French Toast

I rarely eat breakfast, so sometimes I have a favorite, in this case, French Toast, for lunch.  It's the first thing that my mother let me cook myself for breakfast as a kid, I believe mainly because she wanted to sleep in.  Chef Elaine questioned why I didn't top it with maple syrup and the answer is simple, I've always made it this way.  Just like pouring vinegar on steamed spinach, the tastes and habits we developed as children will rule our taste buds for the rest of our lives.  Maple syrup, and loads of butter, belong on pancakes and waffles. 

TENORM

While waiting in a typical afternoon's long line at the local dump, I read the list of items that they won't accept and saw the unfamiliar term "TENORM".  While my 280-pound load of scrap wood and ceramic tile was probably OK, I had to know, just to be cautious.  

TENORM stands for "Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials" and occurs when naturally occurring radioactive materials, which are generally safe, are concentrated and present a real threat.  This occurs in a variety of manufacturing processes, often the result of wastes and residuals.  Loads more information at this EPA link.

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/technologically-enhanced-naturally-occurring-radioactive-materials-tenorm

Flying Backwards

You might have seen this in the news, but it's an interesting lesson on the attention to detail.  Ohio had already produced around 35,000 of the new plates seen below before someone spotted that the Wright Brothers airplane was flying backwards.  Today's planes have their wings in front but their original flyer had them in the back.  Maybe somebody should have called North Carolina...

https://justthenews.com/government/local/back-drawing-board-ohio-debuts-wright-brothers-license-plate-backwards-plane

See The Coin

Can you spot the coin lurking on the street below?

For the last couple years I've taken to looking for discarded change as I'm running or walking.  Round shiny things now just seem to leap out at me.  The total so far this year is $2.69 with an all-time haul of $8.70.  That doesn't count the coins I find outside of my exercise, with parking lots being very generous.

PIXLR

The internet is full of simple, and very useful, tools for image editing, but when you need something closer to the power of Photoshop, the free (I love free) PIXLR editor just might be your answer.  In my case, I needed to take an image (see below) that had a square background and just cut out the circular logo.  While it turned out to be easy, it was not at all obvious, so I searched for a video to show me the steps I needed and one on the Zonua YouTube channel was perfect.

https://pixlr.com

Smashed Avocado

The Patty Melt in progress seen below illustrates the simple method of dealing with avocado slices, which are very slippery and mostly slide out the slides of the sandwich.  The secret?  Just mash them.  Yep, how easy is that?  Thank God we watch The Kitchen on the Food Channel as much as we do, or we would still be picking avocado slices off the dinner table.

Mesmer

I've known the word mesmerized for at least five decades but recently found that the word originated from a real person, Frank Mesmer (1734-1815), a German physician.  Frank was known of his theory for "animal magnetism", the transference of natural energy between all animated and inanimate objects.  Mesmer would treat patients using a variety of techniques, but eventually, his work was debunked, with any help patients received attributed to a "placebo effect".  In other words, Frank "mesmerized" them into feeling better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer

Spotted Turtle Trail

Phase one of the project to connect the Beavercreek wetlands, designated the Spotted Turtle Trail, is open.  The picture below was taken at Phillips Park along Dayton-Xenia Road, at roughly the midpoint of this four-mile stretch along the Beaver Creek and Little Beaver Creek rivers.  Future phases will connect the northern fens and wetlands up to Pearl's Fen.  Bring a good pair of waterproof hiking boots.  They don't call them wetlands for nothing.

https://beavercreekwetlands.org/trail-project

Secure MAC Hard Drive Erase

It was time to get rid of a ten-year-old external hard drive that I used for backups.  To make sure all the data was erased, mainly to protect things like passwords and credit card numbers, I explored the options available to me on my Mac Mini.  The Disk Utility has several levels that can be used to wipe the data, so I elected to use the most secure, a seven-pass erase that writes random data seven times, just like the ultra-paranoid Pentagon would do.  It took over a day to complete, but what the heck, the Mac didn't really have all the much to do anyway.  You can explore options at the link below.

https://www.howtogeek.com/179284/how-to-securely-wipe-a-hard-drive-on-your-mac

Clown Car

I spotted this Smart car during a walk and had a really good chuckle.  The decal on the back glass says "I stole the clowns car" and the attached wind-up key completes the look.  I really appreciate their sense of self-deprecating humor.