He told us that the black ring around the toilet bowls was probably bacterial from the toilet tank and told us to clean the toilet tank.  He said that we could switch from salt in our softener to potassium to reduce the salt buildup, and that he was going to “work” on the green stain issue.  He thinks it has something to do with the electrical system being grounded to our pipes.  I don’t know if the electrical system is grounded to our pipes or not; I thought that was standard procedure.  Anyway, he said he was going to check it out.  I hope we can get this fixed, these are issues with our water I’d rather not have!

Towards that end, she is going to need to buy a Shipping Scale to help her to determine the postal rates of items that she will be offering for sale.  Scales are vital because she needs to know how much the item weighs (including the shipping box and stuffing) in order to calculate the shipping charges that she will have to quote on Ebay.  She has already accumulated enough boxes to get her started as far as that end goes, and she has lots of old newspapers saved up for stuffing the boxes.

I suggested that she try to find one that is compact so that she can tuck it away into her cupboard when she doesn’t need to use it.

It’s really too bad, but certainly understandable!

I am trying to encourage her to have the procedure done, I am sure that once it is done she will be much more comfortable the rest of her life.  At this point in time every time she catches a cold it always turns into a sinus infection and she is miserable for weeks on end.  Especially since she moved to a different state and her new doctor doesn’t want to give her the antibiotics that she needs to clear up the sinus infection.  Last winter she was sick for four whole months because of that!  So, she really needs this nose job.  I’m going to try to get my girlfriend that had the surgery done last year talk to about it and see if it might calm her nerves about it.

In the RFID process, each item is tagged with a special tag made with special tag printers.  Each tag responds to a radio frequency similar to the way bar codes respond to a bar code reader.  HOWEVER what is so cool about this is that each individual tag does not need to be scanned.  An entire bag of products can simply be passed by the reader.  Or, the entire shopping cart can simply be walked by, without even being unloaded!  The reader picks up the signals from the special tags and then the customer pays for the merchandise, and is then given a receipt that is printed out from one of the special Intermec printers that are designed to be used as part of the system.

Intermec is a company that sells all of the products needed to set up this kind of data collection and management equipment to be used in an RFID environment.  They even sell portable equipment that can be taken out in the field and used for hours without the need of any electrical outlets!

This is really cool technology we’re talking about here, but it does make me worry about the job security (or lack thereof) for cashiers and baggers!

 

I have always asked the other people to make sure they clean up their messes, and they all swear that they do clean up their own messes, so obviously someone is breaking into the house while I’m sleeping or working and making food messes in the kitchen to benefit the ants.  Thankfully, no valuables like jewelry or computers or televisions have been stolen yet; only food items.  I do think it’s very gutsy of the culprits to fix their food to eat and then eat it here and leave their dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the diswasher.  Maybe I should put a big sign on all of the doors and windows asking the perpetrator(s) nicely to clean up after themselves.

I bought some ant traps about two weeks ago.  At first I didn’t think that they were helping because it looked to me as if the ants were avoiding them.  Maybe ant season has simply stopped (though I doubt it.)  But the past two days I haven’t seen any ants, so that’s a good thing.