You've Been Barack Roll'd

For those of you who understand what it means to be "Rickrolled" you might appreciate this video. Someone spent a lot of time putting this together, and I want to give them props for it. And who knew Barack could sing AND dance?

http://www.videosift.com/video/Youve-Been-Barack-Rolld

Well, then again, maybe he can't...

Great emergency flashlight

As some of you may know, I'm sort of a flashlight freak. I admit, it is one of the dorkiest things to get excited over, but I'm very comfortable with my nerd status and wear it proudly (maybe too proudly) and there's something about flashlights that I love. I already have a small collection, and if I had more spare cash laying around, it'd be MUCH greater. Anyways, with a baby on the way, one starts to get serious about taking care of their family, so I've taken it upon myself to put together some 72 hour kits in case we have to leave the house in a hurry. These days, you never know.

One of the first things on my list is finding the right flashlight for the job. I've done enough research to realize those crank flashlights are about as worthless as a cow pie and would never trust one with my life. There are too many reports of the crank breaking, winding them too much and breaking them, winding them not enough, the built in batteries going bad, etc. etc. A company called NightStar does make a better solution to the crank flashlights where a magnet is placed in a cylinder and as you shake it, the magnet passes through a coil and charges a capacitor. This is good because there are no battery cells to go bad, and they're pretty indestructible. Here's what one looks like:



I'm pretty sure you can buy these at your local Target and they can be found online for around $30 like from here. While this would be a good "final resort" candle (the true flashlight addicts refer to them as 'candles'), I think I have a better solution.

The main pitfall of NightStars is 1) you have to shake them, and 2) they are about as bright as the moon. Please direct your attention to this little gem:



The Fenix E01 is my choice for emergency flashlights for several reasons. First, this little guy runs on a single AAA battery and will net you 21 hours of use (11 full power, 10 hours of dimmer light). One little AAA battery gets you that much candle light! Second, these guys are nearly indestructible, are 100% water proof, and can easily fit in your pocket, be hung around your neck, or securely packed away with minimal space and weight. The third reason I love these things is they are far brighter than any crank or NightLight and are dirt cheap! If you click on this link, you'll see they run $15 a piece and come in a variety of colors. That price includes shipping so no worries about getting nailed with outrageous shipping costs (that's a whole other blog entry for another day).

Now before you go out and order 4 of these babies like I did (got one in black, olive, blue, and purple), I need to inform you of your battery choice. Since the purpose of these lights are for long term storage, do not, I repeat, do NOT put some run-of-the-mill alkaline AAA in one of these things. Alkaline batteries (these are your normal Duracell and Energizer) will leak after a year or so and becomes a pain to switch them out in order to avoid ruining the light. Instead of alkaline, buy lithium batteries like these Energizers (4th one down on the list). Lithiums will store a lot longer (my vehicle has a single AA flashlight that has 4 years on the same lithium battery; remember that's 4 AZ summers), give you a brighter light, and can power your light longer than an alkaline. Keep a few of these in your 72 hour bag and you'll have more than enough light to suit your needs.

I hope this has helped you learn a thing or two about flashlights. For $15 a piece, you should not only have one in your kits, but also have one in every car that you own.

Grandma's 80th Birthday Party

Yesterday we attended Grandma Smithson's 80th birthday party. It was good to see all the family again and also great to see Grandma doing so well. She really doesn't look a day over 65! Here are a few pictures of the event. The rest of the album can be found here. Hope you enjoy them.

"Give it to The King"

After several months of friendly reminders that the old, cheap garbage disposal was on its last leg, I started doing what every sensible nerd does... that's right, you guessed it: RESEARCH! Yes, in this day and age you can research garbage disposals on the internet till your heart's content. Of course what the major hardware stores carry is utter crap and grossly overpriced, so with my exhaustive and extensive reading I came across a company called Waste King, and how aptly named it is.

Since money is always a concern, I went with the $120 version called the Waste King Legend Series 3200. All the Legend Series disposals are good, and they handle whatever you throw at them. The price difference is based on your warranty and how fast the disposal will demolish whatever you just fed it.

This is our old disposal. It is a sad excuse of a disposal. I was glad to get rid of it.

It had to go because we were at a point of putting nothing down there for fear of a clog. Not to mention every time you ran it, it sounded like marbles were being chewed on. After the wiener dogs kept running away when we turned it on, Waste King came to the rescue.

Here's a picture of the installed product.

We went from a 1/3HP to a 3/4HP, full stainless steel innards, 2700rpm of raw power. Installation took about 45 minutes, roughly double what it should have taken me, but that's how things go the first time around.

We now throw anything and everything at "The King" because we know he never complains and always does his job. Whenever we question if we should throw it in the garbage disposal or in the trash, the answer is almost always "give it to The King!"

Feed our Blog

Ok, that doesn't really mean give our blog some food. It means, rather, that you can sign up to receive emails automatically when we update our blog (this way we don't have to physically tell everyone via email when something new has been posted). If you are familiar with feeds already, then you can set one up using your preferred method. For those of you who still think when I say "feed" I am referring to "food," then you are probably confused, and so we've made this super-easy for you :)

Step 1: See the little box in the top right that says "Subscribe Via Email" and "Enter your email address"? Do just that, right now.
Step 2: Press the Subscribe button.
Step 3: Type in the verification code in the pop-up box
Step 4: A confirmation email will be sent to you. Click on the link to confirm.

That's it - you are done! Happy Feeding! And with that, now it's time for me to figure out what to do for dinner...

Geyser

This will be Baby10 and BiG10 in the near future! I think the squealing part at the end is what makes me laugh every time :)

Baby Geyser

(if you use Firefox, you will have to right click on the tab and choose "Switch rendering engine" to get the video to work.)

The Wienernationals

Well, it wasn't exactly the National race yet, but it was a qualifying race for the Nationals (to be held in California). And while we didn't get to race our dogs this year, we did take them to participate in the festivities - well, some of them. We weren't crazy enough to dress them up in costumes.


This guy has just attacked a lifeguard! (He's wearing a shark sweater; you can't see the shark head very well because of the sunglasses)


This dog just went fishing and is dragging his catch along with him.


And this guy is taking his job as the Security dog very seriously. Doesn't want to leave his post!

Shelby and Royce did the Bobbing for Sausages, though.


Royce wasn't sure what to do at first, but the smell was tempting.


So instead he just licked the water and tried to get some of the sausage flavor on his tongue.


Shelby came along though and figured it out pretty fast (she's also been known to blow bubbles in the bathtub through her nose.)


Snagged one!


Royce is jealous as she gobbles it down. She wanted to do it again and again, but we eventually had to drag her away. She could have eaten the whole pan of them if we'd let her!