Explosion Metric

Now car alarms have become a metric for the power of explosions: “The car bomb explosion in Baghdad was so powerful it set off car alarms 10 km away.”

New running shoes

My legs and feet are just on the point of giving me “little” pains after a run. This tells me that the shoes' soles are “down at the heels” so that my stride is starting go off. It is time for new runners. This time I went for a completely covered upper — mesh just doesn’t cut it for running in slushy snow. The sales person asked if I wanted to try “runner’s” insoles. I did and felt a bit of pain in my right heel. I subscribe to the maxim espoused by a podiatrist my wife once visited: if it isn’t “love at first fit” then don’t buy it. Obviously my heel isn’t the right shape for that insert.

Shredder

I played an Enron executive with our new paper shredder last night. 1998 and 1999’s deposit slips, credit card statements, pay stubs, dental statements, cancelled cheques – useless bits of paper, all – are now history in five (!) plastic grocery bags. Observations:

1. At one point in time, the company’s pay stub notices came with a carbon, i.e. a completely black back. The sensor to turn on the shredder must be a photocell – LED combination which triggers on the reflection from the incoming paper. I thought the shredder had jammed, but no, I just needed to feed the paper in the other way around. It is also a “point” sensor. When you feed in a bunch of small papers, say cheques, the shredder may stop before all of the paper has gone through just because there is no paper covering the sensor.
2. Don’t fill the bin too full; otherwise, it is hard to empty it into a bag without getting shredded bits all over the place. That square confetti doesn’t pick up off a carpet very easily.
3. Tell retailers that you do not want your credit card chit stapled to your receipt. Fortunately, I only had half a dozen staples to get rid of.

Now I have freed up a couple of inches of filing space for 2003’s useless bits of paper.

Published on Tue Sep 29 15:56:51 2009.