Post-TDay Travel--Water Water Everywhere

YouTube playlists for this article (1, 2),
playlist compilation article

This article was going to be the second of two parts of the Thanksgiving week travel theme. Previously, I wrote about songs about planes, trains, and automobiles, based on the movie title Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. As I dove into writing about other travel modes, I wandered around from song to song.

I concluded I have enough material for a third part, coming out in about a week. (Visit http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/ about the first week in December for it.) This article focuses on music for a prominent mode of travel NOT in the movie title —boats (and other water travel methods). I've listed songs, artists, lyrics sites, and video sites (if possible). Take another trip down memory lane.

Surfboard Travel (On the Water)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Surfin' USA	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Surfin' Safari	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Hawaii Five-O	Various	NA	classic, 2010
Wipeout	Surfaris, Ventures	NA	S, V
Pipeline	Chantays, Ventures	NA	C, V	1st video—Chantays' Lawrence Welk appearance: Check out the Beatles' suits, pre-Beatles
New York's a Lonely Town	Trade Winds	Click	TW
Surfer Joe	Surfaris	Click	Surfaris
Surfer Girl	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Catch a Wave	Beach Boys	Click	BB	same tune as Sidewalk Surfin'
Sidewalk Surfin'	Jan and Dean	Click	J & D

Boat Travel (Also on the Water)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Sea Cruise	Frankie Ford	Click	FF
Come on Down to My Boat	Every Mother's Son	Click	EMS
Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)	Enya	Click	Enya
Sailing	Christopher Cross	Click	CC
Come Sail Away	Styx	Click	Styx
Advemtures in Paradise	Lionel Newman composer	NA	LN
Sloop John B	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Sail On, Sailor	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Beyond the Sea	Bobby Darin	Click	BD
Blue Navy Blue	Diane Renay	Click	DR
Kiss Me Sailor	Diane Renay	Click	DR, DR & ER	1st video—live performance 2nd video—duet w/Ed Rambeau, one of the song writers, who also wrote and recorded "Concrete and Clay"
Brandy	Looking Glass	Click	LG
In the Navy	Village People	Click	VP

Underwater Travel (In the water)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Yellow Submarine	Beatles	Click	Beatles	Legos video animation
Pink Shoelaces	Dodie Stevens	Click	DS	“He takes me deep sea diving in a submarine!”
Sea Hunt	David Rose composer	NA	DR

The catchy song that takes you from land to water is "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (Brian Hyland): lyrics, video.

Turkey Week Travel--Planes, Trains N Cars

YouTube playlists for this article (1, 2),
playlist compilation article

The day before Thanksgiving is supposed to be the most heavily traveled day, at least for flying. I'm thinking that lots of people travel during the entire week. As we're rapidly approaching the big day itself, I'm bringing up a Thanksgiving-theme comedy movie and putting a music wrapper around it. Planes, Trains & Automobiles. which came out in 1987, stars Steve Martin and John Candy. From the IMDB site, the short introduction states, "A man must struggle to travel home for Thanksgiving, with an obnoxious slob of a shower ring salesman his only companion."

The movie title is about the modes of travel that the two main characters use to get from here to there, and there, and there, …. The time setting is long before 9/11, and well before TSA. It's amazing how air travel rituals have changed. Even now, maybe especially now, who knows the next paths that air travelers follow, willingly or not?

This article focuses on music that feature the movie's three modes of travel—planes, trains, and cars. I've listed songs, artists, lyrics sites, and video sites (if possible). During my web research travels, I had encountered songs that featured additional travel modes. Having accumulated lots of references, I'm publishing two parts. For this part, take a trip down memory lane with songs that feature the movie's travel means. The second one—well, wait for it (the next article). Let's say it'll be another trip with more ways of locomotion to sing about.

Planes

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Leaving on a Jet Plane	Peter, Paul, Mary; John Denver	Click	PPM, JD	Catch the duet with John and Mama Cass Elliot.
Daniel	Elton John	Click	EJ
Jet Airliner	Steve Miller Band	Click	SMB
Back in the USSR	Beatles	Click	PM; Beatels	Paul McCartney in Red Square 2003, Beatels—decent Aussie tribute band
Eight Miles High	Byrds	Click	Byrds

Trains

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Night Train	James Brown	Click	JB
Midnight Train to Georgia	Gladys Knight and the Pips, 2012 Yale Whiffenpoofs	Click	GK & Pips, YW	I encountered links to the Yale Whiffenpoofs during research for this article.
Midnight Special	Johnny Rivers	Click	JR
City of New Orleans	Arlo Guthrie	Click	AG younger, AG older	Arlo sounds the same after all these years.
Folsom Prison Blues	Johnny Cash	Click	JC

Automobiles

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Fun, Fun, Fun	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Little Deuce Coupe	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Little GTO	Ronny and the Daytonas	Click	R & D
Hey, Little Cobra	Rip Chords	Click	RC
409	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Pink Cadillac	Natalie Cole, Bruce Springsteen	Click	NC, BS
Hot Rod Lincoln	Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel	Click	CC, RB
Mustang Sally	Wilson Pickett	Click	WP
Sister Christian	Night Ranger	Click	NR	"You're motoring, What's your price for flight …"
Little Old Lady from Pasadena	Jan and Dean	Click	J & D
Nadine	Chuck Berry	Click	CB
Maybelline	Chuck Berry, Johnny Rivers	Click	CB, JR
No Particular Place to Go	Chuck Berry	Click	CB
Drive My Car	Beatles	Click	Beatles
Vehicle	Ides of March	Click	Ides
Taxi	Harry Chapin	Click	HC
Cab Driver	Mills Brothers	Click	MB
Low Rider	War	Click	War
Beep Beep	Playmates	Click	Playmates
Shut Down	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Dead Man's Curve	Jan and Dean	Click	J & D

Visit my other music-topic articles:

• Moe-SKI-Toe--I've Got Me Under Your Skin
  Info about mosquitoes, accompanied by links to content and images, my parody "I've Got Me Under Your Skin", and links to my target song.
• Fish Fries Telephone
  Mini-lesson about commas and an abbreviated parody of Lady Gaga and Beyonce's "Telephone" song.
• Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa
  Technical communicator parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s monster hit “Bad Romance”.
• Body Parts Express
  Huey Lewis' "Hip to be Square" triggering thought of "hip" as a body part rather than a social attribute, which results in my article about various body-part usages in songs and expressions.
• Year-end Fun-AT-tix and More Same Song Titles
  Seasonal homophones for year end and more same-song-titles/different-song examples.
• Dual-theme "Weird Al" Yankovic Songs
  Weird Al parodies that capture music from one song and integrates lyrics and visuals of his vision from another song.
• Same Song Titles, Different Songs
  Example songs that have same song titles but are different songs entirely.
• Some Wordplays Placed in the Wicked Play (and Other Wicked References)
  References to "For Good", "Defying Gravity", "I'm Not That Girl", "As Long as You're Mine", "The Wizard and I". I also include some background about main Wicked characters.

A Convenient Bean Soup

Now that the weather's getting cooler, thinking about soup. My basic *convenient* soup recipe calls for a can of refried beans and fluid. The image at the top of this article is an idea guide, usable as an auxiliary shopping list. If you can boil water, you can easily make the soup.

The ratio of fluid to canned refried beans is one to one. YMMV for soup thickness, depending on the brand you buy. You might want to start out with half the amount of fluid in case the brand put in more cooking fluid for their processing. (Yes, have done that before, too.)

These instructions make one quart of soup if using a standard 16-oz can of beans. If you want, you can halve the recipe and save the other half of the beans for another time. Or you can store the other half of the processed soup for another sitting.

Instructions

1. Open the can of refried beans.
2. Spoon the beans into a saucepan.
3. Use the can to measure fluid, then pour the fluid into the saucepan.
4. Stir and heat the contents.
5. Add whatever ingredients from the list, or anything else that sounds good. (If you want, add these ingredients AFTER you pour the soup instead of before.)
6. Pour into bowl(s).

If you buy the packaged refried beans, double the amount of fluid and follow the package instructions.

One additional idea—for a group gathering, heat several cans of refried beans and water in a large pot. Set aside bouillon powder. Acquire all the suggested add-ins. Let the guests ladle their own soup and add in what they want. Remember to have extra bowls and spoons on hand. Expand on a party idea. With a bunch of the ingredients, you could even move sideways with the thought and try queso dip and chip ideas.

Another convenient soup recipe you can try is my veggie lentil soup.

Q4 Lights N Decor, Halloween Sights N More

More and more, appearances by outdoor lights and decorations have been creeping backward and forward in the calendar in the 4th quarter. What formerly had been prominent displays only during the end of the year started showing up near Thanksgiving, staying around into the following year. This year, Halloween lights and decorations seem to have started as soon as early October.

In past years, simple paper-bag-shape lights lining driveways and walkways seem to have made way for Christmas lights, air-pumped lawn balloons, tree-hanger illuminators, and other lawn decorations. During the years that Christmas displays have become more elaborate, illuminating, and animated, Thanksgiving themes have been creeping in as if they were preludes to the BIG EVENT. Think inflatable pilgrim-outfitted turkeys.

In more recent years, Halloween decorations have gone on display since much of October. There are ghosts and ghouls, jack-o-lanterns, black cats, graveyard scenes, and more. Lights? Lots! A few years ago, they seemed to be primarily orange. Black is a common color for Halloween, but pretty impractical. This year, I've seen several houses that have multiple-color lights.

I think a possible trend could be lights and decorations that segue from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas. Well, maybe not all three events. You CAN have common items for Halloween and Thanksgiving using a harvest theme—pumpkins, orange lights, straw brooms, maybe more. Thanksgiving to Christmas might be less likely for common items. Hmmm, maybe make up an inflatable turkey wearing a red suit? (Yow!) I think that's a worthwhile marketing idea, maybe not too far-fetched! In any case, multicolor lights can make it through all three holidays, starting in early October through a few weeks in January.

Technologically, I wonder how feasible it might be to make strings of lights that are programmable for color. I know there are already light strings that blink, flicker, and chase. If someone could come up with lights that are programmable for motion and color, the lights would be REALLY multifunctional. Maybe a three-color lights gadget (red/blue/green) in a string of many that can display any one color or combination? Maybe a chasing-lights rainbow display? Programmable lights for color could be useful even for Valentine's Day and Easter! Well, one possible obstacle might be the association of red lights to a different meaning ("red light district").

For decorations versatility, companies could come up with inflatable balloons of cutesy kids that wear velcro-fastener outfits of holiday-theme clothing. How about witchy or batty for Halloween, pilgrimy for Thanksgiving, Santa Clausy for Christmas, …. Further use of my hypothetical kid balloons could include outfits with red hearts for Valentine's Day. For Easter, they could wear springy outfits (maybe including duck-bill hats and rabbit-ear headgear) and hold Easter egg baskets.

It might only be a matter of time before marketeers successfully induce mass use of outdoor decorations for Valentine's Day and Easter. They are very good at getting people to prep for those days, seducing us to buy holiday main-course food, desserts, and candy. Speaking of which, we sure don't need to wait for THOSE events to start in on the consumables. There's a lot going on this quarter!

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For more articles about Halloween, enter "Halloween" in the search box at the upper left of this window. Or find and click "Halloween" link at Partial Index of Keywords section (just below Popular Posts section).

DIY Bizcards and Name Tag

Attending meetups and attaching sticky-back name tags that you print or write your name on? Attending meetups and NOT having any name tags at all? Prepare for the next event by making your own tag and also having your own DIY business cards. Visit https://www.box.net/shared/usayfv8pv4, download my Word file, and modify it using instructions farther down in this article.

When I attended a networking meetup about a week ago, I received compliments about my name tag as I introduced myself. The tag was black on white, business-card size, double-side-tape attached to a paper trade-show card—all tucked into a clear, trade-show badge. I explained that I had attended so many networking events that I made up my own name tag.

As a writer, I considered the appearance of my tag to be an opportunity to display typography know-how. The tag displays my name and occupation, readable for type size and type face. Furthermore, I inserted Webdings that I felt symbolized my occupation—computer, sheet of paper, open book, stack of books, world globe, spider, and spider web. For subtle grouping, I enclosed a dotted rectangle around the globe, spider, and web.

The name tag is one of 10 cells that fit on a 2 x 5 grid, suitable for printing onto perforated card stock, commonly available at office supply stores. (Do a Google Image search for "perforated business card paper" to see packaging.) My process represents an alternative to getting business cards from Vistaprint and similar companies. And you also get a name tag as a bonus. With the Word file I have made available at https://www.box.net/shared/usayfv8pv4, anyone can use it to create their own business cards and name tag.

Instructions

1. Download the file and save it to your drive.
2. Edit each line of one business card cell to suit yourself. Save the file.
3. Select and copy that cell's information to your clipboard.
4. Paste the information onto one of the business card cells to see if the pasting looks good.
• If the pasting is good, continue to paste the information onto the other eight business card cells.
• If the pasting is not good, undo the paste. You might need to copy/paste special, line by line.
5. Modify the name tag cell as you wish. Save the file.
6. Print a test copy of the file onto plain paper. (Don't worry about the paragraph markers, non-printing symbols, and borders printing. They won't.)
7. Overlay the paper over a perforated card stock sheet, checking that the information aligns and also that each cell's information is well within its borders.
8. Adjust information alignment and looks as necessary.
9. Print the file onto a sheet of the perforated business card stock.

Suggestion: Save the file under a slightly different name. Copy a business-card cell, replace the name tag cell, and save the file so you have a file with only business cards.

For those who want to consider name tags that attract more attention than static ones, get one that scrolls. In my article—"Inventions Running Around the Blockhead"—I mention scrolling name tags (accompanied by URLs) and someone who has created her own to wear at events.

PDF2W--Converting PDF to Word-recognizable Format

You have a PDF file that you would like to convert to .doc or .rtf and you don't have access to an Adobe Acrobat version that will. How to convert for cheap? Even better, how about for free? Try two free online converters—Free File Converter (.pdf to .doc) and PDF Online (.pdf to .rtf). I have tried both procedures using an experimental PDF file, listed results for both tools, and discussed the results.

Free File Converter

1. Visit http://www.freefileconvert.com/.
2. Click the Convert File tab.
3. Browse to your input file, a pdf in this case.
4. Select the output format, doc in this case.
5. Click Convert. Wait as instructed.
6. On the new screen, click the file link to open it.

In my own case, my converted .doc file opened as a read-only file and had hard breaks at every line instead of line wrap. It also showed weird lines (correlated to no-longer-functioning hyperlinks) across some of the text. Just as an experiment, I did a save-as to the desktop. I closed the newly saved-as file, then re-opened it to view the actual new results.

The doc file ended up with extra pages, far beyond my experimental doc file of two pages. My observations:

• The converted PDF-to-doc file wound up as six pages:
• 1st page totally blank
• 2nd page with lines that had correlated to the hyperlinks and an image that had been on the first page
• 3rd page with content from original 1st page with no-longer functioning hyperlinks
• 4th page also totally blank
• 5th page also totally blank, but with some weird anchoring
• 6th page with content from the original 2nd page
• The page header converted to regular text.
• The font appearances and section breaks stayed.
• Style names and table formatting didn't carry over.

Cautionary note about Free File Converter results: If your PDF file has anything besides line-breaking text, you can kiss everything else good-bye—line wraps, headers (and presumably footers), tables, selectable images, styles. If you care to apply the PROPER techniques to obtain the looks (not just settle for the looks), you can be looking at all sorts of formatting and adjusting.

PDF Online

• Visit http://www.pdfonline.com/pdf2word/index.asp.
• Click Browse, then browse to your input file, a pdf in this case.
• Click Upload and Convert. Wait as instructed.
• Click the right-click here link to download the zip file.
• In the dialog box, save the zip file to your drive. Extract (uncompress) it. View it.

My observations:

• My PDF converted to rtf.
• Almost all my content turned into tables with extra columns.
• Hyperlinks no longer worked.
• Image was no longer selectable at all.
• The page header converted to regular text.
• The font appearances stayed.
• Style names, table formatting, and section breaks did not carry over.

Cautionary note about PDF Online results, which are similar to Free File Converter results: If your PDF file has anything besides line-breaking text, you can kiss everything else good-bye—line wraps, headers (and presumably footers), selectable images, styles. Table modifications could be a major issue. If you care to apply the PROPER techniques to obtain the looks (not just settle for the looks), you can be looking at all sorts of formatting and adjusting.

Using Free File Converter vs. PDF Online

The major contrast between these two converters is that PDF Online didn't add extra pages. If you want to convert for only looks, the PDF Online results file would probably be easier to work with than Free File Converter results file. You should try both free converters and decide which one to go with.

Free File Converter does all sorts of file conversions, including image formats. Now, here's my shameless plug where I cite Free File Converter and numerous other handy online tools—Tooling Around, at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/05/tooling-round.html.

Moe-SKI-Toe--I've Got Me Under Your Skin

YouTube playlist for this article, playlist compilation article

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Over the weekend, I attended an event at Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas, music provided by the Austin Community College Jazz Band. One song they presented was "I've Got You Under My Skin", composed by Cole Porter.

Cole Porter wrote I've Got You Under My Skin in 1936, as part of the score for the movie "Born to Dance", which fans of Jimmy Stewart may remember as starring Eleanor Powell. (Trivia tidbit: Virginia Bruce actually performed the song in the movie.) The song was such a hit that it was nominated for an Oscar (and Academy Award). Then, the cover versions began appearing.

Frank Sinatra was probably the most celebrated singer to record the song. Shortly after RW (the event singer) sang it, I mused to myself that it could be a mosquito song, titled "I've Got Me Under Your Skin". After a few more songs, the band finished up, and RW came over to put away his trumpet and other items. (Yes! An accomplished trumpet player as well as gifted vocalist!) I told him my thought about the mosquito idea, which he responded to favorably. This positive reaction got me to thinking of writing a parody, which I have included farther down.

During my research about mosquitoes, I encountered several websites about them I found enlightening, entertaining, and amusing. I did a Google image search because I wanted to include an eye catcher in this article. Much of the content appealed to me as well. In the following list, I ranked for content. Underneath each URL, I listed the link for the image with my image ranking. The image at the top is one of many images that the website encourages downloading. As for the other images, I omitted displaying them because of copyright concerns. (They're worthwhile looking at!!!!)

1. Coloring page mosquito bite
1. http://www.edupics.com/mosquito-bite-t11826.jpg
2. Mosquito Coloring Pages (a site for downloading mosquito ringtones and coloring images)
6. http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/coloring/mosquito8-thumb.gif
3. Facts: The Mechanics of a Mosquito
3. http://www.homelanddefensecorp.com/images/mosquito-anatomy.gif
4. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/mosquito/Mosquito.shtml
2. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/mgifs/Mosquito_bw.GIF (Very detailed diagram!)
5. 14 things you didn't know about mosquitoes (a Sameh Fahmy blog article)
5. http://www.illustrators.net/gothard/images/mosquito.jpg (Run away! Run away!)
6. Kids’ information Mosquitoes
7. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/education/stowawayskidspages/images/mosquito.jpg
7. Healing Tips
4. http://www.healing-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mosquito-parts.gif
For ease of navigating to the images, I've relisted them by my ranking:

1. http://www.edupics.com/mosquito-bite-t11826.jpg
2. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/mgifs/Mosquito_bw.GIF (Very detailed diagram!)
3. http://www.homelanddefensecorp.com/images/mosquito-anatomy.gif
4. http://www.healing-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mosquito-parts.gif
5. http://www.illustrators.net/gothard/images/mosquito.jpg (Run away! Run away!)
6. http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/mosquito-coloring/
7. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/education/stowawayskidspages/images/mosquito.jpg

********************
I've Got Me Under Your Skin

I've got me under your skin.
I've got you deep en-do-der-er-mis.
So deep in your blood where I stuck in my pro-bos-cis.
I've got me under your skin.

I’ve tried to land so light-ly.
I’ve said to myself what a feast! It’s a gonna be so swell!
Your arms, your legs, and your knees. Especially want your neck!
Yes, I want me under your skin.

I'd sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near.
In spite of a warn- ing swat, your sweep-ing hand
Tha-at came so close to my ear.

Don't you know, you fool, you never can win.
You know I’m a teeny bug going after your blood.
By the time you itch, I already hit.
You’re the top. I’m lovin’ it.

Because I got me under your skin.

[musical interlude]

I'd sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near.
In spite of a warn- ing swat, your sweep-ing hand
Tha-at came so close to my ear.

Don't you know, you fool, you never can win.
You know I’m a teeny bug going after your blood.
By the time you itch, I already hit.
You’re the top. I’m lovin’ it.

Because I got me under your skin.
And I like me under your skin.
********************

My primary links about "I've Got You Under my Skin"

• I adapted lyrics from Lyricsfreak.
• I verified (as much as possible) the Lyricsfreak words to Sinatra vocals—Frank Sinatra version (montage & lyrics).

Other YouTube links for "I've Got You Under My Skin"

• Frank Sinatra (date and venue undetermined)
• Michael Buble (date and venue undetermined)
• Four Seasons (montage)
• Steve Lawrence (date and venue undetermined)
• Ella Fitzgerald (still pic, Côte d'Azur 1964)

Inventions Running Around the Blockhead

This article is about some inventions I've thought about lately—ones that are real, and ones I'd like to see become real. Maybe other people can think of inventions they'd like to see in the marketplace, or ones they'd like to create themselves.

I'm impressed with
the miniaturization of computer text. Electronic text displays have come a long way from movie and billboard marquees to very compact displays on phones and name tags. In between those sizes and times, one of my former co-workers came up with a handheld communicator. The intended user, someone incapable of speech (mute), could type text and show it to others. At that time, it seemed a big breakthrough to replace the-paper-and-pencil method I've seen in numerous movies and TV shows over the years. (The most recent instance I saw was a character in a VERY POPULAR TV SERIES communicating by writing down text in English. She had temporarily reverted to speaking in Korean only as a result of her head knock.)

One device I've not seen many of is the programmable scrolling-text name tag, although I've seen lots of ads for them. The links that have most caught my eye are at http://tinyurl.com/AmazonScrollingMsgBadge, http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7c54/, and http://www.usbgeek.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=0598.

One name tag owner I know has had her tag for over a year, and she says she still gets lots of comments. Another person I know has created her own, using spare parts. She says she's gotten lots of comments also. These devices are good for conversation icebreakers. They're novel, not that common. People react to motion; vision edge detectors provide information about relative locations over time. (Companies that target children take full advantage of kids' attraction to motion in addition to using colors and shapes.)

Devices I've appreciated
pertain to grocery stores. Two of them are the self-service checkout station and the techy produce scale.

• The self-service checkout station, found in some stores and in one big box home improvement store, is convenient when I have few items. I consider using the station much speedier than an express line.
• The techy produce scale doesn't just weigh something. I provide the code for the item and print out the price ticket. It's a good way to verify the item name, unit price, and total price.

Would like
a computerized merchandise mapper. When I go to the store looking for something I don't get frequently, the hunt is often a challenge. When it comes to drugstores, home improvement stores, or department stores, I dislike the hunt even more. For me, I feel I waste a certain amount of time hunting for things because

• I have no idea where the item might be.
• I have only a faint idea where the item might be.
• The store moves the item or the category, whether it's down the aisle or over an aisle or two.
• I don't know if the store carries the item.
• I don't know if the store has discontinued the item.

Using a store computer, a customer would select a search term, drill down to more specifics if desired, then have the screen display a map of the store with a customer "You are here" icon and a "It is here" icon. The map might even include a dashed line to suggest a pace route. Think Google walking route map on a smaller scale.

Would like
a dental-mirror-size dual-mirror device wearable for backstroke swimming. I don't like getting my face in the water, so I prefer to do the frogkick backstroke. The downside is not being able to see where I'm going. The logical way to cope is to note reference objects above and slow down or stop accordingly before hitting the the pool wall. Some enterprising soul could come up with such a head-hugging device that has multiple, adjustable, even telescoping positions. The positions would make the device adaptable for different views, even for wearing on a walk to avoid fast approaching, uh, objects.

Would like
a lightweight, transparent, sandwichboard clipboard with broad base for holding papers vertically--useable for paper sheets and recipe cards, and other similar media.

Magnetic or spring-clip holders with concave surfaces are ok, but the curvedness, which I assume exists to help with holding the paper upright, is a small detraction. Flipping pages requires repeated motions if I'm working with manual-size documents. Rotating the device results in convex text, not quite as easy to read as concave text.

I've also tried using large, approximately 2" wide, square, clip magnets. Because the edges are straight, they don't help keep the piece of paper rigid. Adding a piece of thin cardboard, curved slightly backward, helps some, but the non-transparency makes it necessary to flip the paper over. I also tried folding over a piece of transparent mylar to try using it like a sandwich configuration with the paper in the middle. No good. The "sandwich" flops over from the high center of gravity, pulling the clip(s) over.

For a few days, I've laid down a 2" clip with a piece of paper in the jaws. An existing water jug serves as a back wall so the paper rests against it and the text faces me.

Would like
a hybrid hand-buzzer and audible noisemaker. My primary application inspiration is notifying when a small-department meeting or the speaker is running overtime. The hand-buzzer aspect would be the size, shape, and main trigger, pressed by the owner. I suppose a keychain fob would also work, although similarities between devices could result in visual confusion. The noisemaker aspect would be a device that emits variable noises and volumes. I'm not talking about radios, although engineering overdesign might include that feature also.

The noise types could be limitless--short ding chime for gentle notification, loud and long raspberry or body noise for demonstrative disapproval notification. Another application would be use as a hand-held alarm. Sure, I know there are pocket alarms, but they seem pretty feature-limited. Of course, now that I'm talking about variations in noise and volume, the device would require more controls than just a dead man's switch.

For added versatility, the noisemaker could include a bright LED for use as a flashlight. How about muscling it up by also adding a laser pointer for use in meetings? Problem might be that an annoyed meeting attendee might use the lights to harass others. Another feature to consider adding is a sound sampler/player. How cool to record and play back sounds or voice clips of your choosing! The imagination runs amok! Uh, oh, the mischievous self is periscopically poking just above the surface.

One device is more of a curiosity for me rather than something I consider life-changing. I wonder why brass mouthpieces are round instead of lip-shaped. Lips aren't shaped like brass-instrument mouthpieces; brass mouthpieces aren't shaped like lips. ??

Rearview Mirroring TX Towns

Texas has 254 counties and about 1030 school districts. In googling for the exact number of districts, I ran across different totals. Every 10 years, school district boundaries require verification. Texas Education Agency (TEA) is in charge of delineating the borders. The project is harder than it might sound. School districts expand, contract, consolidate, disagree with other districts over where the borders are, use natural borders that change because of nature, etc.

Back in the early 90s, TEA hired me as a contract "mapping technician", a title much more impressive sounding than the reality. I, along with other co-workers, needed to verify Texas school districts' borders according to legal definitions. (School district superintendents mailed back a TEA-sent letter.) Also, we needed to read descriptions that might be subject to different interpretations. One task was taping narrow red tape (!) on paper maps to delineate the boundaries.

During my time at TEA, I logged the names of many cities and towns—160, to be exact—because they caught my eye. I recently ran across my hardcopy file while reorganizing my workspace. Because I couldn't find Broom City in my computer, I knew I'd need to re-key the list before I could write a decent article about the places. As I re-keyed, I could see certain commonalities gel—lots of food, bodies of water, communities, money, gaps and related, wordplay (homophonic), a few names that could either try peoples' spelling or induce residents to learn spelling quickly, comforting words, a few peoples' or celebrities' names, shooter's paradise, ...

I've listed my best theme categories and cities/towns, a subset of the group I logged originally. I omitted county names so they won't dilute the collective impact of the names. A file with the names of all 160 municipalities and their counties is available in a table-formatted file. An asterisk below (*) denotes a municipality that I put into more than one category (asterisked in its first category appearance).

Food (one of my favorite subjects)
Oatmeal, Pancake, Sunny Side Community*, Coffee City, Teacup Community*, Honey Island*, Pecan Gap, Atwater Prairie Chicken (national wildlife refuge), Turkey, Birds Nest [soup], Krum* (okay, not the most appetizing, not normal spelling), Plum, Punkin Center (ok, another not normal spelling), Crabb (phonetic anyway), Hungerford (not food, but related), Bootleg Community*

Water bodies and related
Runaway Bay, Lake Run-A-Muck*, Hide-A-Way Lake*, Lake O' The Pines*, Possom Kingdom Lake, Bland Lake, Lake JB Thomas, Newgulf (24 miles from Old Ocean), Old Ocean (24 miles from Newgulf), Canyon Lake, Canyon Lake Acres, Canyon Lake Forest, Canyon Lake Mobile Home Estates, Canyon Lake Shores, Canyon Lake Village, Canyon Lake Village West, Honey Island (42 miles inland), Rock Island (80 miles inland)

Communities
Bootleg Community, Teacup Community, Sunny Side Community, Tobacco Patch Community, Type Community, Profitt Community*, Ding Dong Community (in Bell County), Eulogy Community*, Welfare Community, Old Bowling Community

Structures
Structure, Sweet Home*, Fosters Store*, Guys Store*, Carls Corner*, Pearsons* Chapel

Words of comfort
Comfort, Point Comfort, Sweet Home, Blanket, Cool, Sublime, Happy, Smiley*, Sunny Side Community, Eulogy Community

Money
Cost, Dinero, Cheapside, Nickel, Dime Box, Jerry's Quarters*, Lohn*

Gaps and related
Cranfills Gap, Indian Gap, Buffalo Gap, Notrees, Nada

Names and celebrities
Bumstead, Kermit, Bigfoot*, Bebe, Panna Maria (Virgin Mary, not bread), Big Sandy, Jerry's Quarters

Shooter's paradise
Gun Barrel City, Cut and Shoot, Bangs*, Point Blank, Trophy Club

Body parts or features
Cheek, Wink, Smiley, Shiner, Bald Hill, Bangs, Whispering Wings, Bigfoot

Hyphenations and apostrophications
Jot-Em-Down, Lake Run-A-Muck, Hide-A-Way Lake, Lake O' The Pines, Hell's Half Acre, Jerry's Quarters

Apostrophe deficiency
Fosters Store, Guys Store, Carls Corner, Pearsons Chapel

Wordplay (mostly homophonic)
Lohn, Hoop and Holler, Priddy, Inadale, Arp, Tye, Blewett, Pyote, Rhome, Profitt Community, Krum, Dew

Other special names
Loves Lookout, Barwise, Pelican Spit Military Airport (Reservation), Tool

Rear-viewing Year of Blogging

I started blogging just about a year ago, having decided my output would be three times a month, which breaks down to one about every ten-day period. For some people, that's way too seldom. Well, that's the pace I can live with. I want to put out quality, well-thought-out writing that frequently includes links, which are often time-consuming to vet.

Journey start
I joined my writing clublet, TheWriteJob, a little over a year ago to meet other writers and would-be writers. The community blog sparked my interest in contributing to it, and to eventually launch my own blog. After having published six articles there, I registered for my own blog. I ported my previous articles over (truncated and linked the earlier articles); and have been publishing here since.

Theme
In setting up my blogspot, I thought about my theme. I came up with "writing mostly for language enlightenment, entertainment, and a-muse-meant". It became more of a guide for me to determine my article topics. Low standards—if I fulfill any of those broad categories for an article, I succeed in achieving my topic goal.

Theme expansion into categories
A few months ago, I added a line to the theme, as I felt categories were starting to pop up. My category labels—language, tech communications, EZ recipes, food, wordplay, humor, music, tech topics, and how-to's—also form the basis of my article today, compiling and analyzing stats of my year in blogging. I'm omitting discussion of Google Analytics. I use them, but don't have enough of a fan base or readership to report anything impressive. :-)

First compilation file
*LinkedIn membership required to view this file*
Awhile back I had created an compilation file that included the article title, linked url, publish timeframe (early, mid, late part of specified month), and summary. The format was 2-column landscape. Recently, I decided to redo the compilation file. Numerous times of adding and removing column breaks with every update to make the file look nice started to irk me.

Second compilation file
(Newer! Improved! Now with category descriptors!)
*LinkedIn membership required to view this file*
The impetus to change the formatting was wanting to categorize the articles, logically the descriptors I thought of. Also, I knew I'd want to write and time an article pertaining to the 1-year milestone. I removed the column formatting and breaks, then converted it into an 11-column table. The first column has the title, URL, and summary, the second column has the date I published, and the rest of the columns have the category descriptors and check marks. Because food is near and dear to my heart, I highlighted food rows in yellow to make them stand out.

For each article, my new compilation file has check marks in the categories I consider appropriate. For further enhancement, I highlighted the rows that had food themes. I did pause over designating some category names for a few articles. For instance, can a food article be a tech article? Yes, I decided "Wanted Unholed Lotta Bagel" fit the descriptor of tech topics because of history, techniques, and related background.

I waffled (food!) over articles about language and technical communications. Most that fit in one category also fit the other category. In looking at my table (place for food!), language was more predominant than my profession of tech comm (writing, editing).

Stats (drum roll! yum!)
Since September 6, 2009, I have published 36 articles. I don't include the current article in my stats, although I will have updated my table to include it (code green). Deciding categories was the longest part of the process. The fun part was tallying everything—the number of check marks for each descriptor, the number of checkmarks for each article—first for each of the five pages of my printout (yes, hardcopy!), then adding them up. Natch, if I had a LOT to tally, I would have put everything into Excel. I used Word. (Gasp!)

Category	Qty check marks
Language	20
Tech communications	14
EZ recipes	8
Food	11
Wordplay	15
Humor	21
Music	10
Tech topics	16
How to's	18

Articles with the most descriptors—a 3-way tie with 6 descriptors each
Fish Fries Telephone
Wanted Unholed Lotta Bagel
Technical Communications Means

Articles with the 2nd most descriptors—a 5-way tie with 5 descriptors each
Vocabs of Steel
Greater Less Fewer More Thans--More or Less
Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa
Pronunciations Heck with Hermione and Homage
Color N R Lives

Rest of article quantities (titles omitted)
Note to novice statisticians: I tic-marked the article quantities and added them up to confirm they total 36—no duplicated counts and no undercounts.

Qty articles	Qty descriptors
2	4
10	3
4	2
2	1

Categories for this article
For this article, I would categorize it into technical communication, food (coupla nibbles!), humor (minor rib ticklers!), tech topics, and how to's. I don't consider light mentioning of the other categories to quite warrant checking off all the descriptors. :-) Although I did not include numbered steps that indicate a process, I think there's enough of a road map feel here for people who want to put information on a grid.

A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch

AHOT (Austin Heart of Texas) Event

AHOT, an organization for printed circuit board design professionals, recently held its annual Vendor Day. It was well-attended—maybe 100ish. Renowned speaker Tom Hausherr, EDA Library Product Manager at Mentor Graphics Corporation, delivered 4 different presentations. The event had 16 sponsors this year, up from 12 last year. You can download the announcement pdf with hyperlinks to the sponsors and speaker if you are on LinkedIn.

Cooky Musings

I decided to take in cookies as I did last year. I'd been wanting to try out a boxed peanut butter cookie mix. Both Krusteaz and Betty Crocker put out a peanut butter cookie mix. Each brand's box contents weigh 17.5 ounces and call for 1 egg, 1 T water, and 3 T oil. The standard yield is 36 2-inch diameter cookies. (I myself wound up with 44.)

I like PB cookies okay, but think of them as somewhat boring. I decided to turbocharge the peanut flavor. I started out mixing the batter according to the box instructions, then added peanuts and Wilton Peanut Butter Flavor Candy Melts—for sale at bakery supply stores and craft shops. Other than dose up the flavor with chopping up and mixing in the two additives, I didn't modify the box recipe.

After I removed a baked batch out of the oven, I was surprised that the chopped candies seemed to have disappeared. I anticipated they would be like chocolate chips or chocolate chunks and be visible. I'm not that knowledgeable about the Wilton candies, but it's possible that they might have a lower melting temperature than chocolate chips and just melted into the cookies during baking. In any case, I received rave reviews for the hefty peanut flavor.

It did take me awhile to settle on a name, although I kicked around other titles, such as "Xtra P-nutty PB Cookies", PB and Pnutty Madness Cookies", "P-nut Trio Cookies", "Triple P-nut cookies", and "P-nut Trilogy". Ed E, a Vendor Day attendee and enthusiastic praiser of my cookies, was the one who suggested "P-nut Trilogy".

Ingredients

To keep the recipe looking uncomplicated, I've listed a somewhat compressed list of ingredients. People experienced enough with cooky baking will have no problems whipping up a batch. Novices might need to peruse the list a little more closely.

• 1 pkg peanut butter cooky mix, ingredients stirred together per instructions (usually requiring combining of water, egg, oil)
• 4 oz. peanuts, coarsely chopped
• 4 oz peanut butter flavored candies, coarsely chopped (e.g., Wilton brand)

Equipment

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• bowl
• measuring cup
• measuring spoon(s)
• small rubber spatula
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Pour the cooky mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
3. In a cup, combine the egg, water, and oil.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Stir in the chopped peanuts.
6. Stir in the chopped candies.
7. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough, then level it.
8. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. (This dough was very dense. After a few dollops, I put on vinyl gloves to shape and dispense the dollops individually.)
9. Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
10. Bake for about 8 minutes.
11. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch [Valentine]
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

Fish Fries Telephone

I intend for the title to evoke huhs for its lack of commas. Blogspot bases URL assignments on article titles and places hyphens as term separators. I’d lose the commas in the URL anyway, and my omission of them gives me an opportunity to lightly inject a writing point. Use commas to separate series of items in written text—in sentences and phrases, bulleted lists, email address fields (Microsoft Outlook being a notable exception for use of semicolon separators instead), and numerous keyword fields.

I initially wanted to write about fast food, which isn’t always fast, by the way. I then thought about several fooderies where the workers seem to toss salt on the fries by the cupful. (Assaulting fries! No pinches here!) I also thought about one particular fried fish chain restaurant in the area that has, um, gone underwater at three different locations within the last few years. I eventually mentally meandered to Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s “Telephone” song, for which several video versions and parodies have been viewable on YouTube for the last few months.

We now reach my parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”. To keep this article reasonably wholesome, I have omitted hyperlinks. (I have dropped some un-breadcrumbs so readers can locate videos and lyrics of “Telephone” and parodies.)

Hello. Hello. I would like to place my order,
Gimme bundled special with a double fishburger,
Make my soda cola and my side curly fries,
Here’s my money. Don’t drop it. I’m handing two fives.
Here are two fives.
Here are two fives.
Here’s my money. Don’t drop it. I’m handing two fives.

Oky dokey, don’t get prickly and defensive,
I didn’t think you’d go rantin’ and have a snit,
Mellow out now. I’m gonna hail your manager,
Yoohoo, manager. Wouldja come over here?
Wouldja come over here?
Wouldja come over here?
Youhoo, manager. Wouldja come over here?

Stop salting, stop salting. You are ruining my fries,
They’re way too salty though I’ve had just one bite,
Why do you gotta throw on way too much salt?
If my blood pressure climbs, it’ll be all your fault.

Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Too much sodium.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Can’t eat ‘em.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
More tator taste, please.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Beggin’ on my knees.

This part’s way too fast, run-on syllables,
Gonna write a couple of bloddy duhs,
Gaga and par’dists sing their stuff so fast,
I’m so amazed and say to them “Congrats!”

Might be able to eke just one more rhyme,
Think I’m starting to hurt and lose my mind,
Getting close to finishing this section,
I’ll never memorize this confe-ection.

Confe-ection, confe-ection.

To gaga more, please visit “Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa”, my abbreviated parody of “Bad Romance”.

Vocabs of Steel

Crunch up those vocabs! This article provides suggestions for those who want to solidify and expand their word power. Make use of dictionaries (definitions, etymology, synonyms), thesauruses, Google lookups, crossword puzzles (printable, online), and other types of word puzzles. A huge influence in building word power is curiosity about words, at least, enough curiosity to look up definitions when encountering new words. In numerous cases, text surrounding new words can also indicate meaning.

Speaking for myself, I believe a lot of my vocabulary building came from reading superhero comic books and running across new words when I was in early grade school. In these kinds of comic books, the protagonist would have dual identities—usually a disguised or costumed character (superhero) and an everyman/everywoman persona (alter ego) that allowed him or her to slip away to emerge as the superself. Common storylines included the main character's social and work interactions with lesser mortals while disguised as someone ordinary, but battling enemies while costumed. Hmmm, my idea of an archetype would be the Man of Steel himself, Superman!

I think vocabulary building benefits by reading comic books tends to fade upon readers reaching the early teens. As it's been years since I had any steady diet of comics, I don't know what level of vocabulary appears these days in spoken/thought balloons and panel-narration phrases.

In the more recent past, I had taken a humanities class that was immensely helpful for building vocabulary: The Greek and Latin Element in English. The required textbook was English Words from Latin and Greek Elements, by Donald M. Ayers and the accompanying workbook. The gist of the course was to recognize syllables pertaining to their basic Greek and Latin origins and their definitions.

A major basic resource to build vocabulary is the dictionary. Two of my favorites are Merriam-Webster Online and Dictionary.com. More major ways to satisfy word curiosity include looking at a word's etymology and synonym(s) in a dictionary. Besides viewing synonym(s) at the dictionary's entry, looking up the word in a thesaurus provides even more information. In Google, prefacing the term with "define: " narrows the results.

Additional ways to expand vocabulary are reading well-written articles, blogs, and op-eds. As a side-effect, well-written pieces provide good examples to emulate mechanics such as proper spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and style. A lesser effective means (to me) of expanding vocabulary is reading online comments, particularly at sites that often invite flame wars or result in them. Many such posts are rife with bad mechanics and incoherency, to say the least.

More to and About m-w.com and dictionary.com

Merriam-Webster Online is accessible using a URL as short as m-w.com. Note various other features of the website. At the FREE Daily Features tab, clicking Daily Crossword (Today's Puzzle) serves up links to puzzles—Universal Daily Crossword, L.A. Times Daily Crossword, and Jumble Crossword (a version of Jumbles that also has vertical terms). The downside to the puzzles are waiting out the commercials. The LA Times puzzle has parameters you can set. A nice feature is instant feedback in immediately showing your typed letter in red if it's incorrect.

Dictionary.com is accessible using a URL as short as dictionary.com. This site has a link to Universal Daily Crossword as does m-w.com, but without a commercial. While at dictionary.com, I ran across an eye-catcher question : "What word has the most definitions?"

"Set" has 464 definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. "Run" runs a distant second, with 396. Rounding out the top ten are "go" with 368, "take" with 343, "stand" with 334, "get" with 289, "turn" with 288, "put" with 268, "fall" with 264, and "strike" with 250.

More about Puzzles

Awhile back, I wrote an article about crosswords. At that time, online puzzles had not entered my mind. In researching material for this article, I encountered online puzzles, initially seeing them as links in a couple of online dictionary sites. One online crossword puzzle site that provides small ones is at http://www.boatloadpuzzles.com/playcrossword. In case you hadn't guessed, the site owners would like you to buy the full-blown application.

A few weeks ago, I had run across a printable-puzzles site. I was unsuccessful seeking it out to cite it here. In trying to actually find places that didn't just go to other links that cited links, I resorted to and was partially successful in doing google image searches for "printable crossword puzzles for free". A reasonable replacement is Want More Crosswords?. Mouse over a puzzle thumbnail, click it to open it in a small-size window, right-click and select View Image to open the puzzle, then print it. (Recommended: Preview it and adjust scale before printing it.)

If wordsearch puzzles is more your type, find a cache at Livewire Puzzles' FREE Printable Word Search Puzzles.

Differentiations among Similar Items and Terms

I have listed some sets of words that present common definition and usage problems, accompanied by enlightening links. No doubt you can think of many other candidate sets; differentiating such terms can help boost vocabulary. One advantage of having my own blog is that I can and do publish content where I can access pet topics without needing to fire up my computer. Anyway, I have provided candidates for comparing and contrasting terms, including compare and contrast.

compare, contrast

compose, comprise
Best excerpt—
If you are confused, just say, "The rock is made up of three minerals," or "Three minerals make up the rock."

conglomerate, conglomeration
My conclusion for difference:
conglomerate: a thing composed of heterogeneous elements; mass
conglomeration: a mass of miscellaneous things

envy, jealousy

farther, further

infer, imply

indifferent, ambivalent, apathetic
Very short explanations as below:
indifferent—no feeling one way or the other
ambivalent—pulled in different directions
apathetic—don't know, don't care

assure, ensure, insure

loan, lend

The following sets pertain to animals.

butterfly, moth
Butterfly/moth differences, including a table with six physical and behavioral differences

yellow jacket, wasp, hornet, etc.

frog, toad

tortoise, turtle

rabbit, jackrabbit, hare

A special category of similar items and terms are homophones, which I discuss in my blog article. Ones that pop into mind frequently are the following sets:

to, too, two
your, you're
there, their

There are various ways to strengthen your word power; get your vocabs of steel! Reinforce, improve, and adopt methods for yourself.

Ailing Fridge and DIY Door-open Alert Unit

This article is about addressing a refrigerator that wasn't optimally turning on and off and a gadget that sounds off to help prevent at least one possible reason. Three possible common causes for a sickly refrigerator are a malfunctioning compressor, dirty coils, ice inside the freezer walls, or a combination. The refrigerator part of this article discusses assessing for and resolving for ice inside the walls—defrosting the entire unit and cleaning it during the process. The gadget part (DIY door-open alert unit) of this article discusses the project.

Ailing Fridge

I've occasionally taken out an armful of items, then forgotten to fully close the door. One problem has been the compressor overworking, causing icing up inside the freezer walls, resulting in appliance underperformance. Recent symptoms indicating all was not well included the following:

• The fridge seemed to be running all the time instead of in on/off cycles.
• Eggs toward the back of the fridge froze or partially froze.
• Water pitchers occasionally wound up with shallow icy layers.
• Fresh spinach leaves froze about the upper three leaf layers.

Tweaking refrigerator settings didn't seem to always resolve the problems. The longer-term process for resolution was to defrost the refrigerator/freezer, which included emptying it out and leaving the doors open for a couple of days, ensuring any possible ice in the walls would melt and the water drip away. The main sections of the process are total defrost preparation, defrosting, and cleaning.

Preparation for Total Defrost of the Refrigerator

1. Over time, consume all freezer items.
2. Over time, consume fridge items that needed refrigeration. If not consuming them all,
1. Give them away.
2. Throw them away.
3. Obtain dry ice to store the items in an ice chest for up to 48 hours.
4. Ask someone a favor of storing the items.

Defrosting of the Refrigerator and Freezer

1. Turn off all controls.
2. If you have an icemaker, turn off the water supply to it.
3. Unplug the refrigerator.
4. Completely empty out the refrigerator.
5. Empty out the refrigerator's drip pan.
6. Leave the refrigerator's doors open.
7. If possible, place buckets or pans underneath the open doors to catch possible melting-ice drips.
8. Monitor for drips for a day or two. Could be messy.

Tasks to do During Defrost Wait-Time

1. Remove shelves, crispers, and other removables and wash them. (I washed mine in the bathtub using soapy dishwater.)
2. Wipe the refrigerator interior surfaces with a solution of 2 tablespoons baking soda and 1 quart water. If your own manual specifies otherwise, follow that manual's instructions. Rinse with clean-water rinsed/wrung cloth. This stage might take several passes to wipe down all the surfaces.

DIY Door-open Alert Unit

The fridge door-open alert unit is useful to remind people to close the refrigerator door. After several seconds of the refrigerator door being open and the photocell being exposed to light, beeper emits a continuous whine. When the door closes, the sound decreases until the capacitor has been fully discharged. The device also serves as a good reminder to reduce time putting away cold groceries and also minimize dawdling in front of an open fridge.

The information and schematic for the Refrigerator Door Alarm is at http://www.techlib.com/electronics/kitchen.html. Note that the author suggests a 10uF capacitor across the battery, but doesn't show it on the schematic. (We omitted that capacitor also.) As this project is intended for a DIYer who does not require hand-holding and can fill in blanks, I have not included step-by-step information to create it.

If you are a hardware DIYer, you can obtain the parts fairly easily and breadboard and test the guts one day. Another day, you can wire and solder the discrete parts onto a project board, power the unit up, and have it operational. If you want to fancy it up, you can put the project into a metal project box, then set it in a small plastic tub to keep it off refrigerator shelves.

The parts came from hobby part drawers, Radio Shack (photocell from 5-pack 276-1657, buzzer 273-0059/273-059, 1/2 board 276-148), and Fry's Electronics (2 NTE123AP equivalents to 2N4401 transistor substitutes for the NPN Darlington transistor—seemingly not a commonly stocked part, zener diode NTE5009A). Overall packaging notes are as follows:

• Already having a Bud Industries CU3000A aluminum project box on hand that measures 2.75" x 2.12" x 1.62"
• Placing standoff-function hardware at the box's base to allow horizontal placement of a 9-volt battery (power source) beneath the assembled board—standoffs or spacers also suitable (Used 6-32 machine screws, nuts.)
• Placing the buzzer outside the box for sound carrying (Used 2-56 machine screws, nuts.)
• Drilling a hole on the box's side opposite the buzzer for light to reach the photocell

Note: In our case, we used a project box. When doing the final assembly, screwing the lid on required time that exceeded the time allowed before the alarm went off—an annoyance until the unit went inside the fridge and the noise fully abated.

Visit a lighter side of a refrigerator alert unit, which does not include a time delay before sounding off.

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

My convenient cooky recipe this time is my third one using cake mix. The other two have Valentine's Day and Easter themes. The German Chocochip Bites evoke German chocolate cake taste with predominance of chocolate, coconut, and pecans. The recipe yields about 55 soft and chewy cookies.

• 1 box chocolate or devil's food cake mix
• 1 can coconut pecan frosting
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 6 oz. chocolate chips
• 2 eggs

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• bowl
• measuring cup
• measuring spoon(s)
• small rubber spatula
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the cake mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
3. In a bowl or large cup, combine the melted butter, eggs, and frosting.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough so it looks more than rounded and less than heaping (about a 4-teaspoon measure).
7. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
8. Bake for about 13 minutes.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

If you want to make smaller cookies but more of them, level off the tablespoons of dough instead of rounding them. Bake for about 10 minutes instead of 13.

Note: My German Chocochip Bites cooky is an adaptation of a foodista recipe for Coconut Pecan Cookies, which calls for 4 ingredients: yellow cake mix, coconut pecan frosting mix, melted butter, and eggs.