Monthly Archives: March 2015

Use Care When Mixing Cleaning Chemicals

When I was a boy (early 1970s) I worked in a nursing home as a night janitor. At the home, we had many WW1 veterans. I will never forget one WW1 veteran who had been permanently disabled during a chemical attack. I do not know what gas he was exposed to (he mentioned chlorine gas, mustard gas, and phosgene), but I do know he had a bad case of emphysema that made his life miserable. Continue reading

Posted in General Science | 4 Comments

Domain Transfer Status

Hi folks, Sorry for the length of time involved in the domain transfer. I THINK everything is back. I will not go into all the gory details, but every post needed some work (latex did not transfer cleanly). This post … Continue reading

Posted in Administration | Comments Off on Domain Transfer Status

A Little Geometry for Laying Out a Drawer Pull

I finished building a cabinet a couple of months ago just as the extreme cold arrived, which made my garage shop uninhabitable.. The ten-day forecast is now showing rising temperatures, so I am starting to think about my next cabinet construction effort. Continue reading

Posted in Construction | 2 Comments

Large Quantity of Manganese Nodules on the Atlantic's Seafloor

I had a deja vu moment this week. Yahoo had an article on how a large amount of manganese nodules have been found on the Atlantic Ocean's seafloor (Figure 1). Back in the 1960s, I remember reading about Howard Hughes building the Glomar Explorer to mine manganese nodules from the bottom of the ocean. It turned out this story was a CIA cover story for Project Azorian, but that is another story. Continue reading

Posted in Geology | Comments Off on Large Quantity of Manganese Nodules on the Atlantic's Seafloor

Retirement Savings Rules of Thumb

I have had a number of posts recently on saving for retirement. These posts ALWAYS follow discussions I have had with my family on the importance of starting to invest early – both for retirement and general financial health. I do not want my family members to get to retirement without an investment portfolio (Figure 1), a situation that I have seen and is not pretty. Continue reading

Posted in Financial | Comments Off on Retirement Savings Rules of Thumb