Pop First

For years, I've put the ice in the glass first, then poured the carbonated beverage on top, being careful to add it slowly enough so that the foam doesn't overflow.  Recently, I discovered it's better to perform that operation in reverse: pouring the soda (or pop) in first, then adding the ice last, a few cubes at a time at first.  Instead of all that warm soda hitting all the cold ice all at once, the soda is cooled down a little at a time.  Yet another example of things I've been doing backwards all my life.

Popsicle Riddle

A recent popsicle purchase resulted in a surprise riddle.  After I unwrapped the treat, I saw there was a question written on the bottom of the stick which read, "Who cleans up after sailors?"  I figured the answer must be hidden on the top of the stick, and sure enough, it was.  It's hard to see in the image below, but the answer is "Mermaids".  Yuk, yuk, yuk ....

Chain Door Stop

Our front storm opens towards the south, resulting in it catching the predominant west wind.  When that wind is really blowing hard, it can rip the door out of your hands.  That causes two issues.  First, the glass can bang into one of the planters on the stoop and potentially break, and second, it could rip the storm door from its hinges.  The solution to both problems is the chain door stop you see below.  It allows the door to open easily, but when the chain is fully extended, the powerful spring takes over and prevents the door from opening too much further.  

Major shout-out to my brother-in-law Albert for installing this during his recent visit!  

https://www.doitbest.com/product/203726/national-hardware-black-door-stop-spring-chain-203726

FANS Enrollment

Montgomery County offers its free (I love free) Fraud Alert Notification (FAN) system that will alert you when any documents are recorded against your property title.  Fraudsters attempt to claim ownership of your home by filing forged documents and aim to quickly sell to an unsuspecting buyer.  Catching this early is key to reversing the fraud and avoiding a bunch of legal hassles.  Some other counties offer a similar service, which a quick search should turn up.  

It's also good to keep your credit locked on all three reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) so no one, including these bums, can open credit cards or obtain loans using your identity.

https://go.mcohio.org/applications/recorder/fraud/findRegistered.cfm

Cheesy Shell

Instead of just adding cheese to my leftover chicken filling, I opted to try a technique I recently saw on TV.  I put down a layer of shredded cheddar cheese, covered it with a flour tortilla, and added the filling.  I cooked this over medium heat for several minutes until the cheese was nicely browned.  The next time I do this, I'll microwave the filling first to make it hotter.  Every time I make something for the first time, there are always lessons learned. 

Rum Runners Cafe

The cute little bar you see below is the speakeasy at Rum Runners Cafe in the Woodlane Shopping Center in Kettering, Ohio.  We had a delicious lunch at the cafe, but it was too early in the day to have a cocktail, so we'll be planning a return trip soon.  Best of all, the prices are pretty reasonable.

https://rumrunnerscafe.com

Mole.Stem.Model

In February 2024, I wrote about What 3 Words, a website and mobile app that assigns a three-word combination to every three-meter square on the planet.  In addition to providing an exact location while hiking, boating, or any other place without a fixed address, I recently used it to provide the location of my parents' graves in Calvary Cemetery, which is at the link below and the image below that.  With their mobile app, I can enter mole.stem.model and it will navigate me there.  I've walked around many graveyards trying to find a headstone, and if this method were available, it would have saved me hours.

https://w3w.co/mole.stem.model

U.S. Women's Amateur Qualifier

Walnut Grove Country Club hosted the U.S. Women's Amateur Qualifier on July 10, and members are allowed to walk the course and spectate.  We spent a couple of hours at the intersection of the 9th green, 10th tee, and the 18th tee, strolling back and forth to watch the action.  These ladies can absolutely crush their tee shots while not appearing to swing hard at all.  I need to learn from this.

Ellie Yeazell and Eileen Park tied for medalist honors with 3-under par 69, with Yeazell eagling the par-5 16th and Park having back-to-back birdies on 17 and 18 to avoid being in the four-way playoff to determine which two made the finals, with the other two becoming alternates.  More on the results at the link below.

https://ohio.golf/results-2025-u-s-womens-amateur-qualifier-dayton

Turn The Jar

As we've gotten older, opening jars has become more challenging.  One recent piece of advice that helped is to turn the jar, not the lid.  That made a lot of sense since simultaneously squeezing and turning the smaller lid while holding the jar puts most of the work on one hand, whereas holding the lid and turning the jar uses both hands, and the larger jar is easier to turn.  It helps, but it isn't perfect.  The article at the link below contains several other ways to open jars, my favorite is using a bottle opener.

https://www.tastingtable.com/1468719/hacks-to-open-stubborn-jars

Chicken Teriyaki

This Chicken Teriyaki is a huge flavor bomb.  The homemade marinade consists of soy sauce, brown sugar, water, vinegar, honey, garlic, sesame oil, ginger, and pepper.  The chicken is cut up into one-inch pieces and put in a plastic bag with half the marinade, refrigerated for several hours.  The chicken is cooked in a skillet over medium-high heat.  When done, the remaining marinade, combined with cornstarch and water, is poured on top until the sauce thickens.  Sliced green onion and sesame seeds complete the deal.  All the nitty details are at the link below.

https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a42573958/chicken-teriyaki-recipe

Tajin Rim

I love the Tajin spice blend, and when my daughter-in-law ordered her Golden Margarita with a Tajin rim at Jorrge's Cantina, I couldn't wait to try it.  Getting a little of that combo of lime, mild chili peppers, and salt with each sip really spices up the drink.  I've seen the Rimmer at several grocery stores, or you can order one at the link below.

https://www.tajin.com/us/tajin-rimmer

Ankle Support Brace

My right foot/ankle has been somewhat painful in recent months, particularly at the end of a three-mile walk.  I figured some type of support might help alleviate that pain and went searching on Amazon for alternatives.  I decided to try the brace shown below, which is not bulky, has good ratings, and costs only $10, making it a cheap gamble.  I could tell at the beginning of my next walk that it was going to help, and by that afternoon, I was surprised by how much better I was walking, even after taking the brace off.  I hope this continues, and I might even buy another one for my left foot as a preventative measure.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXAGV0H

Sixty-Four No More

The last couple of our iPad purchases were the 64GB variety.  Recently, I noticed that I didn't have enough space to download videos for a road trip, and I would have to clear out downloads to apply iOS updates.  With a little digging, I found that iPadOS and System Data combined (see the bottom right on the screenshot below) to consume over 37GB, about 58% of the 64GB I bought.  The newly added Apple Intelligence is using 6.67GB of the iPadOS space, which is really the culprit in my free space woes.

Our next purchases will certainly be 128GB models, which should get us through for several years.  You can follow the suggestions at the link below to free up space, but that involves a lot of tedious work that I don't have much patience for.

https://www.foneazy.com/ipad/ipad-system-data-huge

Got-A-Go

I got a real kick out of the porta-potties located at the cell phone lot at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG).  "Got-A-Go" is a perfect name, since I would only use one if I really, really "Had-To-Go".  I've seen several other creative porta-potty names recently and will try to snap pictures of the best for future blogs.

https://got-a-go.com

Peach Crumble

We bought an entire box of Georgia peaches at Kroger, and I made the Peach Crumble you see below.  I chose a crumble over a cobbler or a crisp because the awesome topping consists of flour, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter.  I took the recipe, at the link below, and downsized it to fit a small baking dish for portion control.

The rest of the peaches made a big pitcher of Peach Daiquiris and sliced and froze a bunch for future drinks.  The rest we ate or took to Pittsburgh to share.  

https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a40080202/peach-crumble-recipe

Bottled Water Bliss

We've been members of Walnut Grove Country Club since 2017.  For years, we filled up our Yetis at one of the several 5-gallon water jugs stationed on the golf course.  However, starting with the scorching summer of 2024, they installed several large coolers around the course, filled them with bottled water, and topped them with ice.  They are located at the driving range, 5th fairway, 9th tee/16th tee, and 10th fairway/17th tee.  Together with water and ice at The Grove (8th tee/12th tee/15th tee), we're never too far away from ice-cold water.

https://walnutgrovecc.net

Active Noise Cancellation

As an earpod newbie, I'm still learning about some of the cool features of my Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, and active noise cancellation is my current favorite.  I was sitting at a swimming pool when I first turned it on, and the background noise of kids playing and music blaring was reduced by about 90%.  I was (very happily) stunned by this, and when I turned on some Spotify music, I would have thought I was alone on a deserted island.  The music was so clear that I now know that there are background vocals on John Denver's Take Me Home Country Roads, sung by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, who co-wrote the song with John.  Amazing!  More useful information is at the link below.

https://support.google.com/googlepixelbuds/answer/12312672

Bathroom Wall

Like yesterday's wall decoration, this one started out costing $40 on Etsy.  It's a picture of the Sea of Galilee from David Miller, the owner of DivineFingerprint.  We hung it in the space that was opened up when the new medicine cabinet was large enough for us to pitch the small cabinet that used to hang there.  We took the picture to be framed at the House of 10,000 Picture Frames in Kettering, and they did their usual marvelous job.  But that increased the final cost to about $200.  Ouch!

https://www.etsy.com

Bedroom Wall

The west wall in our bedroom hasn't had any decoration for many years, despite our saying many times to the contrary.  After the bedrooms were painted a month ago, Gourmet Chef Elaine found the triptych (a work of art divided into three sections) that you see below.  Titled "Indigo Botanical I", it's part of the Kelly Clarkson Home collection on Wayfair and only set us back about $40.  It took a bit to decide exactly where to hang it on the wall because of the slanted ceiling on the left.  And ensuring they were all exactly in line was my chief contribution.

https://www.wayfair.com

Crushed Garlic

We love fresh garlic, and we use a lot of it, so there are times when we have either run out or it has gone bad, so we keep a package of the frozen crushed garlic you see below handy in the freezer.  Dorot Gardens also has frozen versions of basil, ginger, dill, turmeric, parsley, and cilantro, where each cube is the equivalent of one teaspoon.  Pretty clever idea.

https://dorotgardens.com

Swipe Actions

I recently found that I can perform actions in the Gmail app by swiping left or right on a message.  I went into Settings, selected "General Settings", and then selected "Swipe actions" to see how they were set.  Both left and right swipes were set to Archive, so I changed the left swipe to Delete, as shown in the screenshot below.  The other options are Mark as Read/Unread, Move to, Snooze, or None, but they were of no interest to me.  For more details, including pictures, please visit the link below.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-configure-gmail-swipe-actions-on-android-and-why-you-should

Speed Bumps

A few weeks ago, we discovered the speed bumps shown below had been installed at our local Costco Gas station.  It makes me wonder if this was a reaction to an accident or near-miss, to try to slow people down, or to deter tailgating.  Just one more sign that there are enough stupid people to require something like this.  Sigh ...

Rest Area Vending Surprise

On our way to Pittsburgh, we stopped at the Ohio Rest Area just east of Columbus and found the odd-looking vending machine you see below.  It turned out to dispense Naloxone (aka, Narcan), a nasal spray that can block the deadly effects of opioids and save a person's life.  The sign on the machine said to push a selection to view the price, and out of curiosity, I did.  It dispensed the package immediately, so the price is zero.  It appears two other people were equally curious, as we found three packages had been dispensed.  

This started back in 2023, and 130 boxes with Naloxone have been installed at 65 rest areas statewide.  Naloxone can also be ordered online and delivered to their home.  More details can be found at the link below.

https://recoveryohio.gov/home/news-and-events/all-news/governor-announces-overdose-reversal-drug-at-ohio-rest-areas