Someone I know in banking sent me this warning about email appearing to be from Classmates.com*. "If you have received an e-mail appearing to be from Classmates.com - do not open it."

It seems some nasty person has been sending out email that looks like it is from Classmates.com. The fraudulent emails hit in boxes yesterday. The subject line might say, "You Have 1 New Message - Classmates".

The bank recommended that you don't even open the suspect email. Delete it. IF you opened it, don't click on any links.

We have a saying in our household, "People, don't you just love them?" It certainly applies here. 

 

*These bad emails are not from the real Classmates.com. Like the pfishing email you occasionally get seemingly from your bank or ebay, these are not from the real deal. 

 

 

Click here to sign the DRILL HERE. DRILL NOW. PAY LESS.  domestic drilling petition and see the latest links to related oil news (updated every day).

Drill Here just reached the 1 million mark. The goal is 3 million signatures by the Democratic and Republican Conventions.  

Links:

Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Mark Levin , Vicki Mckenna

 

You just cannot depend on common sense any more. Last year, I remember hearing that California was thinking of banning the incandescent light bulb and mandating more energy efficient fluorescent lamps. I was not too concerned; I just chalked that up to another nutty Californian idea.

But just before the end of 2007, President Bush signed onto the United States Congress' energy bill phasing out most incandescent light bulbs! (Sensenbrenner, by the way voted against this ridiculous piece of legislation, but 314 of his fellow representatives lacked the backbone to oppose it--too afraid of committing heresy against the new religion of global warming.)

What? How did that happen? Did you even know that incandescent ban was in the works? How many people still don't know that C.F. (compact fluorescent) mandate is coming down the pike?

Now I had made my own little attempt at "going green" during the summer of 2006. I installed a 4 lamp exposed bulb light fixture above my kitchen sink. (The proper term for a light bulb is a "lamp".) 

I'm not ashamed to say it, I am well over 50 years old and I need more light--the eye, as it ages, does not receive light as well as it once did. Since I seem to spend most of my time in the kitchen, I thought I would live it up and enjoy the equivalent of 240 watts of light for the energy cost of 60 watts by using the decorator type compact fluorescents (round globe style).

My foray into going green, however, has been an abysmal failure. I can barely get 4 months of use out of these decorative type compact fluorescent lamps that are to last 7 years! Instead of saving energy, I am wasting energy when you consider the 14 mile round trip trek to the store to exchange them. How is that helping the environment?

Speaking of the environment, what about disposal? These lamps contain mercury, a very toxic substance. Mandating these lamps makes about as much sense as mandating lead paint. All of that mercury will end up in the landfills and heaven help you if you break one of them.

I am going back to the decorative round incandescent bulbs lamps. It makes me sick that in a few years I will have no choice but to use the horrid compact fluorescents that don't last. I guess that is what happens When Politicians Make Engineering Choices.

 

Links: Betterbrookfield, Brookfield7, Fairlyconservative

P.S. The price tag for these lamps is about 3X the cost of the incandescent even with the rebate. And by the way, who do you think is paying for that rebate? Yup. It is us.

I do use the squiggly compact fluorescents in the basement, on porches, lamps on timers, and closets. There, the ugly style lamps work fine--hanging upside-down I might add. They do not work for automatic motion sensor applications though. 

Another P.S. My decorator globe style CF fluorescent lamp packaging pictures one in a ceiling fixture hanging upside down! That is not the problem. The voltage is not the problem--this is the only place I am having this problem (did not have this problem with incandescents either).  

My oven is back in business, thanks to my resident repairman. (My son)

Friday night, he searched the internet and ordered the parts. Today, the parts arrived. Tonight, he fixed the oven. Thanksgiving is saved!

By the way, I take no credit for his abilities. We never formally studied electronics in the 13 years I taught him. He just was interested and I had the good sense to get out of his way.

My husband and I always encouraged our son to do real work at an early age though, and he taught our son quite a bit about electricity and volt meters etc. while doing work around the house.

I think kids can do far more than we give them credit for. We tend to insulate them and keep them in the play workshop world too long instead of letting them do real jobs (with close supervision, of course).
 
Here is the culprit--a small, innocent looking relay--that because of its failure, could have burned down the house!

The surprising thing was that they were German made. We were expecting them to be of Chinese origin. Both were replaced, so the oven is back in business.

My final Thanksgiving food tip is to cook the turkey upside down.

I have done this for years and it results in very juicy white meat. I usually start it upside down for at least 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Since we don't carve the bird at the table, presentation is not an issue, so I left it upside down 1 hour longer last year. If you have those new silicone hot mitts, you can just grab the turkey and turn it back right side up after the alloted time and let it finish baking. If you don't have the mitts, turning can be a little challenging--but worth it in juicy white meat.

Maybe tomorrow I will get back to blogging about 4K. I needed to take a break and talk about more pleasant things for a bit, so thanks for bearing with me. The recipes also gave me a chance to try out an older laptop that came my way with the remote desktop feature on my computer. That was fun!

Almost had a meltdown yesterday after I turned on my oven to start dinner. I threw in 3 sweet potatoes, set the temperature and did some other kitchen-y things. I thank God I did not set it to auto-start and leave as is sometimes my habit.

As I was cutting up some salad, I smelled something burning in the oven. Hmm, that's odd, I thought. Guess it is time to clean the oven? But the smell got stronger. I peeked inside and found my sweet potatoes rather blackened on the tops.

My oven is one of those Acubake type, the heating element alters from top to bottom to keep the temperature even. It works very well--usually. Yesterday, as my techno-boy tells me, the relay died in the open position (that means on). Even turning off the oven had no effect, the element stayed on! We resorted to turning off the circuit breaker.

Well, now you know my favorite way of making sweet potatoes. I just wash them, cut of the ends a tiny bit to prevent exploding spuds, and throw them on the oven rack at 350 degrees until tender.

What I would like to know from you is do you know of any horror stories of auto start oven timers? I find it very convenient to put something in the oven, set the timer and temp, and then leave. Love that coming home to a ready meal.  But now I am wondering if I must add auto start to the list of things not to do--like leaving the house with the dishwasher or dryer on?

Please share your ovens gone wrong stories with me if you have any. I want to know if auto start is trustworthy.

PS I was to have made Thanksgiving dinner. It may still be on my horizon if I can get my oven fixed in time. In the meanwhile, I am going to dig out some of my favorite recipes to share with you later.


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Did the tornado siren go off at your house last night? It did at mine—somewhere around 9pm.

I was working at the computer (no surprise there) when I heard the tornado siren blare. We are only a block from it as the crow flies; so it is loud! Quickly, I grabbed my dog, purse, and flashlight and headed to the basement to join my guys who were working on a project down there.

“Turn on the TV and see where the tornado warning area is”, I said. My son did, but there was nothing on the screen. NO little funnel cloud in the corner, nothing. Hmmm. “Try another channel?” Same thing. We did not see any reports. We even tried looking on the internet. At least there it said there was a thunder storm warning.

The siren finally quit wailing and I went back upstairs rather disgruntled that my evening was disrupted. I felt like I went on a wild goose chase. At least it wasn’t at 3am.

This practice of using the siren for every raindrop or hail stone must stop in my estimation. A siren is only of value if it is used sparingly and only for a real tornado emergency. I understand the city also uses them for flood warnings. OK, but then make that an intermittent signal so the public will know what it is for.

When the tornado siren blasts, it should mean business: Stop what you are doing and immediately seek cover below grade. Plain and simple.

We teach our children to respond to fire drills. Stop what you are doing and immediately leave the building. The same standard should be applied to the tornado siren.

Next time it goes off, will I leave my warm bed or interrupt what I am doing to seek shelter? Maybe. But if this cry wolf thing happens too many times, I think the message gets diluted. People will ignore the sirens and then someone is going to get hurt or worse.

Am I alone on this? What do you think?

P.S. I did take a look at the City’s website. I could not find anything, not even with a word search.

Reader 1:I agree completely. The siren should be used only for legitimate tornado warnings...not heavy rain, wind, thunderstorms. Otherwise complacency ensues.

Reader 2: I read your blog this am regarding the seemingly-false-alarm-tornado-siren Wednesday and I agree wholeheartedly. Our family heard the siren, dropped what we were doing, and immediately headed to the basement. Once downstairs, we flipped through all the television channels, including the weather channel, and there were no tornado warnings or even watches...just a thunderstorm warning. The thunderstorm was not news to us as we'd seen the lightening and heard the rain while we were upstairs!

When the tornado siren stops meaning "tornado", in my opinion it stops having any meaning at all. If I remember correctly, this happened once last summer as well. The full blast tornado siren needs to go back to meaning strictly "tornado". otherwise it is going to be ignored. And then, what is the point of having it at all? I certainly am going to think twice next time before I react to the siren.



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LINKS:Brookfield7 postings Betterbrookfield, Votenoapril3.com