Kids and Caffeine

High doses of caffeine can bump blood pressure into the danger zone and spark life-threatening heart arrhythmias. It can also trigger neurologic symptoms, including seizures. These problems are especially scary when young children are consuming caffeine. A full 50 percent of reports to the National Poison Data System about energy drinks (loaded with caffeine) were involving children younger than age 6. Caffeine is also being consumed by kids (including some of my grandkids) in the guise of frappuccinos and other sweet coffee beverages. Caffeine is a drug that slowed heart rates and increased blood pressure in all the children that consumed it in recent studies and like the sugar included in soft drinks, has no nutritional value and really doesn't belong in the diets of children under the age of 18. I love my coffee in the morning as much as anyone else, but the caffeine in it is dangerous for kids and could do much more than just stunt their growth.

Happy Father’s Day

An enigma is how I often think of fathers. Maybe because I don’t remember ever being close to mine. But over time I have been around quite a few fathers and it is pretty amazing how fatherhood transforms even younger, older, and sometimes less than responsible men into goo goo talking baby snugglers. I remember how my one son drove his newborn colicky daughter around and around in the car when she cried inconsolably because that was the only way to get her to sleep. I asked him if he was worried about getting tired from driving around the neighborhood most of the night and he said no, he was more worried about the car running out of gas. Then there are the men who step up to the plate and become role models for kids that they are fathers to in heart only. I have been blessed to have one of those in my life and in the lives of my children.

Next I think about fathers, how without them where would we mothers be? The answer is in a hard place because it isn't easy playing both roles and in almost any circumstance two parents are stronger and better than one. That said I wish a happy day to the single struggling mothers too. May you find good men (positive role models) for your kids to identify with and look up to. They are out there waiting and willing. Coaches, Kung Fu instructors, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, and teachers, take time to seek them out and include them include them in your families’ lives. 

A Record Breaking (or setting) Day

Alex Trebek makes it into the Guinness Book of world records for hosting a record number of game shows, Jeopardy. Yesterday he hosted his 6,829th episode. Jeopardy is one of the shows I actually like to watch on TV too so I thought this was pretty cool. Alex Trebek is 73 years old, and looks to me to have aged pretty well. At least he has all the answers (in the form of a question) when it comes to game show longevity.

Bolivia is financing its own cable car system connecting the sprawling city of La Paz and the El Alto, high in the Andes. This cable car system is the world’s highest. When finished, it will run 10 km long and 4,000 feet above sea level, pretty amazing. Bolivian President, Evo Morales, sees this venture as a major boost for tourism in Bolivia and seems quite proud of the fact that they have not had to go outside their country for help in financing this venture. I’ll check with my brother (currently residing in Bolivia) on how much it costs to ride and get back with you on that.

Friday the 13^th

Friday the 13th is a lucky day and not necessarily bad luck. Today’s Friday has a full moon too. I've already seen some memes about Freddie on social media but I’m not for portraying Friday the 13^th in a negative light.

This Friday the 13^th kicks off the Crab Fest on Andros and with the recent rain combined with a full moon might be a perfect night to go crab watching. Andros has the largest free roaming population of land crabs in the Bahamas and they migrate from the forest to the sea to wash their eggs during the heavy summer rains. At night they identify the brightest part of the horizon with their sensitive eyes to guide them to the sea so the brightness of the full moon should help.

There is also the possibility of a large solar flare poised to send some plasma to our planet today. It may disrupt some satellites’ communications in outer orbits but should not cause harm to us. These flares are just coincidentally appearing on Friday the 13^th. They are just a part of the sun’s normal cycle.

Of course there are also plenty of people that have had the good luck to be born happy and healthy on a Friday the 13^th. So I plan to make the best of it today wherever my good luck finds me. Happy Friday the 13^th! 

Cut the Cord on Phone Charging-Go Wireless at Starbucks

Starbucks was among the first national chains to install Wi-Fi in its stores in 2001 and now they are making wireless phone charging pads a part of their tabletops so customers can charge their phones as they linger over and enjoy some pricey coffee. Over the next three years, more than 100,000 table chargers, built-in Powermat charge pads, will be installed in Starbucks' 7,500 company-owned stores in the U.S. That's about a dozen per store. Not long ago I blogged about wireless charging pads for electric cars but tabletop phone chargers will be even more useful since so many folks have cell phones, many more than folks with electric vehicles. Starbucks is just as much a trend setting techie operation as it is a trendy coffee place and they are once again getting ahead of the curve on technology. Wireless charging is now a multimillion-dollar industry but with Starbucks’ vision and help may quickly become a multibillion-dollar industry.

Simple Pleasures

Reading about the lady that wanted to celebrate her 100^th birthday doing yard work because she loved the smell of cut grass reminds me of how important the simple pleasures in life (mine especially) really are. Noisy grandkids leaving an obstacle course of hastily strewn toys, the smell of the sea, sand in the bottom of the bathtub despite rinsing with the hose and bucket out on the driveway are things that make me smile and I like remembering them long after the house returns to empty. Maybe it has something to do with how the lazy days of summer seem like prime time for memorable moments. Either way I’m glad the lady got her wish on her 100^th birthday, thanks to the help of the grounds crew at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She pushed one of the university's mowers and then helped plant flowers near the student union on campus. I hope she gets a few more summers to smell the cut grass again in the future. Maybe for you and me it’s about taking time to smell the roses but for Trudy Price it’s the smell of cut grass and the kiss of the warm sun in the summertime. She’s a lucky lady (and I am blessed with that same kind of luck too).

Text2Quit

They stole my idea! Every morning for almost a month I sent a text message to my son (when he was living in AZ) in an attempt to motivate him to quit smoking. Now I read there’s an app (several different ones actually) for that and one program called Text2Quit is seeing some success. The researchers, from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University (Milken Institute SPH), used Text2Quit to convince 11 percent of smokers to ignore their cravings via text messaging in a new study, whereas only 5 percent of the control group remained smoke-free at the end of a six-month program. With Text2Quit, quitters had the option of texting back with questions and reaching out for help to fight cravings. The researchers also used saliva samples from their subjects at the end of the study to verify their results. Now Text2Quit has enrolled 75,000 people in the United States in their program, (my idea). As for the results of my month long texting campaign to encourage my son quit smoking…I received a text one day explaining that the person I was texting didn’t smoke. In fact I was texting a wrong number, not my son after all. I was just off by one digit…. Then they politely asked me to quit.