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Genius
Being hypoglycemic, I’m always on the look out for foods without excessive sugar. The cereal aisle at the grocery store is always a challenge, as most breakfast cereals are loaded with sugar. The good news is that over the years there have been many more “organic” cereals coming on the market which are sweetened with more complex sugars rather than corn syrup. The bad news is that these are often more expensive then regular cereal.
Recently I discovered that Fiber One is sweetened with Aspartame, so I decided to give it a try. What I discovered, besides a reasonably priced, good tasting cereal that doesn’t upset my blood sugar, is a genius idea in packaging. Instead of putting the cereal into one big bag, they’ve divided it into two packages within the box. I don’t eat cereal every day, but when I’m in the mood for some I want it not to be stale. This solves that problem simply. While some may consider this excessive packaging, I’ve seen worse.
This packaging may just be necessary because the cereal is more prone to going stale than others, or absorbing moisture out of the air. I don’t know, but I can’t think of any good reason why other cereals, especially the jumbo boxes, couldn’t be packaged this way.
UPDATE – The antithesis of excessive packaging.
Toothless
Yesterday our younger son had eight teeth pulled. This is because he will be ten years old in a month and he has lost a total of 4 teeth so far. You can see in the pictures the permanent teeth that have already grown in behind where the baby teeth were. He had taken to calling himself shark boy for a little while.
This kid has been a real trooper about this. Most kids, and adults for that matter, would have been very nervous about the whole ordeal, but he told us the other day that he couldn’t do anything about it, so he wasn’t really worried. When he returned from the dentist he looked a little worn and out of it, but he was still pretty numbed up. He was drooling and bleeding for some time, but didn’t complain at all. He was doing pretty well by dinner time, downing three bowls of soup and a milkshake, and was excited about being able to go to school today, even though we have given him the option to stay home. My wife and I again marveled at how quickly kids bounce back.
Before the procedure the dentist had predicted that the teeth would probably come out fairly easily as the roots of most baby teeth tend to dissolve as the permanent teeth push up from below. This turned out not to be the case.
His dentist called last night to check on how he was doing, which was very nice of her. She commented that she does about five of these multi-extractions a week, but this was by far one of the more difficult extractions she’s had to do. We suspect that with the permanent teeth already grown in behind these baby teeth that it was difficult to see these roots in the x-rays.
Needless to say, the tooth fairy was very generous the boy last night.
Beautiful
We are way below our average snowfall here in Wisconsin this year, but this morning we are experiencing a beautiful snowfall of cotton balls.
Delicious He Was
Nothing quite like a quiet Sunday morning making pancakes with the kids, especially when they’re Star Wars pancakes.
Here are the molds being filled.
Golden!
Cuts like a knife.
Evil Empire on a plate.
Looks just like his actual face when you remove the mask.
Posted from my iPhone.
Setting A Poor Example
In the town where we live, the Kenosha Unified School District (KSUD) offers high school students the choice of choosing which school they want to go to. There are three main high schools in the district, but there are a number of charter schools, that they call Schools of Choice, that offer more focused education opportunities in some subjects, or alternative methods of teaching.
A lot of these schools pride themselves on their focus on technology in the classroom and the advanced science and math curriculums they offer. There’s a Technology Academy with a focus on technology systems in manufacturing, aviation or medical, and another school with a track in communications technology.
To get an idea of what these schools have to offer we have attended several open houses where the school administrator and several instructors give presentations about what the school has to offer as we try and make a decision about what will provide our son the most opportunities and benefits.
Without fail, each of these presentations I have attended has been teeth-grittingly awful. Not the substance of what they’re presenting, but their use of what is some of the most basic presentation technology today is embarrassing. Videos where the audio is out of sync and/or distorted. Presenters who can’t find their way around Powerpoint. Multiple presenters trying to switch between presentations on one laptop and not knowing where anything is or which mouse button to click.
I will admit that because this is the business I am in, I am more sensitive to this sort of un-polished presentation that most. But if you’re going to stand on stage and explain to me how you’re going to prepare my child for a future in a technological world, you should be able to set a better example of how to use the technology in a real world situation.
Bathroom Renovations
This weekend we decided to finally renovate our downstairs bathroom. We had intended I do this a few years ago while we were painting the first floor, but it fell to the wayside once our daughter was on the way.
While we could have just repainted the bathroom, it would have taken just as long to paint around the toilet, vanity and mirror as it did to remove everything. We were never really happy with the toilet and vanity anyway, so it was a good time for them to go.
We’re almost done on this Saturday evening. The new toilet is in, but we couldn’t fit the new vanity in the car with all of the kids and I have no desire to do any more work in there tonight anyway.
Here’s a picture of the bathroom after the new paint and before putting any of the fixtures back in.
By the way, this post was done from my phone, so it’s sort of a test of that functionality.
✧ ✧ MidWestMyers ✧ ✧ 
(Green) Renovations Update
Last week I wrote about how we were renovating our first floor bathroom, so I thought that I should write about the results and a couple of choices we made.
Saturday night we had everything painted and had gone out and picked our new fixtures. I had the new toilet in by the end of the night.
The next day I installed the new vanity and top along with the mirror, faucet and a new grate for the heat vent and trim kits for the light fixtures.
So while renovating a bathroom is generally a fairly straight-ahead process as far as selecting fixtures, there are some interesting options out there. One thing we did was go with a dual-flush toilet.
This is a toilet with two flush options using different amounts of water depending on what’s being flushed, and shown to save up to 60% of water in a year. The surprising thing about this toilet is that it was one of the more inexpensive models where we shopped for our fixtures, and it was the only one with this feature.I always see these when I travel in Europe, but never anywhere in the US. I do not understand why these are not more common here in the US.
The other choice we made was to install LED bulbs in the light fixtures.
I’ve been looking at LED bulbs for some time now, but the price has always prevented me from buying. With this project I figured that I was already spending a couple of hundred dollars, so I may as well do it right and jump in the with the bulbs. Two of these cost me nearly $80, but I have to say I am really satisfied with them. For years I’ve been using the compact flourescent bulbs and have been less than satisfied with them. They often power on too dim, taking as long a s minute to get to full brightness, the colors are wildly different and often not as advertised, and their lifespan in everyday use is dramatically less than what is claimed. All of these factors are vastly different by manufacturer as well.
After a week with the LED lights I have found the experience to be quite the opposite. The lights come on nearly instantly to full brightness. I have noticed a slight lag from flipping the switch to seeing light, but by the time you’re aware of the lag, about a half second, the light is on. I find it to be a non-issue. Since I put these two in my bathroom, I’ve purchased another, smaller, LED lamp by a different company for our kitchen. It too comes on to full brightness instantly. It also appears that these LEDs run a little brighter than advertised, which is a good thing. Their color temperature is very close to the incandecent lights we’re all used to, so it’s a very comfortable light. The only thing I can’t predict yet is their lifespan, but if it’s even half of what they claim, then I will be very happy with these.
The good news is I see these getting cheaper and more prevalent as they become more popular. I’m hoping to see models that are small enough for some of our ceiling fans but with greater brightness. They have some out now in the right size, but they’re still too dim for my taste, which is the main problem with my current lights.
So, I’m a fan of the LED lights, and I’m happy with our new dual-flush toilet. Time will tell if the cost savings will offset the initial costs, but at least we’re doing our part to help the environment, even if it is just one flush at a time.
Update:. I forgot to mention that there is one thing that I don’t like about the new LED bulbs – their excessive packaging. I hope that this, too, changes as these bulbs become more popular.
Posted by larvamoose on January 15, 2012 in Comments, Home
Tags: Environment, Green