Thorns

  

     Yesterday, my wife got me involved in a bit of skullduggery. It involves bushes on my neighbors property. First, I have to tell you about the property. I can't remember the last time there was any repairs done. When the ceilings started falling in, her friends convinced her to move to an apartment, which was not easy. She kept coming back, stay for awhile, and then back to the apartment. The visits got less and less and now I haven't seen her for awhile.
    While out for my walk the other day, I noticed a new piece of paper pinned to the front door. Every summer there were slips of paper telling her to cut the grass or else. This one said she owes back taxes since 2009. Pay up or it goes to auction on July 8. (Yes, I was nosy.) This has happened before, but she rushed in and paid the taxes. She hasn't been around to see the paper, so it may happen this time.
    Which brings me to the bushes. One is a lilac bush, which is getting wider and crushing our fence. My wife had me get out the chain saw and reduce it to half. The other was a thorn bush which became four bushes and started to spread to my yard. So we huffed and puffed and dug and pulled it out.
   Better done now. New neighbors might not like our antics.

Potholes

Yesterday, I read this article about potholes in Halifax. It said that 6000 potholes had already been repaired, with 1700 remaining. My first thoughts were how they came up with this number. Did they have some guy going around counting them? Well, it would have to be a team of two, in case one guy fell in a pothole, the other guy could pull him out.
Another possibility is that the entire Highway's Department teamed up and took one day to count. This problem racked my brain for awhile, until I think I came up with a viable solution. I think they just take the number from last year and add 10%. So that means next year you will know how many they repaired this year.

Power Washer.

I bought a Power washer the other day. Tried it out yesterday. It was just a cheap model from Wal-Mart. $47.00. I only need it for small jobs. The green bin, the garbage cans. I also needed to wash the grease from the bottom of my van, stuff that comes from the undercoating. It usually covers the rocker panels and a few inches up the door. Good enough machine for that.
Winter seems to be coming fast. Cold in the mornings. I had to turn on the Heat Pump on for awhile. Warms up in the afternoon.
I should call my mechanic to make arrangements for an oil change. Normally I do it in Oct. and Apr, but next month I'll be away on my cruise.

Shopping At Sears

Last week I bought a new lawn mower. End of the season, good time to buy. Saw a sale at Sears Clearance Center. 20% off and another 10% off with their card. I knew what I wanter before I got there. 6.5 hp, large rear wheels, rear wheel drive, and rear bag.  It used to be that the grass shot out the side, then it was a bag on the back. Now they come with both.
They had a whole bunch there and I found one I liked. Had everything I wanted plus a hose connection for cleaning under it. That's something new. Good idea. I wonder if I can install one on my other mower. I have two mowers. The other one just shoots out the side. Good for my back yard. Don't need to bag, easy to push, don't need auto drive.
So the original price with tax was $ 575.00. marked down to $196. less 20%, less 10%, no tax. Total price was $160.  So I wheeled it from the store. Used it yesterday, works great.

Robins and Snow.

  

I was looking out the front window and noticed a Robin on the front lawn. He lands back here every spring and has done so for years. He is attracted by the last apples that fell last fall. It seems to be his morning snack every day. As I watched him, I noticed snow flurries again. The 6th of April and still we get snow.

Although I bought a new snow blower a couple of weeks ago, I am certainly not hoping for more snow. I can happily wait till next winter. My neighbour gave me a key to his shed so I could have his snowblower when I needed it. I have a 32" - it is extremely heavy, and it only throws the snow a few feet. Needs a new belt, and again, it is just too heavy to manoeuver.

My wife and son went over to Sears Clearance one Sat. and saw they were getting rid of all blowers. They had a whack of them. They took photos, then came back and showed me. I finally capitulated and went over for a look. By then, there was only three remaining. So I picked up a 27". What I liked most about it was the new feature. There is another switch on it. Just squeeze it and it lifts the wheels and front off the ground. I can just slide it to the next row. There was also one screw missing which is not a problem.




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Tablets Provide Better Print Reader For Older Demos

from MediaDailyNews

Newspapers and magazines may find the tablet a saving grace with older readers.
They have an easier time reading text on tablet computers than print on paper, according to a new study by German researchers -- which may speed adoption by older consumers who enjoy daily news reads, provided that consumer electronics marketers can alter habits.
Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany studied the amount of cognitive effort required to read text displayed on different media, including paper, e-readers and tablet computers. After dividing participants into two groups, one consisting of 36 subjects ages 21-34, the other of 21 subjects ages 60+, the researchers tracked eye movements and brain activity with electrodes to determine how much neural power was required to read text presented in the various formats.

The older readers displayed a lower level of brain activity when reading text on an iPad tablet, the study found, and finished each page of text three to four seconds faster, on average. The researchers attributed this result to the tablet computers’ bright, backlit screens, which enhance contrast and make it easier to distinguish text.
Younger readers showed no appreciable differences in the amount of time or mental effort required to read a page of text, regardless of format.

In November, a study published by researchers at New Jersey’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School found that tablets could help people with moderate vision loss read. The study tracked the reading speeds of 100 subjects with moderate central vision impairment when using iPads and Kindle tablets, versus print. Subjects reading text in 18-point font on the iPad gained at least 42 words per minute in their average reading speed compared to print, while subjects reading the same size text on a Kindle gained an average of 12 words per minute compared to their print reading speed.

Patients with the worst vision (which the study defined as 20/40 or worse in both eyes) showed the greatest improvements when reading on tablet devices instead of print text. People with the worst vision loss also said the iPad provided the most comfortable reading experience.

According to data released by Pew’s Internet & American Life Project, in August 2012 27% of American adults ages 50-64 and 13% of adults ages 65+ owned a tablet computer. Those figures were up from 15% and 7%, respectively, in January 2012, and just 4% and 2%, respectively, in November 2010.


Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/193115/tablets-provide-better-print-reader-for-older-demo.html#ixzz2KayFjLn2


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Hurricane and Walmart

 

First of all, I would like to thank Dixon Rice for inviting me to submit an article for his Blog. Wrote up some of my background and he added it to his site Wredheaded Writer on Monday. Why don't you slip over and see what he has to say? Lots of other guest bloggers.

Today, we are going to get our share of the hurricane. I don't imagine it will be anything like New Jersey. Normally it would have come straight up and hit us here in Nova Scotia. This time it took a sharp left turn and will come around to get us on the backside.

We have a lot of tall maple trees in and around my yard, so that means a lot of leaves to rake. Last Friday we had five bags of leaves and Sunday nine more. Here are some before and after pictures from Sunday. I'm hoping the high winds will blow the rest away or I will have to do it at least once more.

We used to have a Walmart here in the city, a couple of miles away. It had been a Woolco. A few years ago, they decided to close down and move to the industrial park on the way to the airport. Everyone was upset about it and my trips

                                                    there decreased considerably.

 

                                                                                   Now they have decided to return to the city. They will move into a defunct Zellers, which will be smaller than a regular Walmart. So everyone is excited about it as it will be within walking distance, which could be a bad thing.