The Last Straw

My other entry about using the tab on a soda can to hold your straw and keep insects out of your drink, made me think about something from my youth. Yeah, from spending time with my grandparents. I spent a lot of time with them in the kitchen, so there were always a lot of "drinks" around. And, the best way to sip them was through a straw. When was the last time you made and enjoyed a Black Cow? Since there were a lot of glasses around, my grandparents had a lot of straws. Usually they were they were the inexpensive plastic ones, but since my grandfather used to work in a bar, he actually had some made of glass. So, I decided to do some research about current "trends" in straws.

To summarize, I'll keep it less technical and more informative. According to what I've read about the history of straws, the first ones were made from paper or reeds found in the local marsh. Things evolved, and they were eventually made from glass and metal. And yes, like you get at any local fast food restaurant, plastic. Did you know that McDonald's give away nearly 52 million plastic straws per day? And they are all thrown away. Not to be remiss, how many packages of plastic straws do YOU buy every week?

Okay, to get on the hippie soapbox and make a statement. Remember that most plastic straws are made from petroleum and then you throw them away after one use. With today's cost of oil, why continue to use a disposable item that increases the draining of the oil fields? And, when they are disposed, they end up in the dump, where they will never truly degrade. Not to mention how many toxins plastic emits (while you are drinking that beverage or when you dispose of it).

Pic from Glass Dharma

I guess I'll just summarize that because of my concern about the Earth (reducing the use of oil and the toxins in the dump) and because I am a fairly retro kind of guy, I'll be ordering some glass straws from the following sites. They come with a cleaning brush and are dishwasher approved (so I'll know they are sterile). And some sites have the different sizes available for different drinks. Yeah, technology progression is a good thing...

Decide where you stand on being more organic...and happy sipping... The following links are to sites that provide you the option of having non-oil/toxic straws. They might not work for the "thread the soda can tab" thought, but they can be decorative, personalized, straight and bent, reusable, a cost savings, and most important - life enjoyable.

Where to get straws:

• Glass Dharma
• Strawsome
• Amazon

Birdcage Liners Have Changed

As I sat here this morning booting up my laptop and HP Tablet, it struck me that times have changed. I'm just glad I've kept up with things, because I've changed too...maybe I'm just getting old... Naw, just learning new ways to keep in touch with the world.

I guess part of it is because I'm old enough to remember one of my first jobs, which was to hand-fold and hand deliver the Pittsburgh Press to my neighbors at the front door. Then once a month, ring the bell and ask them to pay me. I made sure to carry a box of dog treats in my heavy canvas bag so I could make doggy friends all over the neighborhood (and not get bit). Now remember, that was in the 80s so we didn't have iPods or MP3 players yet, but I wore out a LOT of cassette tapes in my Sony Walkman...

Now we fast forward to the early 2000s and a few of the changes I've noticed. Daily newspapers are delivered by adults in cars and put into the mailbox or the newspaper box out by the curb. My weekly free local newspaper is actually delivered by the US Post Office person in my mailbox with the junk mail and bills. Nobody rings a doorbell to collect, they send you a bill and you can pay it online. That must really cut down on the tips and Christmas bonuses that carriers get.

We have to jump to the next chapter of the Blu-Ray to bring us to today. My observation today was that I boot up my laptop and Firefox browser so my email, blog, and Facebook tabs open. I boot up the HP Tablet because my RSS Reader tab is there. All of them are prompting me for my ID and password, so I dutifully enter them so I can get access to my "news." I use the laptop to respond to the 5 email accounts, and "occasionally" log into Facebook. I use the HP Tablet to monitor my 15 subscriptions in Google Reader for my news. I use the tablet because I can walk around with it, sit on the porcelain throne with it, sit on the patio in front of a fire, and walk the dog with it. That is how I get news.

By using the Google Reader, it allows me to subscribe to news channels from all around the world and have one place to check for all of the blog entries that are made. It is efficient and allows me to see "at a glance" what is going on everywhere on Earth. While I strongly encourage you to learn about Reader and RSS subscriptions because it is more efficient, just keep in mind that you'll lose your newspaper.

Traumatic Brain Injury - Part V - Prevention

Every 16 seconds in the U.S., a person suffers a TBI. This entry is related to how to PREVENT being a statistic. For a traumatic brain injury (TBI), there is no cure, only prevention. What can a person "do" to prevent this? Most things are common sense, but my suggestions focus on falls because they are the biggest cause (see TBI Part II Causes). These suggestions have been collected from various websites and from my own personal experience. Links to all of the other websites appear on the TBI entries I've made (click on the Misc/Brain Dump page above for related posts or the related links at the end of this post).

Falls can occur in nearly ANY part of daily life, and we rarely pay attention to each and every move we make. Here are some common sense things that can help you prevent a fall and possible TBI:

• Use handrails on stairways and look at the steps when walking 
• Stop reading the mail or magazine 
• Look for items that have been left there
• Provide lighting on stairs for people with poor vision or who have difficulty walking
• A nightlight at the top or bottom is a good idea at night
• Sit on safe stools and chairs. 
• Wobbly chairs collapse, stools tip, throwing you to the floor
• Do not place obstacles in walking pathways (such as stairs, hallways and traffic patterns)
• If a cabinet door is open on a cabinet in the kitchen and you drop something on the floor, be careful standing back up or your head may impact against the bottom of the open door
• Use a mat/rug on bathroom and kitchen floors (near the tub/shower and sinks)
• Those 2 floors are notorious for getting wet. You do NOT want to slip on one (that is what happened to me). 
• Trying to get back on your feet isn't easy and you can repeatedly fall, making the injury even worse.

The second largest part of our lives that cause falls, are sports and physical activities. Here are some suggestions focused on them. Most sports (football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, etc.) have specific requirements for the gear that must be worn to protect the various parts of the body. I am focusing on the points below because they are about helmets, which help prevent TBIs. I'm not here to explain the pros or cons about helmets, simply provide you with some suggestions and information.

• Always wear a helmet when on a bicycle, motorcycle, scooter, snowmobile, jet-ski



State Helmet Laws
Some Local Helmet Laws
White states have no known helmet laws




• Some states have laws about helmets for under 18 age people riding bicycles and this site [link] shows info and has a lot of good links about other issues surrounding helmets. The image to the right is an overview of the states that have known/reported laws.
• Wear a helmet while skiing, snowboarding, skating and skateboarding
• Wear a helmet when participating in contact sports
• Not just in "official" ones, but even during the weekend pick-up games

I mention contact sports in the last bullet because I am a ref for a roller derby league and have been at countless bouts where a skater (or even ref) has been knocked down and hit their head on the floor. Helmets are required to be a competing skater or ref (yes, they sometimes get taken out). Basically what a helmet does in any of the activities mentioned above is PREVENTS a fall from being a severe TBI and reduces it to a mTBI, more commonly known as a concussion.

Overall, use common sense in your daily life and when taking part in any physical activity... your head will thank you.

Related Links

• TBI Part I
• TBI Part II - Causes 
• TBI Part III - Types 
• TBI Part IV - Recovery & Rehab