Neuron Juice

When I was younger, I would always watch my mom cook our meals in the kitchen. I would watch as she made stew and pasta and pizza. I would watch as she would make roast beef or meatloaf. I didn’t cook all that much myself, but I remember watching my mom cook and being very impressed.

My mom had a whole drawer full of knives that she has collected over the years. They aren’t scary knives, so don’t worry. She isn’t crazy. No, these are cooking knives. Knives for paring and knives for cutting bread. There are knives for cutting cheeses with and there are knives for cutting meats with. There are all sorts of knives in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

As you can imagine, from time to time these knives start to get a little dull. It is then that my mom will pull out her knife sharpeners and pick one out. There are knife sharpeners for big knives and some for the smaller knives. She will then, meticulously, wipe the blade of the knife carefully over the sharpener until it is sharp enough, once again to serve it’s purpose.

It’s a good memory that I have of my mom.

If you don’t have a sprinkler system in your yard, chances are you are spending too much money on your water bill. If you are low on time and have a yard, trees, a garden and flower beds that need watering, you should consider getting a sprinkler system. They make them automated now, in case you were wondering. Gone are the days when people had to walk outside and water their own grass. You don’t need to hire a landscaping company or the neighbor’s eight-year old kid to do it anymore either; just buy an automated system.

You can probably find them at most landscaping or home maintenance stores in the garden section. It requires a bit of work to do the initial installation because you need to bury the lines underground, but once the initial install is done, it does not get easier. You just set the system to your requirements like when to have them turn on and off, how long the system should run, what time of day they should run, etc. Of course when we got ours my dad insisted on having it set to turn on the very second I walked out the door to go to school. Just to spite me.

Lockblades are a staple of the knife world. It is a beautiful functionality that allows you to collapse a knife and put it into your pocket and not worry about stabbing yourself in the leg. Many knives that can be collapsed are dangerous because they can be closed just as easily as they can be opened. If you have ever had one of these multi function Swiss Army knives that have scissors, a saw, and a table saw all in one shiny red package, you probably have cut your knuckle once or twice. It’s a terrible design that has been tollerated simply due to the Swiss Army being conflict free for the last 500 years.

If you look at good knives, like a Benchmade Rift, or a Spyderco you’ll see that there are multiple solutions to the whole cutting your own knuckle issue. Spyderco uses, in almost all instances, what I call a “traditional lock.” You have seen this approach on lockblades all over the world. The Benchmade Rift uses a more unique approach. Instead of using a block of steel to keep the blade in line it uses a pin. It is more efficient though a bit unsettling at first. Either way, watch out for the unlocking blades or you’ll be looking for a Swiss Army emergency kit in no time.

My father is in the tough position of trying to figure out how he is going to get all of his papers and documents onto his computer. Most older people have decades worth of paper materials that they will never transfer onto a computer, and that means that someday they might be lost forever.

My dad could always hire me out for some document scanning services, or I suppose he could just hire a real company to do it instead. They would probably do a better job then me anyway. A document scanning company would act a lot more professional than I would. If my dad asked me to scan things for a whole day I would probably just scan things for an hour or two and then call it a day. Sorry dad.

It’s true that I want all of my dad’s documents to be saved from the depths of decaying slowly in the tangible world, but I am probably not the person who is going to make this happen. The least I could do is look up a company who could help him out, but I am probably not going to do that either. Better luck next time, dad.