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I think that someday people will look back to this decade and wonder “What were they thinking?” regarding cell phones and tablets and notebooks and laptops. It’s about the same way that we wonder what people were thinking regarding cigarettes 50 years ago.

There are studies and research and stuff about the negative effects (or lack thereof) of radiation from cell phones. The results are mixed, but studies are always like that. (And by “radiation” I mean electromagnetic radiation, not nuclear radiation. “Radiation” as in something that radiates or travels outward from a point source, in this case the radiation is electromagnetic waves.)

Until the results start converging, I prefer to play it safe.

Every year, there are more and more signals added to the air waves. First it was just radio. Then came TV. Then microwave ovens.
Cordless phones.
Baby monitors.
Video monitors.
Cell phones.
Wi-Fi.
I don’t know what the breaking point is, but I don’t want to find out.

• I use my cell phone as my alarm clock, so it stays on my nightstand (right near my head) all night.
• My kids will occasionally play games on my phone. And their bodies and brains are still growing and developing.
• No one ever calls me, other than my wife. That’s fine – I like to keep the cell phone for urgent matters (They’re out of the sausage links that you put on the grocery list. Do you want something else instead or should I skip that one? Okay. Bye.) and not for chit-chat.

Because of all those reasons, I put my cell phone into airplane mode when I get home from work each day. There are still cell signals flying through the house, but they are reduced. My phone does not generate any cell signals (or wi-fi either).

As an added benefit, I don’t need to worry about my kids inadvertently buying or downloading games or clicking on ads or calling someone while they’re playing a game. And most of the games use a server to generate the ads, so without an internet connection, the ads don’t even appear in the games. And no phone call will interrupt my game.

That’s only at home. At work, I keep my phone in normal mode. But I don’t wear it. I set it on my desk so the radiation-generating point is not so close to my body.

Time may prove that EMR does not effect any health problems. But until then, why not play it safe? It takes me just a couple of taps to put my phone in airplane mode. It’s free and easy.

Two recent experiences have taught me the lesson that you should always check the per-unit price:

Light Bulbs

I was in the store to buy light bulbs. There was a pack of normal light bulbs, and there was a pack of double-life light bulbs.

The double-life light bulbs are supposed to last twice as long as normal light bulbs. At least that’s what the packaging said.

I was tempted to buy them, because then I would have to change (and therefore buy) light bulbs half as often.

Then I noticed the price – they cost more than double the regular bulbs.

So I could spend $2.48 twice or $5.48 once for the same amount of light-years.
(what? that measurement is already taken? How about light-hours? Okay.)

I went with two packs of the normal bulbs.

“New and improved” might mean a price hike.

“Chocolate” Syrup

Yes, I added those quotes on purpose. The syrup has “real chocolate flavor” not necessarily “real chocolate”, so I feel those quotes are appropriate.

My kids are going through a chocolate syrup phase right now, probably similar to the Nestle Quik phase that my side of the family went through about a dozen years ago.

At the grocery store, I reached for the larger container of Hershey’s syrup. For some reason I felt like looking at the price. And I compared the per-ounce price to the smaller container. The smaller bottle had a better price.

The large one (48 oz.) was $3.79 and the smaller one (24 oz.) was $1.75.

“Buy in bulk and save” might not apply to whatever you’re buying.

All in all, I saved about 81 cents on those two items by buying the smaller or worse item. If I were paid by the hour, that probably would not have been worth my time to stop and do the comparisons.

Every little bit helps, I suppose. But there has to be a point at which it’s not worth it.

What’s a good threshold for saying “ah, skip it” and just buying an item without comparing prices (either within the store or between stores)?

Welcome back to the Warrior Dash recap. When we last left our hero, he was running the race. Let’s see where he is now…

The Obstacles

I’ll just list each obstacle and what I thought of it. And I have listed some helpful tips and hints for how to handle these Warrior Dash obstacles. After I realized that the obstacles were prime locations for passing people, my goal was to pass people in the obstacles. Note: the term “cargo net” means ropes connected together to make a grid of one-foot square sections.
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Since I know most of you weren’t there with me at the Warrior Dash, here is my recap of the day:

Background

Warrior Dash is a 3.1-mile race with about a dozen obstacles, most of which require climbing or crawling plus mud.

In my preparation for the half marathon in September, I wanted to do a 5k in July and a 10k in August. There were some 5k races in July around here, but this was the most appealing. If I want to run 3.1 miles, I can do that just about anywhere. A 5k obstacle course, however, doesn’t come along every day.
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I haven’t seen the new Smurfs movie, nor do I intend to see it. Some reviews say it’s okay, some say it’s bad, but I don’t know of anyone who thinks it’s a great movie. Maybe if you have a couple hours to kill and some money to burn… But even then I could think of a lot of other things to do instead.

Regardless of what you think of the movie, you might be interested to know that I was talking with Gargamel and got an old family recipe from him. In the spirit of sharingness, here it is.

Recipe for Smorfs

1 graham cracker
1/2 chocolate bar
1 Smurf

Roast the Smurf lightly over an open flame, being careful not to let him catch on fire. Break the graham cracker in half. Place the chocolate on one piece of the graham cracker. Then place the Smurf on the chocolate. Finally, cover the Smurf with the remaining piece of graham cracker. Enjoy with a glass of milk.

Some of you may have ignored this post when you saw that the title contains the word flowchart. But that would mean that you’re not reading this, so why am I bothering to explain that?

Here are two flowcharts that document how we possibly handle things here in our family. “Things” being the two most commonly-asked questions at dinner: May I be excused? and Can I have dessert?
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Warning: vacation recap ahead.

Visit last year’s recap of our trip to Maranatha for a refresher course, or to see how similar trips to Maranatha are. We want them to be similar, because kids need traditions.

Here’s a tip: if you like attention, take a 3-week-old baby to a place full of families. Everybody loves to see a newborn. I think Delta was the youngest one there, although I heard there was a 1-week-old there the next week.
That would be crazy – check out of the hospital, take a day to unpack, a day to settle in, a day to pack, and then leave on vacation.

The kids liked their programs (morning and evening each day). Beta wanted to go, but he had a fever the first two days, so he missed some of the sessions.
My wife took him to the nearby clinic, where they diagnosed a sinus infection and put him on antibiotics. Then he was good to go.

I tried a couple of new (new to me, at least) ice cream flavors at the sweet shop: Cake Batter and Royal Coconut. Cake Batter was okay, but I probably woudn’t get it again. Cake batter is inferior to cookie dough both in the baking and in ice cream. Royal Coconut, however, was delicious. It tasted like an Almond Joy (or Mounds) candy bar. I highly recommend it, unless you dislike coconut.

Now on to the photos:
Like all good vacation spots with kids’ programs, there was an opportunity for tie-dye T-shirts. Alpha was the only one of our children who wanted to participate.

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