Some Blog Site

Or, How to Clean Your Tub Without Scrubbing

Some of you may recall that we had an iron filter installed.

In case you’re wondering how bad our iron was, you can peruse this photo of our bathtub.

I tried CLR without much success. Soft Scrub seemed to do a little better. No matter what I used, I had to do a lot of scrubbing and it removed much of the staining but not all of it. You may be wondering what the best product is for cleaning rust stains, not only from bathtub but also from sinks and other porcelain fixtures. The answer?
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Continued from last week.

Our drive home took about as long as our drive there, because we stopped a few times again.

I’ve been calling this series “Bluegrass Vacation” because Kentucky is the Bluegrass State. I didn’t know how serious they were about that until we were on the freeway and I saw the blue grass that made Kentucky famous:

That was just south of Cincinnati. I think this next photo is in Cincinnati, as seen from the freeway:

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It’s always interesting raising Gamma. See for yourself:

I’m Not That Old

Gamma: Open your mouth.
Me: Okay…
Gamma, looking: There’s a spider web in there!

Where’s the Party?

Me: Do I want to know why there’s popcorn on the bathroom floor?
Wife: I don’t know. And pretzels too.

Mr. Contrarian

Gamma: No go home! No go home!
Me: Gamma, we are home.
Pause…
Gamma: No go bye-bye!

Continued from last week’s post.

Relaxing at the House

Since I was up late, and since the kids had other people around to help them with breakfast when they awoke, I got to sleep in. I think it was close to 9am when I stumbled upstairs to the kitchen.

Our time at the vacation house involved swimming at the pool, playing games, and napping.

Whenever people were not swimming, their swimwear was drying on the fence. After a while, it was difficult to find a free spot on the fence for your stuff.

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A 10k is a long enough race that you have some time to think. So while I was running my last 10k, I noted some things.

The main thing is that I appreciate good spectators. Whether it’s a 5k, 10k, half marathon, or full marathon, it’s nice to have people cheering.

What prompted this was the spectator who yelled “Run faster!” to me.

I assume she meant well and wasn’t trying to taunt me. But her words were less than encouraging. So here are my thoughts on how to cheer for a runner.
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Not bluegrass the music – bluegrass the state. We took a few days to go to Kentucky.

It’s about a 5 hour drive, but with a 2-month-old and a 2-year-old we couldn’t just drive straight there. So we left the house around 10:00am and got to our destination at 7:00pm – a total of 9 hours for a 5 hour drive.

Our first stop was at a rest area for lunch. That didn’t take too long, maybe 30-40 minutes.

It was a decent rest stop, and the kids enjoyed both the lunch and the time to run around.

They kicked a soccer ball around, and they followed a fuzzy green caterpillar.

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As is my habit during breakfast, I was perusing the cereal boxes at the table.

Various cereal companies have taken to highlighting random nutritional facts at the top of the front of the box. This particular box was no exception.

I was surprised to see that this company has decided to change the symbol for iron.

As anyone who made it through high school should know, the symbol for iron is Fe, not Ir.

This cereal is unknowingly touting its content of iridium. Since iridium is very rare, this must be some special cereal.

They also got the symbol for zinc wrong, but Z is not used for anything else. Z versus Zn is not as obvious as Ir versus Fe.

Maybe they thought people were uneducated and wouldn’t know that Fe means iron. Well then, cereal company, this is your opportunity to improve the world a little. Provide that edumacation that the people need instead of furthering their ignorance.

Looking at the nutrition information, I’m wondering why they chose to tout zinc as high-content.

It’s not like zinc has a higher percentage than most of the other items. Iron does, so I can understand that. But so does folate. Why doesn’t folate get recognized?

Maybe the marketing group or box designers thought people want zinc.

I’d rather have iridium.