Ruth

Categories Bleg, Food

Dehydrator Bleg

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So, I keep saying I ought to buy a food dehydrator, I actually tried to make one last spring, with rather poor results (mostly thanks to my having no clue than the plans I found online I think).  So I’ve had my eye on a few different ones for a while.  And now the family is asking what I want for Christmas, I’m thinking of telling them to all get together and pitch in a few bucks to buy me a decent one.

Bogie mentioned on her blog that she’s got an Excalibur 9tray, but had previously had a Ronco and liked it.  I linked there two the two models I found online that caught my eye (no idea of they’re the same models Bogie had).

Course, there’s some huge differences there, not the least of which in size.  Potentially I’d use it quite a bit.  I’ve played around with making fruit leather, using the oven set on the lowest setting, and although I liked the results using the oven for it was rather frustrating.  But we LOVED the homemade fruit leather.  Home dried fruits?  Heck yah, we didn’t spray the apple trees last spring resulting in some really nasty looking apples, but the pears were awesome, and if we DO spray the apples…the quantities those trees produced was huge.  And thats not even taking into account any other gardening I might (would like to!) do.  And unit size isn’t actually THAT big a deal, I’m thinking of consolidating fish tanks anyway (did I mention I have fish? I don’t think I ever mentioned my fish….how in heck did I not mention my fish??) so the dehydrator could go one of those shelves no problem.  Money’s a bit of an issue, no-body in the group is exactly rich, so even with a bunch of folks to pitch in I’m gonna put an upper limit of $200 (and would like to keep it way less than that) on this, at least for the moment.

Anyone else have input on sizes, models, things to watch out for?

Categories Dog

FDA issues caution on canine chicken jerky treats

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I’ve posted on this before, but the FDA has issued another caution on the subject.  

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is again cautioning consumers that chicken jerky products for dogs (also sold as chicken tenders, strips or treats) may be associated with illness in dogs. In the last 12 months, FDA has seen an increase in the number of complaints it received of dog illnesses associated with consumption of chicken jerky products imported from China. These complaints have been reported to FDA by dog owners and veterinarians……..FDA is advising consumers who choose to feed their dogs chicken jerky products to watch their dogs closely for any or all of the following signs that may occur within hours to days of feeding the products: decreased appetite; decreased activity; vomiting; diarrhea, sometimes with blood; increased water consumption and/or increased urination. If the dog shows any of these signs, stop feeding the chicken jerky product. Owners should consult their veterinarian if signs are severe or persist for more than 24 hours. Blood tests may indicate kidney failure (increased urea nitrogen and creatinine). Urine tests may indicate Fanconi syndrome (increased glucose). Although most dogs appear to recover, some reports to the FDA have involved dogs that have died.

If you feed a jerky treat to your dog, specifically chicken, but with treats in general.  You need to find out WHERE the food in that treat comes from.  Just because the package says “Made in USA” does NOT mean the MEAT came from the USA. 

For a product which has been produced in more than one country the product shall be determined to have origin in the country where the last substantial transformation took place.

 Sorry for the Wikipedia link, but they laid it out simplest without having to wade through a ton of legalese, but as far as I can tell (and I’m not a lawyer) that is the definition as laid out. What this means is that the raw meat product can be imported from where-ever, then processed into the final form in the USA and still claim the “Made in USA” label.  Considering the various problems that keep occurring with products from China, thats kinda scary.

Categories Links

Links (actually today and yesterday, cause I was lazy)

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6yr old boy caught playing doctor, charged with sexual assault.

EU bans claim that water prevents dehydration.

Only in Europe: a walkable rollercoster.

Cracked.com: 5 reasons not to piss off your IT guy.

Squirrel feeder could be jailed.

Instead of (or in addition too) a gas tax, how about a per mile tax instead?

Edited to add one more:  Guy complains cause women insist on wearing “yoga pants” that reveal the shape of their “lady parts”.  Trust me honey, thats not what they’re worried about when they’re wearing them.

Categories Apollo, Dog

We had a package delivered by UPS today

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It was a new collar for Apollo (I know, like he doesn’t have enough right? anyway….).  I don’t normally pick UPS as the shipper of my choice.  Had some bad experiences with them while living in Syracuse, though the guys who deliver to the house here have never given us an issue.

Apollo of course alerts to the sound of the truck in the drive, and talk about an evil sounding bark (he makes the psychotic GSDs sound high pitched).  Out hops the driver, package in one hand, doggy treat in the other.  Apollo of course isn’t nearly as evil as he sounds and was perfectly happy to take said treat and lick the UPS guy as a, slobbery, thank you.  Did I mention he likes people?

Anyway, none of this is important but it reminded me of the story over at Lagniappe’s Lair about Murphy and the UPS guys treat.  Made me wonder if thats not standard now….probly not a bad idea if it isn’t!

Categories Nothing Much

I got my holiday Think Geek newsletter today

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I normally hate getting Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving, but I’ll forgive Think Geek for this one.

I want these holiday lights.

And these holiday cards (though I don’t think I’d dare send them to my reletives)

and one of these t-shirts….

Warning, if you’ve never browsed Think Geek before, and you have a geeky side at ALL, be prepared to be tempted to spend lots and lots….

Categories Nothing Much

Atomic Nerds are back!!!

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And I quote:

Then the stupid doubled-down. The tech monkeys at the place where the special-giving-stuff computer physically lives couldn’t figure out how to pull a small box out of a slot, insert a new box that looks just like it into the now empty hole, and press a button to trim and shape and form that part to behave as it’s supposed to. Really, they made a monkey fucking a football look dignified, elegant, and capable of all sorts of rocket surgery.

Categories Rants

To Stamps.com tech support

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Ok, first up is a basic customer service thing:  NEVER EVER berate a customer for neglecting to tell you a piece of information.  A simple “oh, ok, that makes a difference” is plenty and trust me the average customer will take a hint.  NEVER EVER EVER berate a customer for neglecting to tell you information when the customer in question has ALREADY told you, TWICE, that they JUST went over this with the guy who transferred her to you.  Its not her fault that you and your co-workers don’t communicate properly.  Its not her fault you not only didn’t ask the same set of question as the last person, but instead jumped to a conclusion without giving her the chance to explain fully.

And on to the reason to my call to you:

First off, this particular error code has been appearing off and on since mid-August, and its now mid-November.  As you can see if you’d bother to look at the history on the account.  Every other tech support person has told me this is an on going problem that you all are working on.  Which I can appreciate, but its been 3 months, and this particular error means I can’t download the latest orders for shipping from our online store untill such time as it temporarily fixes itself.  THIS IS BAD.  Can I work around it, yes, does it make my life more difficult, YES.

2nd: after telling me that this has been an ongoing problem, every single tech support person (including you) has informed me that error code means the exact same thing.  That one of the international “to” addresses contains an “invalid” character resulting in the download hanging.  Now, I have personally seen your software handle ALL SORTS of non-standard characters, everything from the umlaut over some letters, to Russian Cyrillic, to Asian characters.  In every case, where the software is unable to render the “letter” correctly it replaces it with a “?” and keeps going.  So you know what? I don’t believe you.  I believe that’s what you were TOLD that error code means, but I don’t believe that’s the actual problem, and if it IS then you need to fire all your programmers ASAP and hire someone who actually knows what they’re doing, like a first year college programming major.  (actually considering some of the other choices your programmers have made that’s not a bad idea over all)

3rd:  Telling me that the only fix for the problem (as you, and all your previous associates have done) is to go up to the online store access and manually go through each and every order checking the address to be sure they don’t contain any “unusual” characters is not a solution.  It’s especially not a solution when I have 500 orders pending for download that you’re telling me I have to go through, but its not a solution even if there were only 50.  The reason is simple, you can’t tell me WHAT the problem character is, so how in hell am I supposed to figure out what it is, especially considering what I HAVE seen your software handle just fine.  Also, after 3 months I would hope your programmers would have come up with a better solution.

THAT is why I hung up on you this morning.  And THAT is why you got a VERY nasty (and yet perfectly polite) email, informing you that if you don’t get your asses in gear and FIX THE GODDAMN problem before Christmas season properly hits I WILL be finding new software to use.

(on the other hand I amused the heck out of my co-workers as I displayed my language proficiency after I hung up the phone, I guess I’ll take what I can)

Categories Links

Today’s links

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Facebook flooded with things you don’t want your kid to see.  Part of me says so whats new?  The rest of me wants to point out that if you didn’t click on every link then the viruses wouldn’t spread, so would you PLEASE THINK BEFORE CLICKING YOU IDIOTS (just like remembering that not all you find online is true, you should think before you click).  Thank you.

As much as I hate to side with Zynga on anything, I gotta agree with this one.

Open carry advocate arrested, again.  The last time the city paid her, bets on how much she’ll get this time?

I could rant so hard on this one.  I won’t.  Lets just call it another example of banks throwing more money on bad investments.

Judge rules city can bar the OWS folks from camping out in Zuccoti park.  Seriously, what does camping some place have to do with your freedom of speach??

And you wonder why I have such a low opinion of PETA.