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Showing posts from October 31, 2004

Carbon Monoxide!?

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Weird The smoke alarm went off, not incredibly odd when I am using the fireplace, but it wasn't the smoke detector. It was the CO alarm. I was totally surprised. It had never gone off as long as I have had one, over many many years. Yep, after resetting it a few times. It was getting a reading over 200 ppm CO. When I took it downstairs I got a reading near 300 ppm. I started getting light headed at this point. After thinking maybe the furnace heat exchanger failed and puzzling around a bit I figured oout what happened. As part of the huge winter storm that recently covered almost half of the US, we lost our electricity. So, being well prepared I rolled out the generator and started doing what I normally do. The generator (although it was completely outside) was creating CO to get in the house. Using the fireplace (and possibly other leaks) the whole house created a vacuum around the seal of the basement garage door. After the CO got into the house the forced air heating eff...
Small Business School - home.jsp I just finished an economics course. It was fun. In January I am starting a Finance course. I really like the economics way of thinking. The following is a piece of a transcript from the small business school tv program. I think it really rings of truth of capitalism. Adam Smith in the "Wealth of Nations" (1776) talks around this fundemntal concept that Novack puts in a nice simple wrapper. I really like this. HATTIE: We talk about our economic system so little. Michael Novak says that democratic capitalism can be thought of as a three legged stool. One leg is the rule of law. Democracy, the government, public servants. I like to think of them as referee's. they have on the black and white shirts and they're running up and down the field trying to make sure the bad guys are corrected or thrown out of the game. As a business owner, I feel that sometimes some are bureaucrats who are heavy handed, controlling, demanding and ...
I have lost a lot of weight, about 30 pounds. It has not been that easy, but I have cracked the code. I gave up coffee, switched to diet food for everything I could. I switched to eating lots of salads, and eating a lot of fruit and yogurt. I also do exercises every morning. You know... exercises. No equipment is required. You can do them anywhere you are. It is very practical and inexpensive. I was thinking that I have drank about a pot of coffee a day for 20 years. That works out to be 3650 gallons of the black stuff. That is a lot of coffee. I had a headache for three weeks when I quit, but it was worth it. The coffee seems to inhibit the production of insulin so some of the fat can never be burned off no matter how hard you try.