New New New!

After much thought and castigation, I rewarded myself for being such a prince and purchased a GPS receiver for myself.

I took it out for a little walk this afternoon (in the 9o degree heat!). I NAILED five out of five Geocaches! I rock!

I also mailed the bills and checked out a book at the library.

I also saw some interesting vehicles at the body and paint shop.

A limo, a Datsun 2000 sporty car, an MGB, and a funny little Quaker State car.



I had misgivings about the identification of the MGB, I thought maybe it was a Midget, but now I am convinced it is an MGB. The lack of wire wheels threw me off.

Have you ever seen a Geocache?



You can see the "treasure" inside, and the somewhat worse-for-wear logbooks. This is poosibly an average sized cache. Of the five today, two were much smaller (micros), one was an ammunition box, and one was a larger plastic container. You can learn more about Geocaching at www.geocaching.com

Dazed & Confused

Every time I've gone to the grocery store in the last three weeks I have been looking for Sugar Smacks cereal. My wife requested that I buy a box for her. I have gone up and down the aisle, just can NOT find it. And it is quite a sight, me with my head tilted back and a pinched look as I try to see through the bottom of my bi-focals. And not all that successfully, either.

I Googled it today. Found a nifty commercial featuring Clark Kent. Probably saw that when I was a kid, I watched Superman all the time. Found the Wikipedia article. Guess what? There ARE NO Sugar Smacks! They changed the name in the 80s! Where was I?

Monday

OK, I wasn't the first to find this, I saw it on Reddit, but I've just GOT to pass it on...

from an Investor's Business Daily editorial, How House Bill Runs Over Grandma:

"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

That is almost the funniest thing I've read today!

Brown Gunk

I'm not sure why, but last night I got to thinking about health-related stuff from my youth. I remember my mother made me swallow a spoon of cod-liver oil (she insists it was my grandfather's idea) for good health. I remember this brown stuff they used to melt and stick on me. I searched and searched and Googled and Yahooed, and no luck. So, I telephoned her today and asked her. Go right to the primary source!

She remembers the stuff. She said it was called "brown plaster". She remembers it was like a crayon, tubular, and brown. You melt with match on to a piece a gauze and stick it where it would do some good. I forgot to ask her precisely what you used it for, though. She said it was so old that doctors nowadays never heard of it. She told me she had a little pieced that her mother gave here hiding somewhere, but she didn't remember where.

I tried looking up "brown plaster", and while getting a bunch of hits, nothing definitive emerged. I found an interesting blog titled Kilmer House, which is a history of the Johnson & Johnson company. Lots of interesting old pictures and stuff. The page about Medicated Plasters was interesting, but it does not specifically mention "brown plaster". It does have a nifty little picture of a bicycle racer wearing a "kidney plaster".

You would think someone would be selling some "brown plaster" on ebay, but no. So I am still searching for information about just what this stuff was, and who made it.

Radio Radio

What with all this talk of new radios, I just HAD to post this pic that I ran across on Fark the other day, and other days, too.



Ain't that special?

Here's my radio, in case you wanted to see it, set to my favorite FM station, KCRW. It is a Radio Shack DX-440. It is also a World Band Radio, but it does not put out 150w, it doesn't have television audio, and it costed a pretty penny more.