Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Hand Sanitizer — My Fav Formula

NOT a hard and fast formula, because your available ingredients may vary from mine. For example, I list “melaleuca alternifolia oil,” but what I use is 100% melaleuca oil refined to T36C5, meaning 36% terpinen-4-ol (the active anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral portion of the oil), 5% cineole (the penetrating fraction of melaleuca oil). The “aloe vera gel” I use is also just what is available to me.

In a one ounce bottle:
25 drops of melaleuca oil + aloe vera gel to the 1/4 bottle mark
Everclear™ (95% ethanol).

Shake well before each use.

The resultant mixture should exceed 70% alcohol (CDC, et al recommend 60% alcohol in hand sanitizer that uses alcohol), plus the antiseptic properties of melaleuca oil and the skin conditioning of the aloe vera lotion. Then, of course, there is the pleasant (to me, at least) aroma of the melaleuca oil.

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Sometimes Too Much of a Good Thing. . .

. . . is just too much.

Semi-sorta-annual checkup yesterday (my “permission slip” visit for a lisinopril scrip). My BP and pulse were up a tad, probably due to both recent disruptions of sleep pattern (exigencies calling for me to be up ~0300-0430, at the least, for example) and pain from dislocated knee (it’s getting better w/o physician intervention, but OTC pain meds are ineffective). But still, PA thought it’d be a good idea to try some metoprolol to at least moderate the pulse rate.

I’m not sanguine with metoprolol use, in gweneral. The first warning is “Do not stop taking this drug all of a sudden. If you do. . . in some cases heart attack may occur.” Yeh, I told him it brought about a dependency. . . Oh, well. I know how to taper it off if I have to.

Added 25mg (HALF the dosage prescribed) to my regimen today, and. . . my heart rate is now so low I can barely keep my eyes open. We’ll see how that goes.

“If I should die before I wake. . . ”

*heh*

Oh, good night’s rest last night (before I began the new drug regimen), no 0300 call on my time today, and my heart rate and BP had already fallen into an acceptable range, despite the continued knee “discomfort.”

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Too Little, Too Late

Almost helpful info from “ready-dot-gov.”

First of all, it seems this page was posted sometime after the pan(dem)ic went, urm, viral, so the section, “Before a Pandemic” seems a bit useless, at this time. Then, there’s the actual content of the section beginning with,

  • Store a two week supply of water and food.

TWO WEEKS? That’s not preparation for any sort of emergency. It’s just menu planning for a couple of weeks. And “Store a two week supply of. . . water”? At a bare minimum of one gallon/day per person, that’d be 28 gallons for two people. And then what? Nope. Have multiple ways to purify water and a continual supply source available ( for example, know where a relatively clear natural water source is to start with and have filtration and purification means on hand).

  • Periodically check your regular prescription drugs to ensure a continuous supply in your home.

Yeh, no help for most folks on prescription meds because of restrictions on refills (small amounts covering short time frames, typically a month if not a schedule 1 drug, often less if it is). If an emergency lasts more than a couple of weeks, folks could start dropping like flies, cos no refills on essential meds.

This is good, though–and could apply to homebound (for health reasons) or elderly folks you know on top of family:

  • Talk with family members and loved ones about how they would be cared for if they got sick, or what will be needed to care for them in your home.

The section on “During a Pandemic” is useful, especially for folks who missed out on their ration of common sense, ‘cos they thought they hears “fitty cents” and skipped getting any.

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Spreading Disinformation?

Some folks are touting the virucidal action of plain old soap and water, “Soap and water kills viruses!” Yeh, but not unless agitated for up to SIX MINUTES (OK, depending on variables in the environment where they are found, from two to six minutes). (Yeh, the much ballyhooed paper on soap and water killing HIV doesn’t see that lil factoid make the press. Yeh, I read the paper.) Count on the finger of one hand how many folks you know who are going to spend two minutes, let alone six, vigorously washing their hands with soap and water. Is it less than one? (The key is the physical action slowly working to help the soap break down a secondary, minor component–lipids–of virus capsids, since virus capsids are primarily protein, unlike bacteria cell walls, which are heavily linked with lipids enabling killing of some bacteria easier by similar vigorous and time-consuming application of soap and water).

This is why THE key benefit of proper hand washing is washing microbial materials OFF and rinsing them away.

(BTW, that infamous paper demonstrating that HIV can be “inactivated” by soap and water showed even longer times to effectiveness when some variables were changed, and agitating the solutions was still key. That’s because physics and chemistry–fill in the blank. Go ahead. Look it up. *heh*)

Oh, BTW, I use the term “kill” above referring to viruses, but of course I do not mean “kill” since one either “deactivates” or “destroys” viruses, because (OK, admittedly some controversy/gray area) viruses are not really alive to begin with. so cannot be “killed.”

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Interesting, but. . .

Filed under “That’s Entertainment”. . . or not. *sigh*

Watching Episode 1 of “Gogol”–a Russian serial featuring a fantasy take on Nikolai Gogol (19th Century Russian author) as a paranormal investigator–via Amazon Prime Video: mixed bag.

The good/not-so-good: great atmosphere for a pseudo-Gothic 19th Century paranormal piece. Sets, locations, dark videographing, music, even costuming, props and etc. All excellent. All dialog in Russian: good (perfectly suits the atmosphere). Subtitles: OK, but with some problematic idiomatic translation issues (English idioms, not Russian. My familiarity with Russian is scant, depending on a brief flirtation with 19th Century Russian art songs ~ 50 years ago.) The English subtitles sometimes intrude in a jarring fashion.

Not good: Details that irk: “business” that conflicts Scene 1: guy hits another guy on head with ladle. Guy hit grabs OPPOSITE side of head and ladle strike sounds wrong, as well–little things like that; only visible wound on a dead body high on the chest–“above her breasts” is the line. Nevertheless, the investigator, after cracking open the body’s chest says “the aorta is severed.” From the location and size of the visible wound, the ascending aorta would be difficult to reach. Unlikely. (The ascending aorta is not large in any case, and is not found in the almost exact center of the chest where the wound was shown. In addition, after cracking the chest, the investigator was NOT looking anywhere NEAR the wound which was a bit above the pulmonary trunk, but much lower, where the throacic and abdominal aorta could be seen. Hence, I thought when the line was uttered, “Doesn’t EVERYONE find this odd?” *shrugs*)

More? “It was a dark and stormy night. . . ” *heh* OK, as to atmosphere, it worked. “You can ride a horse?” Urm, no he cannot. Runs into a windmill and falls off. Clouds blowing through the windmill blades, and. . . they do not move.

*sigh*

Sometimes it’s just the little things that throw one out of suspension of disbelief, you know?

But, though more interesting than usual TV fare, I don’t think I am interested enough to watch more than one episode (and I had to take a break from the irritating “little things” to write this, so I might well not finish Episode 1).

Most amusing line so far, “We got carried away by the local flavor.”

OK, fast forwarded through #2. Caught the gist and ditched a lot of less interesting stuff. Blacksmith picks lock on mystery trunk toward the end of the episode. Needs a pick and a torsion wrench (or another tool to provide tension) to do it with but only used a pick. Sad. As I have said, it’s the little things.

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No, my dear illiterate, self-enstupiated dummy

“Drug” is in no way, shape, fashion, or form a past tense of “drag.” (And don’t even THINK of using the tired “dialect” argument. Any dialect that uses “drug” as a past tense of “dragged” is for illiterate, self-enstupiated dummies.)

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Be Thankful for the Little Things

Thankful for the little things. Oh, example? I just got to roast a seller on Amazon for completely screwing up an order. Sent it to an address two states away (“Your order has been delivered!” to some anonymous door in a town beginning with a different letter, having five fewer letters, total in its name, with a zip code COMPLETELY different to mine). Had to jump through hoops JUST to find out the company had then retroactively canceled the order w/o even the courtesy of notifying me.

So, hence the roast. Made me smile. Still have to wait another week/week-and-a-half to get the item from a reputable company (Rockler–always good to do business with, and I wish I had searched there for the item first. Naturally. *heh*)

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Semi-Sorta Random Thought on the Passing Scene

In response to absolutely nothing, “ex nihilo,” as it were (from the vast, empty spaces between my ears) issues this random thought:

I believe the only proper gun regulations are self-regulations (with a tip o’ the tam, and an apology to Jeff Cooper):

1. Always treat ALL guns as loaded and ready to be discharged.
2. NEVER let the muzzle cover ANYTHING you are not prepared to destroy.
3. KEEP YOUR BOOGER HOOK OFF THE BANG SWITCH until you have acquired your target and are ready to fire.
4. Be ABSOLUTELY sure of your target and what lies beyond it.

If those four self-regulations are followed, and the Second Amendment were enforced with more than the *wink-wink-nudge-nudge* pseudo-acknowledgement now practiced (IOW, the current open, blatant, and oppressive disregard for “shall not be infringed”), then methinks the proper and ideal “gun regulations” would be in effect.

But maybe that’s just me. . .

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It Is Neither Pretty Nor Is It Art.

I have (more frequently than I care to think) heard folks argue that Psalm 100:1-2 (“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing.”) is a perfectly good excuse for execrable congregational singing: off-pitch, raucous, muddied rhythms and lyrics, and worse. Betcha most of those who use it as their excuse for their laziness and lack of care in approaching their worship expressions don’t use the KJV (the “noise” translation in Psalm 100:1) for other things. Other translations focus on joyful shouts and joyful songs. Painfully raucous croaks ain’t what springs readily to mind when I think of “joyful.” Maybe it’s just me, but off-key, or even atonal, grating, muddled, and altogether ugly sounds just do not comprise “singing,” IMO. (And no, “Their heart is in the right place” just doesn’t cut it. If their heart were “in the right place” they’d not submit “sacrifice[s] of praise” that were crap. Just sayin’.)

Of course, much of the problem may be simply because something approaching 90% of people nowadays apparently cannot hear and reproduce pitches with any degree of accuracy. Not my fault: theirs, for playing crap into their ears and pretending it is music, corrupting any possible embryonic musical ability they might have.