid down by lava more recently than researchers originally believed, as recently as only ten million years ago. These rock formations suggest that as far as volcanic activity goes, the moon is not yet dead.

Non Scale Health Victories

So I am continuing to work on improving my health and fitness level and I came across an interesting article about alternative ways to assess health, alternatives to using my nemesis, the scale. Even though there is a big emphasis on obesity which of course is measured in pounds these days, there is more to being healthy than just your weight. There’s more than one way to measure success. It's not just a number on the scale. Here are some things that say more about your health than the scale, sleep, movement, social interaction, and the mirror. Think about the amount of sleep you get, 7 good hours each night is what you need. Then consider whether or not you sit for prolonged periods. If you do you need to move more. Think of social interaction as the opposite of loneliness. Research shows that loneliness leads to unhealthy habits like drinking and overeating. Social interaction has been found to be a stress reducer too. And lastly, the mirror, it matters because you can use it to see how your body weight is distributed and whether you have lean muscle or too much fat. If it is hard to look at yourself honestly in the mirror then snap a selfie or better yet a belfie (a photo of your own belly) with your phone and don’t send the photo to the trash can. Use it for motivation. It won’t change until you do. Let how your clothes fit and feel help you realize the positive impacts of exercise and healthy eating on your body. I’m going to drop a towel over my scale and work focusing on other ways to measure my health and fitness. 

Muscle Metabolics

Yes, I have been on a health kick lately, but here is something I didn’t know about muscles. Your body’s muscle is a huge metabolic organ. What? I thought muscle was what moves my body parts, (and gets sore when I exercise), and it does, but muscle’s role in our health is so much more than that. Muscle consumes glucose so if there isn't enough muscle to use up the glucose, diabetes here we come. Muscle is also the only place in our bodies where we store amino acids, the building blocks of protein. When someone without enough muscle falls ill there isn't enough in reserve to call on in order to help them get well.

Muscle is especially important as we age since we tend to lose muscle mass with age. As muscle strength in the elderly decreases the odds of falling and breaking a hip goes up. A study in the UK showed that one in every three folks that fracture their hip dies in the next 12 months. The double whammy is that person with the broken hip who was losing muscle mass due to aging probably loses even more muscle due to being bedridden for several weeks after their fall. It’s a vicious circle of circumstance and all the more reason for people in my age group to should work to and maintain good muscle health. I had been told by my doctor how important doing weight bearing exercise is for my bones but now I realize it matters to my muscles too. This is all the more reason to consider adding some kind of (light) weight training to my weekly exercise routine.

Every Dog Has Its Day

Every dog has its day usually means everyone has a chance to be successful during some period in their life. I agree with this sentiment but am taking a more literal approach to this idiom by mentioning the dogs that recently took down the latest White House fence jumper. Hurricane and Jordan, two Secret Service Belgian Malinois dogs are the ones to thank this time. They kept the latest jumper from reaching the White House by stopping him basically at the wrong side of the fence. A Belgian Malinois can run up to 30 miles an hour and spends about 20 weeks in training for this kind of work, with police, the military, or Secret Service. Hurricane and Jordan were kicked and punched by the jumper that they cornered but after being checked out by their vet they quickly returned to duty. These two heroes, Hurricane and Jordan, certainly had their day and will, like most dogs trained to serve and protect, work until they are around ten years old.

Closer to home, a couple of weeks ago a St. Johns County Sheriff Department K-9 named Baron was killed in the line of duty. His killer, wanted on a felony warrant for selling cocaine, drowned Baron in shallow water during a police chase. He is now facing an additional third degree felony for killing a dog that's a K-9 officer. Baron had his day too. It’s just a sad one for his handler and the entire community he served.

Sheet Technology (I need this!)

I've been noticing lots of articles involving a given number (of things) and what to do or not do with that number. For example, one thing you should never say to your child, or 7 management lessons from The Walking Dead, that kind of thing. For the most part I just pass on by not bothering to click until today when I spotted an article on 57 life changing upgrades for every room in your house. LIFE CHANGING capitalized itself in my head, this I figured I had to check out and so I did. 57 nearly mindless clicks later the one thing I found that might change my life - temperature control sheets. The cost of these Outlast sheets starts at $150. The makers use technology originally developed for NASA and in current use by the Army in combat clothing in the sheets. Tiny capsules in the fabric absorb heat when you get hot and release it when you get cold. I cannot say how many times I find myself throwing my leg out from under the covers when I get too hot at night and then minutes later pulling my leg back under and tucking the same covers up and over my shoulders to my chin when I get too cold, now that the cooler weather has descended. Lots of folks who like to sleep with the bedroom windows open at night (including me) would probably find these sheets very useful, and yes, perhaps even life changing, especially during this winter’s next polar vortex.

Tracking Dementia

Have you seen a sign on the highway announcing a Silver Alert? I have and I've had to explain the difference between silver and amber to my grandkids. Silver alerts often involve elderly drivers that are lost and suffering from dementia. People with dementia like to travel whether in a car or on foot and this tendency which often results in the sufferer getting lost, can be hard on caregivers. Some folks with dementia become less verbal and cannot ask for help but there is a new GPS system for tracking them that (using satellites) can accurately pinpoint their location to within ten meters. The person wears a locator on a lanyard or necklace. Then a boundary is set and if the person crosses the boundary a message is automatically sent to the caregiver’s cell phone. 70% of people with dementia that wander away on foot are found within a mile of their starting point. The center where the Mind Me people man the computers that pinpoint where the Mind Me users are and map where they've been are invaluable. The Mind Me system using GPS tracking is a really interesting use of technology that has given back some freedom to people suffering from dementia and has freed many of their caregivers from constant worry.  

What’s New under the Sun?

The answer is the aptly named photovoltaic concentrating generator, the Sunflower. It’s a 10 meter high sun tracking dish (flower shaped) that can transported in a single shipping container to any location and it’s an all in one machine. The Sunflower turns solar energy into electricity and heat and produces clean drinking water in the process. It’s light weight because the solar mirrors are made of metallized foil like some candy wrappers or potato chip bags. In coastal areas the Sunflower is designed to drive a low temperature desalinator and produce 2,500 liters of fresh water per day. In inland areas the Sunflower will drive a water purifier. From 10 hours of sunlight the Sunflower will deliver 12 kilowatts of electricity and 20 kilowatts of heat. Airlight Energy of Biasca, Switzerland has the licensed patents on this technology and will be field testing it in seven remote sites by 2016 with the intent to put the Sunflower on the market by 2017. And that’s what’s new under the sun.

Stand with the Flow of the Game

This is not the R.E.M. song, Stand, it’s a rule for NFL football fans at football stadiums, EverBank Field specifically. Apparently standing and cheering can interfere with other ticket holders’ ability to enjoy the game from their seats. According to the rule it is okay to stand and cheer with the flow of the game, just not okay to stand continuously. The officials have even gone as far as dedicating several “Standing Encouraged” sections for those who prefer to stand. But if you are a fan that stands excessively and not in the appropriate area you may be subject to ejection without refund and potential loss of ticket privileges for future games. On another note I also found out recently that there is Wi-Fi at EverBank Field and there were as many as 8,000 people using it during the last football game. Maybe the people that can’t see because of the excessive standers could stream the game on their smartphones so they don’t miss any of the action. Then of course I am talking about the Jaguars and they seem to be pretty much out of the action this year again so far. But if you know me you may also know I’m a Cubs fan, so I’m still ever hopeful!

Nursing Home Sprinkler Systems Lacking

This is not a blog about run of the mill plumbing problems or the plumbing problems sometimes associated with old age (depends on whether or not you are old enough to get the meaning on the second issue above), but rather about the lack of fire protection sprinkler systems in nursing homes to protect the elderly, many with limited mobility which precludes them from escaping from a burning building. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 97% of nursing homes in this country have met the sprinkler system requirement, but 385 homes, homes for 52,000 elderly people in 39 states are not in compliance. This just adds to the scariness of old age for me, because the original requirement was implemented in 2003 after 16 residents of a nursing home in Hartford, Connecticut and another 15 in Nashville, Tennessee perished in structure fires. Five years later in 2008 another five year extension for compliance for retrofitting older facilities was given but now there should be no excuse for noncompliance. The estimated costs were in the $200,000-$400,000 range and that doesn't seem outrageous when you consider the cost of nursing home care. Please take time to find out whether or not a nursing home is in compliance with federal safety guidelines for fire safety when choosing a place for your loved ones.  

AP History Coursework Review Causing Protests

Students, parents, and teachers are keeping up the protests against a conservative Board of Education’s plan to review and ultimately change an Advanced Placement (AP) history course to suit their conservative views. The push by the board seems to be toward promoting patriotism and downplaying social disorder. I’m thinking the controversy every year about celebrating Columbus Day vs Columbus’ actual impact on Native Americans and their culture but it’s more than just that. The board’s approach to the curriculum review, including having students on the committee, hasn’t satisfied the protesters. They seem like a pretty savvy group to me. As a former educator I can say from firsthand experience that despite student, parent, and teacher input the BOE usually gets and implements their way. Case in point would be every new school year’s calendar. Despite all the voting on tentative calendar choices A, B, C, or D, we always ended up with choice E. None of the above, this being the BOE’s choice, usually completely different from the choices we were given. But back to the history course review, I hate the idea that history, like statistics, can be skewed and slanted to favor the opinions or needs of any group. It seems like this is true though and the criticism of the course by the Republican National Committee and the Texas State BOE speaks volumes as these protests are taking place Colorado. 

Contemplating the Earth’s Navel

Got this blog topic from my husband and actually I’m kind of glad the suggestion wasn't about navel lint or contemplating his own navel. If you know him you will get my meaning here. There actually is a place that is considered the navel of the Earth and it is in of all places, Siberia. The town adjacent to the navel is Mirny which built up around the Mir diamond mine, the second largest excavated hole on our planet. On a side note, the largest excavated hole is in Utah-the Bingham Canyon copper mine. But back to the navel of the Earth…the Mir diamond mine operated for 54 years and produced over 2 tons of diamonds per year at its operational peak. That’s a lot of navel lint! The mine is now closed but there remains the navel, 525 meters deep and 1.2 kilometers wide. Air space over the navel is closed (Hint, hint dear husband!) due to unverified reports of helicopters being sucked towards the mine. The largest diamond was found there in 1980 and weighed in at an amazing 342.5 carats…that’s two and a half ounces weight wise for the metrically challenged. Quite a find, though probably a bit too large for adorning a bellybutton these days.

Ebola Tries to Make a Local Appearance

After a long weekend of hat selling, I finally turned on the TV and computer and all over the news and even Facebook is Ebola in the USA. A person in Jacksonville has turned himself or herself in for observation with flu like symptoms and possible contact with someone else traveling from West Africa. This immediately sent a ripple of fear across my Facebook feed but apparently this local patient doesn't meet CDC Ebola testing criteria, so false alarm. I have a feeling there will be plenty more of them. Deaths from Ebola is already well into the thousands outside the US, within our borders the number is 1. Now a nurse that was caring for the 1 has been hospitalized with Ebola. She is a young woman and I sure hope she beats Ebola. They doctors know who she contracted it from, so now the trick will be to figure out where the procedure for preventing caregivers from contracting it failed. In the meantime all of her belongings are being cleaned or incinerated. She does have a dog and unlike the case of a dog in Spain with an Ebola victim owner that was put down, this dog has a chance to live too. It remains unclear whether or not dogs can carry or transmit Ebola. For now it looks like it’s a pretty scary world out there for man and man’s best friend.

Found an Odd Obsolete Object in my Driveway

I walked out my front door last Saturday morning and there it was. Despite the fact that I hadn’t seen anything quite like it in the last couple of years I recognized it right away. Some memories are like that, lingering in the back of your mind, waiting to pop back into the present at the drop of a hint. It was early and foggy out yet I still I gave a quick look up and down the street before bending over to retrieve it. I tossed it on the bench in our entry way and went on to the kitchen to make some coffee without giving it another thought…until today. On my way to the throne I grabbed it of the bench, pulled it out of the plastic bag, and unrolled it. I noticed right off that last weekend’s headlines seemed a bit less sensational than the stuff that had been trending on MSN and such, as of late. There were live butterflies in a butterfly enclosure in Brunswick for CoastFest. A 12 year old boy saved his four siblings and mother from a fire that destroyed their home. Dancers, Bikinis, and Football, Too featured info and opinion on the Jaguars’ new swimming pools and other entertainment at EverBank Field during their last home game. A woman from Brunswick, Katrina Elkins, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to police officers and was sentenced to five years in prison. Ok, I may as well admit it, I miss the old obsolete paper copy of the news, newspaper, especially the Sudoku, the Crossword, and the Jumble.

Grab a Little (or large) Cup of Happiness

Good news! There has been a lot of talk lately about the closing of The Thirsty Monkey, but I am here to put those rumors to rest. The Thirsty Monkey has new owners (a last minute reprieve) and yes, coffee lovers, you will still be able to go grab a little (or large) cup of happiness there! I stopped by and got my usual medium roast and it was wonderful. I also got my coffee card punched too so I am happily working toward another free cup in the near future. If you have had a hankering for pumpkin spice latte (especially before or after you visit or even just pass by the adjacent pumpkin patch), they make a yummy one at The Thirsty Monkey too. One of the new owners is a dear friend, Andrea Hilt of local movie theater fame. She has done so much for our community (providing popcorn for all those class parties for my students over the years, for one thing), so please come out and support her in this new venture. If you already are a regular at The Thirsty Monkey, I know I’m preaching to the choir but if you haven’t stopped out there, now is the time to check them out. They are located just past the light at Walmart betwixt the Honda place and Kings Bay Flowers and enjoy a cup of happiness!

Coffee Lover Gene

If you know me or my husband, you probably know we have this gene. Researchers have analyzed genetic data from 120,000 coffee drinkers of European and African-American ancestry and they have found not one, but eight places on the human genome linked to coffee drinking. In the past only two locations had been identified as links so this new data gives more credence to the idea that there is a coffee lover gene, that and further evidence that a hit of caffeine is what motivates regular coffee consumption. Drinking coffee is linked to a couple of things that make drinking coffee favorable in my opinion, lower risk of type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and Parkinson's disease. The truth is I just really like coffee so much that I never go a day without it. And then there are two more newly identified genes involved in how the body processes caffeine, the POR and ABCG2. These encode proteins involved in caffeine metabolism. For our children that don’t love coffee (and there are a couple of them too) they definitely have an affinity for caffeine. That may be a genetic predisposition we’ve passed on to them since the love of coffee and its caffeine and the love of caffeine (however you get it) are closely linked. Sorry to cut this short but that’s it, I need to end this post here and go grab a cup of coffee J

I Spyware

So on one hand the government is cracking down on the maker of one spyware tool manufacturer with illegal wiretapping charges (the makers of StealthGenie), while the other hand, a fairly large number of police departments (more than 200 departments in 35 states), are handing out spyware that is nearly identical to the banned stuff, for free to parents so they can install it and use it to track their kids on line. Police departments have purchased this with confiscated drug money, not tax payer dollars, and distributed it - spyware called ComputerCOP. Besides the obvious issue of people using ComputerCOP to cyber stalk people other than their own children like roommates, coworkers, or spouses, the spyware transmits data in an insecure method. This can be easily accessed by people with the know-how and technology giving them the opportunity to sniff the unencrypted traffic across a wireless network and capture the content, including usernames, passwords, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers that the target may be typing. In light of these recent revelations about this spyware by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF, parents are now being urged not to use the keystroke logging feature, due to the privacy and security issues. Ever heard of squeezing all the toothpaste out of a tube and then trying to stuff it all back in? Yep, similar problem here with something much larger than a tube of toothpaste.

Let Me Take a Belfie

A friend sent me a link to a video, a commercial actually, in which Dr. Oz had everyone in his audience stand up and take a belfie. A belfie is a selfie of one’s very own belly. I like this new word, belfie, but the belly shrinking capsulized supplement, not so much. I have found portion controlled clean eating of healthy home cooked food and exercise works just fine as a belly fat shrinker. As a matter of fact I have been practicing just that and over the past year my belly has shrunk by several inches. But from here on out, every time I’m tempted to go the fast food route, and I am occasionally tempted to go for convenience, I’m gonna stop and tell myself, Let me  take a belfie!

Some Stuff I Didn’t Know about my Passport

I read an article about 7 little known facts about passports and since I have one I figured I’d check it out. My passport has a chip in it (a biometric identifier-electronic picture of my face) as do all passports issued after 2007 and I had no idea. My passport is a traditional 28 page passport, but I didn’t know that I could get 52 page one when I renew or if it’s your first time ordering ditto-you can get 52 pages at no additional charge! I did know that passports need to be renewed every ten years because I've renewed mine once since 1999. My passport gives me free access to 172 countries, but some countries require 2 to 4 blank pages before entering. Fall is the best time to get a passport or to renew one because that’s when applications are at their lowest before Thanksgiving and holiday travel times. So fall is the best since passports get processed the fastest. Time to get busy if you are planning to visit any of those 172 countries and get your passport application in…and you can take your own passport photo (I wish I had) as long as it’s on a white background! 

Breakfast

My husband always says breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and he definitely has a point there. For adults, skipping breakfast has been proven to raise the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes and now there is evidence that the same could go for breakfast skipping children. Researchers collected data on 4000 children ages 9 and 10. The info included how often the kids had breakfast, measurements of their body fat and blood samples. The kids that regularly skipped breakfast had 26 per cent higher levels of insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 diabetes, than the kids that ate breakfast every day. These weren't randomized controlled trials so this study doesn't scientifically prove that skipping breakfast as children leads to obesity and type 2 diabetes, but common sense would lead me to agree with my husband. I know if he reads this it he’ll smile at the idea that I agree on something with him, especially the most important (and maybe his favorite) meal of the day so don’t skip it and don’t let your kids skip it either!